A gift to myself to celebrate a year since I published my first fanfic!
This story was directly inspired for the cover art, which was made for miss_dandelion, go visit her at .com(slash)miss_dandelion_(slash)
Charlie was finishing unpacking in her room, she was climbing the stairs, carrying a box while she spoke on the phone she had stuck between his shoulder and his face.
"Yeah, mom. No, it will only be a few weeks...Yes, I'll call you if something happens, I'll be fine...I love you too. Bye bye."
As she hung up, Charlie let out a huge sigh and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, imagining all the things she could do all the time on her little vacation.
And the best part: Absolutely no one to bother her, her house in the woods was far from any city, it would take hours for anyone to reach anywhere on foot.
She could sing, paint, dress as he pleased, or just tune out.
And so she did. The first thing she did was put a blank canvas, while music exploded through the room, letting it fill her mind and ignite her imagination.
That stimulus only lasted about an hour before she got bored...
She tried to entertain herself by playing the piano but she only sat for a while, and eventually she just threw himself on the couch and buried her face between the cushions, her stomach growling. "Finally something!" Charlie thought out loud. She could practice cooking something that wasn't burned and hopefully get to his father's level.
But cooking was so…boring, there were so many things she wanted to do, but the simplest recipes required her full attention.
After she finished cooking and eating, her Charlie couldn't bear the silence, and she decided to go for a walk wherever.
The wind lifted her hair and flapped her clothes wherever she went. She thought of changing her outfit, just for the sake of trying something new. Maybe her grandma's closet would have something that...
Charlie's ears twitched at something in the distance as the bushes shivered, but before she could investigate, a brown-skinned girl limped out of the bushes in front of her.
The girl was hyperventilating heavily as she rested her hands on her knees, she had a haggard appearance, her clothes were all torn and dirty, various parts of her skin were full of wounds and covered with mud and dirt, including the face of her. Or at least the part that she could see.
"H-hello?" Charlie got her attention. But the girl didn't answer, or she didn't seem to hear her. Charlie walked slowly and fearfully to the girl and touched the man lightly. Instantly, the unknown girl turned abruptly, and then her Charlie could see her face, and she couldn't help but let out a cry before covering her mouth and her eyes widening in fear.
The girl's face was painted with blood, both fresh and dry, but what struck Charlie the most was the deep scar she had where her eye used to be.
The two of them stared at each other, before either of them could form a word, the dark-haired girl collapsed to the floor in a faint.
...
The unknown girl did not know how much time passed, but she could feel herself waking up, the first thing that came to her mind was a fleeting and intense recapitulation of what happened to her, as if everything happened at the same time and when she reached the moment when she fainted and everything went black, a primordial force shot her out of the bed, but as she did so a great stabbing pain paralyzed her body, and she fell over the edge of the bed to the floor. The girl continued through her pain, which, although gradually diminishing, persisted as well.
Once the pain stopped clouding her judgment, she was able to get up leaning on the bed frame and analyze where she was or wh-
"Bed?" The girl thought. As she stood up fully as she best she could, she saw that she was in a room, and a huge one. It was then that she realized that she no longer had her old worn clothes, instead she was wearing a pale-yellow dress. She looked around her, it was an elegant but rustic room. She then she found a window and discovered that it was night.
She touched her face and she could feel something strange in her left eye. Like something clinging to her. She searched around the room until she found a mirror and hobbled off to it.
To her surprise, when she looked in the mirror she saw that her face was in fact no longer dirty, even her hair was washed and combed. But that stopped her from caring when she saw that there was something on her face that he could only describe as a white X made of fabrics, covering his eye.
She explored it touching it with her hand for a few seconds, until she reached the edge and slightly pulled whatever was it in her eye and a great pain invaded her instantly, so strong that she let out an intense cry and fell to her knees to the ground trembling, while covering her eye with her hands. The girl stayed in that position until the bedroom door opened and she heard someone calling for her.
"Oh my god! are you okay!?" Charlie approached the girl, knelt down and tried to take her lightly by the shoulders, but at the slightest contact, the girl was scared and moved away from Charlie like a water cat until she collided with a shelf, the blow caused a lamp to fall from the shelf, but luckily it didn't break.
"Don't-don't worry! Everything is fine! I'm not going to hurt you. You can trust me, I swear." Charlie raised her palms open in front of the girl.
The unknown girl was hyperventilating, cold sweat falling down her face, but seeing that Charlie did nothing, she was able to begin to calm down, although that took several minutes in which neither of them made any movement.
When Charlie thought the ground was safe, she stepped in front of her, literally and figuratively, and helped her up.
"You feel any better?"
"Where…?" She released the girl in a hoarse voice. "Where I am?"
"We're at my house, well, we're actually in the middle of nowhere—I mean! That's not what I meant! We are only in the woods. And I…uh…found you almost dea-in really bad shape! So I took you here. " Charlie explained raising her arms and looking around her. "I need to ask, what is your name? Oh sorry, you sure want to know mine first, well my name is Charlotte, but you can call me Charlie. "
"Va...Vagatha."
"Vagatha..." She echoed. "That doesn't sound like any name I've ever heard before…where did you come from?"
"I…I couldn't really say."
"You can trust me. I'm not going to-"
"I mean, I don't remember much. Just that…" At the same time her mind worked in a false story, she remembered what actually happened and her heart squashed, as if it were trying to get out of the body in which it was locked up.
Charlie realized that she had asked the wrong question. "Surely you must be tired! Uh...I'll be back in a moment!" And with that Charlie flew, almost flying, out of the room. Vagatha thought she'd have a minute alone to figure out what to do, but true to her word, Charlie actually came back in a moment carrying a tray with a plate of soup, fruit, a jug of juice, and a glass and placed them in a desk.
"You must be hungry, so I prepared something for you. Then if you want you can go back to sleep, and when you wake up we can…we…uh, well, we'll see what we'll do. Good night!" Charlie walked to the door and just as she was about to close it-
"Wait!" Vagatha called her and Charlie came back.
"You need something?"
"What...what happened to me?"
"You tell me, as soon as I found you, you fainted. The only thing I could think of was to bring you here." After saying that, Charlie's expression darkened a bit. "Well...that and ... also that other." He said pointing at her, but Vagatha didn't understand what she meant. "Youuuuur...you know...I had to..." She rubbed her hair in discomfort.
"What is this? She asked, teasing her left eye.
Charlie despite finding her exact words, she couldn't force herself to spit them out.
"What happened to me? She asked again.
Charlie's mouth was open, no words coming out of it.
"What happened to me!?" Vagatha insisted, as she looked at her reflection. Suddenly Charlie couldn't even look at Vagatha's silhouette anymore.
"When I found you…there was…nothing…she could do for your eye." She said with one hand on her mouth. "You were bleeding, I had to...do something, I-I couldn't just stand there and…and watch you…" Charlie was on the verge of tears as she remembered the previous hours. What she saw...was nothing like she has seen in her entire life.
"I screwed it up, right? I screw you up, like everything I do. This is all my fault. Tomorrow… tomorrow we will go to a hospital, I'll take care of everything, okay?" She said as her voice cracked and she left the room slamming the door.
Vagatha was absolutely silent. She did not hear any sound in the house. Maybe what that girl said was true, and it was just her two here. Should she just escape? She turned to the window and looked once more at the darkness outside. If she went out herself, who knows how far she would have to go until she found someone.
"Or someone find you." Said her alarmist conscience. She didn't have much of a choice, but on the other hand, if that girl wanted to do something to her, she would have done it already. Staying was her best option.
Until then she noticed the smell of the soup Charlie had left on her desk. She had slept for who knows how many hours and her fatigue was enormous, but her hunger was bigger.
It was then that Vagatha realized the problems of her new sight. Everything seemed so far away, and when she got closer everything from her came to her so fast. By making the slightest movement, it wasn't just her moving, it was the world that moved along her. When she tried to put some food in her mouth, she failed several times and the food ended up colliding with her face, completely avoiding his mouth, so it lasted several minutes until she got the hang of it.
Then the food only lasted a coupled of minutes, when she was done, Vagatha went back to bed and quickly fell asleep.
The next day, she was awakened by the beams of light streaming through the window. The memories of yesterday were still fresh and her first reaction was to jump out of bed. But she quickly fell to the ground due to the sight of her. Although she was able to stand up and keep her balance, that didn't stop her from bumping into basically everything on her way to the bedroom door.
Prowling around the house was a challenge for her as she was still getting used to her new sight, In her journey she realized that this was not an ordinary house. It was not the type of house that anyone could buy. Despite her humble appearance, she could see that it wasn't cheap at all.
Vagatha continued to stagger between the rooms until she found Charlie crestfallen and with an empty expression and a cup of coffee on the kitchen table until she became aware of Vagatha's presence.
"You are awake! You would have just call for me." Vagatha didn't answer, but Charlie, seeing that she struggled to walk, helped her to the table. "Are you hungry? I can make something quick. Coffee?
"I don't like coffee and...I'm fine..." she said, falling on the chair and then massaging her forehead with one hand.
"Are you that bad? Why don't we just go to the couch and lie down for a bit? " Vagatha's frown relaxed a bit in response and Charlie walked her until they reached the living room and the moment they arrived, Vagatha flopped down on the sofa in front of a blazing fireplace. Charlie touched Vagatha's forehead with the back of her hand, but as he did so she removed her concerned hand from hers.
"You're hot! I mean-! Boiling! You should have stayed in bed; I know I said I would take you to the hospital but now I don't know if that's a good idea in your state."
Charlie went to get something for Vagatha and left her lying on her sofa. In the midst of her half-dead moans, she felt something of her touch her arm, she got up upset and found out it had been two German dogs next to her.
"Aaah!" She jumped to the other side of the sofa and stared at them as if they were mythological creatures. Suddenly the two dogs climbed onto the sofa and approached Vagatha while sniffing her.
"Razzle! Dazzle! Get down! Bad boys!" Charlie said returning to the room. And said dogs obeyed and sat on the floor with their faces lowered and their ears bowed. "Oh I'm just kidding, obviously you are good boys, right? Oh yes, who is a good boy? You are. " Immediately the dogs got into an uproar again and played with her owner, shortly after Charlie turned her attention back to Vagatha. "I brought you something." It was a pill and a glass of water and Vagatha took it.
"Do you feel better?"
Vagatha just nodded as she massaged her forehead again.
"Let me do that," Charlie chimed in. "I learned a trick or two from my mother. She is a doctor." Charlie sat on the couch and grabbed Vagatha by her shoulders and laid her head on her lap. The girl did not have time to protest before Charlie started, at first her body was tense at the touch of another person, but as she processed what was happening, her body relaxed very slowly.
Vagatha didn't know when it happened, but from one moment to another Charlie ran her hand through her hair. Every instinct in her body demanded her to stop this. But for some reason she couldn't. For the first time in a long time, Vagatha was…calm, relaxed, even with another person. During the time that she remained like this, she Vagatha tried to remember when was the last time she felt like this.
Meanwhile, Charlie eventually stopped paying attention to Vagatha and just continued to massage her out of instinct and her muscle memory as she gazed at the fire in the fireplace, almost wistfully, with her dogs lying down at the foot of the sofa.
The two were taken from the moment when a stomach was noticed in the room with a low roar, due to how close Charlie and Vagatha were, neither of them knew exactly who it was the stomach roar.
Vagatha got up immediately and went to the other end of the sofa with a blush and an expression of shame painted on her face while Charlie froze until she couldn't take it anymore and exploded into a nervous laugh.
Charlie went to prepare a lunch for them, while they had lunch, Charlie began to talk about herself, while occasionally trying to get a conversation with Vagatha, seeking her to tell her what had happened to her, where she came from, where she was before she found her, but she only gave short and vague answers, or she didn't answer at all. Charlie simply couldn't find the courage to demand answers and eventually they finished eating in silence.
The rest of the day the two of them were spent playing with Charlie's dogs, although Charlie did most of the work. Although Razzle and Dazzle were uncertain about Vagatha at first, they quickly gained confidence and approached toymakers.
As night fell, Charlie led Vagatha back to her room while he gave her the recurring reminder that if she needed anything he could call her. Before leaving he said goodbye with a hug which left Vagatha perplexed and confused.
Eventually, Vagatha brushed off that feeling and went to bed. But after a few hours her dreams turned into a little hell.
"Come back! Get back here right now! " Someone was shouting with a flashlight in hand, shining left and right through the trees in the middle of the night. His heavy steps were muffled by leaves.
Vagatha's body began to spin on the bed in response to fight the memories of her.
"Fucking hell...The boss is going to kill me..." Someone said.
"Have you found her?" Asked another arriving at the place. Her steps on the leaves revealed that she was coming alone.
"It was here, I swear! I was right behind her!
"Doesn't matter, the boss told us to give priority to Anthony, they told me on the radio that he had just been captured, along with others, hopefully the boss won't yell at us so much."
Vagatha listened to each word intently, hidden in a tree branch just above her heads. She was careful to breathe as lightly as possible.
"Does that mean we'll let her go?" Asked the first guy.
"Let her go?" The other guy continued. "Of course not, if she's HERE!" He pulled the gun from her and aimed exactly at Vagatha's hiding place in the tree branch and fired at her, hitting her in the chest.
Suddenly Vagatha woke up with a great gasp, shaking the bed. Her first instinct was to check where the bullet had hit her, and she sighed in relief to see she was intact.
She then she rubbed her face with both hands, while she continued to take deep breaths for a long while. Soon after she managed to calm down, and she began to mutter something.
"379456… 379457… 379458… 379459…" she continued counting until she calmed down and was able to go back to sleep.
But something that Vagatha did not realize is that Charlie had seen everything through a gap in the open door, investigating the reason for Vagatha's not so silent murmurs. Not wanting to disturb or overwhelm her any more than she already was, she simply closed the door and went to sleep.
The next day Charlie tried to ask her if something had happened last night, but Vagatha denied it. She once again checked how she was healthy, and to her bad luck, she was still almost the same as yesterday.
"Well, if we're not going to go to the hospital, at least let me see how your eye is." She sat Vagatha on a chair, and after placing a lamp in front of her, she proceeded to remove her X from her eye, there he discovered that it was really just decoration, because later Charlie took out what was the eye patch.
The fears of the two were confirmed after she did that. It didn't look good to Charlie. And for her Vagatha she didn't see anything at all with her left eye, not even when Charlie pulled out a small flashlight and pointed it right at her eye.
Charlie wiped the traces of blood from her eye area with disposable towels and then turned his attention to Vagatha. "If I were you, I would hold onto something." Vagatha when she saw how Charlie poured a liquid on a cotton, she understood what she was referring to. And she held the table with one hand.
Despite her warning Vagatha flinched at her touch. Charlie tried to be as fast as he could, but her patient moving away from her didn't help much.
"Okay, that should do it, I have to wash the patch, but luckily I have two more to spare, so we can alternate between those three."
"How is my eye?"
Charlie couldn't answer with more than an awkward smile. She got the message and her face fell into disappointment. A disappointment that she couldn't shake the next day. And the next. And the next. And the next.
Charlie tried to help her by teaching her to paint with her and play the piano but none of that helped them.
She wondered if there was anything else she could do to help her, and after thinking for hours and almost cracking her head, literally and figuratively, her light bulb turned on.
During the following days, Charlie disappeared in the mornings getting into her car and going to only God knows where, eventually Vagatha asked him about her trips, but Charlie only replied that it was a secret.
Until one afternoon, Charlie called Vagatha to get in her car and they drove away from her, after a while and a long journey, halfway through Charlie got Vagatha out of the car while she covered her eyes.
Or well, rather her only eye.
Charlie led her through the woods, Vagatha had no idea where they were going, her steps on earth were interrupted by the fallen leaves of the trees, which only increased his curiosity and doubt, and to a certain extent, fear.
Charlie released Vagatha and took a few steps away, before she could ask anything Charlie spoke first.
"Okay...Open your eyes!" Charlie said.
Opening her eye, Vagatha found what appeared to be a small camp right in an open space between the trees in the middle of the forest, in which there were dozens of multi-colored lanterns hanging from wooden poles that were planted in the forest. They continued to enter until they came to a tent that was situated next to a fire pit.
"You like!?" Charlie asked excitedly as she hugged her side. "Why don't you see what's inside the store while I light the fire?"
Vagatha went to do as Charlie told her, not before glancing over her shoulder just as she was about to enter the tent.
Inside the tent was a white and a gray sleeping bag, and on each bag was a gift. She first grabbed the gift to her left with a sense of curiosity and wonder. She held her gift to her ear and began to shake it, hoping for some clue as to what was inside her, but she heard nothing.
Not wanting to wait any longer, she opened the gift and inside it she found a beige bow that matched her dress. The first thing Vagatha's mind did was wonder why Charlie would give her something like that.
"You do not like me?"
"Ah! Charlie! " Vagatha screamed, and from the shock of her, the box and her gift fell from her hands.
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't wait."
"Yes," she said as she reached down to pick it up. "I like very much. It's really nice. "
"Let me put it on." Charlie grabbed the white bow and turned Vagatha around. "I wanted you to have something to remind me of…when you…well, left…" She said as she adjusted the bun in her hair.
After saying those words, all the sounds in the forest seemed to die from one second to the next, until Vagatha processed what she had heard and found the words to speak again.
"Leave...?"
"Haven't you seen the other gift?" Charlie just focused on the unopened gift. It was suddenly embarrassing to look at her friend.
Vagatha went to get the other gift and when she opened it she saw that there was money inside it. A lot of money, too much money for months, little more than a year if she managed it carefully.
"In a few days I can take you to the nearest town, and buy you a bus ticket, I understand that you do not want to waste your life here, you want to move on and I'm only a dead weight and you deserve better. I just wanted you to have a good memory of me…"
Before Vagatha could say anything, a bright light in the sky caught her attention.
"Come on, this was not the surprise I wanted to show you." She took Vagatha by the hand and led her outside to see a meteor shower over their heads.
The two lay on the blanket on the grass, while the stars began to rain and occasionally illuminated her faces. They both stared at the starry sky until Charlie broke the silence by drawing Vagatha's attention.
"There is something I wanted to ask you..."
"Hmm?" Musito turning around in dismay.
"One night...I saw how you woke up to...well...a...a nightmare ..."
Vagatha could immediately see where the shots were going.
"What happened?"
Suddenly, the stars stopped being so important, to the point that they turned a deaf ear to them.
"It sounded like...if you were running away from something...or someone…" Vagatha just looked away, but Charlie was convinced she wanted to know something. "What happened, Vagatha?"
For several minutes, Vagatha just opened her mouth but she could barely mutter vowels, until she felt Charlie grab her hand.
"Look at me, please." She grabbed hers by the sides of her head, forcing her to look at her. "Whoever hurt you, I promise they won't touch you again."
Vagatha saw Charlie directly in her eyes.
"You promise?" She finally she said something.
Charlie took her hand and placed it on her chest. "I promise, always."
"Before…knowing you…I didn't have a home. My mother kicked me out of her house when I refused to give her money to buy drugs…I tried to get jobs, but no one wanted to hire a homeless person. I spent months on the street until I turned to…prostitution. They promised me a roof, and they did. But when I wanted to go out, they locked me up and…they made me do terrible things!" Her voice broke into a squeak suddenly and tears started running down her eyes even through her patch.
"Okay, okay!" Charlie comforted her by wrapping her in a hug. "They are no longer here. No one can hurt you now, let it all come out, that's it...I understand what those people did to you...you don't have to continue if you don't want to...Or, do you want to? Vagatha just nodded as she wiped away her tears. "One night…someone, helped me and others escape. But they found us, and one of them…" Her breath hitched as she placed her hand on her patched eye.
"You did everything you could. You were so brave. I promise you that life is behind us. " Charlie rested Vagatha's head on her shoulder for a while until she spoke again.
"I realized something...You didn't mention your dad...did he...?"
"Ah, about that, he just died when I was a child. I don't…I don't remember a lot about him, just that he always called me by a special name…V-Vaggie.
Charlie gave a little laugh when he heard that. "Vaggie? That's a cute name. I hope you don't mind if I call you that from now on. "
At that time Charlie's smile faded a bit as he remembered something. "Sure, if you want to stay with me...I'm not going to force you."
"Yes, I want to stay with you." She declared with a small smile. Charlie's eyes immediately lit up and she let out a great squeak of joy as she grabbed Vaggie in a tight hug and began rolling on the grass with Vaggie in her arms. As Charlie stopped rolling, she covered Vaggie's face with kisses, until she stopped and the two of them rested on the grass.
"I'm sorry I ruined the moment with...my dumb story."
"No! Not at all! I'm glad you told me. If you ever want to tell me something like that again, don't hesitate, I will help you with everything you need. Besides, I'm sure the meteor shower will last a while longer." And according to her word, more stars passed over them in the sky.
They stayed late into the night and eventually got in the car and came back only to fall asleep in bed together.
The next morning, Vaggie woke up and to her surprise she was alone in bed, she walked around the house looking for Charlie, until she heard the sound of a piano and someone singing, when she entered the living room she found Charlie sitting at the piano while she sang a tune.
"Hold on...If love is the answer you're home...Hold on...If love is the answer you're home..." Charlie continued singing until she noticed Vaggie's presence, and gestured her to sit with her.
As she sat down with Charlie, she realized that Razzle and Dazzle were lying next to her, sleeping. Charlie took Vaggie's hands and played the piano keys with her hands. At first it was out of tune and they played the wrong keys, but after a while they both regained the proper rhythm, and eventually Vaggie sang in unison with Charlie, until only their music echoed through their house.
One year already!
And of course in the last few days I've been wondering where the hell time has gone.
The original idea was inspired from the cover art, which in the moment I saw it, I said: "I have to do something with this, no matter what." In addition, I kinda recycled an idea I had for a collection of short stories of hazbin hotel, which almost ends up the same way this one story ends. I don't know if i'll be able to re-adapt that idea to use it in the future.
Anyway, if you liked it, add it to favorites and and leave a comment, It would make my day. Also read my other works.
If you want to know a little more about me or my fics, find me on Tumblr, simply as "Sondrox. There I will write posts as I publish my fanfics and some nonsense.
See ya.