Here it is, the long-awaited (?) second chappie!!!
Van makes his debut in this chapter!!!! Read on if you wanna find him!!!
'blah blah blah blah' thinking
"blah blah blah blah" Van talking (you'll understand why it's in italics in a minute)
* * * * * Nightmare Harlem—Chapter 2—The Harlequin * * * * *
'Owwwie....' Hitomi thought. 'Where in hell am I?'
She stood up and looked around. It didn't take her long to figure out that wherever she was, there was no doubt that it was a very strange place. Large black abstract squiggles (A/N: For want of a better word) floated past her against a background of white nothingness. She wasn't sure whether or not she was floating as well. At first, it had felt like she'd been on solid ground, but she'd just discovered that she could walk upstairs and downstairs when there weren't any stairs to walk down, and that areas where she'd previously walked down or up stairs could also just as suddenly become flat (although invisible) ground. (A/N: Sorry if this doesn't make any sense).
After she had discovered all this, she sank to her knees with exhaustion. All the events of the past week had just worn her out. First off, the doctor's latest diagnosis on her condition…then catching Amano, her ex-boyfriend, and Yukari, her ex-best friend, engaged in a passionate make-out session…and now, this. It was all too much.
She started sobbing. She didn't know why, but she suddenly felt very alone. How could all this be happening to her? She was only 15, for crying out loud! The teenage years were supposed to be happy…not a time in which you wanted to commit suicide but couldn't be bothered considering what was the purpose of ending your life sooner then it would already? All you'd be doing is spilling blood everywhere. If you're suicidal and sick with a deadly disease, just wait for the disease to kill you. Hopefully, you'll die as happy as a dying teen can die in your sleep.
"Hey, sleeping beauty…" The echoey voice filled Hitomi's head and was enough to bring her to some state of semi-consciousness.
"Uhhh…" Hitomi moaned.
"Rise and shine, bishoujo-chan…" There went that echoey voice again. It was definitely a guys voice, that was for sure…not deep enough to be a mans, yet too deep for a boys…
'Bishoujo-chan…huh?' Hitomi thought.
"Who are you?" Hitomi demanded, somewhat groggily.
"Look around..." the voice offered.
Hitomi obliged, but after scouting around herself for so long she was positive her head was going to fall off, she stopped.
"Look down…you probably won't see me at first, few do…I'll give you a clue though, I'm right by your feet."
Again, Hitomi looked around. And again, she didn't notice anything out of the ordinary…save for the freaky place she was currently in…until she spotted her shadow.
Her shadow was looking extremely odd…it was too tall to be her shadow, for starters. It was also in a completely different position then she was. She had her hands suspended in mid-air, since she'd just spun around, but her shadow had its arms folded across its chest. To top it off, Hitomi was still in her school uniform, which consisted of, among other things, a short skirt. Her shadow was not wearing a short skirt. It wasn't wearing a skirt at all.
"Good." The voice commented. "You found me."
"You're in my shadow?!!!" Hitomi exclaimed, her eyes not budging from her shadow on the floor (or lack thereof [A/N: The floor, I mean]).
Hitomi stared in awe as her shadow shrugged its shoulders. Funny thing was, she herself hadn't done any shrugging whatsoever. "Who are you?!" Hitomi demanded nervously. She screamed when she saw The Thing—whatever it was—come out of her shadow and land on the floor(?).
"I'm the Harlequin." it said. For the first time, Hitomi got a look at the thing's face.
The Harlequin looked sort of like a boy around Hitomi's age. Tall, with well-developed, although not monstrously huge, muscles, and a sharp, angular, rather handsome face. The "sort of" part came from his colouring. His skin was as white as a ghost's. The pupils in his eyes were, too. He had messy black hair, the darkest black Hitomi had ever seen. His eyes were the same dark black as his hair. Not the whites of his eyes—those were white, like they were on normal humans—the part of the eye that's normally coloured was that pitch-black shade. He wore a very odd outfit consisting of black and white abstract patterns and shapes.
"What are you, then?" Now that she'd seen him, she wasn't as afraid of him as she had been originally, back when he'd been an echoey voice. However, the period in which she had this sense of security fled fleetingly with his next words.
"A spirit…"
"A what?!?!"
"You know, like a ghost." The spirit was sounding very bored now.
"So you're like, dead?!!!"
A ringing noise was suddenly heard. The kind you here on game shows when the contestant actually gets the correct answer.
"I take it I'm right?" Hitomi had always had paranoia about ghosts. Naturally staring at one in the flesh—okay, maybe he was lacking in that department—was doing very little to help matters.
The Harlequin just rolled his eyes, which only freaked Hitomi more. Why, she did not know.
"'My 'name now, as I already told you, is the Harlequin. A harlequin was originally an Italian clown of some sort who wore bright colours, often arranged in diamond-like shapes. He would do his tricks without speaking. As I know you are already aware of, yes, I can speak, no, I am not a clown, and I only wear black and white. Yes, you were right to guess that I am the soul of a deceased person. In life, I was known as Van Slanzar de Fanel. My older brother murdered me. Needless to say, he didn't live too long after that stunt, courtesy of moi. I'm not going to hurt you, so there's no need to cower away into a non-existent corner. I'll admit, if all I knew about ghosts came from highly unrealistic horror movies, I'd be scared of myself too.'
'Welcome to the Nightmare Harlem. I'll be here to help you if you need it. I'm currently stuck being a greeting service for all the outsiders like yourself. Any questions?'"
"Whaddya mean, you're stuck being a greeting service?"
"My father realized that royalty was dying out in the late 1800's, so he found this odd stone and made some sort of wish upon it and sent me, my mother, and my brother, along with himself, here. I was the only person in the family who didn't enjoy our "relocation". I like technology a lot, and here is just so…backwards. Like the Middle Ages, almost. Anyways, since I died and became a ghost, and the Harlem likes putting their ghosts to work, this is my job. I don't enjoy it, and I'm not getting paid to do this. The only thing I'm getting out of this is my own palace with servants and the whole shebang that I can just wander around it when I please—and when nobody new has come."
"Oh." She didn't know what else to say.
"So, since we've got nothing better to do, why don't you come with me back to my palace? I'll warn you though—it has all sorts of weird booby traps, none of which I set up or am even responsible for, so don't ask me, and you have to beware of the Sugarplum Fairy. She's not the same girl from the Nutcracker Ballet. This Sugarplum Fairy was an overpossessive catgirl in my life, and now that I'm dead, she's still going strong."
"Who was she? Like, you're sister or something?"
"She was my adopted sister, I guess you can say. She apparently thinks she's my girlfriend, however—every time I bring a chick over, she does everything short of maiming them. It's only really the girls she does this to, however." He neglected to mention that it was only the girls—the pretty girls, that is—that he was stuck showing around that he brought over to his palace. [A/N: Hitomi doesn't know this yet, though.]
Hitomi raised an eyebrow. No way in HELL was she going over there, with someone like the Sugarplum Fairy lurking about.
"If it helps, I'll tell her to keep her paws off you at all times, upon pain of being catnip-less, milk-less, and fish-less for a whole decade."
His words were of small assurance. "Is this a practice you regularly engage in, inviting girls over to your house?"
"Yup." Hitomi noticed a faint gray hue appearing on his cheeks. If it wasn't for the fact that it was grey, Hitomi would've thought he was blushing. Then she remembered that the Harlequin was all black and white, even when it came to his face and eyes and hair. He probably was blushing.
"Looks like you can also show a few shades of grey, Harlequin."
The grayness on his cheeks only got more gray. If he wasn't so black-and-white colour-wise, his cheeks would have been bright red. Hitomi giggled at this.
"You're blushing."
"Shut up."
"You're not denying it, either."
No response.
"If that's the case then let's go!!!"
And so they were off to the Harlequin's palace.
* * * * *
Longer chappie for y'all this time! Please, R&R, peeps!
Lol…now I'm sounding like Tyson's grandpa (Beyblade). This in itself is scary.
In response to your questions about Hitomi…she's dying because of a disease like cancer. However, I haven't decided on what disease she's dying from yet—I want it to be a disease like cancer, but I don't want her to lose her hair. Could you reviewers maybe suggest some possible deadly diseases that are curable for me? Don't forget to list the cures and any side effects of both the disease and the cure.
Here's the Latest Update on Hitomi's Condition. She's not really dying. She's seriously ill, about to be moved into the hospital, and she could die from whatever disease she's got, but she could also get well. Right now, her condition is serious enough so that either way is very real for her. But she's so depressed because her boyfriend, Amano, left her for her best friend, Yukari, that she (Hitomi) is in a very pessimistic mood right now.
Hope that answers all your questions.