Daystar - 5 - Cloudburst

Squall stopped in his tracks, and watched her shadow. To his surprise, she kept on walking by. When she was a couple inches ahead of him, she turned around.

"How'd you sleep last night?"

He scratched his head.

How'd he sleep? The question was how did she sleep? Was she really crying last night?

"I uh, I slept just fine, and you?"

"Good. I haven't slept that much before."

"Meaning?"

Squall crossed his arms, and kept on walking. Now wasn't really the time to start chatting away. He had enough problems, he didn't really feel like listening to hers. Why did he ask, anyway?

"Well, I don't sleep much. I just stay up and think. Something like that would tear a person apart immediately, not sleeping and all. I feel weird sleeping. It's hard to explain."

"Then don't explain it. We have a mission to do."

She stayed silent, and unzipped her bag.

"You're right, I'm sorry."

Squall watched as she slipped a thin necklace over her head. It was made of a thick blue thread, and it held a metal star on the end of it. He concluded that it must've been some kind of good luck charm or something.

-

Nova and Squall walked side by side. She was shocked to see that he didn't ask her to leave, or say something like "If we split up, we'd cover more ground." Actually, that was exactly what Squall was thinking, he just decided not to say it.

Up ahead the dirt road, they could see some blue and dirty beige houses. They were all built close to each other, and almost every single one had a white fence. Some children were playing outside. The two students could only hear laughter, and the sound of running water from the little stream nearby. The clouds building up in the sky had a way of making everyone look the same. Even Squall and Nova.

"Shit, if there's kids down there, there's no damn monsters. We came all this way for nothing."

Squall turned around, and started walking back.

"Wait..."

Nova grabbed his arm. He stopped, and waited for her to let go of him. She didn't.

"What if there is monsters, and they're just waiting for their moment? I mean, look at all those kids down there. If my old Garden taught me anything, it's to not just look at what is there. Look deeper."

It was getting a bit windy. Her hair moved gracefully around her head. She was so beautiful up close, in an odd way.

Squall pulled away from her arm, and took a step forward. He narrowed his eyes, feeling stupid. There was nothing there.

"I think we should go down there, just to make sure everything is Ok." Nova was straightening the sleeves on her shirt and rubbing her knuckles. She was ready for battle.

"You go down there, I'll go somewhere that actually needs help."

He began walking off. Nova watched with a hurt look on her face, she then shrugged it off, and set forth towards the vacant neighborhood.

-

Further down the way, Squall started to feel like such a dip shit for leaving her behind. He kicked angrily at the ground causing dust to surround him.

He sighed.

"Damnit."

The town was small, it wasn't that long of a walk. Besides, what if she was right? What if there was something down there to defeat? What if needs to be done by two people?

Thinking about Nova taking on something bigger than herself, Squall quickly turned around, and began walking back to the run down suburbs.

-

It was much cloudier now, and once and awhile one or two cold raindrops slammed against Squall's head. He had reached his destination, only to find that there was no one outside at all. The scene of over turned tricycles, and bright red rubber balls laying untouched was too much to look at.

He could see someone off in the distance. It looked a bit like Nova, only except it was making weird haunting movements with its arms.

"What the hell?"

Squall looked left and right to see if Nova was anywhere else, and if the dim figure would be gone when he looked back. It wasn't.

The houses nearby had no idea what was going on outside. They had no idea who this person was. The short buildings watched silently, smoke blowing out of their chimneys, to keep the people inside warm.

Squall hated to disturb the peace, but he couldn't just ignore it. Placing his hand on his gunblade, he cautiously walked up to the figure.