(A/N: Many many many thanks to the people that reviewed!! Your words
provided fuel for my fingers!! Okay, here's chapter number two, hope you
guys like it!)
Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story, except for the characters that I've made up myself.
Give Me Darkness, Give Me Light...
Chapter 2: What Lies Beneath
As Clarice gratefully chugged down the last bit of coffee in her mug, she could already feel herself become a little more alert and awake. Despite this, she knew that she was going to need another cup of some sort of caffeinated drink once she arrived at Jadis' room in a few minutes, considering the fact that she had only gotten roughly about three hours of sleep after returning to the hotel the night before...
While Clarice was in a coma-like sleep facedown on her lumpy hotel bed, the person staying in the room beside her had decided that four-thirty in the morning was the perfect time to watch some cartoons on TV and have a few good rounds of belly-laughs, obviously under the impression that the walls were soundproof.
"What kind of person watches old reruns of 'Ren and Stimpy' at this time of morning?!" Clarice had muttered to no one in particular. To her surprise, however, she had almost immediately received an answer.
'An insane person, Starling, that's who,' the voice that currently occupied her head had replied. Despite her weariness, Clarice couldn't help but chuckle at the word insane, a word that she knew all too well.
Realizing that sleep wasn't going to visit her again that night, at least as long as her neighbor was kept amused, Clarice had suddenly found herself pondering over that word. What is considered insane anyways? She never really thought of herself to be insane, though in the eyes of a number of people, she was seen to be loonier than Loony Tunes. Then again, how does a person know that he or she is insane? How can she know for sure that she wasn't really just imagining this life, that she only thought that she was a special agent for the FBI who has tracked down serial killers and done drug busts and all that other stuff that was expected of her? How does she know for sure that she wasn't really in a big white padded room wearing a strait jacket, being studied and tested like a lab rat? Was the person in the room next to her really another nutcase, maybe thinking that he was a superhero and he needs to save the planet before time runs out, and not that horribly loud and rather impolite idiot that enjoys old outdated cartoons early in the morning? How can a person know for sure?
Clarice then decided to shift her thoughts slightly, and had started to ponder over the people in her life that she considered insane. The only problem was, she had no clear answers. Everyone seemed to be insane in their own little ways. Pearsall, for one, does a fairly good job as boss, but at the same time Clarice would never trust the man with a fork and elastic, let alone a loaded shotgun. Then there was Doctor Lecter, and man who has been officially labeled insane, yet to Clarice he was probably one of the sanest people in her life. Psychotic most defiantly, but insane? 'Well, maybe just a little bit,' Clarice had thought to herself, 'but aren't we all at least just a little insane?'
She couldn't help but grin at her unexpected insight. Yeah, what kind of sane person would willingly go down into those dungeons to interview a cannibalistic madman? What kind of sane person would stay with the FBI even after they decided to make her their personal bitch? And what kind of sane person would tolerate someone in the room next to her roaring his head off at four in the morning without snapping?
As the familiar theme song to 'Rocky and Bullwinkle' floated through the wall, Clarice was reminded of a saying that she had once heard. 'Music is the soundtrack to our lives.' Clarice had thought about what song her life was playing right now at this time in her life, and had shaken her head in slight amusement at the thought that at the moment her personal soundtrack seemed to be playing 'Send in the Clowns.' She found it rather fitting, however, considering that her life at the moment was like a circus. And at the moment, she was tripping down that tight rope with no visible net to save her from that always looming fall to the ground.
Her train of thought was interrupted by a knock at the door. Looking at the clock, she had been surprised to learn that she had spent almost three hours in bed contemplating on these matters. Jumping out of bed and draping a light blue housecoat over her shoulders, she had answered the door. Standing opposite to her was a young man, looking no older than twenty five, with a handful of files. "I have a delivery for Clarice Starling, from Clint Pearsall," he had told her, all the while eyeing her mangled appearance.
Clarice just nodded, ignoring his stares. "Yes, that would be me," she had told him while he handed her the files. "Thank you very much," she had said whilst shutting the door again.
Hours later here she was, chugging down coffee as if it was water and scanning the papers contained in the files with her eyes. Pictures, medical forms, criminal histories, and dozens of other various papers described the type of lives lived by each of these people, people that had probably never met each other, but all having at least one thing in common, all being the victims of a brutal murderer named Chimera. Clarice was searching for something, anything, which could have linked all of these people in life; she just knew that there had to be a connection somehow. After a good fifteen minutes of staring and contemplating with no avail, she finally decided that if there was anything at all linking all these victims, then she wasn't going to find them without help. Sighing in defeat, Clarice retrieved her black shoes from the floor and hoped that Jadis had some coffee ready once Clarice got to her room.
****************************
Jadis looked at herself in the mirror that hung in her room's way-too-small bathroom. The scar underneath her eye seemed to almost glow with a light all its own, bringing back a flood of painful reminiscences. She was only five years old when she got that scar, the memory still devastatingly clear as if it was only yesterday..
It was near her bedtime and her mother and father were urging her to go to bed. As her mother bent down to pick young Jadis up, her father had let out a blood-curdling scream, then fell face-first onto the floor, the crimson blood staining the white carpet. Jadis let out a scream, her heart pounding at what she had just witnessed. She strained her eyes, looking for any signs of life at all from her father's motionless body.
Her mother picked her small daughter up, her only thought was to save her child and get out of the house. Jadis could still feel her mother's tears of despair and fear fall in her hair as her mother raced through the house with Jadis in her arms, desperate to escape with their lives. 'The door..' Jadis remembered seeing the door. It was so near, yet so far at the same time. Seconds stretched into hours, or so it seemed, everything was happening in slow motion. Her mother had her hand on the doorknob, one more twist and they would be safe.
Another scream, this time it was her mother. Jadis, through her tears, could just make out a dark figure standing behind her mother, his gloved hands having a firm grip on a large clump of her brown hair. Jadis cried harder, her tiny hands were now reaching for the doorknob.
A stinging pain met her cheek, causing her to fall out of her mother's protective arms and onto the cold, hard floor. Jadis was now bawling, unable to handle this unspeakable pain that her little five year old body was now experiencing. She kept her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to see the blood that was falling to the floor. Her hands pressed against the wound, hoping that the blood will stop flowing.
A strong, forceful hand had gripped her hair and now was dragging both her and her mother across the floor. Pain, so much pain, so much blood, so much screaming. Jadis kept her little eyes shut, afraid of what she might see. She felt herself being dragged over something lumpy, something wet, something dead. Jadis wailed even harder, that would be the last time that she would ever touch her father.
At last her captor stopped and let his victims go. Jadis relaxed a little, but it was short lived. A hard boot to her stomach was enough to cause her more discomfort and pain, and another scream escaping her mother was enough to open her tear-filled eyes.
Her mother had been thrown onto the bed, blood and tears staining her beautiful face. Jadis could see their attacker now, though black clothing and a dark mask hid his features. She could see the bloody knife in his hand, which was now ripping through her mother's nightgown. Jadis didn't dare watch what came next, so she had shut her eyes again. The only thing was, she could still hear her mothers screams of pain and terror, no matter how hard she had tried to block them out, they wouldn't go away..
Jadis snapped out of her thoughts, her scar stinging as badly as it did all those years ago from the mere memory. Every night her mother's screams while being raped right there in front of her plagued her sleep. The neighbors had heard them and called the police, but it wasn't quick enough to save her life. The bastard had left young Jadis to bleed to death, but she had survived somehow. Some days, however, she wished that she didn't. The killer never was identified, and little five year old Jadis was left to the orphanage.
Looking back at her reflection, Jadis looked at the person that she hid everyday, the person that she didn't want to admit she was. But at the same time, someday she wanted to tear off the masks that she wore everyday, both the physical and the mental. When she was sixteen, she had learned something about herself, something that she had refused to believe at the time, and still had a hard time believing. Aside from her living nightmare that was her family's deaths, the secret that she held was the reason she had decided to join the FBI in the first place.
A loud knock at the door jolted Jadis back to reality. Quickly slipping on a small, subliminal, yet effective mask, she stole one last look into the mirror before walking out of the small bathroom and to the door.
*********************
"Morning Monroe." Clarice greeted the young agent as she opened the door to her room.
"Good morning Agent Starling." Jadis returned the greeting while motioning Clarice to come in. "I was just about to order some coffee for myself, would you like a cup as well?"
Clarice's ears perked up at the invitation. "I'd love a cup, thank you Monroe." she answered a little more eagerly than she had originally intended.
Jadis laughed and ordered two cups of the steaming breakfast beverage for the both of them. While waiting, Clarice handed Jadis the files that they were to go through that day. "That poor guy from last night was Gerald Harrison, a retired university professor. He was last seen leaving the supermarket downtown, about five hours before his body was found." Clarice told the other woman while sitting herself down onto the small couch.
Jadis nodded and quickly flipped through the papers, doing a fast scan of the profiles. "What about Chimera? Have they found any new evidence yet?" she wondered aloud.
Clarice shook her head. "Not even a measly little hair. Unless there's something in that file that I missed, we have no more stuff to work on than we started with." Clarice sighed, obviously not looking forward to the next couple of hours.
The other agent opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by another knock at the door. The two women jumped to attention, licking their lips in anticipation of the coffee that they both knew was waiting behind that door.
*****************************
Across the street in a small, but comfortable outdoor café, Hannibal was sitting at one of the many shaded tables, keeping a careful eye on the hotel. It was easy enough to track down where she was staying, since this was the only hotel in the Bureau's current price range in this small seaside town.
In front of him on the clean, round table sat the newspaper he had purchased earlier that morning. Reading over the list of victims of the Chimera attacks so far, Hannibal wondered if Clarice had figured it out yet, what linked them all together. If she hasn't, then he just hoped that she stayed inside tonight, or else her name just may be added to this list.
Getting up from his seat, Hannibal decided that he would return later tonight to see if his little Starling had indeed figured it out, or was in need of a little help. Either way, he was looking forward to the prospect of a reunion with his dear Clarice.
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(A/N: Phew! Another chapter done!! Sorry if some of the details in this one didn't make much sense, but rest assured, they will become clear eventually, I promise!!)
-SP
Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story, except for the characters that I've made up myself.
Give Me Darkness, Give Me Light...
Chapter 2: What Lies Beneath
As Clarice gratefully chugged down the last bit of coffee in her mug, she could already feel herself become a little more alert and awake. Despite this, she knew that she was going to need another cup of some sort of caffeinated drink once she arrived at Jadis' room in a few minutes, considering the fact that she had only gotten roughly about three hours of sleep after returning to the hotel the night before...
While Clarice was in a coma-like sleep facedown on her lumpy hotel bed, the person staying in the room beside her had decided that four-thirty in the morning was the perfect time to watch some cartoons on TV and have a few good rounds of belly-laughs, obviously under the impression that the walls were soundproof.
"What kind of person watches old reruns of 'Ren and Stimpy' at this time of morning?!" Clarice had muttered to no one in particular. To her surprise, however, she had almost immediately received an answer.
'An insane person, Starling, that's who,' the voice that currently occupied her head had replied. Despite her weariness, Clarice couldn't help but chuckle at the word insane, a word that she knew all too well.
Realizing that sleep wasn't going to visit her again that night, at least as long as her neighbor was kept amused, Clarice had suddenly found herself pondering over that word. What is considered insane anyways? She never really thought of herself to be insane, though in the eyes of a number of people, she was seen to be loonier than Loony Tunes. Then again, how does a person know that he or she is insane? How can she know for sure that she wasn't really just imagining this life, that she only thought that she was a special agent for the FBI who has tracked down serial killers and done drug busts and all that other stuff that was expected of her? How does she know for sure that she wasn't really in a big white padded room wearing a strait jacket, being studied and tested like a lab rat? Was the person in the room next to her really another nutcase, maybe thinking that he was a superhero and he needs to save the planet before time runs out, and not that horribly loud and rather impolite idiot that enjoys old outdated cartoons early in the morning? How can a person know for sure?
Clarice then decided to shift her thoughts slightly, and had started to ponder over the people in her life that she considered insane. The only problem was, she had no clear answers. Everyone seemed to be insane in their own little ways. Pearsall, for one, does a fairly good job as boss, but at the same time Clarice would never trust the man with a fork and elastic, let alone a loaded shotgun. Then there was Doctor Lecter, and man who has been officially labeled insane, yet to Clarice he was probably one of the sanest people in her life. Psychotic most defiantly, but insane? 'Well, maybe just a little bit,' Clarice had thought to herself, 'but aren't we all at least just a little insane?'
She couldn't help but grin at her unexpected insight. Yeah, what kind of sane person would willingly go down into those dungeons to interview a cannibalistic madman? What kind of sane person would stay with the FBI even after they decided to make her their personal bitch? And what kind of sane person would tolerate someone in the room next to her roaring his head off at four in the morning without snapping?
As the familiar theme song to 'Rocky and Bullwinkle' floated through the wall, Clarice was reminded of a saying that she had once heard. 'Music is the soundtrack to our lives.' Clarice had thought about what song her life was playing right now at this time in her life, and had shaken her head in slight amusement at the thought that at the moment her personal soundtrack seemed to be playing 'Send in the Clowns.' She found it rather fitting, however, considering that her life at the moment was like a circus. And at the moment, she was tripping down that tight rope with no visible net to save her from that always looming fall to the ground.
Her train of thought was interrupted by a knock at the door. Looking at the clock, she had been surprised to learn that she had spent almost three hours in bed contemplating on these matters. Jumping out of bed and draping a light blue housecoat over her shoulders, she had answered the door. Standing opposite to her was a young man, looking no older than twenty five, with a handful of files. "I have a delivery for Clarice Starling, from Clint Pearsall," he had told her, all the while eyeing her mangled appearance.
Clarice just nodded, ignoring his stares. "Yes, that would be me," she had told him while he handed her the files. "Thank you very much," she had said whilst shutting the door again.
Hours later here she was, chugging down coffee as if it was water and scanning the papers contained in the files with her eyes. Pictures, medical forms, criminal histories, and dozens of other various papers described the type of lives lived by each of these people, people that had probably never met each other, but all having at least one thing in common, all being the victims of a brutal murderer named Chimera. Clarice was searching for something, anything, which could have linked all of these people in life; she just knew that there had to be a connection somehow. After a good fifteen minutes of staring and contemplating with no avail, she finally decided that if there was anything at all linking all these victims, then she wasn't going to find them without help. Sighing in defeat, Clarice retrieved her black shoes from the floor and hoped that Jadis had some coffee ready once Clarice got to her room.
****************************
Jadis looked at herself in the mirror that hung in her room's way-too-small bathroom. The scar underneath her eye seemed to almost glow with a light all its own, bringing back a flood of painful reminiscences. She was only five years old when she got that scar, the memory still devastatingly clear as if it was only yesterday..
It was near her bedtime and her mother and father were urging her to go to bed. As her mother bent down to pick young Jadis up, her father had let out a blood-curdling scream, then fell face-first onto the floor, the crimson blood staining the white carpet. Jadis let out a scream, her heart pounding at what she had just witnessed. She strained her eyes, looking for any signs of life at all from her father's motionless body.
Her mother picked her small daughter up, her only thought was to save her child and get out of the house. Jadis could still feel her mother's tears of despair and fear fall in her hair as her mother raced through the house with Jadis in her arms, desperate to escape with their lives. 'The door..' Jadis remembered seeing the door. It was so near, yet so far at the same time. Seconds stretched into hours, or so it seemed, everything was happening in slow motion. Her mother had her hand on the doorknob, one more twist and they would be safe.
Another scream, this time it was her mother. Jadis, through her tears, could just make out a dark figure standing behind her mother, his gloved hands having a firm grip on a large clump of her brown hair. Jadis cried harder, her tiny hands were now reaching for the doorknob.
A stinging pain met her cheek, causing her to fall out of her mother's protective arms and onto the cold, hard floor. Jadis was now bawling, unable to handle this unspeakable pain that her little five year old body was now experiencing. She kept her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to see the blood that was falling to the floor. Her hands pressed against the wound, hoping that the blood will stop flowing.
A strong, forceful hand had gripped her hair and now was dragging both her and her mother across the floor. Pain, so much pain, so much blood, so much screaming. Jadis kept her little eyes shut, afraid of what she might see. She felt herself being dragged over something lumpy, something wet, something dead. Jadis wailed even harder, that would be the last time that she would ever touch her father.
At last her captor stopped and let his victims go. Jadis relaxed a little, but it was short lived. A hard boot to her stomach was enough to cause her more discomfort and pain, and another scream escaping her mother was enough to open her tear-filled eyes.
Her mother had been thrown onto the bed, blood and tears staining her beautiful face. Jadis could see their attacker now, though black clothing and a dark mask hid his features. She could see the bloody knife in his hand, which was now ripping through her mother's nightgown. Jadis didn't dare watch what came next, so she had shut her eyes again. The only thing was, she could still hear her mothers screams of pain and terror, no matter how hard she had tried to block them out, they wouldn't go away..
Jadis snapped out of her thoughts, her scar stinging as badly as it did all those years ago from the mere memory. Every night her mother's screams while being raped right there in front of her plagued her sleep. The neighbors had heard them and called the police, but it wasn't quick enough to save her life. The bastard had left young Jadis to bleed to death, but she had survived somehow. Some days, however, she wished that she didn't. The killer never was identified, and little five year old Jadis was left to the orphanage.
Looking back at her reflection, Jadis looked at the person that she hid everyday, the person that she didn't want to admit she was. But at the same time, someday she wanted to tear off the masks that she wore everyday, both the physical and the mental. When she was sixteen, she had learned something about herself, something that she had refused to believe at the time, and still had a hard time believing. Aside from her living nightmare that was her family's deaths, the secret that she held was the reason she had decided to join the FBI in the first place.
A loud knock at the door jolted Jadis back to reality. Quickly slipping on a small, subliminal, yet effective mask, she stole one last look into the mirror before walking out of the small bathroom and to the door.
*********************
"Morning Monroe." Clarice greeted the young agent as she opened the door to her room.
"Good morning Agent Starling." Jadis returned the greeting while motioning Clarice to come in. "I was just about to order some coffee for myself, would you like a cup as well?"
Clarice's ears perked up at the invitation. "I'd love a cup, thank you Monroe." she answered a little more eagerly than she had originally intended.
Jadis laughed and ordered two cups of the steaming breakfast beverage for the both of them. While waiting, Clarice handed Jadis the files that they were to go through that day. "That poor guy from last night was Gerald Harrison, a retired university professor. He was last seen leaving the supermarket downtown, about five hours before his body was found." Clarice told the other woman while sitting herself down onto the small couch.
Jadis nodded and quickly flipped through the papers, doing a fast scan of the profiles. "What about Chimera? Have they found any new evidence yet?" she wondered aloud.
Clarice shook her head. "Not even a measly little hair. Unless there's something in that file that I missed, we have no more stuff to work on than we started with." Clarice sighed, obviously not looking forward to the next couple of hours.
The other agent opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by another knock at the door. The two women jumped to attention, licking their lips in anticipation of the coffee that they both knew was waiting behind that door.
*****************************
Across the street in a small, but comfortable outdoor café, Hannibal was sitting at one of the many shaded tables, keeping a careful eye on the hotel. It was easy enough to track down where she was staying, since this was the only hotel in the Bureau's current price range in this small seaside town.
In front of him on the clean, round table sat the newspaper he had purchased earlier that morning. Reading over the list of victims of the Chimera attacks so far, Hannibal wondered if Clarice had figured it out yet, what linked them all together. If she hasn't, then he just hoped that she stayed inside tonight, or else her name just may be added to this list.
Getting up from his seat, Hannibal decided that he would return later tonight to see if his little Starling had indeed figured it out, or was in need of a little help. Either way, he was looking forward to the prospect of a reunion with his dear Clarice.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
(A/N: Phew! Another chapter done!! Sorry if some of the details in this one didn't make much sense, but rest assured, they will become clear eventually, I promise!!)
-SP