"When Dawn Comes"
By Kimra
Part II
Serena breathed, her body pressing back against the door she had just lunged through, as she tired to regain control of her body. Something she felt would not be as easy to do as she wanted it to be. She clenched her eyes shut, her head tilted to the roof and pressed against the door. Her ears where alert for noise, any noise, but the only thing she could hear was her erratic heart pounding within her chest.
Calm down. She reminded herself, trying to listen beyond the thundering sound, only to find silence. For a moment she was worried she had somehow lost the ability to hear, but she scowled at herself for the thought. It's just quite. It means there's no one else here, or at least not awake. She forced herself to swallow the idea, allowing herself to believe it although her trembling body seemed to be ignoring her logical pleas.
It was some time, standing in the dark silence before she had the courage to open her eyes She almost expected someone to be standing before her smirking at her childish actions and was relieved to find she was still alone. A quick glance down the left and right of the corridor, revealed little to encourage her, to her left was dark and her right had the barest flickering of light. There was still no sign of where she was.
She decided to try the right. Heading towards light always seemed like the good idea. So as silently as she could she crept through the corridor, her ears picking up the tiny creaks the floor felt compelled to make as she progressed, but nothing else. The silence that encompassed her surroundings did little to assist frayed nerves and she found herself cursing every breath she took and every footfall for the noise they made.
Entering what she immediately recognised to be a lounge room of an apartment and finding it empty she began her search for her clothes. What her clothes would be doing in a lounge room she didn't want to think on, but she found them, scattered about the room and mingled with what was obviously a mans clothing. She ignored his clothes, as she quickly pulled her own on. Stiff and sore muscles protested the movements required to dress but they where promptly ignored as she continued.
She was glad at least that the clothes she pulled on where the ones she had been wearing the night before, she didn't want any more mystery's to pop into existence until she had dealt with this one.
When she was dressed in her knee length dark pink skirt, white tank top and light pink over shirt she looked about the room purposefully, determined to find out who's house she was in before she left. The weight of clothes on her body gave her an abnormal amount of courage, all though she did not feel a fraction more secure.
She strained in the gloom to see pictures or any identifiable objects and found her head just that little bit too dizzy to complete the task. With a groan she stumbled past the lounges and found the blinds pull string, yanking it fiercely and flooding the room with the blazing morning sun.
Erg… Light. Another groan escaped her lips, as she tried to shield her eyes, her head reeling from the abrupt change in lighting and she decided the first thing she had to do was find something for her pounding head. Then she could deal with the situation, then she could figure out what the situation was, more to the point, who it involved.
It was three steps back into the room, away from the curtains that her eyes happened to fall upon a clock blinking happily across the room for her. She stared at the numbers for a long time trying to figure out what was so important about them. Am I meeting the girls? Maybe there's training. She growled at herself, it sounded so wrong. Lunch with Lita? No, that's not right… nice but not right. Meeting Raye for… Something? She gave a little laugh at the thought. Maybe studying with Amy. No. We did that all yesterday for that exam t… Her mind seemed to fizzle to a halt, her eyes reading the numbers again and again to be certain. But every time she read the numbers, Eleven o'clock blared back at her. For that exam… She found herself unable to move under the weight of the second horror of the morning. For that exam… today. Her heart stopped as the admittance rang through her head.
Her mother was going to kill her, her mother was going to know! Of course, Miss Haruna the busy body would call her house and ask why she wasn't at school. Her mother would never let her go anywhere again, Molly might even admit Serena hadn't stayed at her house last night as they had initially planned. Melvin would spread the gossip so quickly bush fires would look slow in comparison.
Frantically Serena searched for idea's anything to save her. Keep it simple. She told herself repetitively as she looked about the room. She didn't know what she was looking for, but ideas would have been the most helpful thing right then. She couldn't go to school, not this late, the damage had been done already. She needed sympathy. She needed… she needed to be sick.
An idea formed, the only one she could think of on such short notice. Get home immediately, that was the first step. Her mother had to think she was sick, had to think Serena hadn't gone to school because of the sickness. She would make the rest up as she went, get to Molly as quickly as she could and find out what she had told everyone else. That works. Serena told herself with determination, there was nothing else she could hope for as far as a plan went so she settled it. She needed to be home, and as fast a possible.
Her feet moved at a speed that she was accustomed to. She suddenly didn't care who's house it was, who's bed she had been in, all that mattered was that no one found out. Maybe she would have to tell Molly, her friend had a way of making her admit things like that. She stuffed her feet into her high heels, a brief thought that she should stop at Molly's to change was pushed away, she had no idea how she would get past Molly's mother and the risk was too great.
It was as her hand was reaching for the door nob that fate decided to intervene on her mad dash. The shrill beeping of her communicator made her heart stop and her body freeze. Awareness struck her and she crushed her eyes shut, gently touching at her wrist for the device in pathetic hope. But it wasn't there. At least that much she remembered, Luna's late night call. And she had foolishly ignored the cat, she had foolishly tucked the watch under the mattress to muffle it's sound.
Oh god! Luna! The cat was going to kill her. Forget her mother, her mother would just make her feel bad if she ever discovered what had happened here. Luna… Luna would kill her, then she'd kill whoever he was. Not that, I'd argue that. She amended with venom, her mind reasoned if she couldn't remember it, something had been wrong with her the night before. And besides, she had just lost something, something she couldn't take back no matter what she did and that made her angry.
The beeping continued, rousing her from vengeful thoughts and she realised with fear that it seemed to be getting louder.
Her feet reacted to the fear, driving her back into the room she had woken in. She didn't look at him but to notice he seemed to still be asleep. She fell to the floor beside the bed, her hand lunging in beneath the mattress and feeling around franticly for the thing. Had it been anything else she would have left it to it's own devices but she could just see the others expressions if she lost the communicator.
She found it after only several more beeps and pulled it out in triumph. Her automatic reflexes kicking in as she flipped the lid open and pressed the button that flashed at her at a speed that seemed as agitated as the beeping had sounded.
Luna's face flickered onto the screen just as Serena realised what she had done. She saw the cat take a deep breath, her eyes furry filled and was shutting the lid just as the cats voice resonated from the machine.
"Serena Tsukino what do you thin-" And the voice was cut off with the small click of the communicator. Serena found herself trembling immediately, the volume of the stupid cat. The volume had been enough to wake the dead. She raised herself slowly from the ground where she had thrown herself to retrieve the communicator. Her eyes hesitantly inching over the top of the mattress, stealing herself to check on the sleeping figures state.
She wasn't prepared to lock eyes with a pair of highly alert dark blue eyes that where staring in her direction with what seemed surprise. She wanted to break the stare, blink, figure out who it was, but she couldn't look away from those eyes. She kept raising, hoping that as she stood he would look away or something else would happen. She was even praying for a klutz attack to break the contact because she could not remove her gaze, even if her life had depended on it she knew she wouldn't have looked away.
And all at once she realised she knew those eyes, the expression may have been alien, but the eyes she knew without a doubt better then her own eyes.
"Darien." She whispered in shock and fear, slowly backing towards the door, knowing this was the last place she wanted to be at that moment. His eyes locked on her an array of emotions flicking through their near black depths, none of which she recognised, none of which she understood.
Stupid Communicator. She growled mentally her back pressing against the wooden door. Stupid Luna. Her hands slowly felt around for the handle and gripped the metal nob. Stupid Negaverse. Then in a flurry of movement she had turned the handle, opened the door and propelled herself into the corridor. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid Serena.