Hunted By The Shadows
Chapter Nine
Rinoa shifted uncomfortably in her seat, as she looked to the other end of the sofa. A significant gap between her and her companion. She quickly glanced at him before returning her gaze to the woman sat in front of them. Rinoa stayed sat quietly not really listening to what her companion was telling the woman. She watched as Alison Beck listened intently to what he was saying. Today was one of their weekly visits to visit Alison, although usually Rinoa was the only one who turned up. She didn't really have any intention of turning up on this day however, due to her last visit to Alison. The visit where she had talked about her dreams.
It was only early this morning that her father had turned up at her doorstep wanting to come with her. These visits to see Alison were for both her father and Rinoa; he had only turned up a handful of times. So now she sat quietly as he told Alison of how his work kept him busy.
Alison scribbled a few notes down in her notebook before turning to both Rinoa and the general. "So have the two of you spent any time together recently?" she asked.
Rinoa thought for a while, visiting her father was the last thing on her mind at the moment, since everything she had found out with the dreams. She slowly shook her head "No," she said softly "We haven't seen each other since the day after the performance" She thought back to that day in the cemetery, she hadn't been able to face her father then. Not after she had run out of her performance the night before like that.
"Were you together for long?" she asked adjusting the glasses that rested on the bridge of her nose.
Were they together for long? She had walked away, not wanting to even look at him. From the right of her she heard her fathers deep voice "No, she was busy at the time" he explained. Rinoa turned her head towards her father, she hadn't been busy at the time, but she knew he didn't want to say the fact that she had walked away from him.
Alison closed the notebook and looked at her two clients. "I think that you need to get to know each other again," she said. "Because over the years you have separated yourselves from each other and you've both changed as you've grown. What I suggest is that you spend some time with each other. I'd say as soon as possible, like today. It can be as short as five minutes or as long as you feel comfortable with. Just get used to being around each other again, you don't even have to talk."
She paused to look that they understood what she was saying. "It can even be a simple walk around a park, or somewhere familiar." She stood from her seat opposite the two individuals "I'd like you to do that for me, and next week we'll discuss this further"
Rinoa stood from her seat and thanked Alison as she led them to the door. From behind her, she could feel her father's presence come closer as they exited the room while saying goodbye to Alison. She stopped as she heard Alison call her name and turned to face her.
Alison stood at the entrance of the door "Can I talk to you for a second?" she watched as Rinoa entered back into the room and closed the door. "How is that medication working that I gave you?" she said.
Rinoa felt a shiver run down her spine as she remembered their conversation from before. "It's helped the sleeping," she said, ignoring the fact that it still didn't help the dreams she had, but now at least she knew why. "It's helped a lot" she lied. At least then, maybe Alison would think that perhaps she was no longer having these dreams.
Alison smiled "I'm glad" she said before opening the door once more "I'll see you next week" she said before Rinoa left the room again.
Once outside the room Rinoa saw the general stood awkwardly "Do you want to go for that walk now?" he said looking down towards Rinoa.
Rinoa thought for a moment whether or not she should, before thinking that no harm could come from a simple short walk. She nodded her head before quietly making her way out of the building with him. Once outside, they made their way onto a path away from the busy parts of Deling City. It was a lot quieter and peaceful, the path also led towards the cemetery. The cemetery where she stood in her dreams.
Rinoa walked silently along the path, her arms wrapped across her chest. She admired the tranquil view of this quiet city area. The thin gravel path was edged with unruly grass that gave way to delicate flowers that danced in the soft wind.
"I'm sorry I haven't been around a lot lately," Caraway said, his voice broke the silence as the wind picked up.
Rinoa stopped in her tracks to look him in the eye. "Lately?" she said raising her voice. "I don't call twelve years 'lately'." She stopped herself as she saw the hurt look in his eye, knowing that this is exactly what she shouldn't be doing. Inhaling a deep breath, she looked down to the ground softening her voice "Just make sure you're around in the future" she said before walking again.
Caraway began to follow her, his pace quickening to keep up with Rinoa. Together they continued to walk in silence along the gravel path until the cemetery came in sight. It stood amongst trees and the church stood tall, its golden colour, radiant from the sun.
The black gates rose from the horizon as they neared, the tall spikes still appeared threatening to Rinoa and she felt her feet slow until she stopped. Her eyes looked through the invisible wall to the stone that rested under a tree in the distance. She felt her father's presence grow near and his footsteps fell to silence.
"I know you probably don't believe me," his voice came out softly. "But I do miss your mother as well."
Rinoa turned to look at him, his eyes filled with sadness. The same sadness that tormented her. "I know," she said quietly. Her eyes gazed onto the rows of gravestones. "I think I want to be left alone now," she said turning to her father. She watched as he nodded his head, giving her a slight smile of understanding, before turning to leave.
She watched as he made his way back down the path, until she could no longer see him anymore. Once she realised that she was now alone, a slight chill ran down her spine as she remembered her dream from the night before. Usually it gave her some comfort in knowing what was going to happen in her dreams, except last night however, her dream had changed slightly. Just like the first time she had her dream, she was in a strange house with a young boy running towards her. She had never experienced that again, she was always stood in the cemetery watching her mother's funeral take place, before being attacked by a strange figure.
The previous nights dream had played over in her mind. Like every other night, she had been stood transfixed at seeing the funeral, until she saw someone new. A figure, this time a woman, stood before her. The woman had black robes on, like the other figure, however she had black material wrapped around her head, which covered all of her face apart from her eyes. Rinoa felt herself shiver in fear as she remembered her eyes, something that she couldn't forget. The woman had bright blue eyes, with no pupils. Loose strands of her colourless hair blew freely in the wind. She had stood and stared at Rinoa in a threatening manner, as if testing her.
The woman had stood there, until the figure that usually haunted her dreams came beside the strange woman. He had looked at her for a moment; it was then she had pointed in Rinoa's direction. The hooded man then took out his weapon; she had seen that mourning symbol again, like every other night. He had then run towards her, to stab her as he did every night, and like so many other times before, she had awoken just before the attack had taken place.
Her thoughts were distracted as she heard footsteps from behind her. From earlier thoughts her mind began to panic as to who was behind her.
"Rinoa," the voice called.
She quickly spun around to see her confronter, and was surprised to see Squall, looking slightly shocked at her sudden movements. Seeing Squall, her body relaxed from her sudden fear. "What are you doing here?" she asked studying Squall.
"Going to church," he said quietly "I just need to do some thinking" he continued, whilst walking towards the church.
Rinoa followed after Squall, still a little shaken from thinking about her dream. "You need to go to church to think?" she couldn't help the small smile form on her lips as she saw him nod.
"I need to talk to you about what you told me yesterday," Rinoa said, following after him as he made his way along the footpath to the church.
"What about it?" he said, turning over his shoulder to look at Rinoa. He entered inside the church and sat along one of the pews near the back.
Rinoa studied the inside of the church, it was quite big from the inside, and the stained glass windows along the sides were beautifully decorated in bright colours. She took a seat next to Squall and took out a newspaper article, which had been in her jacket pocket. Opening it up she handed it to Squall. "This is a copy of one of the articles you showed me yesterday," she said, looking at Squall "It is the most recent death you have got"
Squall took a look at the article before handing it back to her "So?" he said coldly.
"Squall, this man had a wife. It says here she lives in Trabia," she pointed out while taking another piece of paper out, this piece of paper had an address on "Her name is Selphie Kinneas, I've got her address right here. Maybe if we visit her, she might know more about what happened and give us more information, more than any newspaper could tell us"
She watched as Squall looked down at the paper with the address on, then turned to face away from her. He remained silent for a minute before speaking again "When people start to lose faith in everyday things in their lives, sometimes they turn to other sources," he began "I first began to have faith in Hyne a few years ago, when I didn't have any answers. The thing what makes religion so important to people, is it gives them something to believe in, even if there is nothing there. With Hyne, we have the stories, and take the parts of his teachings with us. The same with these killings, we take the facts, because talking to the victims is only going to cause pain to them"
Rinoa stared at Squall in silence taking in what he just said. "So you're saying we shouldn't go?" she asked, understanding his reasons. Yet she still couldn't help the feelings inside her, yearning for answers.
Squall turned to face Rinoa once more "I'm not saying you shouldn't go, I'm saying be careful what you say. She may still be grieving" He watched as she looked down to the address in her hands in silence.
"If I go, will you come with me?" she asked "I understand what you're saying, but I think it's important for her as well as us. It might give her some comfort knowing what happened to her husband, she may believe that her husband has been murdered in cold blood by someone"
"Is that such a bad thing?" he said thinking out loud. He took the address from Rinoa's hands and rubbed his fingers along the smooth texture of the paper, in thought. Finally he turned to face Rinoa. "I'll go with you," he said "but I hope you know what you're going to say to her."
Tune in next time for Chapter Ten when our heroes go off for another action packed night of scary dreams and newspaper articles! Hmmm.... I've been working on this story too hard.... Please review; it will make a girl on the verge of insanity very happy.