A Home Within The Madness
Chapter Rating: G
Discaimer: Otto Octavius, Spider-Man and other copyrighted characters and/or places are copyrighted to their respectful owners.
Author's Notes: Thanks to those who reviewed. This'll be done in little chapters (as you can see) cos I can only think of new stuff in little bits. I'm used to thinking of a story and putting it all out at once.
CHAPTER 2
Annie was sound asleep, dreaming of riding a large white horse through a beautiful green field in the country. She slowed to a gallop, then a stop, un-mounted her horse and gave him a pat on the neck. The horse opened its mouth and a loud chime sound came out. Annie bent down and looked into the horses mouth, seeing a small telephone on his tongue.
She woke up, and after a few seconds of having no idea what was going on, she realized the phone was ringing.
"He….llo?"
"Annie, it's Ray. You weren't in bed already, were you?"
Ray was a good school friend of Annie's. Apparently he had forgotten that she likes to get to bed some time before 1am.
"Huh? Oh. No, I was just watching TV. What's up?"
"Okay. I won't be able to make it for that art show, tomorrow. My brother's in town for the next few days and he wants to spend some time with me. We'll do it some other time, all right?"
"But-- Yeah, sure."
Annie had been looking forward to seeing the art show for weeks, and it was only on display for one more night. Ray had agreed to go with her, tomorrow, but leave it to him to wait until the very last minute and then cancel, leaving Annie in a rut. She'd have to go alone, or not at all, now. But she didn't wanna let on that it bothered her so much. Ray wouldn't have cared, anyway. He was that sort of person.
"Great. I'll catch you later, An. Bye."
Click.
Annie hung up the phone, sighed and tried to figure out if she wanted to go alone, or not. She didn't like the idea of walking around in a room full of people all by herself. She had hoped to have someone to talk to while she examined the art. All her other friends had already made other plans, or just didn't wanna go with her. She wondered if they were even her friends at all. But rather than dissect the thought of that, she rolled over and fell back to sleep.
"Yes," Otto thought aloud, "This place has grown old. It's time we found a new place to live out our misery."
While most of the people in the shelter didn't take any notice of another rambling being in their presence, there was that one man who found Otto's disturbances annoying. Or maybe he was just trying to start something. Either way, Otto had had enough.
"HEY!" came that all-too-familiar voice that Otto had come to know in his time spent there, "I said 'SHUT UP!' You think you can handle that?! If not, I can come over there and shut you up, myself!"
That had been the last straw. Looking straight ahead, and not anywhere near the guy, the left corner of Otto's mouth curled up and formed a smirk. He lowered his head slightly, picturing his next move and how wonderful it would feel.
One of his upper tentacles shot straight out, latched onto the annoying man's throat, lifted him up into the air, shook him violently and slammed him into the wall ahead of Otto's view. He watched as the tentacle released the limp body and it slid down the wall, slumping over onto the floor.
"Try it," Otto said, still smirking.
Knowing that he'd overstayed his welcome, he grabbed his coat--the one he had acquired from a local pawn shop, which happened to have been closed at his time of entry--and swung his legs around to the side of the bed. He had kept the tentacles hidden beneath the coat during the day, and kept them hidden under the blanket during the night. But now he felt no harm in letting them out for some air. He had already screwed things up enough that would make him unable to remain in the shelter. The cops didn't like coming near the place, but they'd surely show up for a murder.
As the tentacles rose around him, Otto heard several gasps in the darkness. Most of these guys had seen some crazy things in their lifetimes, but this was too much for a few of them. Several bodies grabbed their belongings and darted for the exit. Otto's first instinct was to lash out and grab them; break their necks and silence them. But he could use them to his advantage. If he was the only one missing when the authorities showed up, everyone would know he did it. But if there were several people missing, he'd have a better chance. Who's to say that any of those escapees couldn't have attacked that loud-mouthed nuisance?
And what about the others? Those who had seen what had happened--but didn't run--just fell back to sleep, probably relieved that the guy was dead. The others were either used to the noise, or were too drunk, or high, to even notice.
Otto stood, put on his coat and walked over to the bed of the man he had just murdered. He bent down and retrieved a dark brown Fedora hat, tilted his head and smiled.
"At least he had some taste."
He placed the hat on his head and walked out into the chilled night air; homeless, once again.