Author's note: A lot of this chapter is based on Casey but don't worry the whole story wont be like that, some chapters just focus more on one character than others. Also the first time I tried to post this on the site it didn't work, but if you notice that chapters five and six are exactly the same don't worry, you're not crazy, and just for the record it wasn't my fault I dunno why it didn't work.
Disclaimer: Don't own em me no claimie.
There was only one rule, always travel in pairs, never under any circumstances should you find yourself wandering outside alone in the endless night. The girl or Finder as everyone had taken to calling her told them this and nothing else, she simply explained that vampires and other such creatures would be extra powerful at this time and impossible to fight alone.
The only thing bothering Olivia was where Finder came from and who was on their side? Finder however avoided this question saying it was irrelevant, that where she came from would never be important and that they'd know who was on their side. Even though they were told not to everyone seemed to gravitate away from each other and towards the darkened world.
With Huang's discovery it was thought that maybe there were still yet more of them that they didn't know of yet, but for the time being the city remained quiet, no lights were on and it seemed that New York City and the rest of the world would soon be swallowed by the darkness, lost forever a mere memory of a forgotten time. It was strange to see the statue like forms of millions of different people across the city, so many lives that seemed forgotten and could very well remain so.
Casey wandered the silent streets, it was dreadfully still, but of course what had she expected? She needed to keep walking, as if to prove she still lived that she was still there even if some of her soul was missing. She felt exhausted, so much so that she knew she was liable to collapse at any moment, if she hit her head, this time there'd be no Munch to come to the rescue. Even so she continued on as if she was following some path she'd once walked, and although she knew where all the turns were she'd forgotten where it led.
She seemed to forget the city she knew so well, the number's of streets and houses escaped her mind, when she reached a great body of water she knew not where she was. Something was unearthly about it; the water seemed to give off a certain glow. It was then that she heard it, a faint music rolling off the stilled waters.
She stood there for a moment seeming just like all the other statues of the people around her, slowly the thing that was making the music came closer. Within a few minutes she could see that it came from a small canoe drifting without a sound across the water, something was inside of it, whatever that something was, was singing a strange tune in a tongue Casey couldn't comprehend.
It must have seen her for it steered it's little canoe towards her, though she noticed simply by moving it's hands in the direction it wanted to turn. The moonlight illuminated the creatures face, it had mainly human-like face, its features were pleasing, its skin was blue and its eyes a deathly black that clashed with the whites of its eyes. Its nose was small almost like a cat's, however when it came to its ears they appeared to be that of a rabbit's. It looked at Casey, its eyes round like saucer, it tried speaking with her but its language was strange and unfamiliar, it seemed to test multiple languages to see which one would work best and after a few attempts it settled on English.
"You be living?" It asked in a strange exotic accent. Casey didn't respond merely nodded her head, the creature continued, "I be lost, I find myself here on this plane, with statues, nobody live but you?"
"There are more like me." Casey answered cautiously, could she trust this creature? She tried to keep her calm, she'd have to lead this creature to the girl and see her opinion on the matter. She looked at her surroundings and searched her memory until she knew exactly where she was, now time to figure out the way back.
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The girl sat silently, she knew by this point that no one had obeyed the one rule, but she knew that there was nothing left to be done now but wait. It was getting more and more dangerous though; the border between dimensions was ripping apart and the seams. And more and more would be braking through, hungry for lost souls foolish enough to journey outside alone.
Within an hour however everyone except Munch had returned safely, they waited a while for him and eventually he returned, he looked at the impatient faces of his colleagues and doing a little curtsey he said in a girly tone, "Were you guys waiting for little old me?" Still it wasn't Munch that bothered the girl, it was Casey, something was off.
The girl eyed Casey knowingly; something had drawn her outside, though perhaps a bit more than just a sliver of her soul was missing. She didn't want to but she'd have to ask Munch to read Casey's mind. When Casey was safely out of the room the girl whispered, "Read that one's mind tell me if anything's changed since you last read it."
Munch muttered something about being used and that if he wanted to invade the privacy of other's he'd prefer to work with the government. Still never the less he agreed anyways; in truth he was a little worried about Casey himself. It was easy to read her mind, but what he read made no sense, just a jumble of misplaced words, and then he saw it, deep within her mind a black cloud that he assured himself was not there last time. He looked at the girl and nodded, "Finder I found a black cloud, it's there but wasn't last time, I think she's in trouble."
"No worries I thought this might happen after a bit of her soul was taken, some shadow must've found the empty space in her mind where that part of her soul was dweld and logged itself there."
"But the shadows take souls not minds."
"That part of her mind is the one that knew that part of her soul, when one piece goes so does the other."
"Can you help her?"
"Only you can enter minds, it's your job and yours alone, but it can be done, she'll be okay just use the force of your mind to get the shadow out, trust me your own mind is your strongest tool."
"Really I always thought it was my gun." Munch said sarcastically, "Anyways time to do the tango."
Reading someone's mind was one thing, but actually getting into it was whole new ball game. It took Munch awhile to actually find the black shadow in Casey's mind, her mind was a maze of doors and stairs and dead ends, it was frustrating Munch to no end but he couldn't just leave Casey to the shadows. Her mind was like another world, one in which you could walk around, and seemed solid like earth. Eventually he found the shadows, they swarmed together, surrounding something. He realized it was Casey herself, perhaps he realized her very soul dwelled within her mind and of course was no in danger.
He called out to her, she heard his voice from within the shadows, it was strange to her though a moment ago she was talking to Olivia but now she realized she was in her own mind, if that made any sense whatsoever. She reached out, trying to grasp something outside the shadows, she struggled to find light from amidst the darkness. And then she did grasp something, his hand Munch's hand.
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"That's twice you've saved me know." Casey said when they were both mind and body on earth. Olivia, who was in the midst of a conversation with Casey, looked at her confused.
"Yeah you owe me." Munch smirked.
"Anyways Olivia as I was saying I met someone when I went outside…" Casey said pretending nothing had happened.
The girl immediately bolted up and towards them both, "What?"
"I blue boy, well he wasn't human but…"
"What?" the girl repeated again.
"I brought him here to meet you Finder and see if he was trustworthy, but I cant seem to find him."
"Are you insane? The dark is rising and you just invite anyone you meet back here? He was probably working for the shadows, and now is telling them our exact location."
"I trust him, I don't know why, I just do." Said Casey, "After working as a lawyer you begin to learn who's what they say they are, you of course wouldn't know that, you've lived a long time, before you were granted powers, what were you, a housewife?"
"I worked hard, housewife or not."
"So you were?"
"Yeah I was, I never had children, my husband ditched me when I magically became young again he thought I was a witch, my town wanted to burn me at the stake, in those times such a thing was common." The girl got this far way look in her eyes, "Anyways that's not important lets find the blue boy you speak of, hopefully he'll still be here."
Everyone looked at the girl awkwardly for a moment before commencing the search. After an hour or so everyone was getting fed up. Casey couldn't understand where the blue boy would go, she went outside to get some fresh air.
"I thought I never get you alone." Said an exotic sounding voice, Casey immediately turned around to the source of the voice.
"Where have you been?"
"I like not the one you call Finder, she remind me of cynical old grandma, she no like my kind."
Casey chuckled slightly, "I'd think that was more of something one would describe Munch as, but what do you mean, your kind?"
"I no not what your species calls me, but I know you no like me, you think we evil, but we not, not at all."
"I trust you don't worry, everything will be fine, Finder will have to accept you."
"We be friends okay?"
"Yeah sure." She responded, then with a slight gesture of her hand ushered the creature inside.
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"A demon, you brought us a demon, yeah sure trust a demon, how stupid are you?" The girl asked, "We cant just trust this thing."
"Not all demons are evil, demon is just a name for certain spirits from the other planes, you confuse them with devils." Casey corrected.
"You know nothing, you're young and foolish, besides demons will use you, they're not friends, and for the most part yes they are evil."
"I not really demon, brown eyed girl call me spirit." The creature said.
"You come from another plane another dimension, you skin is blue, your power strong, you are a demon." The girl stated, "But what I wanna know is why you're in this plane."
"I get little lost on vocation, I come to shadowed world, but you can trust me."
"Who's side are you on?" The asked.
"I be on whoever's side she's on." The creature said pointing to Casey.
"Well," Olivia began, "We need as much help as we can, he's strong right? So he should be able to help us out."
"Fine, but it's your problem when it screws you over."
"What's your name?" Olivia asked the creature gently.
"You call me Kee."
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"Hey partner." Munch said sitting down beside Fin.
"What do you want?"
"To know why you've been so quiet lately."
"This whole thing were mixed up in, it's so screwed up, man we don't even know if we can trust Finder, and now the whole world is on our shoulders. Pedophiles were one thing, man I found that hard enough to deal with, how we gonna pull this one off?"
"We probably wont."
"Just the answer I expect from you."
"My age my of changed but I haven't, well either way you don't want me to lie do you? Tell you everything's gonna be okay 'cause it's not."
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"Elliot what's been bothering you lately?" Huang questioned.
"What you gonna spych me even when you're not on the job?"
"You're gonna end up hurting the people around you."
"You mean screw up like I did with Kathy."
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Olivia decided she needed some fresh air, she'd had enough with Elliot's moodiness, she crept outside and sat on a bench staying as close as possible to everyone else. The sky was black, and empty as it always was save the moon. Even when all the lights in the city turned off there were no stars. She's expected to see a beautifully decorated, star spangled sky. Was the empty sky part of the darkness the enemy created? Perhaps she thought though it made little sense the enemy had put a dark cloud around the world making it appear like night when in fact it was day as it had been when the girl froze time on earth.
She sighed slightly as a cool spring breeze flowed by; she was worried about the way things were going. There were the things not being said and of course she knew Elliot was hiding something, not that this unusual. At that moment she wished that Elliot wasn't a part of the whole mess, would he really help when she needed him or would he sulk around like a moody teenager. Still she knew she was being unfair, he'd do anything for her, he would sacrifice himself for her, even if he was a jerk.
She'd known Elliot for years, she knew he had his ups and downs, right now she reasoned with herself was one of those downs. But he understood her and her him, and he would always lift her up in her darker moments, she felt good around him. Even if he was being an ass now she should at least try and make him feel better, for whatever reason it was that was making him feel bad.
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Munch stared out over the rooftop, sitting on a bench, usually he'd be starring at people, at life, but life wasn't important when time froze, existence was what he had to save. He heard the door to the rooftop open and someone come up.
"Hey." Said Casey's voice.
"Hey, how's the blue boy doing?"
"Dunno he's not human…I have no idea what kind of emotions he has."
"Technically he could be a she you know."
"Right." Casey said coming over to sit beside him.
"Well you're karma right so if he does try to… hurt us, we'll get our revenge."
"Yeah you're right," Casey agreed, "Anyways John, the reason I came here is well to thank you…you've saved me twice now and I haven't thanked you yet."
"Better late then never."
"So thanks, I owe you…two." Casey smiled, "But you know because you read my mind it's sort of your fault I'm in this mess anyways." She continued jokingly, "Thanks though, really." She added a little awkwardly. She sighed slightly and gently rested her head on his shoulder, he looked at her a little awkwardly, unsure of what to do. So he just sat there with her, it took him a while to realize how scared she must be, after all with all the things that had happened to her, why wouldn't she be? In truth they were all terrified, and doomed.
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Author's note: Well that was a longish chapter at least for me, but you know with all those ideas at the door step to my mind demanding they be written right away. Anyways in other news on the 22 of may 'tis my birth day! Yes presents! I'm trying to convince people to either buy me SVU on DVD or a giant posture of Spike from Buffy the vampire slayer 'cause well he's my celebrity crush, yes well okay I obsess over everything but you know. And yeah, hehehe, also it just occurred to me that I'm one of the few Canadians here…………..eh. Just to clear things up now, Canada and the USA are the exact same thing 'cept we have a mixed economy, but well anyways point be Canada and the states are EQUAL…by the way yes I realize many of you might be in other continents in which case I don't know why you're reading my little rant 'cause you probably don't care. I like to rant it's fun…actually today my teacher said I needa learn when to shut up but I didn't listen to her. Anyways if I said anything to offend you tell me, Anyways before I really piss people off I'll shut up and say bye so bye!
PS. Seriously though uh if anything I've said offends any of you tell me, and expect an apology 'cause honestly I'm not aiming to offend my kind reviewers I'm just btchy towards everyone and everything, my teachers call my cynical.