When Writers Go Bad: Chapter Six
Shadow13 watched her guests mournfully as they nibbled on their dinners. Most were slumped in their chairs, too depressed to sit straight. No one was saying anything, no one was looking at each other, and worst of all, no one seemed happy to have been "rescued," from the clutches of fan girls.
"You're all miserable, aren't you?" she asked, her eyes taking on the resemblance of a puppy's.
Erik looked up briefly, but said nothing. After all, he had the most right out of anyone to be miserable. Christine pushed her mushrooms around her plate with her fork, having no appetite. Watching his beloved suffer was too much for the young de Changy.
"Mademoiselle," Raoul begged of Shadow13, "please, let us go."
"I can't!" she protested. "Oh, you'd all be slaughtered like pigs down there!"
"Then leave us to protect ourselves," piped in the Chief Inspector.
"Protect yourselves?" she snapped. "You lot couldn't protect yourselves from an angry kitten, let alone a mob of angsty, hormonal teenagers that burst into loud, off key, annoying versions of songs that you all are supposed to sing!"
"I don't sing, though!" protested Valjean.
"Papa can't carry a tune," explained Cosette, for Lita was staring at him in a most curious manner.
"Really, must we argue at the dinner table?" asked Lita, spearing a small, green vegetable of some sort. "It upsets the digestion."
"You can't protect yourselves," continued Shadow13, "and I think you need to face facts: You're all the creations of old, and in the case of the Phantom of the Opera and company, fat men who could do whatever they please to you, as could those fan girls. That's why I took you away; I'm protecting you!"
"Yes, so you can control us instead," glowered Marius.
"Um, excuse me," Shadow whimpered, raising her hand rather nervously. "But our guests from 1792 were created by a woman."
She was ignored, for, standing up angrily, Shadow13 declared "That is not what is in question here, Baron Pontmercy!"
"Well I'd dearly like to know exactly what it is we're supposed to be questioning, then," snapped Citoyen Chauvelin, tossing his napkin down on the table, quite fed up with the whole mess.
"Or," continued Marguerite Blakeney, who was seated between her husband and the accredited agent, "are we not supposed to question it at all, the way we didn't question our author's dictation of what went on in our lives?"
"I don't think any of you understand," protested the young author, sitting forlornly back down, slowly coming to the realization that not only did they out number her in all their points, but that they were extremely good ones at that.
"Please, mademoiselle," said Sir Percy, trying to silence the rather noisy party. "I think you do not fully understand the situation: You claim to be saving us from tyrannical dictators whom we've never met, when we've not been able to think and act for ourselves since the moment we arrived in this dreadful place. I don't know about anyone else, but having a rock lobbed at one's skull and then waking up in a cell does not seem like any sort of path to freedom to me."
He might have continued, had Shadow not fiercely motioned for him to shut up. Her creator was slumped over the table, head in her hands. Her complexion had lost all color to it, and a fierce migraine pounded in her head. It almost seemed to speak to her, and it conveyed only one, short word: Out, out, out.
"Emily?" Shadow tentatively asked, not daring to touch her. Ellen, who'd been ignoring the whole thing, contentedly munching on a carrot, now sat up and took notice.
"What's the matter with her?" the other girl asked. Lita looked annoyed, not worried. She was sitting back in her chair, arms crossed over her breasts, glowering at everyone. Dinner was positively ruined.
Rising, Shadow13 managed to rest her head in one hand alone. Pointing toward the dark corridor where the characters slept, she snarled "Out."
Shadow, par usual, jumped at the simple command, ushering people from chairs. "You heard what she said, come on."
Thoroughly befuddled at the sudden turn in events – and moreover, not finished with his supper – the Phantom of the Opera managed to ask a very confused "What?"
"Out!" she shouted again. "All of you, get out, now! Go, get out of my sight!" This frightened even the rebellious Lita, and she sprang from her chair with Ellen close behind, quickly pushing and pulling all occupants of the hall out. The two egos followed at their heels, Shadow preparing to go as well. Emily had collapsed back into her chair, one hand holding her head, the other clutching her stomach. "No, Shadow! Shadow, you stay."
Reluctantly, Shadow gathered her cape around her shoulders, timidly coming nearer to her creator. "Yes, of course, whatever you want."
The girl moaned and groaned, curling into as tight a ball as possible, feeling sick to her stomach.
…
"Well, that was fun," Lita remarked sarcastically, taking a sip of the strawberry lemonade in her hand. She would have had it spiked, but she was underage, and the plot bunnies who ran the tavern were quite strict.
The One-Eared Hare, so the establishment was called, was packed to the brim with fluffy bunnies of various colors and sizes. Ellen was pouring over a book of karaoke songs, trying to decide what she liked best. Why rabbits needed a karaoke bar rather confused her, for whenever one did go up to sing something, no sound ever seemed to emit from it's mouth. The fellow plot bunnies obviously heard something, for they clapped with their ears, filling the place with a rather dull "whump," noise, sounding much like a pillow hitting a solid object.
"I didn't think so," disagreed Ellen, who still felt slightly traumatized by all the shouting.
"We'll just have to do it again sometime," continued the other girl, ignoring her. "Because, really, I have nothing better to do than to cart a bunch of lunatics from France around, and cater to a woman who's trying to bash her own skull in."
"That's right," piped in Shadow, taking a seat at the table. "You don't have anything better to do!"
"Shadow!" exclaimed Ellen in happy surprise. "I was thinking of singing Brown Eyed Girl, you wanna join?"
"Thank you, no," she responded, hailing down a bunny waiter and ordering a soda. "I don't feel much like singing."
Even Lita seemed worried now. "Was it bad?"
"My God, twice in one day!" Shadow nearly sobbed, much more frightened by the sudden sickness than actually mournful about it. "She's never done this much damage before. I kept on trying to hold her back while that…..that thing that controls her just had her smash herself against the walls, against the table, anything solid." She lifted a sleeve, showing where a rather nasty looking bruise was forming. Lita covered her mouth in a mixture of disgust and horror. "So she tried smacking into me instead."
"My God….." Ellen whispered, shaking in her chair.
The soda arrived, and Shadow sipped at it nonchalantly. "That's hardly the worst of them, I assure you."
"My God!" Lita agreed.
"When she was done, she proceeded to vomit all over the dinning hall. The plot bunnies are still cleaning up the blood and the dinner."
"I feel like vomiting myself," whimpered Ellen.
"This is an outrage! It's disgusting! We have to do something about it!" Lita declared with passion.
"What do you suggest?" snapped Shadow. "Fight an enemy we've never seen? That we know nothing about?"
A mischievous glint caught in Lita's eye. "And why not? After all, the people sleeping in the castle tonight are supposed to be damnably clever."
"I don't like it," snarled Shadow. "It reeks of repercussions."
"We'll see."
"Lita? Tell me what you're thinking."
"We'll see," was all she said, taking another drink.
To Be Continued….