They Wouldn't Believe You
Disclaimer: I don't own Nosgoth or anything related to it. And so on and so forth...
AN: A very quick update this time, by my standards lol. Been working harder at getting this written now, so it shouldn't be the utter disaster I originally thought it would be update wise. Even so, it takes a bit of time to finish a 10 page plus chapter so please be patient. Huge thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far, I was quite (very) flattered by the response so far, thank you so much and please keep reviewing, even if its just a little one sentence mini reviews to show that you are reading and still enjoy it, or not (though I would like an explanation for the later, a simple "this is rubbish" is kinda pointless by anyone's standards). Thanks again.
Chapter 3: Wake up
Brianne had no idea when, or how, she finally managed to get to sleep, but she did. She knew that she did because clocks did not suddenly jump from 10:15 am to 2:46 pm, unless of course something, somewhere, had decided that dropping two previously nonexistent vampires in her lap was not disruptive enough and had decided to mess with her perception of time as well.
...Well, Kain had told her to think things over, hadn't he? Brianne supposed jokes were a very good first step to... to... whatever.
Blearily she glanced at the clock again. Yep, definitely 2:46... 2:47...2:48... She knew she was avoiding the issue, despite the jokes. But honestly, how were you supposed to go about confronting an issue as gargantuan as that?
2:49. Brianne was not tired enough to sleep anymore but she didn't feel like going downstairs yet. She thought that, given the circumstances, it was quite understandable.
The door to her room was pushed open slowly from the other side and as Brianne watched, Annabel peeped round, looking worried. Apparently avoiding the rest of the world until dusk was not on the menu.
"Oh good you're awake. We've been checking on you every hour or so since about half ten, but you have been out cold every time. What's wrong?"
Brianne cringed. Trust Annabel. Any other person would have said something like 'oh you poor dear, you really must be feeling under the weather to sleep in so late...' Then she could have just nodded her head and looked pathetic and be guaranteed a day in bed. Annabel walked over and sat next to Brianne on the bed as she frantically tried to think of a plausible response.
"I think it must be the same thing as yesterday, I feel so out of it...im just...just... exhausted." She sighed. Well it was true, kind of...
Annabel reached up and Brianne thought she was going to check her temperature but the hand stoped just short of her brow and she felt a strange warmth spread through her. It was as though Annabel was holding a warm cloth to her forehead. Brianne's eyes flickered to Annabel, questioning. The older woman had a strange vacant expression on her face, which quickly blended into a frown.
"Annabel?" The older woman's eyes flickered back to Brianne, her expression was filled with confusion.
"Who... who is he?" her voice was so distant, almost a whisper.
"Wh-"
Annabel's eyes cloud, drifting away from Brianne's face to look over her shoulder. "He surrounds you, flows around... through you... watching..."
"Annabel, what-"
Annabel gasped suddenly confusion mixing with fear. "What... what is he?...What...?" Annabel's hand suddenly snatched away from Brianne's head, her eyes focussing on her intently. "You don't know." She whispered.
"Know what? Annabel, you're freaking me out, please tell me, what is it?." Annabel's hand reached up to Brianne's head again but pulled back almost immediately.
"These things," she said softly, "will make themselves known to you in time. They must."
Brianne was about to demand further explanation but she had barely opened her mouth when the door opened again and another of the guests walked in asking for Annabel and inquiring about Brianne's health. Terri followed close on her heals and ultimately all hint on the previous conversation went out of the window as the daily grind of normal life hijacked her room, banishing the supernatural activities of earlier into nothing more substantial than mist... ironically. Before Brianne had time for so much as a simple raincheck, she was swept up in the storm, whisked away from her room and carried downstairs, barely risking a backward glance, knowing full well they would not be there.
'Did I even recover from my dizzy spell the other day?' Brianne wondered, more than once as she worked on the remainder of her chores that had not already been done for her. She had been feeling a bit light headed since she woke up, again, and while she would have liked to blame it on yesterdays fogginess, in her heart she knew it was down to the whole game characters vs reality issue. She stood just outside the kitchen door unwinding a string of fairy lights from amongst a wildly rampant honeysuckle plant that Brianne suspected was nearly as old as the house.
From inside Terri called from were she was putting the third dishwasher load on for the day. "Hay, Anne? You mind fetchin' me a box of dishwasher powder from the cellar? We're out."
"Kay." She calls back glancing wearily at the confusing mass of stems, cables, leaves and bulbs in front of her, wondering who might have been responsible for entangling the two together in the first place and why they weren't clearing it up. Sighing and temporarily admitting a defeat, she trudged back into the house and across the kitchen to the cellar door.
"Watch out for the ghosts and boogie monsters Anne."
"Oh please. That was just a silly bedtime story-" Raincheck- monsters, ghosts... right. "Whatever"
Opening the door and flicking on the main light she took the stars calmly and with what she hoped was an air of confidence. They wouldn't be hiding out in the cellar would they? I mean come on! Its just so stereotypical horror movie and violence, blood and gore aside these guys are anything but! Nah, they wouldn't... At the bottom of the stairs she came into the main cellar room which doubled up as a laundry with two side rooms, the panty and walk in freezer, and two locked doors which led to other, older parts of the cellar. Everyone said that the basement was practically a mirror of the house above but flattened so it spread out under the grounds surrounding the house, hence why no extensions had ever been built (not that it needed any extra room) everyone was too worried about new building collapsing into old underground rooms. Local legend had it there was even an old dungeon down there but no one knew for sure, the old plans for the house had been lost since the turn of the last century and no one went down there since one of the rooms had a cave-in. That and all the ghost stories. Brianne walked over to the cabinet that held all the detergents not currently in use and pulled out a box of dishwasher powder. Her eyes flickered over to the two locked doors again, wondering what could be behind them, sure it was nothing worse than what she had already come face to face with today.
No, wait, not locked. Brianne corrected herself. Looking closer, the locks on both doors had been twisted and buckled just enough to make them ineffective. It was very well done too, subtle, anyone paying less attention than she was at the moment would have overlooked it completely. Putting the box down she walked over to the nearest door and crouched in front of it, examine the remains of the lock.
It was amazing, the metal was completely distorted in places, twisted in ways that Brianne would have thought required the use of a furnace, the wood cracked and split at very specific places were underlying metal work had crumpled. But that was it. The most unusual thing about it was there were no marks, scratches, dents or any other indication as to how it was done. It didn't take much at all for her mind to jump back to earlier that morning.
Perhaps the basement wasn't so ridiculous a hiding spot after all.
"Hay Anne? You got lost down there or something? I need that box now." Brianne jumped when Terri called from upstairs, cursing under her breath. Backing away from the doors she picked up the box and headed back up. She was almost running by the time she reached the top of the stairs.
It was fast approaching dusk but Brianne was not watching the time, instead she was curled up in an armchair in the livingroom with half of the party guests who had not already left making small talk. Well, they were making small talk, Brianne was half listening, incase she got asked questions, and half staring into the corners of the room and out the windows looking for movement.
After she had come back up from the cellar another of the guests said they had heard a door slam but Brianne was certain that no one was down there when she was and no one had been down after her. Instantly she thought of the two vampires earlier, and one to of them in particular. After the unidentified noises in the cellar Brianne, along with a couple of the other more attentive guests, had noticed windows and other polished surfaces in the greenhouse outside the kitchen fog up briefly as though some one had blown moist air over them. This phenomenon was always limited to one spot which moved around the greenhouse. This lasted for an hour or so before it vanished entirely and things started happening around the rest of the house, flashes of light, strange noises, poltergeist like activity and so on. It was always subtle, so much so it left you doubting if you actually saw or heard what you think you did. The important bit was that all of the unusual activity matched up perfectly with Kain's powers, even if they were being used in a very subtle manner as apposed to the all guns blazing, kill first talk later attitude that prevailed in the games. From her spot in the corner of the room Brianne's gaze kept flickering to the slats in the bottom of a store room door opposite her; she could have sworn she had heard something move in there before the others had arrived.
Around her a debate raged, with the main players, Annabel, John, May and Samantha, all sitting forward attentively in their seats.
"No way! Have you ever seen a decent wildlife documentary? Wild animals, and even tame ones, are not lovely-dovey hippy creatures! They are killers! And they most defiantly kill their own kind."
"They are innocent! They have no reason to kill their own, only humans do that. Yeah they fight, but its all display, the looser gets away."
Brianne shifted to the side a bit to get a better look at the store room when one of the combatants before her shifter in her seat.
"I agree with Sam. Animals can be very vicious." Annabel chimed in.
"There not all bad. Usually when they fight the looser gets away, don't they?"
"Only because they don't have ranged weapons."
"Exactly, they wouldn't think of it, they're not that cruel."
"Oh because lack of brain power and opposable thumbs has nothing to do with it."
"Doesn't matter."
One of the girls closer to the store room, May, shifted slightly and made to get up.
"Do you live in your life in rose tinted specks as far as anything but the human race is concerned! A lion will kill all cubs in a pride when he takes it over, hippos can skewer each other with their teeth when they fight, your common garden robin will kill its opponent in a fight by stabbing it in the back of the head with its beak given half a chance and chimps! Well..!"
"Sheesh! Ok, calm down already. Take a breath before you pass out."
"Not a bad idea Sam. Oh don't look at me like that! Anyway, Im getting a drink, who wants?"
A chorus of "I"s, "Me"s and "Yes please"s when up around the room. May walked up towards the store room.
CRASH!
The vase on the table next to Brianne had gone sailing to the floor smashing a good three feet or so away.
"What the!"
While everyone else was distracted by the vase that had wished it could fly, Brianne kept her eyes on the store room. Right on cue a white light faired behind the slats in the door, vanishing as quickly as it came. Its Kain! I know it is. God, he's really here isn't he!
"Brianne, did you knock that vase?"
"What? No! I never touched it!"
"It wasn't Brianne, I was watching her." Annabel interrupted the accuser. Her eyes were locked on Brianne.
"Well, who was it? Inanimate objects don't just move of their own accord!"
"Want to bet on that?" Annabel muttered under her breath.
"That one did." May supplied cheerfully, loving all the excitement.
Yet another debate exploded, this time about what exactly had just happened, who saw what, who did what, the laws of physics and poltergeist activity. Brianne felt very much that this was what it felt like in the eye of a storm, this surreal calmness while all around an endless vortex of activity raged, threatening to suck you in.
"Annabel-" the noise around her drowned her out so she tried again. "Annabel!" A couple of the others stoped talking to let her be heard but she still had to rase her voice over the rest. "Im feeling tired so im going have an early night. Ok?"
"Oh, of corse, of corse, you go right ahead."
"Well, er, thanks. 'Night." Brianne tried to be as discreet as possible as she left the room. She had just started to breath easy again after the everts in the livingroom as she reached the stairs when Annabel called back to her.
"Brianne, could you spare me a minute please?" Brianne turned around only to have Annabel take her by the elbow and turn her back up the stairs again. They walked in silence until Annabel pulled her into the nearest empty room and closed the door behind them. "Don't look so frightened girl, im not going to bite your head off." She admonished gently before staring at Brianne in thoughtful silence for much longer than Brianne was comfortable with.
"Annabel-"
"Did you have another dream last night?"
"Wha', I , er yes?" Well that pulled the metaphorical rug from under her feet. Why she did not know.
"What happened?"
"I, er, same as last time more or-"
"I want to know exactly."
"I..."
"Look, just sit down and tell me, start to finish. Don't leave anything out, I will know if you do."
"Annabel..."
"Brianne. Sit, please."
Brianne had intended to leave out the parts of her dream relating to Nosgoth, she really had. She had started to even, but looking at Annabel she found that she just couldn't, despite all reason and logic telling her otherwise. For awhile after they just sat in silence Brianne nervously fiddling with her fingers.
"What happened after you woke up?" Annabel said at last. Brianne looked up from the spot on the floor that she had been studding and over at Annabel. Annabel returned the gaze.
"Terri came to see me. Nothing happened." Brianne replied calmly. Inside she was anything but calm.
Annabel frowned. "That's not true. At least, that's not all that happened." Annabel sighed and turned to look at the floor, seeming to find the same spot that Brianne had been looking at. "There is something wrong, or at least, different. There is a new source of energy in the house, two of them actually. Very... outlandish, powerful, dark and yet strangely vulnerable, there's no resistance there, with either of them. Very strange."
"Energy source?" Brianne asked and was disturbed to hear how quiet and shaky she sounded. Oh great way to sound the innocent Brianne!
... 'I suggest you don't speak of this to anyone, not that they would believe you if you told them. After all, we are just fictional characters from a game, are we not?'...
Kains words haunted her, what if that had not just been a mere suggestion but a command or a threat?
"Hmm. I believe the popular term for it is aura. The energy of life, or more specifically the spirit. There are two new people, spirits, elements, whatever, in my house and I have never felt the likes of them before, ever." Brianne grew increasingly nervous with every word she said or so it seemed.
"And you think this has something to do with me and my dreams? They where only dreams, and Nosgoth is a fictional place in a game, how can I possibly have anything to do with this?" Brianne managed to keep her voice calm, even a bit incredulous or so she hoped.
Alas, Annabel either wasn't paying much attention to her at this point or could see through her now as easily as she did before."When people interact" she continued regardless, "their energy affects one another, it leaves a kind of an imprint on those around them. The longer people spend together or the closer the relationship the grater the imprint it leaves and the longer it lasts. You are surrounded by the energy of the strangers, Brianne, one more than the other." She turned her sharp gaze to her, "You know them."
Brianne sat and stared at Annabel. What could she say? Yes I do know your mysterious visitors, they are a couple of fictional vampires I unwittingly summoned from a game? Hay gess what, your unknown entities don't exist, except now they do? What? Seeing no way out of the situation Brianne just sat in silence looking at the floor, knowing all too well that in doing so she had confessed her gilt as surely as if she had said the words out loud.
"What are they?" Annabel pressed. Brianne said nothing. "Are they dangerous?"
"If they want to be. If it suits them." If they are hungry. Brianne sent Annabel a pointed look hoping, praying she would get the hint and leave well enough alone. Kain had said they were not here to hurt her but he hadn't included anyone else in that statement. Annabel turned a cold look at the door across from them, her jaw set.
"Can we get rid of them?" She said softly, almost whispering.
"I don't know." Brianne said honestly. "But I wouldn't want to try it behind their backs." She dreaded to think how they might respond if they found out she had been trying exorcise them, or something, without their consent.
"I see." They lapsed into thoughtful silence again. Brianne was currently living in a very weird kind of calm panic; What if Annabel tried to intervene? "Will you be seeing them soon?" Annabel's question startled Brianne out of her privet thoughts and she had to do a quick mental replay before she answered.
"I- I am. Soon, er now ish really." She muttered, what point was there in lying now?
"Alright. Well, I wont keep you any longer. Thank you for talking to me." She said softly, clearly troubled.
"Yeah, um..." What could she say? Brianne got up and made her way to the door. Suddenly Annabel stood up and caught Brianne's arm, stopping her.
"I want you to promise me that you will be carful Brianne. Follow your heart and trust your instincts, they wont lead you astray."
"I- I promise, Annabel. I'll be careful." Brianne left silently, closing the door behind her, leaving Annabel to her thoughts.
Brianne had just climbed the last of the stairs and was starting towards her room when Terri caught up with her.
"Yo! Anne! Wait up! You going to finish that game?" She called as she jogged to catch up with her. Brianne froze. It was now past sunset and the sky was rapidly darkening. She was expecting to see Kain and Raziel back at her room anytime now and there was no way Brianne was going to let Terri see them. To her horror however Terri had already caught up with Brianne and threading her arm through hers, was leading them towards Brianne's room, saying something about making up for lost time after last night.
"You know I don't think im going to bother," Brianne cut in quickly, planting her feet just outside her door, determined that Terri would not even get the chance to look at what may or may not be waiting beyond. "Im knackered, personally I was just hoping to get an early night."
"Ow, come on spoil sport. After last nights build up you expect to wait until next time? Im going in and hour or two, you know I love the endings to those games."
"Yeah, they're very... dramatic." Things looked a little different when you had met the people involved in such 'dramatic' situations face to face.
"Well, that's one word you could use." Terri laughed, oblivious "Tragic is more how I would describe it but dramatic works too." She continued, not picking up on Brianne's sharpy growing discomfort. "And the Soal Reaver 2 ending is definitely one that pulls on the heart strings, bless." Oh god, please don't let him be listening, please don't let him be listening... Brianne began to contemplate ever more drastic measures she could take to get rid of Terri. "Honestly, you just feel like giving him a hug or something," Terri continued, relentless. Brianne wished the floor would swallow her up, or better yet swallow Terri up, but she was too horrified to speak. "And then Kains reaction, the look on his face and that little wana be 'hug'," Terri laughed. NONONONONONONO! Don't say it, don't- "Its no wonder that the slash fict- Yikes Anne are you ok!" Brianne had fallen into a fit of panicked choking and spluttering as soon as Terri mentioned the word 'slash'. It wasn't that Brianne minded slash fanfiction when it was done right, its just that she didn't think that Kain and Raziel would agree. Besides, even if they did, that really was not something you just talked about like that when the people in question could be listening, especially when said people might take offense and rip the still beating heart from the offender, literally. "Whoa there girl just breath ok? Don't choke! You cant choke on air for crying out loud, or did you just swallow your tongue or something?" Brianne thought she could very well have done, thank you very much. She hadn't been paying much attention, she was a little bit more worried about the door behind her, and what lay beyond that.
Finally catching her breath and having checked that her tongue was in its right place, Brianne made another desperate attempt to get Terri to leave. "Look Terri I really need to sleep, I'm absolutely exhausted and im not feeling too healthy either. You have the game at your place, why don't you play it yourself so you can see its end without having to keep the sick from their bed rest eh?" Brianne smiled to take any sting from the jibe, but prayed to any power ready to heed her that Terri wouldn't use her good hummer to try and get what she was after regardless.
Terri smiled in return, "Well when you put it like that it makes me look like the villain! I wasn't the one who decided to have a little late night gaming session, we could have been done in five minutes if you hadn't been so impatient!" Terri laughed, giving her friend a mock glare.
Brianne started to relax, "Well look on the good side, it gives you a little incentive to play your own copy, you keep saying you wanted to get back into it, well this is your excuse!"
"Spoil sport."
"Yeah I know, live with it." Brianne laughed at last, putting her hand on the handle to her door, seeing that Terri had finally relented.
"Alright already. Well if you are calling it a night now I guess I'll see you back at collage next week then."
"Yeah, guess so. Night, see you then."
Terri laughed, "My, you're eager to be rid of me!" she waved off any protests, laughing along with her friend, "not that I don't have places to be," she grinned wolfishly "and people to see." Both girls laughed, and with a final round of 'good night's' Brianne was finally able to slip through the door to her room, locking it behind her as she near collapsed against it.
Brianne spent a few minuets just stood there, her head pressed against the door, not thinking, just enjoying the quite while it lasted. Behind her she heard the gentle swish of the bathroom door opening. "Wish we could find you a better hiding place than that." She mumbled, still with her head pressed against the door.
"Well, as needs must..." Kain muttered behind her, seeming to share her wish.
Turning around Brianne leaned back against the door before looking up as Raziel walked over to the window again, taking up a place similar to that morning. Kain seemed to make a point of looking perfectly comfortable leaning against the door frame to the bathroom.
"Well," muttered Brianne, looking back down at her feet, "what now?"
"You continue with your life as normal." Kain said as if it was the most simple and obvious thing in the world.
"W-what?" Brianne stuttered, "H-how? How can I go on as normal with..." she paused, not certain quite how to say what she was thinking without insulting them, however slight the insult may be.
Kain waved off her hesitation "We need to try to remain undetected in this world, at least until we have a better idea of the economic and social mechanisms here, how far we can push it to our advantage-"
"Not far." She muttered, not sure if Kain would heard her.
Apparently he did, his gaze turning critical "Perhaps. That is what we need to find out. If you draw attention to yourself, you may draw attention to us."
"Why do you need me? Cant you figure out what you need to know, whatever that may be, without me..." Brianne trailed off, when even Raziel turned back to look at her "Sorry, I brought you here... responsibility, yeah..." She mumbled, guiltily.
"You know this world Brianne," Kain continued levelly "you are comfortable here and can therefor be of some help to us."
Oh of corse, im useful to them... She thought, somewhat bitterly. Remembering who she was dealing with didn't help much either."Help with what?" She said, sounding a little more petulant than she had wanted.
"Whatever necessary."
The silence that fallowed was most unpleasant for Brianne, and she was absolutely certain they were doing this deliberately. She was still a little uncomfortable about the what Terri had said earlier, Brianne couldn't help but think that they had properly heard the whole disaster of a conversation. She sent a discreet glance at Raziel, he was looking out the window again, in fact he had barely moved an inch since she had come into the room and they had emerged from their 'hiding place'. She was just trying to think of a way to brake the silence and talk to him when he saved her the trouble, confirming her fears.
"You said that Terri had her own copy of the games. It was those," He pointed to the bathroom, indicating the Legacy of Kain games she had hidden under the sink. "That you were referring to?" At Brianne's slight nod, he continued "They are identical?"
"Yes, well they were, hers would have the pictures of you two that I mentioned on the cover and..." She stopped. What if they didn't, what if it wasn't just her games that were affected?
She froze, her eyes growing wide and the blood drained from her face, for a second she almost felt like her heart had stoped beating.
What if they were all affected?
Her imagination went into overdrive as it began to visualise the consequences of this, each image offered up worse than the last.
Word of this strange event would spread like wild fire, the web would be buzzing. Skeptics would say it's a hoax, a complex, global hoax, but a hoax non the less. But with something like this, something this big, who would believe them? It would make the news, the whole world would hear of this unprecedented event. Mystics, psychics and every other supernaturally inclined would investigate the case of the missing game characters. The posting boards and chat rooms would be ablaze with fans and non fans of the game alike. And eventually, probably sooner rather than later, someone would ask "But where have they gone?"
And then the hunt would begin. And with that kind of publicity it will be wellnigh impossible to hide two larger than life, predatory, characters from another world. Someone would see them, someone would talk and word would spread. Then the people would come. The fans, the curious, the crazies, the people with A Mission, the police, the government... There would be no end, it would be like announcing that aliens had landed. And everyone knows what the governments do to the aliens in the movies. Of corse they would try to take them in if they knew. Firstly, a bloodthirsty vampire lord and a soal stealing wraith would definitely count as a threat to society. Second they weren't exactly pleasing on the eye, the mere sight of them could easily be enough to induce panic in most people, so even if they curbed their more violent tendances they would still be a threat and thus couldn't be allowed to walk around freely. Third, they have super powers! They can jump the height of most bungalows, have telekinetic abilities, can regenerate (just apply blood/spirit energy where necessary), enormous strength, and the list goes on and on... oh boy, those wiz kids in the science labs would just love to get their hands on them. Brianne shuddered inwardly, images flashing through her mind of twisted, mutated clones and hybrids bottled up in tanks and stuck full of more wires and tubes than the back of a tv, video, DVD and games consol combo with a lamp or two thrown on the side.
And, locked away in the depths of a maximum security complex, surrounded with the latest technology and the most powerful that the supernatural world has to offer, there would be two vaults. These vaults would put the grandest, most impervious bank volt to shame, with both physical and spiritual measures designed not to keep thing out but to keep things in. There would be twenty-four hour surveillance every day of the year. And the people behind the cameras would watch. They would watch the tests, the experiments, the sampling, the endless prodding and probing. Oh of corse the 'subjects' would try to escape, and they would probably succeed, at first. But with each escape attempt, failed or otherwise, their captors would get better at containing them, one way or another. And the people behind the cameras would watch as they are striped of their pride, their dignity, their identity and their fragile hope. They would watch as the spark behind their eyes, the fire of their souls would slowly, but surely, go out...
Brianne let out a choked cry as the possible implications of this revelation sank in. Images of Raziel and Kain bound and confined like that, their faces, their eyes, dead, while faceless white coted individuals worked around and on them, burned in her mind.
No one deserved a fate like that. No one.
TBC
AN- Oooh, that is a nasty place to end, isn't it? .' I really must lay off the Sci/fi for a while hmm?
Originally this would have been a bit longer than it is now believe it or not, but there was so much heavy duty stuff in such a relatively small space (considering how big this story is turning out to be) that it was becoming overbearing. So I chopped the entire thing into bits and moved a whole chunk of it over to chapter 4 and beyond. Thing will lighten up a little later, in places, when its needed... and sometimes just for the hell of it. Till next time...
AN the 2nd: This is the first fanfiction that I have ever published, I had started to write another LOK story before this but that got put on hold as I got more focussed on this one. My very first fanfiction however was a handwritten monstrosity that I wrote years ago (9 ish years or so, I think) then forgot about. When I dug it up again about 2 years ago I was horrified by, well, just about everything about it; spelling, gramma, characterisation, story... think of the very worst mary-sue story you have ever read, multiply that by 5 and you still wont come close to the appalling piece of rubbish that, after about 10 minutes of stunned embarrassment on my part, was promptly torn, shredded, stomped on and otherwise wrecked beyond all recognition, then binned (I would have burned it but fire hazzard and what not...). The only good thing that came of that little insult to literature was that it opened my eyes to a nasty tendency on my part to let my stories spiral out of all control and sense, something I have fought to rectify ever since and am still trying to get my head round properly. Point I'm trying to make is that because this is only my second decent attempt at writing any story outside of school English projects (the other being the first LOK story I have on hold), I am still working on my writing style/technique, how to keep characters in character, keeping a story from becoming ridiculous and so on, so it is possible, even probable that this story might be quite a different animal towards the end then what it is now and hopefully this metamorphoses, if it happens, will be for the good. If anyone has any little pearls of wisdom, any hints and tips that they think are worth sharing then by all means please send them my way, it would be greatly appreciated.