a/n: amehanaa told me a little while ago while we were skyping that she was very pumped and excited for the new chapter, so that gave some push of motivation to hurry and update when this when i could. sorry for the wait ( i have been taking exams every other week since december, and i finish next month )

here's chapter two!

I See Fire

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Lucy woke up with a weight on her chest, and she could barely move because of it. It was pressing against her breast and lower neck, but not hard enough for her to have a hard time breathing. She lifted a hand a placed it upon the area to feel for anything, but felt nothing but her bare skin. Lucy sighed and opened her eyes, pushing her arms into the bed to push herself up in a seated position on the side of her bed. The weight vanished the moment her back was straight, but Lucy thought it was nothing to worry about. Her gaze fell to her thighs for a few breaths before she looked over to her dresser towards the alarm clock that stood there, and screamed out loud.

"How did I sleep in this late?!" She yelled, shooting upright from the bed and grabbing the hand sized clock in her hands and shaking it back and forth in disbelief. It was too late! She couldn't even go to school this late; they would just send her right back! She dropped her head against the wood of the dresser and sighed in disappointment, because honestly, she wanted to see Levy again, but now it was delayed another day. But lifting her head up, Lucy decided she might as well make herself useful and clean up the mess she came home to last night. She set the clock down in its place looked over her shoulder and sulked at the mass of books that was littering the carpet in messy piles and scattered clothing that wrinkled against the legs of her bed frame. It was amazing how her bathroom still seemed to be perfectly intact as well as her bookcase was still standing in one piece and not crumpling all over the place like the rest of her room seemed to be.

She started at the doorway of the room, kneeling down to her knees and carefully gathering the books and spilled papers from the carpet and placing them in a pile at her thigh. At every book she picked up from the ground, the frown on her lips deepened. None of them were ruined or torn, but it still upset and angered her that such a mess was made. Books from her childhood that she had taken care of all these years, letters from her parents, everything thrown so easily and made less of its worth. Her careful behavior turned fierce as she was now slamming each book and paper down beside her before she slapped her palms to her eyes in frustration. She wanted to claw at them and run her fingers down her face as hard as she could, but kept still for a moment. When her eyes reopened Lucy sat in silence for a minute, staring at the books and her ankles before something caught her eye.

The corner of one of the papers on the ground was burned brown. Lucy's eyes widen and she furrowed her brows, leaning over and snatching the paper from the ground and flipping it over. It filled her with relief to see that the page was blank and that it wasn't one of her letters or pages from a book, but the frown on her lips was still present. She doesn't remember burning anything or keeping anything burned, as a matter of fact. Anything she recalls of her becoming ruined to the point of it being non-useful she trashed almost immediately. And not to mention she remembered setting everything in its place in her room. Nothing was burned.

"How odd." Lucy mumbled to herself.

Soft movement in front of her caught her attention shortly, causing her to move her eyes slowly to leg of her bed where the figure was moving towards her. Her body stilled the moment her eyes locked. The cat paused and peered at her, swaying a misting blue tail slowly behind him. Charcoal, and seemingly lifeless eyes, bored into her being. Lucy felt like a bolder was placed upon her limbs, that was how stiff she felt. The cat kept as still as she was. Lucy breathed quietly and studied the small thing that was slowly lifting a paw in the air, like it was about leap forward or make a run for it. It was blue—yes, blue. The color of it seemed to be darker on the lower half of its body while the tips of its ears, back and tail were a powdered blue due to it's transparent texture.

Lucy squinted her eyes shut and reopened them just to be sure it was actually there. No matter how many times her eyes opened and closed, the cat remained in the same place in front of her, in the same position.

Ahh! I'm going crazy! I'm crazy I've gone crazy! Lucy mentally yelled at herself.

Different patterns and words jumbled in her mind. This cat couldn't be the thing that has been causing the ruckus and this mess, could it? It was small, it was blue, it was see-through, and it was blue! She remembers reading a article or two about the blue furred cat breed going extinct a couple months back and how there was only a few left of its kind. She had never seen one before, not to mention the soul of one! But, she would admit, it was pretty fascinating.

Cautiously she reached a hand out and leaned forwards on her knees, carefully and slowly inching her fingers to the cats face. The pupils in the cats eyes thinned and the visible hairs on the tips of its ears stood to their ends, and before Lucy could react or even move, the cat hunched back and hissed sharply at her. Lucy gasped when the cat dashed out beside her towards the door, its movements becoming blurred and enveloped in a light fog and as Lucy snapped her head in its direction. The feline vanished for a moment in a shadow between the areas of the doorframe, wrapping itself around another figure that slowly emerged from the shadow of the hallway in front of her, a good few feet from her seated figure. Lucy parted her lips and slowly moved her eyes up along the larger mass of haze that she cat climbed up until it planted itself on the shoulder of what—or who—appeared in front of her.

The picture slowly became more explicit and vivid, easier to see and make out, swirling and blurring in motions until the haze stilled in a single form. Her eyes widen as soon she was looking at the face of a male, her chocolate hue orbs flickering nervously across the appearance of him and the cat that settled itself around the back of his neck. She was breathing in short and quick puffs of breath, and it felt as if after every intake of air she took, her lungs would sink deeper and deeper into the pit of her stomach, but at the same time it felt like there was not enough air to take in. Like the new presence that appeared in front of her was sucking all the source of oxygen and leaving very thin, very little for her to breathe.

The boy looked away from her and to the feline that was rubbing into his shoulder, and Lucy took this moment to actually look at him. She could make out that he was wearing a dark hoodie and jeans, but she can't make out much of the colors on them from the lack of light in her room and coming from the hall. But his rosy hair and tanned skin stood out more than anything. They seemed to be more vibrant and brighter than anything about him. The colors on him gave off a warm glow that Lucy couldn't even get from a regular lamp light.

He was unique, it seemed. But Lucy's heart rate had very little time to calm before the specter male was facing her again, eyes boring into hers in silence. Her thoughts halted and so did the rest of her body, stiffening under the attention he was giving her. It was startling to feel her body react that way.

She was afraid.

Nervous beyond her belief.

Never in her life had she felt nerves like this before.

Her mind was soaring and her legs screamed at her to move, get up and run. Her mind argued against them and urged her to stay, that if she moved, only disaster will come, and that was what brought the stiffening fear that was holding her legs to the floor like an anchor.

Lucy wanted to move, she really did. The way their swirling eyes bored into her felt like an eraser was carving into her skin, slowly moving the flesh aside until there was nothing but a hole and her spirit left for them to reach in and grab, and the battle was too strong for her to will off herself.

She needed a distraction, something enough for her to tear her eyes away from him for just a moment; something to divert her mind away from the stiffening fear that was crawling up her arms and allow her to move her legs and run.

She should be able to do it, right? What was she afraid over? Was there anything really horrible he could do to her?

I could think of at least eight things at the moment, Lucy thought.

Before she could think of any possible worse scenario that would surly send her in more of an internal panic, there was a flicker of movement and he was inches from her face. Lucy jerked back against her hands and elbows, digging them unconsciously into the carpeting until her knuckles turned white. She felt the chill of mist brush over her skin when he closed in. The rest of her body froze in lack of knowledge on how to react the sudden turn of behavior, and her mind was running a mile a minute but no thought was clear to comprehend. The walls started to slowly sink in as Lucy's focus was now in the eyes of the phantom's hovering just a few inches from touching her, swirling behind them into the black hole of her mind and out from her line of vision. An azure tail swayed slowly along the boys jaw line, going in circles and curling into the nap of his neck before straightening, and repeating it over and over, hypnotizing and confusing her mind, causing her to space out and stare deeper in the swirling depths of the transparent hue of his eyes.

His hand reached up between them and moved for her cheek, barely glazing her skin by centimeters before Lucy snapped her senses and jumped up in a heap. The movement caused the mist to scatter in a messy cloud around her, mixing in colors of blue and red, but that was the distraction she needed. Lucy took this relieving opportunity to run out of the room, through the kitchen and into the living room before she threw open her apartment door. She fumbled with her balance as her bare feet came in contact with the cement as she sprinted for the stairs that stretched around the building to the street.

Lucy finally came to a stop when she made it to the other side of the street, leaning on her knees to catch her breath. After a few moments to about a minute of heaving, she turned her head over her shoulder and looked up to the second floor where the door to her apartment was hanging wide open. Anyone who witnessed the action of her running out of that door was probably thinking she was some mad woman, and she wouldn't blame them.

She was thinking same thing.

The feeling was still there on her skin. Her fingers pressed against her cheek, as if the souls fingers was still reaching for it. Lucy swallowed loudly and sighed a shaky breath, pushing off her knees and straightened her back, and turned back towards the apartment building.

She'll have to go back in eventually, she was aware of that. It her apartment, she can't abandon it. But—

Lucy frowned and stared at the door, feeling sweat trickle down her brow and over the bridge of her nose. Just inside the door looked dark, but that was given since she left no lights on when she woke up this morning or when she ran out. But from what she just experienced, she believed her room is just a black hole. She was able to believe that, right? After what she just went through? After what she just felt?

BAM!

The door slammed shut and undoubtedly locked her out.

It took a moment before Lucy started laughing nervously up towards the building with clenched teeth, turning her sights down the street to distract herself. Did anyone else see that? Lucy silently questioned but dismissed the thought as fast as it came.

"Heheh! Where does Levy live again? Haha . . ." Internally, she was screaming.

Maybe just for now she could abandon it. She'd come back in a day or month.

She was about to move on her way in the direction of her school in hopes of meeting Levy as she was going home, but Lucy caught a rapid movement coming from one of the windows of one of the apartments on the first floor. Lucy made eye contact with the woman watching her through the window for a moment before she stepped back and pulled the curtains together to hide herself from Lucy's view. The woman, Lucy assumed was old-aged, acted as if she was just caught first handed in a middle of a crime or, in this case, watching someone far longer than they were supposed to.

Golden brows furrowed in confusion and Lucy's body lost its previous tense to it as she slowly started walking back across the street, towards the apartment the woman was watching her from. Lucy can still feel the tingles of her nerves on her shoulders, the feeling of being watched, and it was more obvious now that she noticed it.

In the amount of time since Lucy moved in, she hadn't really talked to any of her neighbors in the complex, much less seen any of them outside their rooms unless they were in the parking lot when she was leaving or coming home from school. She was not one to complain or think too much of the lack of welcome coming from these people, but they all looked at her like a foreign object, and almost like there was a limit for one like her here. Like they were waiting for her to leave. The feeling was unsettling, but Lucy learned long ago to not let small things get the best of her, a nice lesson taught to her by her father.

But since her mind was a little off now as it was, Lucy couldn't help but dislike how quiet the complex was. Sure, she was the only teenager living here while everyone else is middle-aged or elders, but where was that living atmosphere at? There must have been a history of this place she had yet to learn about.

Walking the last few feet up to the door, Lucy knocked a few times on the hollow metal and stepped back a step and waited for the door to be answered. Her hands relaxed lazily at her sides and her feet softly shifted her weight from on foot to the other as she patiently waited, as the seconds went by. It must have been no more than one minute later did the sound of a chain being removed entered her ears, and the door cracked open to reveal half the aged woman's face.

Upon seeing Lucy at her door step, the lady sucked in a breath and held it, scanning her eyes quickly across her appearance and bare feet before asking, "Do you need something?"

Lucy could tell she was making the woman nervous and that she was unwanted here, but she pretended not to notice, "I saw you looking out your window, and—," Lucy paused to watch the expression on her change from uneasy to a flushed startle, and she decided not to beat around the bush. Lucy sucked in her own breath and slowly released it before straightening her back and gripping her fingers into the palms of her hands, and asked, "What do you know about apartment 2B? The one I just moved into?"

The woman's eyes widen just slightly and the color dropped from her cheeks, and Lucy knew she was going to get something out of this, even just a sentence, at least.

The lady hesitated for moment and seemed to be struggling to keep her composure. Not a moment later was she looking left and right of their position to be sure no one else was around and listening to their conversation. When she was sure it was only the two of them, she backed back into the safety of her apartment and looked Lucy in the eye.

"I would leave if I was you," She said, "Everyone here knows."

Lucy narrowed her eyes at the statement, "Knows what?" The woman shushed her and scanned the area once again quickly, and Lucy couldn't help but do the same.

"He was a boy. A teenager like yourself, but maybe a little older. Oh, God rest his young soul," She was speaking fast and in such a low tone, Lucy ended up having to lean in to be able to hear her properly. When the distance between them shortened, the woman moved back a few inches, "That apartment was never fixed up after the accident. It had to have been a few months before the lord sold you the place."

Lucy clicked her teeth together and looked at the ground. So the lord did know when she bought the apartment.

"I—I don't think I can say much more, so it's best you take your leave now—"

"Wait!" Lucy put her hand on the door when she woman tried to close it and placed her foot on the bottom from to stop it, "Did you ever see the boy? What he looked like? Any pets? Did he go to my school?" Lucy figured if she can get any type of information of his appearance she can look more into her research and learn what she has to do. She didn't want to move out, she'd rather handle things on her own. And could it be the same boy she saw in her apartment? There was a large chance, but she had to be sure.

The woman shook her hand and waved her hand, as if whacking away the amount of questions Lucy was throwing at her, "No, no! I don't remember. I never paid much attention, but he did have many friends come over time to time."

"So you never saw him?" Lucy slumped in disappointment.

"Not many people did. He was always in his room."