~ Prologue ~

A Cacophony of Emptiness

Calling,

You hear the calling,

Calling,

You hear the calling…

23-year-old Celia Winter had never been much of a morning person. Since her work rarely called for her to wake up early, she often slept through the better part of the morning. As such, her roommate wasn't overly surprised to find her sprawled out over their dining room table, fast asleep.

"Huh. Back to bed with you, Sleeping Beauty."

Celia lifted her head drowsily to see her best friend standing over her, wearing an amused expression. "Good morning, Karen," she murmured.

"Why are you up so early?" Karen asked as she took the seat across from Celia. "Do you need to drop off a commission?"

Celia yawned wearily, and roughly brushing several strands of her long, black hair out of her eyes. "No, not today," she said. "I just couldn't sleep."

"You seemed to be sleeping fine just now," Karen remarked teasingly.

"Yeah, well. Whatever," Celia mumbled. She reached for her bowl of soggy and thus far untouched cornflakes, only for Karen to abruptly pull it out of her reach. "Hey!"

"Did you serve yourself with a teaspoon? Celia, the starving artist is a stereotype, not a way of life! Honestly!" Karen admonished. Then, ignoring Celia's protests, she reached for the cereal box and filled the bowl up to the brim.

"What are you, my father?" Celia sighed helplessly.

"When I have to be," Karen answered cheerily as she poured herself a cup of coffee. "You have any plans for the day?"

Celia thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I'll probably head into Seattle later," she replied.

"I thought you said you didn't need to drop off anything today," Karen said, shooting her friend an odd look.

"I don't," Celia confirmed. "But I'm beginning to fall behind on my work. I have six commissions that I need to finish by next Friday."

"That many?" Karen asked, genuinely surprised. "Nice!"

"It's not that nice," Celia said hastily. "Two of them are smaller pieces. Even if all six of my clients come through, it'll only come out to four hundred in total."

"Well, at least you're scraping by. How many of your old classmates could say the same?" Karen pointed out.

"Actually…" Celia began.

"How many of them that aren't working in a coffee shop or supermarket," Karen amended.

"I think the rest of them have pretty much given up by now," Celia admitted. "I heard Terrence is going back to school to study some sort of engineering, but that's all, really."

"See?" Karen grinned. "You're doing alright. You've even got a steady-ish income from one of those peon-thingies now."

"," Celia corrected automatically.

"Whatever. The point is, you're getting by when almost everyone else has just given up. Give yourself some credit," Karen insisted.

Her friend's relentless optimism proved contagious, and Celia couldn't help but smile. "You know what? You're right," Celia conceded. "I guess I'm doing okay, and I should be getting a nice bonus next week, too, if everything goes well."

"See? That's the spirit," Karen nodded approvingly. "Though, if you're really worried about finishing in time, maybe you should stay home and catch up on your work instead."

Celia hesitated. "No, I get too distracted when working from home," she said slowly.

"Well, if it's distractions you're worried about, you could pick a quieter place to work instead, like a library or something," Karen offered, feigning innocence.

"Umm… I don't know…" Celia stammered, fumbling for another excuse.

"Unless you're hoping to be distracted," Karen added slyly. "Are you meeting up with that friend of yours again? The one with a girl's name?"

Celia's cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. "I don't know. Maybe," she admitted.

"Maybe?" Karen echoed, before heaving an exasperated sigh. "Come on, Celia. We're not in high school anymore. You've got his number. Just text him and tell him you want to see him or something. You don't need to spend the entire day sitting in a coffee shop hoping he'll come by. I mean, you don't even drink coffee!"

"He doesn't drink coffee, either," Celia pointed out.

"That's exactly my point," Karen smirked. "You two are being perfectly ridiculous about this."

Celia chuckled weakly. "Just me, I think," she admitted. "He works in that area, and drops by for tea."

"You don't honestly believe he drops by Starbucks three-plus times a week just for tea, do you?" Karen asked incredulously.

"Why not? Plenty of people go there for coffee every day," Celia said defensively.

"People with too much money and too little sense," Karen grumbled distastefully, though she couldn't quite keep her envy from showing through.

"Probably," Celia agreed. "But I really do like working there, Karen. I'm used to the background noise by now, after all the time I've spent loitering around waiting for my clients to show up."

"If you say so," Karen said, sounding unconvinced. Still, she decided to let the matter drop, and silently toyed with her phone as she waited for Celia to finish eating.

After placing her dishes on the drying rack, Celia collected her purse and laptop bag. "See you later, Karen," she said.

"Hold up," Karen insisted, quickly retrieving her own purse. "I'm coming with you."

"You are? What for?" Celia asked, startled.

"To meet this friend of yours, of course," Karen replied.

"But I don't even know if he'll be there today," Celia reminded.

Karen shrugged. "I've got the day off and nothing better to do, anyways."

Celia eyed Karen suspiciously, and for the first time, she noticed that her friend actually looked ready to go; Karen usually spent upwards of an hour fiddling with her hair, makeup, and clothing before going anywhere. "You already knew where I was going any why," Celia accused.

"Of course I did," Karen grinned. "You've only been visiting that same coffee shop four or five times a week, lately. You don't mind if I tag along today, do you?"

Celia sighed, somewhat annoyed by her friend's nosiness and teasing. At the same time, she quite enjoyed having company while she worked, and found the offer appealing nonetheless. "No, I don't," she decided. "Let's go. The bus should be here soon."

The two young women set out together, setting a leisurely pace as they made their way towards the nearest bus stop. Their timing proved perfect, and the bus pulled up beside them less than a minute after their arrival.

But as Celia started up the steps, she saw that Karen was no longer following her. She looked back to find the distracted brunette standing still on the sidewalk, entranced by her phone and seemingly oblivious to the bus's arrival. "Hey! Are you coming or not?" she prompted impatiently.

"Oh! Yeah, of course," Karen answered hastily, before scrambling aboard. Her attention remained fixated upon her phone, though, even after the bus began moving.

"What are you reading?" Celia asked, peering curiously over Karen's shoulder.

"Have you heard about the recent string of vandalisms?" Karen asked.

"Vandalisms? You mean those random junk heaps? Of course I have. It's been all over the news," Celia said, smiling at the thought of the outlandish story.

"They found another one this morning. This one's got half a car in it," Karen said, giggling. She held up her phone for Celia to get a better look. Sure enough, the front half of a beaten chrome sedan comprised the base of the oddly geometric tower.

"And the police still haven't figured out who's responsible?" Celia asked, flabbergasted. "That's the art museum in the background, isn't it? How could someone have built that tower right in the middle of downtown without anyone noticing?"

"Don't ask me," Karen shrugged. "Honestly, I was more surprised by the one they found last week. That one had a whole piano in it, and was right in the middle of Pike Place Market. You should see the theories people have come up with, though. The other day, someone said it was the police pulling a three-month late April Fools' prank."

"And no one noticed the police roping off the entire block in the middle of the night, right?" Celia commented dryly.

"I didn't say their theories made sense. Someone else claimed it was Paul Allen trying to spell his name on a map of the city," Karen added impishly.

Celia stared at her friend in disbelief. "Just where are you finding these people?" she asked.

"Oh, here and there," Karen said, stashing her phone in her purse. "When you spend seven hours a day browsing the web, you come across some pretty strange stuff."

"Your boss still hasn't given you any real work, then?" Celia asked sympathetically.

"Oh, sure he has," Karen said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "Now I get to sort the mail, too, after fetching him his coffee. This internship is turning out to be pretty stupid. You'd think I was hired just to sit there and look pretty."

"Maybe you should start looking for another job," Celia suggested.

"Yeah," Karen agreed. "Hey, doesn't your boyfriend run his own company? Maybe he's hiring."

"Faith isn't my boyfriend," Celia said obstinately. "And his business is a nonprofit that does rehab counseling or something. I don't think they'd have a marketing department." She frowned. "I guess we could ask him," she added grudgingly.

Karen stared at Celia thoughtfully, for her friend's hesitation had not escaped her. "I promise I won't try to steal him from you, if that's what you're worried about," she assured, smiling playfully.

"Oh, I know," Celia replied, laughing lightly. "I don't think he's really your type, anyways. But thanks."

If anything, Celia should have been more worried about the opposite happening. She knew that she herself was not unattractive, with her slender frame, softer features, and exotic eyes stemming from her half-Asian heritage, but Karen was a veritable paragon of classical beauty. The brunette was slender, yet curvy in all the right places, and had beautifully rounded, piercing green eyes that easily enraptured almost everyone she met. Along with her careful attention in maintaining every last detail of her appearance, it was enough to lead many to mistake the recently-graduated marketing student for a fashion model instead.

Yet for some reason that Celia herself didn't fully understand, she wasn't overly concerned about Faith falling for her friend, either. As she paused to consider her own surprising confidence, her frown unconsciously returned.

Misinterpreting Celia's contemplative look, Karen's smile faded as well. "If it bothers you, I won't ask him," she offered. "It's probably moot, anyways."

Celia shook her head quickly. "It's fine," she said. "We should ask him. We really need to get you away from that creep you're stuck working for."

Karen chuckled. "At least the dirty old pervert hasn't done anything but stare when he thinks I'm not looking," she said. "I can't believe I had to beat out six others for this position. If you ever decide to give up on your art career and go back to school, don't go into marketing."

"Duly noted," Celia replied dryly, and the two women shared a laugh.

"Then again, you've met your own share of creeps too, haven't you?" Karen said, when their laughter subsided. "Like the one who sent you all those absurd hates messages last weekend."

Celia groaned. "You know, those weren't even the creepiest e-mails I've received, just the most outrageous," she said.

"I still say you should have gone to the cops. That maniac even threatened to shoot you," Karen said, frowning worriedly.

"Yeah. He even went into great detail about his gun. Which, when we looked it up, turned out to be a nerf gun, remember?" Celia sighed.

"Empty threat or not, it's probably still enough to get that asshole arrested," Karen pointed out.

"He's not worth the effort," Celia insisted.

"Fair enough. He's only one in a long line of creeps, anyways," Karen conceded. "And the jury's still out on this friend of yours, too, especially if he really seems as nice as you say."

Celia stared at her sharply. "I think you've been reading too many of those dark romance novels of yours, Karen," she remarked.

"They're not wrong, though. Everybody has their secrets. The nicer a guy seems, the more he's hiding, usually," Karen said with a shrug.

"So does that make Faith a serial killer or a CIA agent?" Celia asked, rolling her eyes.

"A politician, obviously," Karen joked.

Celia feigned a horrified look. "A politician? Anything but that," she pleaded in mock desperation, before both women dissolved into peals of laughter once more.

"In all seriousness," Karen said, finally calming. "It's probably nothing crazy like that. I'm just a bit worried, since you haven't really told me much about him."

"There's not all that much to tell," Celia answered helplessly.

"Well, what's he like?" Karen prompted.

"Hmm… well, he's pretty soft-spoken," Celia began. "He always seems really relaxed; I can't remember seeing him get upset about anything. Even that one time when he said he was really busy with work, he didn't seem too tired or stressed out."

"Maybe he's always stoned," Karen quipped. "I'm kidding," she added hastily, when Celia scowled at her. She turned and peered out the window, watching the mild waves go by as the bus moved along the floating bridge. "What do you two usually talk about?"

"Sometimes he tells me stories about his office," Celia said, temporarily mollified. "But he usually asks to see what I'm working on. I've started showing him some of my older pieces, lately."

"What, like the landscapes and still lifes you used to draw?" Karen asked.

"Yeah," Celia nodded. "I think he actually prefers those to my more recent work."

"He's got good taste, then," Karen said, impressed. "I mean, no offense, but all that fan art you've been commissioned to draw lately is pretty cliché and unimaginative."

"None taken," Celia sighed. "I find the pop culture stuff just as boring as you and Faith do. It's all been done to death a million times over. Still, that's all people seem willing to pay for. They just want to see their favorite movie, video game, and anime characters and scenes." Feeling rather silly, she shook her head. "I really shouldn't be complaining. At least I found a market, even if it wasn't the one I was searching for."

"Well, you found at least one other person who shares your taste in art, right?" Karen reminded encouragingly. "There has to be others like your new friend. You just have to figure out how to reach them."

"True, but that's another thing," Celia mused. "I'm not sure why Faith is so fascinated with my art. He's not really the artistic type, himself."

"How do you know?" Karen asked. She winced, a troubling thought suddenly occurring to her. "Don't tell me he's one of those guys with less than zero fashion sense."

"I don't know what his fashion sense is like. I've never seen him not wearing a suit and tie," Celia admitted. "But this one time, he was asking me about my drawing pad. I offered to let him draw something on it, and he drew the dopiest looking cat I've ever seen."

"Eh… I doubt I could've done much better," Karen said fairly.

"But that's not all," Celia said, trying not to laugh. "Last week, I asked him about his plans for the weekend. Turns out he lost a bet against his business partner, and wound up owing his office a batch of cupcakes. He saved one for me, too. It was… well, it doesn't look like any other cupcake I've seen before. Here, I took a picture." She shuffled through her own phone until she reached a picture of a small chocolate cake topped with plain white frosting molded into various geometric shapes.

"Did he use cookie cutters to shape the frosting or something?" Karen asked, inspecting the image closely.

"I think he used a knife. The cake is a little bit scuffed up, too," Celia said, pointing out several shallow scratches with frosting within them.

"At least it looks edible, even if it's sort of ridiculous," Karen observed.

"It was actually really good," Celia said. "I thought he would have used a baking mix or something, but he said he made them all from scratch."

The bus lurched suddenly, and began grinding to a halt. Though the bus was still slowing, Celia rose to her feet and began hurriedly gathering her belongings. "This is our stop," she explained unnecessarily, as Karen followed suit, albeit with far more patience.

"Think he'll be there already?" Karen asked.

"Probably not. He usually doesn't show up until noon, at least," Celia said, though she couldn't quite keep the hopeful note from her voice.

"Well, maybe we'll get lucky," Karen said cheerfully.

Two blocks away from the coffee shop to which Celia and Karen were headed, a young Japanese man stood in the middle of one of Seattle's lesser-used streets, toiling away. He had lightened his hair to an odd shade of gray, but with his otherwise youthful looks, no one could possibly have mistaken him for an older man. His skin was deeply tanned, and served to emphasize the peculiar, fanatical look in his eyes. His clothing looked as out of place on him as he did in the street, too. He wore a finely tailored, black short-sleeved coat, embellished by polished brass buttons, and a ragged pair of distressed gray jeans. A red bandana and plain black baseball cap completed his bizarre ensemble.

None of the streets at the heart of the populous city were truly derelict, and several pedestrians wandered past the mysterious foreigner. Yet somehow, he managed to avoid drawing any attention from them at all, despite his unusual appearance. Stranger still, his project – a meticulously arranged pile of random garbage pilfered from various dumpsters – also remained unnoticed.

Ignoring the world around him, the self-proclaimed artist scaled the precarious sculpture, adding the final touches to the top with unbridled glee. Once the last piece was in place and the sculpture reached nearly twenty feet high, he leapt down to the sidewalk, landing gracefully on his feet. He reached into his pocket and silenced his incessantly beeping phone, then drew forth a silver marker. He then began scanning the street impatiently, as if he was waiting for a specific moment.

A young Caucasian man, barely more than a teenager, strolled around the nearest corner. The vandal smiled eagerly and readied his marker, but stopped, sensing that something even stranger was afoot. He stared at newcomer curiously, looking past the pedestrian's pasty complexion, unimpressive stature, and gangly limbs.

The vandal grinned wickedly, for in those brief seconds, he had understood far more than any normal man should have been able to. He reached into his pocket again, replacing his marker and withdrawing his phone, which still displayed a long stream of unread messages.

"Zetta osoindayo," the would-be vandal cackled derisively in his native tongue.

Stopped at an intersection, Celia and Karen watched as a large group of tourists traveled perpendicular to them.

"Headed towards the Space Needle, I bet," Karen remarked.

"Definitely," Celia agreed. "Did you see the older man with the goatee? That's Ivan. He's a tour guide. I see him at the coffee shop a lot, too."

"I've never understood why people are so interested in visiting that tower," Karen said, shaking her head. "It does look kind of weird, but that's about it. Why bother going inside? To ride an elevator? Or to visit the mediocre, overpriced restaurant on top?"

"Well, most of them are tourists here to see our city, and the Space Needle is one of our city's symbols, isn't it?" Celia reasoned. "Though why anyone considers it a symbol, I don't know."

"Bo-ring," Karen declared. Just then, the lights changed, and the two of them crossed the street. Not far away, their destination came into view, with the familiar green-and-white logo painted on the glass beside the doorway. "By the way, what does your friend look like?"

Celia opened her mouth to answer, but her words died away as she spotted something jarringly out of the ordinary.

A dark-haired man who looked approximately their age was sprinting down the sidewalk towards them from the direction of the coffee store. He was wearing a fine business suit, tailored to his solidly built, six-foot frame, but it didn't seem to hamper him in the least as he pushed his way past the other pedestrians.

"Is that him?" Karen asked, following Celia's gaze.

Celia nodded numbly. Though Faith's glasses had gone dark in the sunlight, making it hard for her to read his expression, she knew at once that something was wrong; his frantic movements were shockingly uncharacteristic.

Then he came within earshot of Celia and Karen. "Celia! Get down!" Faith cried.

Celia and Karen exchanged bewildered looks. Then Celia again looked towards her fast-approaching friend.

Faith plunged his left hand into his suit, towards his right hip. He drew forth a small, metallic implement that glistened brightly, reflecting the rays of the morning sun above, and pointed it directly at the two women.

A handgun.

"Look out!" Karen screamed, as cries of horror erupted all along the street. The brunette seized Celia's hand, thinking to dive to the ground and drag her friend out of the line of fire.

Celia stood frozen for a moment longer. Then she jolted, and her entire body went stiff, as she felt a sudden, sharp pain in her back. An earsplitting crack rang out loudly, spurring on the panicked cries, but to Celia, the raucous seemed to dampen. She tried to move, but felt unnaturally sluggish. Her gaze drifted downward, only to find the ground racing up to catch her.

She laid there, unmoving, only faintly aware of the continuing screams around her. It was as if a tangible fog had set upon her, gradually drowning the noise around her in silence. Then a single voice pierced through the cloud of haziness, and a shiver ran down her spine, for never before had she heard that voice so beset by distress and terror.

"CELIA!"

Celia felt a gentle hand clamping down tightly on her back. Then she felt an arm around her, tugging at her and turning her over. After what seemed like an eternity, the world slowly and blurrily crept back into view. Someone was leaning over her, and though she couldn't make out his face, she knew exactly who it was.

"No! Celia! Stay with me, C!"

"Faith?" Celia murmured weakly.

"Stay with me!"

Long past the point of conscious thought, Celia felt a distinct urge to pull away in disgust. She felt, too, an equal urge to reach up and touch the man cradling her in his arms. In the end, she did neither, for she had little strength left with which to move. Her eyelids fluttered, and her head lolled to the side, giving her a brief glimpse of a dark, unknowable object lying beside her.

"No! Hang in there! Breathe, damn it!"

Faith's voice began growing softer, too, until it was entirely incoherent. Feeling impossibly tired, Celia closed her eyes. The throbbing pain she had felt before collapsing began to leave her, as did any other sense of feeling.

Then she heard Faith's voice once more. The desperation and panic had left him, and he spoke in the same mellow, serene, and confident tone she remembered, one that brought her a single, brief moment of solace, one that resonated with a haunting tone of finality.

"It's going to be alright. I promise, C. Everything's going to be alright."

Lucky me, destiny,

You were on my side,

Just once more unto the breach,

Dear friend, once more…

Author's Note:

Lyrics taken from Calling.

"Zetta Osoindayo" probably doesn't require translation, but just for completion's sake, it translates (roughly) to "You're zetta slow."