Hell, and thanks to PitbullLady for her wonderful review. No, Randall probably isn't a true reptile. I think that just for character purposes, I made him seem like one because he is a teenager who is easily influenced by outside sources. He's vulnerable in this story because of his age and his frame of mind. I may change it later, but for now, he's therapsidian. (combining mammalian and reptillian attributes)
As always, PLEASE REVIEW!!
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She couldn't sleep.
She sat up and sighed in the dark, looking out her lonely window at the night sky. She wondered if Matt or Mary or Bill were wondering where she was. They couldn't call the cops and report her missing; technically, in the eyes of the human public, she never existed, and Mary and Bill didn't have a daughter. But here she was. Alone. In a world she knew almost nothing about.
She sighed again and looked over at the cheap alarm clock she'd managed to srounge up from somewhere. It was 3 in the morning.
Again, she thought of the look on the lizard boy's face as she helped him the day before. She wasn't stupid; she knew he would hurt himself again. She hoped he would be alright. She planned to make something for him, some cookies, perhaps, for an early halloween present, later after she returned from Monsters Incorporated. She didn't know why, but she couldn't get him off her mind.
She slid off of her mattress and into what passed for her living room and sank into her chair. She was anxious about possibly seeing her chosen family again, she knew it, but she musn't get her hopes up now... it wouldn't do to get them up only in case she didn't get hold of them. She remembered something Bill used to tell her when she was younger. Gettin' your hopes up can bring you down.
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A loud, shattering horn woke her up. She was ready to jump up out of bed and instead crashed to the floor. She must have dozed off in her chair. How graceful, she thought, as she extricated herself from the chair.
She ran to the window and saw Mikey's car down below. He was waiting for her.
Quick as she could, she pulled her only article of clothing on and ran downstairs to meet him.
"Don't you ever wear anything else, kid?" he asked her as she opened the front door. Sitting beside him was an enormous, blue furry guy with small horns and a big, kind-looking face. She thought he looked a bit like John Goodman. Odd.
"Everything else I own is in the human world," she admitted, and she climbed into the backseat, behind the blue furry guy.
He twisted around in his seat and held one huge, furry paw out to her.
"Name's Sulley," he said. She blinked and shook his proferred hand. He even sounded a bit like John Goodman.
"Magda," she replied.
"Nice to meet you," said Sulley.
Mikey put the car in gear and began to drive.
He drove her beyond even the little grocery store she worked at, into the heart of downtown. There were even fewer trees here, but there were lots of monster kids waiting for the school bus. She smiled sadly; it was one of the small pleasures in childhood she had never gotten to do.
When the car stopped at last, they were in the biggest parking lot she had never (or ever) seen. It was gargantuan. Enormous. Bigger than cathedral-sized. And it was filled with cars.
The factory loomed ahead, a smaller building at the front, taller at the back, and behind all of it, the refinery plant Michael had told her about.
"Here we are, kid. Sulley'll take you to the door, I have paperwork to do," said Mikey, and Sulley got out and opened her door before she even got her seatbelt off. (A/N: Mikey never got into the habit of not doing paperwork until he met celia, heeheehee)
"Umm... thanks," she said, a little awed by his size; he was at least three feet taller than her. She as only 5'6".
"Follow me," he said, smiling courteously, and she led the way into the very center of Monsters Incorporated.
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The inside was cavernous enough, but what awed her was the mosaic on the domed ceiling. It was a map of the world, like an enormous atlas painstakingly put together piece by tiled piece.
There were several doorways leading off to one hall or another, and Sulley led her into one marked "scare floors".
"I'm gonna sneak you into Roz's office to get the right card key, so ssshhh!" Sulley warned in a deadly whisper. He led her down a wide, clean hall with linoleum tiles and up ahead, she saw her very first scarefloor. Scarefloor F.
"Ssshh," he warned again, and she nodded and folded her wings close to her back so they didn't bump anything and send it crashing to the floor.
Sulley and Mike must have planned this ahead of time, she marveled, because at that moment, they both heard a tremendous crash leading directly away from the office to their left.
"That's Mikey," said Sulley, and they both hid around the corner as a slug-like woman with ratty hair and a yellow vest slithered her way out of her office, grumbling something about "time wasters".
"Come one!" he urged her, and they both slid inside the office.
It was meticulously neat, was her first thought. She saw filing cabinet upon filing cabinet, all alphabetized, all according to countries.
"Lewis, Vermont," she whispered, and Sulley began browsing the cabinets. Finally, he pulled open a drawer marked "Eas. coast, VT".
"Lewis, lewis, lewis..." he muttered as he rifled through them all.
"Here," he said, shoving half a dozen folders into her arms. He slammed the cabinet shut and practically shoved her back out through the door.
"Hide!" he urged her frantically.
She huged the folders close to her chest and wrapped her wings around her front to hide them from sight. She saw two doors. Excellent, bathrooms. Perfect.
She dove into the one marked FEMALE.
She didn't stop to breath agian until she was safelly closeted inside a bathroom stall.
"Alright, then," she muttered to herself, once she had got her heartbeat back to normal.
She opened the first folder she came to. Bracknell road... too far away from home... Medulla... ehh, never heard of it... hmm...Aha!" she said, because at openeing the third folder she came to, which looked quite old, she found one with her exact street on it. She frowned slightly at the name inside of it.
"Matthew Silas Britain..." she mused. Then it made sense. This must be her brother's old file from when he was a kid. She almost laughed at the coincidence of it. In any case, she didn't need the other folders now.
She once more hugged her wings close to her body to hide them from sight and approached Roz's desk once more.
"Can I help you?' she said in a slow, nasal voice that sounded like cloth on gravel.
"Yeah, I um, found these on the floor, near scarefloor B," she said, slightly nervous, and she unfolded her wings and handed the slug woman the folders she didn't need, tucking the one shs did need safely under one wing.
"Very good, run along" said the woman, annoyed, and she grabbed them and set them next to her.
She decided to skidaddle before Roz realised she didn't belong there.
She walked out onto the scarefloor and found it completely deserted. Only Sulley and Mikey were there. Mike ywas going through different colored paper and Sulley merely sat on the edge of a desk looking bored.
"Did'ja get one?" asked Mikey.
"The exact address," she said brightly, hardly containing her excitement.
"Good!" said Mikey, albeit a bit sarcastically, and he grabbed the card key, which she only now saw, and slid it through a slot machine next to what could only be a door station.
There was an almighty grinding noise, a series of loud thumps, and a battered-looking wooden door came barreling out of a huge hole in the side of the wall near the ceiling to her left. It was her brother's bedroom door!!
"Here's the envelope, kid," said Mikey, and he handed her the meat stained letter she'd written the day before.
The door landed in its station and a light came on near the top.
"Wish me luck," she said. Neither one said anything.
"Good luck," Sulley said after a moment's pause.
She reached for the doorknob.
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DUH DUH DUUUUHHH!!! I COULD make this a cliffhanger 'o doom... shall I?
Hmm... nah. I couldn't stand the suspense. You got a break this time!!
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She opened the door and stepped into the room, closing it behind her. She hoped Sulley and Mikey wouldn't send the door back, although if they did, she could just try her wings and fly out, wherever the door vault was. They had to be kept somewhere.
"Mags?"
She spun around and saw her older brother Matt standing there in the doorway. Their faces broke out into grins and she ran to hug him.
"Oh my god, where have you been?? Do you have ANY idea what Bill and Mary are going through?? They think you were killed!!" he excalimed, holding her by the shoulders, his tan human skin contrasting heavily with her pale, mottled storm-colored skin.
"What???" she yelped, eyes wide. Killed? What on earth had Michael left behind as an explanation?!
"Where are they?" she asked, truly concerned.
"Follow me," said Matt, and he led the way out of his room, even though she knew perfectly well how to get around this house.
He led her into the cheerfully lit kitchen and she saw Mary, cutting some vegetble or other, her face very blotchy and her eyes red. Her gray hair, which had once been brown, lay down her back in a messy plait.
"Mary?" she said tentatively.
She looked up and for a moment no one said anything.
"Bill!! She's here!!" she cried joyfully, and she ran forward, abandoning her cutting knife, and wrapped Magda in a bone-crushing hug, pinning her wings to her back quite painfully.
Bill came gallumping into the kitchen and for a moment, Mary just stood there smiling and crying. Magda smiled back. She may be different in mor ways than one, different even in species, but she knew one thing; this family had found her and taken her in and they loved her. And that was all that mattered. It was all you really needed to have a family. People who loved you.
If only she could let the lizard boy from yesterday know that. She was sure he wouldn't be so glum.
"Where on earth have you been?" Bill demanded, half overjoyed, half angry. He too, hugged her, and she handed them both her letter. She was too happy to tell them.
She leaned against the counter (something both Mary and Bill had always told her off for doing in the old days) and waited until the family had all finished reading it.
"You were kidnaped by another monster?" Matt asked skeptically. "So there's another world besides this one, where all the people are... well... like you?" he added.
"Yes," she said, smiling, and she couldn't keep the joy out of her voice. If only she could take her family back with her... She didn't belong in this world. It was where she had grown up and been happy and been born, but... she needed someplace where she could roam where she pleased freely, and she couldn't do that here. It made her feel sort of empty inside. Where did she belong?
"You have your own apartmen,t even? Oh deear... what about food? Clothes?" asked Mary. She had hit the nail on the head.
"Well... as for clothes... obviously, I need them. Is it ok... I mean... if I stay in the monster world for a bit? I still haven't gotten used to that freedom yet... and Michael is out of the picture, by the way. He was a jerk," she added.
Mary and Bill looked for a moment as if they were about to say no, absolutely not.
"Definitely," said Matt.
He walked over and stood behind her, putting one warm hand on her shoulder. He leaned down so they were eye level and smiled. She had known that smile for 18 years.
"If it makes you happy, if you can go wherever you want for once, then I say go for it," he said, and she hugged him again. This whoole visit was worth it really.
"I agree. You've earned it," added Mary, and Bill put one hand on his wife's shoulder and nodded, though he didn't say anything.
"I'll go get some of my stuff, then," said Magda, and she turned tail (literally) and headed towards her own bedroom.
She opened the door and a pang of homesickness overwhelmed her. She hadn't known how much she had missed her own bed and her own things.
She layed down on her own bed, the bed she had had since she was 10, and stared at a ceiling she had stared at on every sleepless night for 18 years. She wasn't ready to move out yet. She didn't want to leave all this behind. She knew she couldn't take it all with her, but she wished she could.
Sighing, holding back unshed tears, she opened her dresser drawers and began taking things out. Other skirts, some short, others long, a few pairs of pants, mostly black with red trimming or corset laces or pieces of metal. She really liked these things. She also took out a few shirts. She didn't need them, really, as she didn't have any breasts like human women did, but they had kept her warm. Included were a few hand knit tops that Mary had made for her. One sky blue, one midnight purple. They were short sleeved and fit her perfectly, right down to the holes in the back for her wings. She also "borrowed" one of Matt's t-shirts that she had sometimes wore to bed when she was younger. It still reached her knees, she mused, smiling sadly.
When she had got all she wanted for clothes, she turned to the rest of the room. Her music. Her posters. All her photographs of the trees and leaves and things around the area. Her stuffed toy that she'd had since forever, one eye missing, one armed sewed back on. Her favorite movies on DVD. The DVD player she'd gotten for her 16th birthday.
She sighed dejectedly. She would leave all but a few pictures and books here to stay. Just in case, she decided firmly. She would not cry, She would not.
She pried three pictures off her wall. One small one was of the entire family, old country style; Bill in a pair of his usual overalls and boots, holding a shotgun, Matt in a t shirt and jeans, Mary in her usuall housedress, and Magda, sitting in front of them all, her wings relaxed and lowered, all their hands on either one of her shoulders. They were all smiling.
The second picture she pried off was slightly bigger, but it was a full screen view of the log cabin, the yard, the trees in all their autumn glory and part of the meadow. In front of the house stood Bill, Mary and Matt, the dog and the horse. The third picture she took was bigger than the last two, but it was of herself and Matt wrestling in the mud when she was 9 years old, and Matt was about 14. They were both covered in mud and laughing. She smiled, remembering. That had been fun.
She crammed all her clothes, and the pictures into one of Matt's older school bags and zipped it up.
She took one last, long look at the bedroom she had lived in for her whole life and closed the door for she didn't know how long.
Back out in the kitchen, the rest of the family were discussing something, and when she came into full view, wearing a clean skirt and the blue knit top Mary made her, they all stopped.
"What?" she said, feeling like she had missed something.
Mary brought something out from behind her back then, wrapped badly and rather hastily, it looked like.
"We were going to give you this for your nineteenth birthday, but since... well... we thought we;'d give it to you now. Be sure to take lots of pictures for us, Magda," she said, her eyes kind and warm and teary. Magda took it, very emotional, and unwrapped what turned out to be a brand new camera, a specialty. Nikon5000. It must have cost them a fortune.
"I started work just after you left and I helped out a bit for it," said Matt, raising an arm, and Magda carefully stowed the camera and the film enclosed into her bag along with the rest of her things.
She gave Matt and her parents one last, longer hug before heading back towards her brother's closet and her own, new world.
But why did it feel like she was leaving home, rather than going to it?
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Next chapter wil be up sooner, but the more reviews I get, the sooner you'll get it!! Please review!!!!