**Author's Note!
Hello everyone! Thank youuu for reading! Please please review and let me know what you think and if you have any criticism or ideas or anything! I literally live for reviews! I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving! My family made 12 pies! Yeah! *fist pump*
Anyway... I had no clue that Book of Circus already came out! I just found it the other day and I was like, Nooooooo Wayyyyyy Thankkkk Youuuu Funimationnnnn For Postinggg Thisss on YouTubeeeee I Lovveee Youuuu!
okay well that's enough rambling! Thank you so much for reading! Peaceee!**
"Hurry along, dearie!" Undertaker called as he dashed down the dark alleyway, his black coat flying out behind him.
Haven tried to rush behind him as he expertly stepped through the grime of the backstreets, but she was stumbling because of her slippery flat shoes, and the speed of which she was running.
Undertaker had said earlier that he had to make a run somewhere to buy a few items for his work, but Haven was surprised to realise that he actually was running.
She tried to catch up to him, but she was quickly running out of breath.
Finally, Undertaker rounded a corner, and she was left alone in the damp alley. She stopped and doubled over, her lungs raggedly drawing in the early evening air around her.
Panting, she straightened back up and looked around the alley, hoping that Undertaker had realised her absence and turned around to search for her.
But as Haven glanced around the brick walls, she noticed something laying on the ground, off to the right, almost hidden by shadows.
She took a hesitant step toward it, and bent down to get a better look.
It was a white and red rose, plucked from the bush although Haven didn't understand how. The stem of the flower was so completely covered in thorns that even simply grazing one's fingers across it would cause pain.
Haven reached out and touched a silky petal, wondering how the flower had gotten here all the way from the park-
Suddenly, something flashed into her mind-
This place- this alley...
This rose...
Haven stood up quickly, feeling a sharp pain in her stomach, as if someone had clawed their way out of her abdomen from the inside.
She fully expected to see blood blossoming across her stomach, staining her dress like the bloodshot eyes of a wild beast.
Haven brought her shaking hands to her waist and then back up to her face, and she was very surprised that no blood came off onto her searching fingers.
The pain passed quickly and Haven collapsed onto the dirty ground, her arms supporting her weight and then giving out.
This place...
As the aftershocks of whatever had just ailed her disappeared, Haven slowly started to sit back up, her body still trembling.
She finally stood up on her weak legs, and started running again, in the direction which she had seen Undertaker go, and she quickly looked around the empty streets.
"Undertaker!" Haven called, turning in circles, panic washing over her in sheets of red.
She could see buildings, and more alleys, but everything was empty.
She couldn't remember the town well enough to find her way back home-
She was lost, and what if another attack reared up while she was alone- there was a killer out on the streets somewhere, killing women who were alone-
She turned again, gasping in every breath, and almost ran straight into someone.
There were suddenly two hands on her shoulders, holding her in place. With a gasp, she looked up into the face of Undertaker.
"There ya are, dearie! Been looking all over for ya, I have! Thought maybe ya'd been stolen away from me!" He laughed and hugged her against him before letting her go.
She stumbled a bit, and he finally noticed the plain panic written about on her pale face.
"Ya look as if ya'd seen a ghost," Undertaker stated, his voice growing low. "Perhaps ya've seen something to give you a fright, while I was searching the town."
"Not seen," Haven gasped, trying to make her brain find a reasonable explanation for what she'd just experienced. "There was- this rose-"
Undertaker looked around them, as if expecting to see a rose right there in front of them.
"Then-" she continued, "there was this pain in my stomach..."
Undertaker cut her off, suddenly, his arm interlacing with hers to lead her away.
"Don't think about that now, dearie," he said seriously. The most austere she had ever seen him be before. "Ya've had quite the fright the last few days, ya have. It's normal to be anxious when it comes to things-"
"I'm not anxious," Haven insisted. "I promise you, I was perfectly fine, and then-"
"Haven, my dear," Undertaker spoke up, walking down the street and taking her with him. "The mind can play tricks on you, ya know. Can make ya see what's not there, feel when there's nothing to be felt- your mind can kill ya quicker than a bullet, more painfully than a knife, it can!"
Undertaker laughed and continued leading Haven to the small store, where he would purchase equipment for his work.
Haven sighed as she followed him down the silent streets.
Maybe he was right, after all.
Maybe her attack had been in her head. She HAD had a busy few days, and it would be normal for her to be anxious, as he'd said.
She decided to just forget about it for now.
...
Haven ate dinner with Undertaker back in the shadowy rooms of his building. From what she could tell, he always had dinner of some sort, although she honestly didn't know where he would prepare meals, as she hadn't seen a kitchen or anything like it.
Undertaker brought out plates of what looked like beef and bread, with a stack of his bone-shaped biscuits. Haven accepted a plate and they ate around his coffins, silently.
They used an abnormally large one as a table, and Undertaker plopped down onto the floor as if it were the comfortable satin sheets of the Queen herself.
As the silence stretched itself out between the two, Haven decided that maybe she should start a conversation to make the atmosphere less awkward, and cleared her throat quietly.
"So what is your true name, then?" Haven inquired, and Undertaker paused in his eating to cock his head in her direction, still holding half of a biscuit in the air.
"True name?" Undertaker repeated, as if he were confused by the concept. "I've never heard of such a thing, a true name."
"You know," Haven started to explain. "The name you were given when you were born. Your real name."
"Eh, what difference does any of that make, lady? If I told you me name was Thomas, ya'd think that'd be me true name. I could then rightly turn around and tell another me name was Joe, and I'd be truly known as that, as well. Just call me Undertaker, dearie. I truly am that, if you know anything of me."
He continued eating, as if he gave this sort of speech all the time, and Haven sort of hesitated in surprise.
"I see," she said, also returning to her food. "So all of this work you talk about, is your job as an undertaker?"
Haven tried to ask as if she were disinterested in the matter entirely, but Undertaker seemed to be on edge for some strange reason, and avoided her question with a wave of his hand.
"It may be," Undertaker replied, picking up a bone-shaped biscuit and examining it closely, although Haven didn't understand how he could see through all the silver hair that hung into his face.
"And I assume you do this work either upstairs where I'm not allowed to see, the back room that I'm not allowed to see, or the trap door which I'm not supposed to know of," Haven added, struggling to sound as if she did not care one way or the other if he answered.
Undertaker slowly grinned at her, his head cocking to show his amusement.
"Sneaky little dear, ya are," he laughed, turning away from her a bit. "Trying to get answers on subjects ya shouldn't really know the answers to."
Haven tried to feign surprise.
"Sneaky?" she asked, putting a hand to her chest as if she'd been insulted. "Of course not! I'm just curious, is all."
Undertaker reached over and lightly pinched her chin between his thumb and first finger, bringing her face very close to his.
She stared where his eyes should have been visible, a bit startled at his sudden reaction, and froze.
His grin widened and he bent his face even closer to hers, still raising her face to meet his. His lips seemed so immediately near to her own, that Haven's mind became blank, either from the shock or the confusion.
But then he moved his lips to her ear and whispered.
"There will be some questions that you won't get answers to, dearie," he breathed by her cheek. "No matter how hard ya try."
Haven's body still refused to cooperate, and she remained frozen to the spot, her eyes wide as she listened.
Suddenly Undertaker released her face and leaned back with a loud laugh.
Haven tried to get her wits about her, and make sense of her own jumbled thoughts, as Undertaker picked up his plate and left the room, a bounce in his step.
Haven watched him leave with a growing sense of frustration, as a new realisation dawned into her mind as it tried to re-start itself.
How was it that every time she tried to get answers from him, he would so effortlessly get her mind so far off track that he was able to slip away without revealing anything about himself?
It... It just wasn't quite fair to Haven. Didn't she deserve to know SOMEthing?
With a huff, she turned back to her strange supper and finished eating in thoughtful yet perplexed silence.