Hello again! The second chapter is here! Whoo.

This one's shorter than the last one. I kind of started to fail towards the end and decided to stop it before I hurt myself. :P Next chapter: Lendsville. Don't ask me why I called it that.

Please leave a review! Peer pressure is what always gets me going. :D

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Chapter 2

"It's already 10:15. Where is that cab driver?" Heloise muttered, glancing at a watch she stole. She tucked her hands back up into the sleeves of her dress and rubbed her arms. She had been standing out on the sidewalk in front of the factory for what seemed like ages. The sky was dark, decorated by a few shimmering stars. A lone moon lay in the middle of it all, shining like the soft, pale beauty it was; taunting the little girl.

As silly as she knew it was, Heloise had always hated the moon. It was one of the very few 'good' things about Miseryville, or so that's what she'd always been told. Other monsters would call the moon many disgusting names: bright, glowing, pretty, poetic, gorgeous, beautiful… the list goes on. It made Miseryville nights seem almost peaceful. As far as Heloise was concerned, it was nothing misery-undo-er.

Contrary to the daytime, nights in the town were usually very cool. It was a time most creatures preferred, (although it was rare anyone would go out when the sun was down for fear of the multiple carnivorous horrors that loved to use the city as their hunting grounds). But like most things that made the citizens happy, the breezy air only upset Heloise.

To her, it was freezing. She could stand it for the first few minutes, but after a while of waiting, it was starting to get to her. Even when she had created the Snowburator 901 it hadn't been this cold. Her hands were chapped, her cheeks were rosy, her nose was raw, and she desperately wanted to just go back home and sleep.

Frustrated, the young monster checked the watch again: 10:16. Barely a minute, but felt like an hour. She sighed and slumped down onto the sidewalk. "Typical Lucius, pulling something like this. I never should have gotten here early."

Just as she was finally getting up to leave she heard a strange noise coming from down the street. She got back on to her feet and looked around, but saw nothing.

The noise continued to grow louder.

Heloise snuck over to a small bush at the corner of the building and dove in. Camouflaged by the many leaves and branches, she peered out cautiously down the other side of the road. If something was coming with intentions to attack, she would be ready to jump and disarm it in seconds.

As she looked out from her hiding place she was suddenly blinded by a flash of light. Startled and dizzy, she fell back a little, nearly falling straight out of the bush. Before she had time to regain her balance she felt a strong gust of wind around her; so strong that it tore out every leaf from the bush, leaving her exposed.

Mystified, the girl looked up and tried to face the… Whatever it was, but was instead quickly blinded by another flash of light. She decided that trying to reopen her eyes wasn't a very good idea. Snapping them shut, she began to rely more heavily on her other senses, feeling them enhance more and more with each passing second.

It was just one of the many advantages of being Heloise: when one sense went own, every other capable function began to work to make up for it almost immediately.

She heard what sounded like spinning tires off to her right. The deep growl of an engine followed, and then began to grow. Heloise had already figured out that the "thing" was some sort of car, a big one, and knew that the growing sound of its advance probably wasn't a good thing.

At this point Heloise knew she had to open her eyes. Her senses where being overloaded and although she knew where the automobile was, that was all she knew, and being unknowledgeable wasn't going to help her.

Groaning, she forced her eyes open; her plan to simply stay under the body of the car and away from the tires as it passed. But once again she was blinded and was forced to close her eyes in agony. Daringly, she put out a hand in front of her, hoping to feel the car and tumble under it before it actually hit her.

As the engine's roar continued to grow louder and louder, Heloise prepared herself for the upcoming feat. Then suddenly the sound stopped, leaving only the faint sound of a cricket chirping in the distance to be heard. That, and… Laughing?

Furious, she opened her eyes and screamed. "I WILL NOT BE MADE A FOOL!"The laughers grew hysterical.

"Ehnn?" The little monster squinted through the bright white and waited for her eyes to accommodate. She saw a massive shadow just in front of her, too big to be a car. Confused he looked around, still a little too blind to really see anything.

But she could hear just fine.

"Oh-oh, Heloise! What's the matter? Did you get a-scared?" A deep and familiar voice giggled.

"What?"

Two figures came towards her as her eyes finally adjusted.

"Look at her, Chuck! She's like a baby! Ha, ha, ha! Heloise, I never took you to be a TREE-HUGGER!"

"Chuck? Beezy?"

The pair stood in front of her, grinning idiotically.

"Oh, of course!" She groaned. "It was just you and your stupid bus. Why'd I expect Lucius to send me anything else? Whatever it takes to cause me misery."

It was Chuck's turn to speak. "That's pretty much the idea! Hey, so are you gonna introduce us to your little friend?"

"What?" She looked down and saw that she was hugging what was left of the bush. She realized that she must have grabbed the skinny trunk and wrapped herself around it at some point during the 'attack'.

Disgusted, Heloise leapt off the branch and, shaking away any shame, faced the two. "Lucius sent you guys to take me to…?"

"To Lendsville?" Chuck piped.

"Uh, yeah, to Lendsville." Lendsville? What type of name was that? She realized that she actually knew very little about the town and her 'mission'. It had to be a pretty strange place; the mayor was letting Lucius expand Misery Inc. right into his own property without any dispute. It made her wonder a little more about where she was going…

A thought struck her. "Why did Lucius send me Beezy?"

The teen shrugged. "I dunno. He said something about learning business. I stopped listening after that."

Of course.

Heloise rolled her eyes. "Alright, let's get this over with. I wanna get back to Miseryville as soon as possible; you know I hate physiatrists."

The three boarded the bus and began their journey.

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To be continued.

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