(no subject)
She sat on the floor of the bathroom, lazily leaning on the rim of an oval-shaped bathtub. Her chin was propped on one arm, as the other dangled over, lightly whirling lavender scented water about in a circle, floating tea lights towards the end of the large tub bobbing just slightly. Her eyes reflected a somber sobriety that had long replaced the faint eagerness that had shone within just a few hours before. Dante was supposed to have been on his way, to meet up with her. What she wanted… not even the young woman was too sure. Perhaps some company?
The brunette slowly turned away from the water, to rest her back against the gray marble that made up the romantically decorated tub. No, that wasn’t for Dante. As if. Okay, he wasn’t exactly ugly, but he’d sort of slid into a… dare she say ‘best guy friend’ role? That was pretty much the most fit description. Their constant jeers by means of sexual harassment hardly placed him in a ‘brotherly’ role, but he was hardly a mere acquaintance. Well. By means of behavior. To be honest, there wasn’t much that she knew about him, or vice-versa… but as good friends did, they never really tried to pry. It didn’t matter, did it? They knew the other wasn’t out to stab people in the back, so that was all that counted, in her opinion.
That water smelled so good. She’d held off for as long as she had from actually getting in on the off-chance that her gut would start clenching, telling her to pack up and head out, in lieu that Dante wasn’t there because he’d been cut off, ambushed, attacked. True, there wasn’t too much more that she could do in a situation Dante himself couldn’t handle, but one never knew, right?
Rising to her feet, the girl looked around the large bathroom of the home that once belonged to her father and mother. So many happy memories were in that house, but so many sad ones, at that. Which was why the house was going up for sale the very next day. She’d be rid of it forever, once a buyer with enough cash came along. Of course, the girl was only going to give it a month or two, if that, before the house would end up having an awful “accident”. She was certain that the religious imagery, particularly the statues placed seemingly sporadically throughout the house would be more than enough to drive the superstitious away, and not enough people were in the know quite like her father was to have any sort of respect for the architecture, and find it intriguing enough to want to live around. Which was all well and good. The girl… didn’t know if she could tolerate someone else living in her home, anyway.
The silk robe she was wrapped in fell from her shoulders, baring scars that marred her flesh from over a year’s worth of damage, and the young woman made an unceremonious glide into the water, in an attempt to relax. And if Dante wanted to get blown out of his mind more than to hang with her… well, that was completely his choice. Screw him, she was taking a bath.
Or, at least she took to relaxing in one, as she soon found herself resting in the water, allowing her body to relax and float just at the surface, tea lights still waving about from each and every movement she made. The water smelled so good from oils, and felt so soft against her skin, and it was of just the perfect temperature that the young woman felt her eyes growing heavy, but really, it wasn’t like she’d fall asleep…
But saying it and actually not falling asleep were two different things, and she found this out well, as the burning of water being inhaled through her nostrils caused her to start flailing out of the water. She was huffing and puffing and snorting the fluid out, as she grasped the tub’s edges tightly. That hurt.
But that became a distant problem for her as, after she swiped the oily water from her eyes with a middle finger and a thumb, she found herself looking around a far different bathroom than she remembered. It was dark, ominous, and the prior ornaments adorned about the room by her father, already grotesque in and of themselves, took on a far more sinister look than before. It caused a few profanities to slip from her mouth, and the brunette quickly hefted herself from the water, and grabbed the silk robe on the floor, along with a cotton set of undergarments, top and bottom, that she didn’t remember having there.
Her head was swimming. Like she’d just been deprived of oxygen for far too long, and suddenly released and made to toddle about without assistance. Or… it was something like a dream. What else, indeed, could explain the strange malformation of her childhood home? And more bizarre and dream-like yet, it was like she almost knew where she was going, as she located the displaced door and went to exit through it, once dressed with the clothes found.
At first, she peeked around the corner of the doorway, to find the hallway had undergone the same transformation. Dual-colored eyes flittered with the small mystifying feelings she was experiencing from the changes, on top of her own physical problems. Fortunately, she was at least able to walk straight as she attempted to get her bearings.
“Mary.”
The voice startled her, as it echoed through the otherwise silent halls. The name was one she abandoned; the voice was one she swore she would never hear again. “What the…?” she whispered, looking around as she stepped deeper into the hall.
“Mary. Why don’t you go to your room? There’s a surprise there.”
That voice… so soft, so welcoming. It took no time at all to have the young woman plodding obediently to and up a flight of stairs. Her steps were quick, but surprisingly silent, as she hopped her way up to the third story of the house, and down two doors to the large cherry wood door that belonged to her old room. Where she would have normally hesitated, the girl was pushing through without it at all. More for the convincing that it was but a dream. “Mother…?”
She hadn’t been in there for so long, and it was true that she was sure to forget fine details, but she could have sworn that she had never, ever seen those there before: ‘those’ being a set of five different doors, stationed in various parts of her room. It was enough to alarm her, even through the hazy state her mind was in.
“Mary. Mother wishes for you to choose four… well, three items to take with you.”
“Three? Four? What?” the girl asked, looking up, down, and across the room for the source of the words.
“It would have been four, Mary, however, mother knows best, and has provided you with the clothes you wear now.”
The brunette looked down at her clothes, the cotton tank top, the boy-cut underwear, and the white robe hanging open, over her shoulders. All of which had been slapped on while she was soaking wet, and in a matter of minutes, she was finding herself to be dry of all moisture, even in her hair. “…I’m not sure I understand, mother… what three other items should I choose?” She didn’t argue, because she would have chosen clothes without a moment’s hesitation before inquiring into why.
“Items to fight, Mary. Items to survive. Items to live. Items to be happy. That is your prerogative.”
It was with a numbed compliance that the female held up one finger. “Kalina Ann, my cannon.”
She was startled off her balance when she felt the massive device appear out of nowhere, strapped to her torso from behind. “Next?”
“Uh…” It was breathed out as she tested the strap, as if to verify that the cannon were really, truly there. After it became obvious that it was, she held up two fingers. “My boots.” Another moment of awe came, as she was busy lifting each her feet up, to study where the boots had materialized around her person. Coughing, she took to looking around once more. “My survival knife.” She had a projectile, and it came with enough blast functions, didn’t it? But the blade on the end of it, a style from old-style muskets, was hardly practical if she found herself in a tight-spaced dilemma. That was something Dante taught her well about (by locking her in a closet, the bastard, and calling it ‘tactical escape training’).
The feel of her survival knife’s hip sheath, appearing on her right leg, caused her to tense and grasp the cannon’s strap tightly. The voice didn’t say a thing, as the girl stepped forward, towards what seemed to be like the center of the five doors, to observe it. As she lightly touched the wood of the doors that had her contemplating if her psychotic father designed them, her mother’s voice came up once more. “Mary. Step through the door.”
“What?” the brunette asked, stepping away from the door at that.
Yes, it was then that the warning bells started. Demons tended to pose as one’s family, particularly those that were deceased, to attempt to lead the living astray. Their most typical means happened to be the most obvious: the door. Dante verified that for her. The typical human trusted doors, and they trusted their family, so why not use such a means to lure them in? And the young woman new damn well that what she was looking at was not right; even as spacey, dreamy and light everything felt, even as surreal as it was, she could tell something was wrong.
“Do as your mother tells you, Mary. Go through the door.”
The young woman shook her head, rather emphatically, as she clopped backwards more so in her worn boots.
The voice, decidedly not her beloved mother’s, sighed from its unknown point above her. “Oh, Mary. Sometimes you can be so disobedient.”
The door in front of her erupted open, a rush of air blasting her face and causing her to reflexively cover it, to shield herself from any possible debris, but that was truly the least of her worries. A powerful force knocked her in her back right then, right in her spine, causing her to drop to her knees and gasp, as it winded her to boot. She looked over behind her, to find no one standing there, but it had definitely tried to push her towards that door. Desperately, she forced her aching back and legs to twist around, to try to clamor away, but found some sort of force wrapping her legs; this was most obvious when her legs were ripped out from under her and she hit the ground roughly, banging her right jawbone against the relatively rough wood.
Unfortunately, the young woman never had a chance to react, to try to free herself, as she was ripped across that old wooden floor, and through the center door.