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Post by Marmalade Boy on May 30, 2007 13:16:25 GMT -5
Gina slowly awoke shortly after Jolene, spurred from her slumber by the sound of heavy footsteps clunking out of the small room. Even still, she kept her eyes closed for a little while, partly savouring the darkness and partly trying to remember her dream. Was it another nightmare? Those things didn't stop anymore, like some sort of illness she had. An Illness of the mind... But whatever had been disturbing her dreams of late hadn't bothered her this night, or she just couldn't remember anymore. All that Gina remembered was drifting off to sleep, and her dying thoughts that night. The thoughts of the strange day, her new friend and of fighting lessons. Putting herself mentally through various situations in her mind.
Finally she opened her eyes, taking in the cramped conditions of the room like air. Still, this place was a d*mn sight more swanky that her sleeping areas as of late. Sleeping in the storage spaces of abandoned trucks and washrooms in office buildings. Yuck. She was glad to have some kind of nice place to take forty winks for once, that's for sure. With a slow start, she went to gather her over clothes. Her orange sweater top and white sleeveless jacket, along with her socks and boots. She pulled the sweater top on first, over the ratty vest she wore and then her socks, stained grey with sweat. d*mn, she needed some new socks today. First on agenda, new socks! Some nice thick woollen ones would be nice, or maybe a nurse's pair, perhaps hiking socks...? She snapped from her sock daydream and began slipping on her boots, fastening the clasp on each one. Finally, she made to pull on her jacket. All ready for the day ahead now...
Out of habit, she slung her hands in her jacket pockets, checking for anything missing. Ammo, Knife, Sewing Kit, Meal Bar, Cord, Pens, Paper, what? Paper? She hadn't put that there, Perhaps it was a self-memo? She pulled the folded up paper out of her pocket, quickly noticing that 'To Gina' had been written on it with some very nice handwriting, it wasn't hers. A note from Jo? Nah, can't be... She unfolded the note to find many lines written out, in verse none the less, it looked like poetry. Jo can't have written this! She read it, confused,
To Gina, "Pure eyes, blue like a glassy bead, You are always looking at me and I am always looking at you. Ahh, you're too meek, beautiful, unspoiled: thus I'm so sad, I suffer and so happy, it hurts. I want to hurt you and destroy myself. What you would think if you knew how I felt. Would you simply smile, not saying a word? Even curses from your mouth would be as beautiful as pearls. I place my left hand on your face as though we were to kiss. Then I suddenly shove my thumb deep into your eyesocket. Abruptly, decisively, like drilling a hole. And what would it feel like? Like warm jelly? Trembling with ecstasy, I obscenely mix it around and around: I must taste the warmth of your blood. How would you scream? Would you shriek 'It hurts! It hurts!' as cinnabar-red tears stream from your newly crushed eye? You can't explain the maddening hunger I've felt in the midst of our kisses, so many of them I've lost count. As though drinking in your cries, I bring my hopes to fruition: biting your tongue, shredding it, biting at your lips as if tasting your lipstick. Oh, what euphoric heights I would reach, having my desires fulfilled like a greedy, gluttonous cur. I longed, too, for your cherry-tinted cheeks, tasty enough to bewitch my tongue. I would surely be healed, and would cry like a child. And how is your tender ear? It brushes against my cheek; I want it to creep up to my lips so I can sink my teeth into its flesh. Your ears, always hearing words whispered sweet as pie I want you to hear my true feelings. I have never lied, no... but I did have my secrets. Ah, but what must you think of me? Do you hate me? Are you afraid? As though inviting you to the agony at the play's end. If you wish, you could destroy me, I wouldn't care. As you wish, you may destroy me, I wouldn't care."
Gina let out a shrill shriek and threw down the poem as if it were made of freshly flailed skin, shaking her hand as if to free herself from the things presence. She backed off against the wall, ever staring at the poem...
"Wha... Wha... Wha...?"
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Post by Kat on May 30, 2007 14:00:17 GMT -5
The brothel was usually a quiet place, come morning, and by dawn the last of the girls were usually trickling in from work, while some had been home and slumbering for hours already. But by virtle of the finely-honed Maltonian ear, Gina's shriek of terror roused a great many slumberers from their rest. However, because it was not followed by sobbing or another scream, the majority slipped back to their rest. After all, nightmares were not exactly an uncommon occurence, here.
Still, after a moment, a rather tousled and sleepy-looking blonde peaked around the corner of the next cubicle over, wearing a worried expression. "Hey honey, everything okay over there?" She had just a touch of a southern drawl, like an accent left over from childhood, and seeing an unfamiliar face, she furrowed her brow. "Pardon me for askin', sweetie, but are you new around here?" Maria hadn't mentioned any new arrivals.
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Post by Marmalade Boy on May 30, 2007 14:15:11 GMT -5
Gina stared at the new arrival with wide, terrified eyes. At her current state, she was questioning the nature of the poem. In about a few minutes, she would have moved to 'who sent me this!?' And after a few more minutes; 'Are they going to get me?!' Still preoccupied with this thought, she couldn't bring herself to make small-talk with the woman. Instead blurting out a few garbled words...
"Poem... There..." She pointed at the note with her foot, managing to keep herself from looking at it for long, like it would grow into the person that wrote it and carry her off in an iron grip, "Horrible...!"
Having semi-death threats sent to her in poem form was something completely new to Gina, and she didn't enjoy the feeling of them one bit. At the moment, she wanted this new girl to pick it up and tear it into little pieced, scattering them off the roof into the wind...
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Post by Kat on May 30, 2007 14:27:51 GMT -5
The perplexed look the blonde wore deepened as Gina spouted single words like some shellshocked soldier. This wasn't just a nightmare. "Just a sec, hun, I'll be riiight back."
She ducked away for a minute, roused the woman in the cubicle to her other side. "Hey, Anne honey, I need a favour," she said quickly and softly. "I need you to go find Maria. The dog at the door should know where she is." Then the blonde prostitute slipped back into the little roomlet that Gina had been sharing with Peaches.
"Now what's this about a poem, honey? Shh, it's okay, I'll take care of it," she soothed almost absently, moving to pick up the wrinkled bit of paper that Gina had indicated.
Reading it, the blonde's eyebrows crept further and further up her face, and when she was done, she gave Gina an impressed look. Her first night, and this new girl -- Gina? -- already had her first psycho.
She looked Gina up and down again, and shrugged inwardly. The girl didn't look like brothel material, but then, even Anne's uptight-librarian look earned her some regulars. Men were funny creatures that way. "Wow, girl, you got yourself quite the admirer here," she drawled, making light of the disturbing note. "I wouldn't let it get to ya, though. There's guys like this all over, them who've gotten a little mixed-up in the head from one too many needles, you know?" She pantomimed an autoinjector without quite realizing she was talking with her hands. "That's why we've got the dogs looking out for us, and the Miss, too. Hey, look, if the creep who wrote this ever shows up at our doors again, let someone know, 'kay? We can chase him off. Better safe than sorry, sugar." She smiled sympathetically.
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Post by Marmalade Boy on May 30, 2007 14:50:07 GMT -5
"No no, you don't understand! I've... I've never met the person who wrote that before!"
She slithered away some more, pressing her back more adjacently against the wall. As if the note was pushing her back with some invisible force,
"It... It just, appeared in my pocket!"
Now she was on the stage of 'Who wrote this?!' In her mind, the image of a massively tall, skinny man was created. He had thick, heavy features and a sly smile with cracked yellow teeth. his hair was dark and matted to his head, dandruff clearly visible in it. He wore a darkly stained vest and shorts, showing off his pale, pale skin. Most scary was the wickedly sharp knife in his hand, Gina's collapsed eyeball stuck on its point. She let out a whimper as the poem writer was born in her head, his evil glare piercing straight through Gina's mind. It was almost as if he was in the room with her, waiting for her to be alone...
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Post by Kat on May 30, 2007 15:11:25 GMT -5
Curiouser and curiouser. She peered at the note with a little frown again... and then shrugged, looking back up at Gina with a half-smile. "A secret admirer, then, darlin'. Hey, how about we sit down, you're looking a little shaken up." d*mn it, where was Maria? She'd know what to do here!
"Darlin'... Gina, is it?" From the girl's reaction to the note, it was a safe bet that 'Gina' was her. "Gina, we look out for each other here, okay? You're gonna be just fine, I promise. I sent a friend to fetch Maria, she kinda runs things around here, alright? She can help us with this."
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Post by Marmalade Boy on May 30, 2007 15:21:02 GMT -5
'But I don't wanna secret admirer! I want him to be away, far far away. Outside the city, outside the country! Even better, on a rocket being fired into space! Never to be seen ever again!'
"O... Okay..."
There wasn't much Gina could do anymore, she was shaking like a leaf and almost felt as if 'cinnabar-red tears' were streaming from her 'newly crushed eye'. Raising her hand to her face to investigate though, she found them to be regular tears. She was crying?! Hell no! She hadn't cried in ages and ages, not since, not since... heck she couldn't even remember! But crying over this just made her look weak and soppy, something she didn't want to project over to the woman trying her best to comfort her. Now she would be fussed over and cared for like some glorified baby. Or even better, treated like some sort of child wanting attention...
"I'm s... sorry about th... this"
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Post by Kat on May 30, 2007 16:46:10 GMT -5
Oh, for... "Oh, hey, honey, it's okay, it's fine, it's not like life in these parts is exactly easy, yeah?" The woman was really at a loss now, but Gina's outburst brought out a surge of empathy in her, and she looked at the young woman with compassion written across her face.
Maria arrived -- thank god! she thought -- before she could do anything else. Maria hurried in, looking concerned, with Anna lurking along behind her. "Oh, dear, what's going on here?" She looked at Gina. "You're Jolene's friend, right? What's the matter?" She moved to the crying woman and put a hand on her shoulder. "It's alright, whatever happened, we'll deal with it." She looked to the blonde and said, "Daisy, what happened here?"
Daisy was shaking her head. It kinda made more sense now, at the same time that it made less sense -- this was a friend of one of the dogs, but why would she have a creepy admirer? Well, the brothel worker wasn't about to ask. Instead she explained, "This poor darling here just got a... well, a really weird love note, I think." Or maybe it was a death threat? Daisy didn't want to say anything. Heck, she'd be alarmed in the situation that Gina was in, too.
She handed the note over, and Maria read it, biting her lip partway through. She handed the note back to Daisy (hey, since when had she become the keeper of the creepy poem?) and looked at her inquiringly. "She doesn't know who sent it," added the blonde in a low voice. Maria turned back to Gina and gave her a reassuring pat.
"You'll be alright," she assured Gina warmly. "This is a nasty note, to be sure, but you've come to the right place. You'll be safe here."
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Post by Marmalade Boy on May 30, 2007 17:21:28 GMT -5
"W... Why does this h... have to happen to me?"
Gina sobbed some more, looking even more pathetic than before, her knees raised to face level and her hands behind her head. She felt physically ashamed of herself for crying over this and sucking in the attention of several more girls. But at the same time, she liked their presence. It made her feel, safe, to say the least. Safe from invisible threats.
She thought back to her poem-writer, her stalker. His smile had deepened now as he sensed her fear and sorrow. She could see him now, strolling towards her through the tight corridor like some sort of tank, his head touching the ceiling. Deflecting bullets and Axe slices, indestructible. He kicked down the makeshift door to the room and marched over towards Gina, who was cowering from him in the corner. He lifted Gina up by her skinny neck, one handed, and brought her face level with his. With his sadistic smile plastered across his ugly face, he pressed his large thumb into her eye socket and pulled the contents out, her once lovely eyeball speared on the end of his curled, yellow fingernail. Laughing uncontrollably, he brought his yellowed teeth over and chewed down on her tongue. The coppery taste of blood entering her mouth. Time flashed forwards, and Gina was now sitting in the corner of the room. An empty eye socket and a shredded mouth marring her once good looks. She attempted to speak, but couldn't, her tongue mangled horribly. Instead, she sat some more and burst out into tears, garbled noises echoing around the empty room..
Thinking of this brought her back into tears, and she began to sob uncontrollably. She felt even worse now, but still tried to control herself, slowing her breathing and rubbing her eyes with her palms.
"I've... I've only been here one d...day! Not even th...that! Wh... Who could want to do s... such a thing?"
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Post by Kat on Jun 4, 2007 22:15:46 GMT -5
"Honey, there are a lot of disturbed people in this city," Maria tried to explain, gently. The girl was reacting pretty severely... but then, Maria reasoned, maybe nothing like this had happened to her before. Maybe the women at the brothel had just gotten used to having to deal with the kinds of men who would write a note like that.
That was a sad thought, and Maria grimaced inwardly to think it. There were so many people in this city who had lost their grip on what had used to be the inevitable reality of life and death, who had gone too far into Malton's endless cycle and had forgotten the dire boundary between them. Those who regenerated everything when they came back were the worst of the lot -- and it could be that the deranged soul had written what he genuinely thought to be a love note to Gina.
But she wouldn't tell Gina that. It was a disturbing thought all on its own. "Shhh," she told the girl, her hand on Gina's shoulder, her voice low and soothing. "It's alright, dear. You're safe, here. No one will harm you here."
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Post by Marmalade Boy on Jun 5, 2007 11:22:57 GMT -5
Gina tried her hardest to control her sobbing, sucking in air and blowing it back out again in controlled breaths. She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands and again and tried to reply without sounding like a soppy idiot,
"D... Do you th... think he'll W... Write me another n... note? Come for m... me? Take me away!?"
As much as the woman tried to tell her that no harm would come to her here, the more she thought about the note-writer. Would she have to stay inside all of her life to avoid this threat? Would the moment she stepped out of the room, would he come to get her? Would he do the things he had written on the note to her? Would she ever be able to live normally?
No, you're overreacting, she told herself, This guys probably all bark and no bite. Sooner or later he'll lose interest in her and go for someone else. She hoped, she dearly hoped...
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Post by dray on Jun 5, 2007 11:31:26 GMT -5
In the meantime, Jolene had all but bolted from Melisande's room, once the door had firmly shut behind her. One hour was a good lead, but it wasn't going to be a lot.
She crossed the hall and put up the lapels of her jacket as she went, trying to conceal the bit of leather locked around her neck. The crazy bitch thought that she could control everything, she must! Jolene didn't buy that the older woman was intent on helping the girl better herself. Nobody was altruistic anymore, nobody did anything for anybody without some kind of reason behind it... usually sinister. At least, that was how she saw things.
When she pushed open the door to the change rooms turned sleeping area, she had intended to be quiet and quick, to grab her things and get out. She was confronted by a bunch of very awake women -- their backs turned to her, thank goodness -- all looking towards the girl that Jo had left sleeping.
Oh god damnit.
She slipped up to Maria, who while acting as the brothel-owner's eyes and ears, at least knew what was going on. "What happened." Her voice as low, but it was a question less than a command.
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Post by Marmalade Boy on Jun 14, 2007 16:32:36 GMT -5
Gina watched as the Jolene entered the room and began to question things, oh great, just what I wanted. The one woman who Gina wanted to look strong around, and she had just walked into the room with a sobbing Gina propped up against the wall. Screw this, why the hell do I have to look strong around people? Just want to have a d*mn good cry...
She looked up to Jolene with bloodshot eyes, cheeks heavy with tears and blasted with the colour red running underneath the skin. She cut her sobbing for that moment and thought about the poem, where was it?
"There was something sent to me... It shook me up..."
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Post by dray on Jun 14, 2007 19:45:28 GMT -5
When Gina spoke up for herself, Jolene turned her attention on the shorter girl. Jeez, she looked happy. Jo had a feeling that if this chick'd been wearing makeup, it'd probably be one nasty smear by now. She hadn't expected to find Gina crying of all things, but here she was. Jolene stepped through the half-formed ring of women. "Who sent what now?"
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Post by Kat on Jun 18, 2007 0:36:40 GMT -5
"Ah, some weirdo sent this poor girl a really strange love note," Daisy explained, moving aside to let Jo into their little sewing-circle. She held up the note, offering it to the guard by way of further explanation, and then looked back to where Maria continued to comfort Gina. She smiled encouragingly, and told her, "Hey honey, if you've got Jo watching your back, you're fine! Walking on easy street. She's the best dog we got!"
Anne Hmmph'd softly from her vantage point against the wall. Best and conveniently forgetting her orders, maybe.
"She's right," said Maria with gentle encouragement, a motherly arm still around Gina. "In our humble home, with Jolene looking out for you, it'll be safe as houses. It'll be alright."
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