le novel final part WC 4087

The wolf looking man, standing there in the middle of the parking lot flanked by 4 of his blonde boys arms outstretched in welcome laughs heartily at their approche. It is a deep gutteral laugh that sounds more like someone moving phlegm around rather than an actual sort of intelegable sound. The three of them dismount smoothly as if they’d been ridding horses their entire lives. Link tries to get down but the horse snorts and steps uncertainly throwing off his balanace causing him to land on his back, “God damn mother fucking beast of an animal. Why is it I am the only fucking person who hasn’t ridden one of these god damned things before” As he gets up the horse goes over to him and tries to nuzzle him almost apologetically, but Link already jumpy turns, trips over his feet, and nearly falls to the ground again. The wolf looking man, laughing at the entire spectical waves his hand, and two of the blonde boys go to bring Sara to stand next to him. Once Link regains his composure the cowboy sends the horses away with some other strange cliché sound from somewhere in his mouth, a sound Link couldn’t hope to emulate and they trod off into the woods.
They two groups stare each other down, eventually Link takes center. He can feel it in the air. This is what he is born for. Not lounging around gardens reading books, not saving birds, but moments like these. The times just before the battles, the times when he feels most alive. He can smell it in the air, they are somewhere special. The stakes are high here, and though he has no idea what they may be it almost doesn’t matter, like it doesn’t matter what the Wolf looking guy’s name is or how come he has some many blonde lackies that all look alike. It doesn’t matter what is really in that bar or what the beef between the white lady and the gold lady is. It doesn’t matter what the thing in the woods is, what’s inside the white room, or Cowboy’s real name. What matters is that this is about to happen. There will be blood, some of his, some of theirs. Firsts will crack each other bruises will be earned, new scars will be made and someone will emerge the victor and then they will go away and lick their wounds preparing for the next conflict, no matter who it is from. This is where he belongs, not waxing poetic about the future, planning future jobs, or worrying about things that are impossible to control. Here is where business is taken care of, and as of right now, business is good, “Well Mr. ‘I’m a wolf looking mother fucker’ I assume you brought us out here for some reason?”
He laughs, “No not really. The air is nice, the night is young, and your woman is most beautiful so I figured why not a little kidnapping. If you didn’t come to her aid I could just peddle her out to my friends here and spit her back out into the world. That would get someone’s attension most certainly.”
Link raises an eyebrow, “expecting someone else then? I would hardly call Sara my woman. I’ve met cancerouse turmors more benign”
The wolf man laughs, “See I like that, very droll. You really are everything I’d hope you’d be”
“Come again”?
He spreads his arms out wide, “Sara speaks of you often. In fact she rarely shuts up about you. You wouldn’t belive some of the things she says about you shall I tell you?”
Panic flashes in Sara’s eyes and she lunges forwards against her captors, escaping with an ease of grace which only comes natural having fought with Link for years on end, “You mother fucker you don’t tell him a thing, I will kill you, you understand me? You don’t understand what the fuck it is that you are dealing with”. She makes a dive at him and the remaining two blonde boys grab her, it takes all four of them to fully restrain her, and that is only with great difficulty.
Link shakes his head, “Jesus wolf man I don’t know what is with you and those blonde boys. I took down 7 of them after sprinting over a mile and it’s taking four of them to keep little old Sara from ripping your head off. Really now cowboy over here is a more effective threat.”
The wolf man sighs, “Yes you are right, their blood has gone thin, it needs replenishing. It has been far to long since we have found someone as strong or as vibrant as the two of you. You will make perfect-what, what are you doing?”
Link stops following along all of Wolf’s words with his hand, “Oh good. I’m glad you noticed that, look see I really don’t care about your master plan that probably involves incapacitating me and forcing me to have sex with whatever the fuck spawns these assholes. Really? It isn’t important.”
“Don’t you want to know about what she’s been saying about you?”
“Christ wolfy, I know Sara a hell of a lot better than you ever will. Honestly, I have no idea what she said. I imagine that she made me out to be the perfect warrior. A man who will come charging to the aid of some girl whoes name I don’t know,” He gestures at the hippy, “And who hasn’t spoken to me in months”
Looking shocked the hippy asks, “You don’t know my name?”
Slightly flustered Link scratches the back of his head, “Yeah I dunno I’m terrible with names and all of that. Besides if you think about it? I don’t think its ever come up really. I always assumed it would come up somewhere, but yeah, sorry”
She smiles, “God you are so weird sometimes, well my name is-”
Angry now the wolf looking boy strides over to Sara yanking her hair viciously, “Don’t ignore me! I am still here and I have your friend,”
Link rolling his eyes, “Oh please 4 men holding her down and you pulling her hair? Now you are just making her wet. This is a girl who used to sit on my face and carve me up with a knife on Tuesday afternoons after kicking me in the nuts so hard I blacked out. I don’t think you could of picked a worse damisel in distress. Look at that she is groping one of them, Sara knock that off I’m sure they all have disiseases.” True enough she was, they weren’t so much holding her down anymore as she is making sure that they are all enjoying their close proximity to her, “So wolf man things not working out for you? This whole or else thing really doesn’t fly with me. I’ve been there, done that, and the pale rider is ten times scaryer than you are”
Alex laughs, “Jesus, yeah he is. God that is someone you didn’t even like being around. The other day I heard some kid with cards stuck in his spokes ride past, I nearly shit myself then dive tackled him. I am forever scared by that son of a bitch, even the demon doesn’t like-”
“ENOUGH” The wolf looking boy stomps his feet and produces a gun from behind his back, in a fury he levels it at Link, “Now I want you to tell to your hippy friend what it is you do with your gun every morning!”
The Hippy shrugs, as per her custom, “I already knew. He told me when he decicided he wasn’t going to do it anymore”
From off to the side they hear Sara cry out, “I told you that wouldn’t work you asshole”
Link smiles. He’s glad they caught on to what he is doing. Together they were working like a well oiled matchine rattling him in his little cage, showing him his insignifigance. Truth be told the wolf man scares the bloody hell out of Link and secretly he is relieved to have both Alex and the cowboy on his side, “Is this not quite going as planned?”
Four successive cracks came from the group now groping Sara and then there she is, standing in the midst of four unconscious bodies. Offended she sniffs at the Wolf boy, “I am not the sort of girl you send lackies to hold on to. You should have a little bit of respect. Cowboy excluded, the three of us have been though our share of shit. We know how to handle people like you, hell I am people like you. This whole thing is all wrong, I don’t know what it is you are trying to achieve here. Now put that silly thing away, try to kick Link’s ass, fail, get the shit beat out of you, and vow vengence like you know it is going to happen”
Furiouse The wolf looking man shouts at Link, “She damaged the bullet in your gun!”
They all froze. Alex, knew of course, Alex knew everything. Sara immediately distances herself from the bodies and takes up a defensive stance, the hippy starts to get ready to intercept him, and the cowboy wonders dully what the heck everyone is so worked up about. Link is the first to speak, “See now that is a way to get this thing rolling. Not all of his, or else bullshit. It true Sara?”
Two tears carying along with them mascara flow down from her eyes, “Oh fuck this shit, yes of course it is true you fucking asshole.”
Striding twords her, “What do you fucking mean you tampered with my bullets”
Looking around she sees everyone either backing away from her, or making no move twords her, gritting her teeth she decides that this is between him and her now, “Look fuck ass, what did you think. What do you think I’ve been doing to you all these fucking years”
“Ruining my god damn life that’s what”
Throwing her hands up, “Link for Christ’s sakes you were doing that stupid gun thing for at least a year before you saved my life.”
The wolf looking man goes to interupt their conversation but Alex calls out, “Come on cowboy we need to let those two work this out, this has been something to long in the making to let this asshole interupt things”. They move to grab him and as they do two of the four blonde boys get up and join the frey, creating a backdrop of intense physical violence for Link and Sara. Link looks at them out of the corrner of his eye, “I need to help them I’ll-”
She stamps her foot, “The fuck you do Link. You stay right here and you listen to what I have to say. You saved my life! Don’t you get that, you saved me. Without you I would be dead. And without me you would be dead. I did all of this to save you. I became who I am to save you. As long as you had someone to fight, to take out agression on, to keep your mind off your parents, you would be alive. I could get close enough to fuck with your bullets, and I kept you busy enough so you couldn’t just up and kill yourself proper. Most of the things I’ve done, I came to this shitty fucking school for you, to keep your worthless crybaby ass alive. Lucky for you, you really like getting the fucking shit kicked out of you”
“Well fuck me Sara, no one makes you save my life. Why the hell didn’t you just let me die like I wanted to, then would you have had to follow me up here? Yeah didn’t think so, so fuck off. You did all that shit just to fuck with my head harder and longer. Didn’t want me skipping out on all the fun we were having as you dug up progressively more dangerous psychos for me to deal with”
“Damnit, okay fine, look the pale rider was a mistake as was the white room, and half of those scars, but jesus what do you want? I am a terrible person not a heroin. I used to eat people for breakfast with a smile on my face and pom poms in heand. What the fuck did you expect me to do cuddle you and say there there, I tried that and it didn’t work”
“Yeah well you are doing a bang up job now aren’t you”
“I’d say I am, used your gun recently?”
Link stopped, he didn’t have an answer for that. Seeing his hesitation she rushes him, grabbing his shoulders she puts one knee solidly into his left nut, ensuring that when she wraps her lips around his, there is no resistance. Embracing her, more out of nessisity rather than desire he kisses her back, deep down inside, he knows, that some day somewhere she will kill him either acidently or on purpose. He’s know this long before Alex pulled him aside one day where he explained the dark future. She pulls back from him, three more blonde boys come out of the woods and the last two that she had downed earlier had gotten up. Giggling, Sara kisses Link on the cheek and then whispers in his ear, “You might have to sit this one out big boy, but come join us when you can. I am going to go help out. You know this is where you belong. You felt it as soon as you stepped onto this place. I’ll give it to you for the rest of your life, don’t you worry. Then with a wink and a laugh she skips off slashing one of the blonde boy’s faces with her nails, “There now we will be able to tell at least one of you mother fuckers apart from the others!” Laughing she becomes a whirrling dervish of pure unadulterated violence. He remembers their fights together. They were always much better than these shams the wolf looking mother fucker put on. Speaking of him he lets out a shout and points his gun at her. She laughs, sidesteps past his arm and hits him in the jaw so hard that the gun goes flying, miraculously it lands with out going off and slides directly in front of Link.
Time stops for him. The hippy has her back turned to him, she is standing off to the side of the violence watching mournfully as its unfolding before her, either unable or unwilling to help. The cowboy has gotten his hat knocked off at some point, its dangling down his back by one of those stupid strings. Simple as a cow, he doesn’t know or care what is going on. He is certainly enjoying the scrap though. He’s taken a few licks, but he’s giving them back and from the looks of thing each punch he lands feels like a back of concrete being dropped from 50 feet up. Alex surprisingly is doing well for himself. He is in the process of using his head as a bludgeoning weapon. Link smiles, he never really used the head butt until he met Alex. He always said he liked using it because it made the voices stop yelling combat directions. Everyone is bleeding, knuckles are buised, and teeth are loosened. There they are. Link realizes that he should be with them. Who is he kidding. He sought out this bar, that thing in the woods like a blood hound. He needs trouble, times of scilencre? You gotta be joking. The rest of them, all of them, are here because of him. The wolf boy and Sara they need someone to fight just as much as he needs them. Alex didn’t say why exactly but Link suspects it has to do with the white room. The hippy is here because the hippy is always here, and the cowboy, poor cowboy, he’s just a loyal as moronic dog. Keeping Sara safe from herself, just as she tried to keep Link away from himself.
Enough is enough. This is a cycle. It’s repeated four times now, all the players have changed, the location has changed, everything has changed except the cycle. Joining the fight would mean breaking a promise. Can’t be havng that now. From his left pocket he takes out a candy necklace and bites off one of the yellow ones. They taste like summer. With a smile on his lips, candy in his mouth and freedom in his heart, he picks up the gun and points it at his heart. Never shoot a martyer in the head. He shouts, “This ends now”
The last thing he hears as he pulls the trigger is the sound of both Sara and the hippy screaming no. Funny he never did learn her name.

Epilouge:

Hey updating my note. This might be the last time I ever do this. This is because I will either learn to go on living a happy healthy free life, or something stupid will happen between Sara and either the wolf looking mother fucker, the gold lady, or the thing in the woods. For some reason I think it is going to be the latter of the two. They make me out to be the perfect warrior but I’m not. I’m physically strong because it passes the time I should be otherwise sleeping, I’m brave because tommarow shouldn’t come for me. Not like hippy who has found all these annoyingly complicated conditions through which she lives her life. That is something worth respecting, and it is the only reason why I am still wearing this ring. Not being allowed to punch anyone amazing.
There are some things I’d like to do before I die. I’d like to get to know the cowboy better. He doesn’t seem like such a bad sort. He definatly isn’t the usual sort of fare that Sara picks up on and consumes at will. Maybe I can save him from all of this.
I’d like to give the Lady in White her umbrella. I just finished it, god it took forever to do. Still I am pretty proud, that is something that isn’t going to be loosing its shine any time soon. Should I die, it is hanging by my shirts in the room please be sure she gets it.
I really want to learn the Hippy’s name. I also want her to come home and meet my parents. She is such a gentle soul. Now that I am up here and I am facing life I am not so sure about them. Am I crazy? Or were they really as bad as I think they were? If she met them she could probably tell me, it would help to give me perspective on most of this.
I kinda want to talk to bitchface. Sure sure she carved up my face. But things are rough and I’ve been there. Not to that extent but close. I think at this point she could use a friend, might as well be someone she was about to kill.
I can’t really think of, oh of fucking course. This is one of those things that is so obvious you don’t even realize it’s there. I want to reconcile with Alex, with all the parts of Alex. Of all the people I’ve met I’ve never had a more loyal friend, someone who has almost always been there for me. Also of all my friends I have never met anyone who has been so thoroughly damaged by what goes on in my life. I have no idea how, but I really want to earn his forgiveness.
That should be it. What’s in the dorm room is the sum total of my possesions. Yeah I don’t have much so take whatever you want. I might have books out from the library, please return them. Oh I also have a blank check with this note for burial expenses. Its one of my parents, just use it, forge their signature, it isn’t like it is going to bounce, and if it does fuck them. I’d like to be cremated and have my ashes sprinkled in the garden at dawn. I’d like the creepy christian girl to be there, and if possible, I’d like her to sing.
Don’t invite my parents until after the cremation. They will just meddle. Hippy please plant some daffodils in remeberance of me.
Lastly I’d like the following words read, by Sara, if Sara isn’t available (I might kill her) then Hippy please, if hippy isn’t available then I doubt any of this will be honored anyway so don’t bother:

Dawn. Some of you maybe wondering why I did what I did. Chances are I won’t be able to give you a satisfactory reason here because I am writing this ahead of time. I do not know what the circumstances of my death will be. I do know that it will more than likely be by my hand. I’m not a fighter but I’ve been fighting for almost my entire life. There’s no future in it though. People seek you out, and if they don’t find you, you end up finding them, without even meaning to or really thinking about it. The golden lady, whoever she may be, taught me that. She was a perfectly innocent ant hill that I kicked over, couldn’t leave it alone.
As I struggle to deal with this I see my friends drawn in over and over again, hurt over and over again sometimes by my mistakes, other times by the machinations of others, and sometimes by my hands. Each time this wears on me a little bit more, I am able to deal with it a little bit less. True I never feel more alive than I do before a fight, but now more and more I feel the weight crashing down on me, having to deal with the afterwards is becoming to much. As I give up the gun I am afraid. Am I really choosing life or am I finally admitting that the threat of death is to much for me and that I now need something else. It is a thought to dark even for me so I press on with hope, my face twords the sun, praying that I am wrong and I can join everyone else in their laughter as I rocket twords a completely average middle age. My what stories I’d be able to tell my grand kids should that ever happen. But I don’t think it will. Not for me at least. Life isn’t the right format for me, it never was. Even Sara was able to live a normal life still being all of who she is, Alex managed to get a girlfriend all on his own. Okay well he needed a little help. Then I came along and it all came crashing down for the both of them. Sorry.
Now look out over the dawn. The sun is rising and a new day is upon you. The first day since you met me where the stain that I am is no longer pushing down upon you. You all are free to live your lives however it is you wish. You were always free I suppose but now I am not burdening you. I with that you would all go forth into the future and to treat each day with the care, beauty, and delecacy that it deserves. For every day is truly marvelous thing, I have learned after so many years facing near death that the time we have is never something to under estimate or waste.
All of you, even you Sara, are beautiful people. Go forth with grace and love. I’ll be waiting for you, either storming the gates of heaven, or strangling Satan in the depths of hell. Or doing battle with something where ever it is I am going. Know this. It is time for me to go. I’ve been here far to long already. I’ll see you when the time is right, don’t worry. Eternity is a long time. So live well, and give me many stories to hear once you come and join me. My life is a marvelous nightmare. Thankyou all for your parts,

Now for the love of god go in peace.

le novel part 21 WC 2851

Evening a couple of days later, Link and the Hippy where sitting underneath a large tree eating fruit, occationally talking, but mostly just lounging around. Link was reading a novel by flashlight, which has become a nessisity for him since he and the hippy girl spend so much time outdoors. She appeared to be making something out of leather but Link never really got around to asking her what it is. Time passes between them with relative ease, each of the them doing the things they could easily do alone next to each other for reasons niether of them could fully put into words. As the last light of the day fades the unmistakable clink of spurs, comes closer to them heralding either the apporche of the cowboy, or someone who is a just as much a lost soul as him. Looking around Link can’t see him anywhere and as he begins to suppose that the cowboy must just be passing by and doesn’t mean anyone any harm to day, he realizes that he’s been snuck up upon. Grabbing him roughly from behind and turning him around the Cowboy looks directly into Link’s confused face and just stands there almost if he is unsure of how to continue. Link waiting for a bit finally asks, “Is there anything I can help you with?” He noted with some slight irritation that the hippy hadn’t even looked up from her sewing.
Without answering the cowboy draws his fist back, in a strange, stuttering clockwork like motion, and tries to swing on Link who just manages to slip out of his grip in time. The cowboy spits, then lumbers after him, still without looking up, brow furrowed in concintration, the Hippy calls out, “Don’t hurt him Link”.
Doging another swing Link glares at her, “What the hell he started it, he even snuck up on m-” his complaining being interrupted as a result of being forced to focus fully on the fight at hand. Link has to admit though that there is something strange going on here. Cowboy doesn’t really seem like to be the sort of person who hesitates at anything, and his movements are all off. His next punch Link grabs his wrist, locks the cowboys arm in place, then puts him down. The hippy raises her eyebrows but before she can talk Link cuts her off, “Don’t even start with me, Akido is about not hurting people and he is just bloody fine I just used his force against him”
She nods happily, “Oh I know I was just supprised you know it that’s all, it isn’t very common for whatever reason”
“I just know the bas- You do realize that we are having a perfectly pleasant conversation while I have a restrained cowboy squirming under me who is trying to kick my ass for no known reason right? That’s still strange? Something we- Damnit look cowboy if you keep moving like that you are going to end up hurting yourself. Now just be still while the hippy and I take our sweet ass time doing whatever the hell it is we are doing”.
She smiles, “Alright alright, you know sometimes you really do complain constantly. Here I finished what I was doing let him up”
Link backs away from the cowboy who is immediately on his feet again trying to get all robo aggressive on Link, when the hippy takes some, what look to be seeds, from the pouch she just got done sewing and throws them at the cowboy. Immeadiatly, his eyes don’t change so much as they once again look like they have someone living behind them and all the sudden he lets out a roar and with an exceedingly fast fluid motion punches the unprepared Link in the jaw which knocks him down on his ass. Not giving him time to recover the cowboy springs on him but Link, hands up, manages to fend him off and regain footing, see now that is the cowboy that Link remembers. Not some weird clockwork robo freak version. Now, swinging wildly the cowboy charges at Link who has no choice but to give ground and wait for an opening. Even if he had permission to crack this idiot’s head open none of this made any sense. Sara usually has a long standing master plan, and while she has been certainly laying low for these past couple of days, you would think the fruits of her labor would equate to more than the cowboy’s bezerker rage. All of this just plain smelled wrong, and he has a feeling that the hippy knows a lot more than she has been saying. She is the sort of person who plays her cards close to the ches-, absorbing a body blow is what Link gets for wandering off though wise during a fight. Narrowly escaping the rest of his combo Link start’s to wonder, “No banter, no boasting, this doesn’t feel like a fight with the cowboy”.
Deciding to try diplomacy one more time, Link catches the cowboy’s fist in his palm and starts slowly bending his wrist back, “Come on cowboy snap out of whatever the hell is going on. Kicking my ass will more than likely make you feel better, I know I’ve been there, but something is obviously up, something was in you wasn’t it? I don’t know shit about all of this sort of thing but come on man you won’t get anything solved”
He could see it, the indecision in his eyes, the uncertainty, what the hell has just happened to this kid? Someone somewhere has certainly delt him a short hand from a stacked deck, or other something like that. His whole body quivers with uncertainty and Link lets him go, fully prepared to defend himself again should this ridiculous tom foolery continue. Instead he just sinks uselessly to the ground and starts to shake his head, halfway between crying and returning to outright physical violence. After a moment the Hippy gets up and goes to take the cowboy in her arms. Greatfuly he sinks into her, much to Link’s discomfort he just stares into space.
The hippy looks up with a pained smile on her face, “He isn’t like the rest of us you know. We can handle this sort of weird stuff without it ruining our lives. I deal with it healthly, you try to kill yourself, Sara uses it to her own ends, and the Wolf man? Well he eats people, plain and simple.” Link takes a step back unsure of what to say. The hippy just looks sort of sad and somewhat distant, “What? Link did you honestly think you are the only person with a dark and mysterious past that they are escaping from?”
“So does that mean you and the wolf boy-”
She shakes her head, “Nope first time I saw him was in the garden, though his weird little blonde clone lings were running around the bar. You remember that part though. No but I recognize him for what he is. This place, it is a lodestone for people like you and me and the baggage we come along with. Him, that wolf looking kid? I get the feeling that he collects it, feeds off of it. To what end? Who knows, there might not ever be one. But I know that I’ve been sitting on my laurles for far to long. So its time we go put this wolf looking kid out of the three of our lives right now, after all I have midterms coming up in a couple of weeks and I don’t need the added stress. Now then cowboy, where are they?”
He looks up with a renewed sense of purpose and dignity, “Well I reckon they are still in your pretty lil garden”, his amazingly false drawl has returned. It made Link’s skin crawl. Hippy not wasting any time heads off, with the cowboy in tow. A moment later they are joined by Link, “Hey cowboy what’s care to give us a little intel on what’s going on while we are charinging into battle to help you?”
They aren’t exactly running, its closer to speed walking than anything else. Three completely ordinary people just slightly hurrying across campus trying not to attract atension. It would work if they weren’t a hippy, a cowboy, and a hulking man dressed all in black covered in scars. They get some curiouse looks, but only the sort that you get when someone else needs to alieviate boredom not the sort of malice filled eyes that the three of them know they are going to meet. The cowboy is hemming and hawing, trying to find a way to not answer the question, which puts Link immediately into a foul mood, the hippy then stops and putter her hand on his shoulder says, “Look it would really help us to know what it is we are getting into”. The cowboy nodded, as he starts to talk they continue walking, “Now I don’t rightly know what goes on between Sara and that kid who looks like an ornery coyote, but they’ve been seenin each other more an more in the last coupla weeks. They keep talkin about some bar in the middle a nowhere that no one’s seems to of heard of, its ca-”
Link interupts “We know it don’t worry, it isn’t your type of place man”
“Well at any rate. The coyote boy keeps mentioning something about someone named the pale rider, or somethin to that effect. I dunno what’s it all about. Normally, I try and steer clear of all this mess, but trouble seems to follow that girl wherever she goes. Just can’t seem to keep away from it. I figuring I a owe it to her to help her out. She’s tutoring me in math ya see. Anyway, they go out to the garden and all the sudden he just ups and a changes. Just like that. He’s got this crazy smile and he a tells me that if I don’t go kick the crap outta you she’s gonna die. Then, well then he does something to me. Next thing I know I am singing on you insteada him. I figure since I already found you I might as well do as he says you know, nothin personal partner” he goes to give Link a friendly punch on the arm, but Link’s glare stops him short.
The hippy smiles at them, “He doesn’t like to be touched, don’t worry about him”
The cowboy looks at the two of them, “Must be weird to date someone who don’t like bein touched like that”
The hippy just laughs, at Link’s smoldering glare, “Don’t be so serious Link it will give you a heart attack one of these days”
“One of these days” Link thinks to himself. Funny, that’s now a possibility of how things can happen. There is a future in all of this. Not running through the woods, punching wolf looking mother fuckers in the face so that they won’t do some stupid fucked up thing to your ex-girlfriend and current arch nemisis. No that is a stupid way to spend time. But the rest of it. The school bit. There can be a job at the end of this, one where he wears long sleeve shirts to hide his scars, and stands around a water cooler talking. They make sitcoms about how much that life is a sort of dreary hell. Really though those people don’t really know what hell is like. What Link is doing right now though, it is close.
Link turns to the Hippy, “So what is up with the pouch you were making, you knew this was going to happen?”
She shrugs, which seems at this point to be the most common precursor to everyone’s response to anything recently, “I knew something was coming, not this soon though. There are other things I wish I could of done to it. I had a grandma who showed me how to make it. Look Link, I don’t really understand most of this. But it is something I am built for much better than the two of you. So try to relax and let me do the heavy lifting okay?”
Link nods, “Alright, try to not let the same thing that happened to me last time happen again yeah?”
“I’ll try not to. Sorry, I guess I just lost my tempter or something like that”.
As they approach the woods Alex comes out to meet them. He is wearing a pair of kakies and some name brand shirt from a name brand store. Link has never seen anyone suceed so brilliantly at looking so completely normal. He looks apologetic, “Hey Link. I am tired of this shit. More tired than you can ever understand. But they left. They went to the bar and you can’t find it without me. Sara’s in danger, and I already have what happened to you on my conscious. I should have been there for you, sorry”
Link puts his hand on his shoulder, “You shouldn’t be anywhere near me, you never should have been, but I am glad that you are here”.
The cowboy scanning the horizon nods to himself and makes a clicking sound, the sort heros in westerns make when they are summoning a horse, which is exactly what happens. Two beautiful black horses come running out of the woods up to the four of them. They approach cowboy who nuzzles them both affectionately, then to the hippy, “Can you ride bare back” she nods, “good then take Link, I’ll grab this gangly one and we’ll lead the way, for obvious reasons I know all the horse paths through these woods. He mounts up, grabs the surprisingly complacent Alex and rides off. When Link turns around the hippy is already on its back, beaming like a little girl getting a pony ride she holds her hand out to Link, “Have you ever done this before?”
“I grew up in the suburbs”
She laughs, “Then hold on tight and do your best not to fall off”. With that they race after the cowboy. Catching up Link can hear distantly Alex giving out directions. Sometimes they will branch off into what look to be solid woods but soon enough a path emerges. It almost looks like some of these have been reclaimed by the cowboy personally. Horses aren’t exactly the most effective creatures in the woods, but these paths seem customed made for them. They hammer down through the darkness, the light of the half moon shining down through the leaves providing the only illumination. They ride on, Link knows it isn’t Alex leading the way but the little yellow bird, luckily for all of them the bird knows these paths just as well as the cowboy does. Link looking around tries his very best to catch his bearings. He realizes that they are close to a road, a road they are about to cross. Before he can shout warning the two of them burst forth from the forest, Link unable to watch hears the screeching tires, the collission of metal on metal, as cars on both sides of the road suddenly slam on their breaks to let the riders through. Latter the cops on the scene would have no idea what to do about any of it. After crossing the road they run through the woods a bit more then come out underneath some high tension power lines, which have their own long swath cut through the woods. He wants to ask hippy what it is she did when she went into the bar that night. He tries but the movement of the horse makes it impossible for him to speak. Alex is laughing, the cowboy is whooping and having the time of his life, and the hippy looks like some sort of jungle queen. He realizes that he is the only person who isn’t enjoying himself. He knows that something is wrong, the hippy is to well prepared for this, and he knows to little about everything. Things like, her name, and anything about her past. He feels like a dick for not asking all this time but he always figured she’d just volunteer the information when the time is right. Now they are ridning into battle again, literally. This is beyond insane. Though it is no ones’ dark past catching up to them this time. This time it is an all new threat, a new threat which took his dark past hostage. Nothing is adding up but then again, none of it really matters. Someone’s in danger and it is time to help. It’s how he’s always done things. Just because there is a tomarrow now isn’t going to stop that any time soon.
They slide back into the woods again and it isn’t long before they get there. The bar itself appears to be either closed or not open yet. There they are waiting in the parking lot.

le novel part 20 wc4105

Days later Link rockets out of his last class for the day. Despite sitting in the middle of the room he is the first one out the door. It doesn’t take people long to figure out that any other place is better than to be in Link’s way. He’s plans his routs with the same sort of precision that a life long serial killer would use. While on his way to his car he spots his victem, the hippy girl. He made a resolution to learn her name before to much more time went by. The whole not knowing thing is getting a little silly at this point. She sees him stalking up from quite far away, which isn’t suprising he is nearly impossible to miss. At all times he looks about as out of place as a black man wearing a KKK outfit. Stalking across the campus with a firece amount of determination he is a basition of focused action in a sea of meandering listlessness. It is amazing how feel people actually look like where ever they are going is actually important. There he is though, as quiet as a breeze with all the intensity of a stampede. She stands up, gathering her things together quickly, a stride like that means that she is not the desitination but that her company is either necessary or desired. That and they still have so much to talk about. About her ex-girlfriend, about where he went, and about who Sara really is to him. He doesn’t slow down instead he shouts, “Come on walk and talk we got a lot of ground to cover, and I don’t think this will work after nightfall which only gives us less than three hours”
She falls in line with him hurrying to keep up, “Why what happens in three hours?”
“The sun goes down, I predict that the Lady in White will be much harder to find if there is no sun. It Is just one of those things”. There is something in the way he talks, where even if the things he says don’t make sense, they most certainly sound like they do. The lady in white will be hard to find at night, of course.
“Why are we looking for her?”
“That night in the garden. The last thing I remember is the bird being shot. I’ve been thinking about that” They were at his car now. It seemed to be held together with yarn, glue, and the absolute fear that Link will go ballistic should it dare to fall apart, “The doesn’t even lock, anyway, something happened between the bird and the room. I know this because Sara made that place the white room, I’d never willingly go back there. Alex helped me make it, someday when he stops being pissed at me I’ll introduce him to you”
The hippy a bit bewildered asks, “Why is he so mad at you?”
Link looks a little bit embarrassed for a bit, “Well see Alex, is crazy, or so I thought. He’s got multiple personalities and he tends to hang around and talk to himself”
Sara nods, “Oh I think I’ve seen him powling campus late at night, he has a think for this bright blue bathrobe?”
“Yeah that’s him, Alex is usually to busy with himself to notice what he’s wearing when he leaves the house. Anyway, it isn’t so much that we were friends, but rather that we were damanaged people sharing space near each other. We’d talk from time to time, but for the most part we were busy with our own things. Anyway, one day Sara sees us talking together and the next thing I know he’s drug in. We have some scrapes together, some of them end up being really close, but we pulled through. Anyway, one day Sara gets pissed off at him and possesses him with a demon”
The hippy blinks with surprise, “Wait, what! How do you do something like that?”
Link shrugs, “Who knows vigin’s blood, lip stick., and some rituals or something like that, I don’t know as it was happening I had a lot of other concerns I needed to be dealing with. Like mostly containing Alex so he doesn’t hurt anyone. I succeeded at that for about a day before he escaped. Two weeks later I found him under a bridge, naked, half starved. The hobos in the area were afraid to touch him, but when I found him he seemed relived. He said something like, ‘thank god, go find me some cloths and bring me home’. It was only much later that I found out that one of her personalities sacrified itself, when the demon ate it, it changed the demon somehow making it both more than what it is and less. I don’t know Alex is hard to understand sometimes and his internal landscape is something I don’t really want to know to much about. Anyway since then he’s been pretty pissed at me. Poor guy had enough problems with his like then all the sudden Sara swoops in and he ends up demon possessed.”
Sara nods slowly, “I don’t know I just, it”
Link pats her on the head awkwardly, which is one of the very few times he tries to show affection, “Yeah look you are a part of this too. Sorry about you, your garden, your girlfriend. All of it is my fault you know, I hope you understand that,”
“Well I don’t know I mean I’ve had some things happen to me too, but”
Link laughs, “Nothing like getting one of your friends demon possessed”
The hippy, looking thoughtful asks, “Hey do you think that is what happened to my girlfriend, you think Sara put something inside of her to make that happen to her?”
Link nods, it has become one of those conversations. Pulling into a parking lot of a gas station Link gives her the universal, “no you wait right here” sign and heads off. He comes back later with two slushies and beings filling his car with gas. They don’t talk for a moment, drinking their slushies, looking around Link finds what he needs. When he gets back in the car they don’t drive long, soon they find an abandoned parking lot and he pulls in, turns off the car, and turns to the hippy, “I don’t know. Is she demon possed”?
He looks at her with his deep piecing gaze that seems to freeze time, so that it can crack open realizy, allowing him to skip all the interviening bullshit and talk straight at someone’s soul, “No, she isn’t is she?”
Link shrugs, “I met her once, and I know you were really into her and all but she is a massive cunt. I mean all the shit that’s happened to me, every fight I’ve been in, every punch I’ve absorbed, every knife I’ve taken, hell I’ve even been shot once, an yet no one has fucked with my face until her. Sara wasn’t even egging her on or anything she just did that shit for the fun of it”
The hippy nods and fails at trying to hide that she is about to cry, “I, I know, I’m sorry. I knoew there was that part of her, I knew it all along. I could feel it inside of her when we kissed. I, I just hopped that it was me being crazy or something, she was so nice to me, and I don’t know ever since that night I’ve been going over that so many things in my head over and over again, I just wished, hoped for one minut, one minut that I was crazy you know and that Sara did something to her to make her like that, something we could fix” the damn bursts, the remains of her Icey hit’s the floor and there she is, in Link’s arms, awkwardly hugging him over the center concol thing.
He expects her to cry, to flood his car with her tears all the whle cursing their abscent god or something like that. It doesn’t happen though. She just holds him tightly. Hands digging into him painfully. After about five minuts she recomposes herself, “Sorry but I don’t want to cry any more tears for her. I also don’t want to cry anymore tears as a result of her. That is why I was with her the other day, in case you were wondering, after, I… you know I saw you doing your thing.”
“Right my, thing”
Link looks nervouse, he supposes it is either now or never, and he is about to come clean on the whole thing when she suddenly goes on, “But I realize now that she doesn’t create. She just takes what’s already there and enhances it. Maybe she turns it to what it truly is, I don’t know. I do know that my ex isn’t now something different, she was always like that, now she just has had all the bullshit scrapped off of her”
Seeing his chance Link verbally leaps, “Yeah look about that there is some-”
“She’s behind the car”
Link usually a highly mentally flexible person can only say, “The fuck?” but the rearview mirror explains everything. There like a great sail, standing in the dusk, in straight defiance of the night, there stands the Lady in White, twice as large as life, looking around on the ground for, something. Link pops the trunk and scrambles out of the car, donning a pair of white gloves he pulls from one of his pockets, he grabs a long white box from the trunk. He hadn’t notice but along with the night the wind had picked up blowing wind and miscellaneous debries all over the place. It’s a strange wind that seems to be intent on carrying away secrets and bring bringing with it the cold. Wind is strange like that, its good that he found her. As he appoches he she turns to face him, she doesn’t appear to be the least bit surprised by anything. A few strands of plantiunm blonde hair escape from under her hat and make a desperate, but failed, bid for freedom. Link smiles, “I know I probably frighten you. I understand why now. I went some place I shouldn’t of, and found things there that shouldn’t be there didn’t I?” She nods slowly, “I don’t know about anything that happened to me while I was there or how I got there. I’m sorry. Did I put the things there?”. She shakes her head no, and begins to look slightly defensive, “Did Sara? Okay okay you don’t know who Sara is I get it, how about the golden lady from the bar?” The lady and white stands ram rod straight and fixes him with a powerful glare, “Look okay the mute thing? Not the best way to convay information. Had you just said, oh and avoid the lady in gold she’s not so cool don’t go all glary at me”
She looks past Link to the car where the hippy has just gotten out. Then she looks back at Link. Link nods, “Alright fine I probably shouldn’t of even fucking gone to the bar, I get it is a place for people like me and wolf boy. The day light is fading fast though and I am certain that means you have somewhere to go. So again did the golden lady do it, if not her did you”. Again she nods no, then pauses, and nods no again and gives him a “you dumbass look”.
Link rolls his eyes, “Alright fine, well I don’t like them being around do you think you can help me fix them someday?”. The lady in white thinks for a moment then she nods slowly. He some how gets the feeling from her that it will be dangerous though, “I’m not safe with them inside of me, am I?”. She looks sad for a moment, like a woman who is seeing the ten thousandth casualty from a very long war and who has felt the pain of each and every one of them. “The thing in the woods I should of known. Anyway thank you very much. Umm I made this for you, I would of given it to you even if you decided to be unhelpful. Its just that things like this don’t excist, not to your standards at least, so, well anyway I hope you like it” He thrusts the box at her and turns around quickly heading back to the car. He hears her open in, and the fwampawoosh sound it makes as it opens. Just before he gets back into the car he hears her clap her hands twice, looking back he can see the smile in her eyes as she gives him the thumbs up sign. He waves, gets back in the car, and they drive away.
“An umbrella” the hippy asks confused by the whole thing.
Link nods, “yeah well you know the weather is changing and it will start doing thous day long rain marathon things, that and I mean it rains all summer so it’s something everyone should have. Oh don’t look so confused. Look at her, white surgical mask, white gloves, white hair, all white clothing, she even has white buttons on her jacket, she doesn’t like touching or holding non white things. Even if she were to find a white umbrella there would be all that metal, the handle would be black, or it would be a cheap flimsy piece of shit. This umbrella is bad ass, it is made to withstand winds of up to 50 miles an hour, I’m not sure why though if the wind is blowing that hard the rain will soak you anyway but what ever. It is big enough to cover her adequately, and I painted, then weather sealed all the metal on it with white paint. I took quite awhile to get everything together, but it seems like something she’ll need. Oh I also reinforced the crap out of the tip so she can also use it as a handy cane, since you know she walks everywhere and all”.
The hippy sits more than a little stunned, “It’s just unexpected I guess, she seemed to irritate you so thoroughly the first time the two of you me”
“Yeah that totally happened didn’t it, man it feels like it was years ago now doesn’t it? How could I forget her though, that was our first outing together?” The hippy reddened, “Oh don’t be getting all embarrassed, I don’t think of you like that, besides I have certain sexual needs that I would never ask you to gratify. We are just friends, that’s all”.
She laughs, giggles almost, “I don’t know it’s strange. I’ve nearly seen you kill people, I’ve nearly seen you killed, and I thought I saw you killing yourself. You are a vortex of death, pain and violence. So it’s just funny picturing you sitting around making something like that for a crazy lady who has done nonthing but annoy you or lead you into trouble”.
“Look, stop. We need to talk. Sara did her thing. She lied to you.”
She narrows her eyes slightly and looks over Link, the red scar on his face stands out in the fading light, and some day it will pucker up and become white, like all the other ones that crisscross his body. After what happened to him that night she hopped that the rest of them just appeared like the ones on his chest did, “Your scars are all self inflicted aren’t they?”
“I, um what no, damnit okay so she lies to you a lot and we will have time to hammer out the truth to you later, all the truth. This one thing though, that has nothing to do with the fucking scars is something you need to know. But to put your mind at rest no they are not self inflicted. Sara did put most of them on there, and she is responciple for most of them being there, so well you know. Anyway it has nothing to do with what I want to tell you. So please just listen”. The hippy nods silently. Link takes a deep breath and goes on, “Look what you saw that morning isn’t a celebration in the remeberance of some killed who killed himself. Though that kid is real and worth remembering. No, it is something I do every morning, it is something I’ve done every morning, since about the 8th grade”.
He stopped to let the words sink in, and they were sinking in alright, her tiny hands balled into fists, a fury is growing under the surface like a mighty storm cloud, billowing up twords the jet stream like a maze of puffy nightmares, then faster than Link’s eye could follow she slams her fist into his jaw. Stunned at how hard she can punch he struggles to maintain control of the car. Once they are back on their side of the road she icily bids him to continue.
“Right then so, that’s really all there is to it. Except that, after you saw me I knew people would becoming to check the room so I hid the gun. Then I lied to housing people. It was a good lie too, spontaneous, natural, beautiful. Man that lie just flowed from my lips like a summer breeze. I don’t normally lie, I usually just tell it straight up. I mean why not, I play Russian roulett every morning there is a one in six chance I won’t have to deal with any of it tomarrow. So I do my best to get it all done in one day. So I tell people the truth. When I lied to those people it made me believe that I was choosing life. I now know that isn’t true, instead I was picking not hurting you, because I fear that worse than death. Which sounds dramatic, but I really don’t fear death at all.” Throughout the monolouge she sits there silent, resolute, like a statue version of herself. She stares straight a head and only seems to be dimly aware of the fact that he stopped talking. After a bit he continues, “Anyway when I heard Sara lie to you, to preserve the peace to us I knew that I had to come clean to you. She believes that the two of us will naturally fall apart without any help from her, that she is redundant. I will destroy my friendship with you all on my own. You know what? She might be right about that. It’s kinda hard to deny it. But at least should I do it, it will be because I’ve always told you the truth.”

She nods slowly, “Keep driving I need time to think”. He complys silently. Turning off from the main road he gets onto a long winding country road which pretty much leads to nowhere. They drive along for nearly an hour before she says, “What about the umbrella?”
“I leave a note that is constantly updated, there was specific instructions as to what to do with the umbrella and who to give it to. I figured someone would carry out my last request, if not you then Sara would of made cowboy do it”
She nods and goes back to thinking, another hour passes in scilence. Just the howling, rain bringing wind, ripping through the trees, the hum of the car, and their quiet steady breathing, “You been doing this the whole time I knew you?”
“No actually. When the summer started I decided to turn over a new leaf. I didn’t do it the whole summer, right up until the end when-”
“When I left you?”
“No actually it was when Sara showed up at orientation, promising me that she would never leave me alone, never let me rest, that this stupid bullshit would never end, so that’s when I picked up the gun again. It was a great thing you were gone, I didn’t want Sara hurting you, but that happened anyway. Sorry.”
More time passes, she’s still deep in though, almost as if she is trying to work things out, “I don’t get it, why don’t you just do it? Why do you care so much about the things around you if you think you may not be around in the next weeks or months. Why did you think I’d just replant the garden in the spring? And all of the other things you do?”
Link shrugs, “Woah, well first the Russian roulette thing was originally supposed to be a back hand to my parents. They were so distant and uncaring that they didn’t know that I snuck a gun into the house, and ritualistically pull the trigger every morning. I care because I care. This might be my last day on earth after all, so I love the ones I love, I take care of the people I care for, and I hate the people I hate with all my might because tomarrow really might not come for me and I don’t want to have not lived the life you know what I mean?”
“Are you going to keep doing it?”
This time it is Link’s turn to stop and think. Is he? Sara seems to be actually concerned with school now, which makes sense he supposes, it’s the only way she can stay up here at the moment. Their major battles haven’t been to bad and it almost seems like they’ve reached a truce, albeit an uneasy one. Most of all though, it doesn’t seem right anymore, like there is more that he could be doing with life than living from one day to the next. All this time he knew it is nothing more than a crutch which he uses because he can’t handle every day life, and yet here he is, handling every day life. Not like a pro per say but he’s doing alright. It isn’t that he has the hippy now. He knows that all things in life are transitory and that she will leave him or he will leave her, probably sooner than later, “You know what? No I don’t think I will. Not because of you though. Don’t think that. It is more that the time of the gun has passed. Much like the whole violence thing I do. Like not fighting the cowboy. I could of easily of just layed him out but really? At the end of the day, it felt good not kicking the crap out of him.”
“Oh yeah well what about ‘the wolf looking mother fucker’ as you like to call him”
Link sighs “Look I know you don’t agree with all this shit and everything, but fuck that guy. That guy is someone who’s jaw I will happily break. There are just some people who want nothing more than to see this world burn, your ideals don’t work on them”
Defiantly, “Well I don’t belive that”
Link smiles, “Well you have until you leave me to figure it out. Anyway, I am starving. Lets say we head back to town and get a bit to eat.”
“No. Drive a little bit further down the road first there is something that needs to be done”
Link nods, “Say are you from around here by any chance? I never did get the opportunity to ask you”
“Nope I was born and raised in Idaho, I came to this school purely by chance”. Around the next bend in the road is the bar. Looking as ramshackle as ever it stands upon a nest of dark secrets that makes this whole area seethe with a sort of unholy energy. When he pulls into the parking lot she hops out of the car, when Link goes to follow her he gets an icy, “Wait here”.
Link nods and get just gets out to streach his legs. She disappears inside for 15 mintus then comes back out, walking calmly, alone. As she approches, she nods, “I got everything I wanted lets go back to campus”
He nods and they drive back. He doesn’t ask her about the inside of the bar, and she doesn’t offer up any information. After awhile they begin talking of other things like gardening, birds, the past, and the future. They laugh, off at the night which fails to look foreboding, for they will both live to see the dawn of another day

le novel part 19! WC 2338

The sound they make as they collide answers the question what sound does a tree make if it falls in the forest and nobody hears it. The two of them race twords the ground giving providing nature’s weakest force with the steroid of momentum. Fantasticly, Link’s head found a rock to break his fall. He couldn’t be certain, because there is all sorts of pain everywhere but he could swear that he could of felt an acorn get chucked at his head, “Doesn’t that motherfucker need to save those things for winder, god damnit”
The cowboy staggering to his feet drawls in a Texan accent, “What did you just say to me?”
Link could of sworn he had a more southern accent the last time they spoke, alibet it was briefly and it ended with physical violence so it doesn’t really matter all that much, he has much more important things to do, “Look cowboy, I’m sure we have all sorts of unfinished business because I shit all over your honor or something, but now isn’t the time. Hey have you seen the hippy girl I run around with by any chance?”
He gives Link the flat dead stare of a manniquen, who’s been left out in the sun to long so the paint that even the dead lifeless stare has started to fade. There is something truly fundamentally creepy about this man Link concludes, and it isn’t just the fact that he is wearing spurrs, “I recockon you best be answering my question first before you start askin some of your own.”
First it is important to note the agonizing slowness that he speaks each and every word. By halfway though the sentence Link has thought about leveling him 6 times with different punches or combination of punches, “What question, what is going on, damnit cowboy I really don’t have time for this”. He goes to move around the cowboy but Link finds his shirt suddenly grabbed and him being shoved to the ground violently. Not wanting to damage his new ring Link twists his body and ends up belly flopping on the ground, knocking the wind out of him.
“You aren’t going anywhere until you’ve answered my question”
Weezing Link nearly fails at trying to get up, “No seriously cowboy I have no idea what you are talking about”
“Stop calling me cowboy”. Face red with anger, veins bulging on the side of his head Link knew that he was in the prescense of madness. Madness that makes Alex look sane and normal. Fists balled, wieght shifted on the back leg, Link saw all the sighns and this old boy is looking for a scrap. That’s fair though, last time they met he did get thrown rather unceremoniously into some bushes.
He didn’t want to fight the Cowboy part of it was the promise he made to Hippy, part of it is the fact that the Cowboy seems to be pretty much insane, most of it though has to do with the fact that he still hasn’t recovered from two days ago, putting his hands up Link does his best to defuse the situation, “Alright well if you want me to not call you cowboy then I think it is high time you cough up your name”
He stops almost as if he has to think about it, “Duke, my name is Duke”
Keeping his hands up Link continues, “Alright then duke” he couldn’t bring himself to pronounce the upper case D, “I know we got off to a bad start. I know this because I was the one that made it a bad start. You were just trying to be a good guy and honestly were our posissions reversed I would of done the same thing, so I’m sorry” he puts his hands down and starts working at the ring. If he can get the damn thing off he could just toss the cowboy aside and be on his way. Of all the things he has time for, he has time for this the least. However, she made it so he couldn’t get the thing off very easily, clever girl. “Anyway so duke let’s just let by gones be by gones and move on with our lives okay?”. Getting to his feet Link sticks out his hand and gives his best shot at a friendly smile, which isn’t friendly enough as the cowboy takes a swing at him. A big slow swing that has so much wind up time to it that you’d really have to want it, if you got hit by the thing. Nimbly dodging to the left then to the right, Link ducks and weaves past a variety of attempts to hit him, all of which end up being drastic failures. After a bit Link tries again, “Look come on cow- I mean duke. People will see us and-” The cowboy is getting faster, and Link is in no mood to piss the hippy off any more than she already is at him, “Alright look you see this ring? I made a promise, to the hippy no more fighting. So please come on I really got to find her now, I’ll take my beating from you later, deal?”. The cowboy doesn’t respond, he just keeps trying, knowing that he’ll get in on Link’s defenses eventually. He is like the little steam engine, he just keeps going, and now that he’s gaining momentum Link can hardly keep up. Seeing the power behind those punches too means that if he doesn’t keep up he might not be able to take more than a few of the things. The cowboy packs a serious left hook. Link gets a good look at it as it sails just milimeters away from him.
“You still haven’t answered my question”. He’s shouting now, and yet his motions aren’t that of an out of control mad man. Instead they are that of a an automaton. Each move is carefully calculating, planned, and thus telegraphed accordingly. He sounds furious but it almost seems more like a show than an actual person, like he is putting on a show of a man dressed as a cowboy pretending to be mad. The whole thing seems like a bizarre fascmile of real like, only with real punches that will more than likely hurt like a ton of bricks.
Dodging a particularly well executed combo, and on the verge of exasperation Link tries again with the ring and a distration, “Seriously Cowboy I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about”. Backing up as he says it he hopes to put some distance between him and the spurr wearing man, in tight blue jeans, in a country western shirt, wearing a bright white mother fucking cowboy hat who insists on not being called cowboy. He lets out a yell and charges at him. As he side steps him, Link wonders idley how easy is it to run in cowboy boots. Those things have heels on them after all. The hopes that he would trip and fall lay trampled under those very cowboy boots, and the squirrel seems to be off doing its actual job of gathering nuts instead of being a dick, leaving just Link a cowboy, with nothing but a ring standing between them.
The cowboy’s getting ready to run at him again and this time Link vows that the ring can go fuck itself because he really does have more important things to do than to avoid beating up retards, when Sara’s voice rings out as clear as a fight bell “Cowboy knock it off”. Then from literally off to the side like she is popping out from behind some random piece of scenery there’s Sara, she doesn’t even have a bruise much to Link’s disappointment. However, all arbitrary feelings, thoughts, and desires immediately become focused when the Hippy steps out onto the scene next to her.
“Fuck” Link thinks to himself trying to fight down multiple waves of panic. There is no way in hell that this could possibly be good.
The cowboy, looking a lot like a dog who’s just been scolded scuttles over to Sara’s side and looks subservient. Now more than ever Link wants to kick his ass in. The Hippy looks as if she is going though a wide range of conflicting emotions at the moment and eventually she leaves Sara’s side and walks over to Link. It was then that he got the strangest feeling, like that some how, somewhere the battle lines had been drawn and that he is now part of some incredibly vast war being fought between the hippy and Sara. He tries to shake it off but ultimately he is unable to.
Smiling wickedly, “Sorry I bumped into your friend not to long ago, she seemed very up set. I sent my cowboy friend here to find you but you see he has a rather one track mind and you must of done something to distract him”. Link seriously wonders where the hell she it is she gets her nerve. After risking all their lives on some fool plan that he couldn’t even begin to understand here she is, in the flesh cajoling them after what she tried to do just the other night.
Link leans over to the hippy girl, “Look I’m sorry about this morning, I can explain it all to you in a bit right now we just need to get the hell away from her”.
The hippy nods slowly then says outloud so that everyone can hear, “It’s okay Link, I know why you were doing it, I can understand I guess. I mean if someone I knew killed himself right in front of me, I guess I would mark the occation somehow too. I don’t know I guess with everything that happened, and all the stangeness of these past few weeks I kind of jumped to the wrong conclusion, a conclusion that is perfectly logical”
Before Link can wreck things, Sara jumps in, “Me personally I almost forgot about Seymour. That poor crazy kid. I can’t believe how that turned out you know? Killing himself like that. Of course you always were a sentimental bastard when it comes right down to it”
The Hippy nods, “Ordinarly I wouldn’t believe anything she says, I mean after everything that happened I would be an idiot to trust her” but she pauses, and looks up at Link, eyes glistening in the sunlight, with a faint, searching smile on her face, “But you didn’t hit that cowboy looking kid. I mean if you really were trying to kill yourself, if you really thought you were going to die, then why would you care so much about a silly little promise you’ve made to me? I’ve seen you hurt people, it isn’t so much that you do it. That isn’t what really bothers me. It is the utter lack of remorse through which you do it. You don’t even enjoy it, you know? You just do it, the same way someone does something like take out the garbage or mow the lawn. It is the way your face just sort of goes blank and you fade away, then there was that time you really did” She shakes her head, “Never mind. It isn’t important. What is important is that now I believe that deep down you really are a good person, because not only did you not hit the cowboy, but you even tried to fall in such a way so that the ring wouldn’t be damaged. There is much I don’t know about you, and to be honest, I don’t really believe Sara’s story but at least, at least you did this one thing right, even if you only did it for me”. She gives him a short awkward little hug, “Oh jesus I need to be in class in five minuts. Link I’ll meet up with you later, Sara I never want to see you again” and with that she scurries off with an added bounce in her step, a great wieght having been lifted from her shoulders.

Link watches as the hippy girl as she runs off, “Hey Sara is your cowboy’s name really Duke?”
He goes to do, something but is interrupted by one of Sara’s crisp authoritative hand motions that could make a king apoligise before getting her a sandwhich, “No he told me once, I don’t remember what it is though. Not that it matters. So how are things between you and your hippy girl, figure out her name yet?” The glare Link throws at Sara would vapoize a lesser human being, but Sara being Sara just smiles instead, “We should go back to being the fabulous team we once were. The cowboy is good and all but he’s no you. Of course it looks like I don’t have to do anything else to come between the two of you, that will fall apart all, on its own, which is good I have mid terms to deal with. So when she leaves you for the monsterouse sack of shit that you are come and find me, I’ll make it all go away”. She blows a kiss as she walks off with a bounch in her step that’s reminiscent of her days of being the most popular girl in school, student counsil, quaterback banging, cheerleader type. How the hell does something like that happen? Link knew the answer though. It happens the same way everything else does. He isn’t one for delusions of grandure but its hard not to believe you aren’t the cernter of the universe when all the people around you end up as twisted versions of themselves. Who knows the hippy might be out there somewhere maturbating with a log of sausage while rolling around on an ant hill or something. With that Link headed off on his own errands, and made a mental note to himself to either die or get into therapy.

And this is 18 WC 2046

Then another and another. Forturnatly for Link they pass slowly and without inscident. He goes from class, back to room with little to no fanfare and by the third day he was more or less back to 75% percent, which is good enough for him. Hippy want’s to meet him for some thing, he isn’t sure what it is but she’s apparently been busy over the last couple of days while he’s healing up. Quietly he hopes it involves going out to Walmart, the majoritiy of his first aid supplies just got used up and with the way things generally go around him, it’s far better to have to much rather than to little.
For the first time in an extrodinarly long time Link is in a good mood. Fresh out of the shower, just having had worked out Link readys his gun. Ordinarly, this ritual only happens between 4:30 and 6:30 in the morning. But between healing, sleeping late, exercising longer than usual the gun kept getting put off longer and longer until it finally became a shit or get off the pot sort of deal. Humming quietly to himself, still naked from the shower he puts his one bullet in, spins the chamber and right when the gun goes to his head, the Hippy bursts through the door, the sentence, “Are you ready to go yet dying on her lips as she fully registers the scene layed out before her. Face reddening first with embarasment then becoming a mask of horror she lets loose a single sob before bolting from the room.
“Fuck. Well that possibly couldn’t be any more awkward”. Click, “Damnit” Click, click. The hammer smashed down upon the three empty cilinders, once it seems that whatever out there that has been keeping him alive this long has something for Link to do today, “Motherfucker. God you are one cold cruel son of a bitch”. Flipping the switch from the end of all things, to man of action is a fairly easy thing for Link and he does so quickly. There are now things to do, first step get dressed. Whatever happens next, no one else gets to see him naked today. The wounds on his chest are mostly healed, so much so that at least now they don’t need to be constantly bandaged, the fact that they healed suspiciously quickly is lost on him as he starts digging around for a clean shirt to wear. He’d been putting off laundery for to long. Then came the issue of the gun. If she tells anyone about it they will search the room and take it from him, then they will call his parents, and then, well fit covered shans will be the least of his problems. Hiding it in his room is now problematic. They will tear the whole place apart, and keeping it on him has similar problems. With no one to turn to for help Link packs everything else into his bag. He needs to get the gun to somewhere where they will never be able to find it, then he needs to find the hippy girl and explain to her what happened, then get her to forgive him, and while he is thinking of the impossible he might as well throw in a pony ride.
Then it hits him. In the building with the secret cafeteria, there is a hidden computer lab and in that lab is a row of abandoned lockers one of which has to have no lock on it. Working quickly he grabs box he keeps the gun in out of its hiding place and takes the pad lock off of it. Then carefully onloading it (he was one trigger pull from freedom, utter bullshit), he throws the gun and all ammunition into his bag. As he takes the back stairs out of the dorm he hears housing people tromping down the hall twords his dorm room calling out name in a sort of dull half panic. The kind where you believe something is wrong but they don’t really know or care about what it is. Thankfully this ruckus causes them to leave the front desk unattended and he is able to slip out the back doors of the dorm. Stopping briefly to crack his neck it is time to see just how well he has healed up. His pack weighs at least 30 pounds, and he needs to get across the campus which involves a steep hill and a half mile full of obsticles.
One dead run later he arrives at the building which is thankfully mostly empty. Quickly slipping inside though a side enterence he wanders the back hallways of this building that is actually a hell of a lot bigger than it looks until he finds them. A row of lockers big enough to hold some books and other junk in. Quickly tossing the gun inside and locking it shut he then turns his atension on everything else that is going on. He has class in two hours and he really can’t miss that and it would help to have this done before then. He feels a whisper of a presence behind him and as he turns he hears her voice coming from the opposite direction, “It’s a sin against god”. Before he can turn around again to confront her she is gone, a class door sliding shut. He doesn’t bother looking inside. The creepy christian puts as much importance on vanishing as batman does.
Link, sighs, “This is fucking ridiculous”. Not wanting his room tossed by half witted housing goons he charges back twords his dorm, and he arrives back at his room right when they use a master key to unlock the door. They look at him with a sort of stupefied expression, “Can I help you with something?” Link adds to himself, “Does it really take five people to talk though a door, give up, find a master key, and open it? I’ve been gone for over 15 minuts what the hell have you people been doing”
It’s such a sad thing when you see people in charge at a loss for words, so when they start frantically looking at each other for help they know that none is forth coming. Eventually one of them, the girl who is supposed to be running the front desk, speaks up, “We heard that you might be trying to kill yourself in there”
Link blinks hoping he is looking surprised and kind of offended, “Well I just got back from running all over campus trying to sort out a couple of things for one of my classes, so I wasn’t even there”
Cluelessness, it is like a breath of fresh cool air on an unusually hot day, “Well, umm do you mind if we take a look around?”
Link shrugs, “Be my guest folks, you might as well you already have the door open after all”
Awkwardly, the group of them flood into the room. They make a very brief superficial search, find absolutely nothing, and then start to look a little lost, “Sorry about all of this, we didn’t get to much information. Your friend the hippy girl just stopped at the desk, said you were trying to kill yourself and ran off before we could get anything more out of her, she seemed very upset”
Ephany, “I know what it was she must of found this” and from his desk draw he pulls his suicide note, “I’m not very good at it but I do write occationally. One of the character’s in my story is suicidal and this is one of my many rough drafts. She didn’t find this one I’m sure but she most definatly found one of them. She doesn’t know I do it, when she found it and saw I wasn’t here she must of panicked and went looking for me after telling you whatever it is she told you”
The front desk girl, the one he handed the note to is reading it, she hands it over impressed, “Well it is very convincing, that’s for certain. Are you taking creative writing any time soon?”
Link laughs, “God I tried it once not to long ago, but my teacher was an asshole and everyone in the class was terrible. I’ve honestly never had a productive work shopping experience”. She looks like she wants to talk to him some more which is really the last thing Link needs right now so he adds, “but if you all will excuse me I have an upset friend to find, and calm down, ever since her girlfriend broke up with her things have been rough. Feel free to let yourselves out” dropping off his bag he leaves.
First stop, the garden. While on his way over there he realizes he hasn’t lied like that to people since he moved up here away from his parents. Doing it now almost felt strange and he is more than a little unsetted as to how easily it came back to him. By showing them the actual suicide note, e removes all trace of suspician no matter what they find. Showing it to them instead of letting them stumble over it is one of those moves he learned as a result of living with two people who it is just plain easyer to lie to constantly. Now they don’t think the hippy girl is crazy just misinformed, and the front desk girl liked the note. That’s good to know, he’s never actually shown it to anyone since he started writing them. It is one of those constantly evolving piesces that has to be constantly revised as a result of an ever changing tumultuous life. Also for a housing employee she is depressingly on the ball which is quite suprising. University policy seems to be to hire the most brain dead imbiciles possible for all housing positions and then they sit around and wonder where the drug and alchohol problems come from. “Christ” Link suddenly realizes, “Anyone could easily have any number of weapons in their dorm room”. It isn’t like they check the boxes as they are moving in, and he’s seen all sorts of people bringing in stuff throughout the year presumably sent to them by parents. There is an unsettling though. And she isn’t at the garden.
As he runs back through the woods his mind wanders back to his lying. Its funny in a way. See due to certain lifestyle choices he makes for the most part, lying is an unessisary concept. It is easy to not lie to anyone when you believe that your time with them is going to be limited at best. Parents though. Man they were something different altogether. Both absent and ever present they represented the same sort of prescene that the all seeing eye of Suron did in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There is something strange in the lie he just told. His parents were the only two people on earth that he was afraid to deal with on a day to day basis, so much so that he made sure to take care of affairs weeks in advance when it came to them so he wouldn’t have deal with them. He took more care in dealing with them than he did with any other people because they could make his life so unbearable day by day that it just wasn’t worth it otherwise. Now spining lies to housing, he realizes that there is something, deep down inside of him that’s changed. He belivies that tomarrow is going to come, that the sun will rise and the gun won’t go off. There is hope, and the lie is the proof, of all things.
How the hell is he going to explain all this to the hippy girl? He doesn’t want to lie to her. So he won’t he will tell her everything, and he will make her understand just how things are changing. All he has to do is to find her and everything will be just find. As he crashes out of the tree line, he darts over to where the hippy sometimes likes to go and ends up crashing headlong into the cowboy.

By that I mean last one was 16 and this is 17 WC 2126

Masking his pain, Link claws arduously to his feet and manages to look somewhat steady despite the fact that he is anything but. Strangely the hippy girls seems to want to be away from the garden as well and so she eagerly gets underneath one of his arms to help support his weight and together they tromp off through the woods. They get about a half mile before Link needs to sit down and rest. Pulling two banananas out of her seemingly bottomless bag she hands him one and they eat quietly for a bit. Not wanting to get up quite yet he asks her, “So just how badly has the garden been damaged?”
She looks bitterly over at him, the garden not being her favorite subject at that moment, “It is pretty extensive. The place where Sara lit the fire is nearly a compleatle loss. That is where the majority of the daffodils were growing”.
“Heh figures”
“As for the rest, well you kind of saw for youself the whole garden is pretty much in ruins. They dug up the bulbs, threw plants everywhere, what’s worse is that they poured bleach all over the place, so I don’t even think the grass is going to make it”
Link nods, “Damn they were really going for scorched earth weren’t they? Is that why you came and got me?”
She looks sullen for a bit, “I, I don’t know why I came and got you actually. I knew you would do what you did. I abhore violence, I really do. It seems to me that just about every situation can be solved with out it you know? I mean it all just seems so unessisary most of the time. But something snapped inside of me when I saw them digging up my plants and threatening both me and my girlfriend. I couldn’t take it. I don’t approve of your actions at all, they are against everything I stand for, and yet, yet, ultimately I don’t feel bad about what I had you do. I’m glad you hurt all of them. Just before I escaped, I watched them dance about the garden reveling in the destruction they were causing and somehow somewhere I got this glimpse. This idea that they weren’t entirely human you know? That they were some sort of cross bread animal creatures that have no sense of language of their own. Such vicious things. So I ran, ran to find you”
“I’m sorry, I brought this tidle wave of destruction down upon you, I wish I can make it up to you”
She smiles, “Well Link, first of all I’m not an idiot. With people like you and the blonde haired boys in the world still a life without violence is just not going to work. I knew that long ago. So I’m doing the next best thing, which is what’s happening now. I am going to replant that garden, you are going to help, and the next time this happens to me. There will be a next time. I know it. I won’t loose my shit. You won’t kick the crap out of 7 people, and hopefully my new girlfriend won’t slice up your face, and hopefully you won’t go all Freddy Kruger on us.” Link realizes that’s the first time she mentions the marks on his chest, confirming his suspicions that no one there that night made them, which means he went somewhere. To the white room perhaps? What were things doing in there? Despite coming close several dozen times he suspects that Sara never really intends to kill him or anyone else. The anyone else part she may not be so good at, but putting things in the white room is going a little far. Then again there are enough forces on the battle field at the moment that it is really anyone’s guess as to what’s going on.
Link’s interior sleuthing is interrupted, when the Hippy starts pulling him up again, “Come on you;’ve rested enough and we have more ground to cover, lets get your heavy ass back home”
They continue on through the woods for a bit giving Link enough time to appreciate the world around him. It isn’t often that the weather is absolutely perfect, but right now, as of today it is. Just warm enough to keep a set of bones moving, with a slight breeze to give the world that pleasant sort of windswept ambiance that no instrument can hope to match. Birds flit about through the low hanging branches and even the occational attack by the squirrel more adds to the atmosphere than takes away from it. For now the storm will abate. All side will have to retreat to lick their wounds and as a result the world is celebrating. They carry on for awhile and just before they hit the treeline she decides to stop again, “Jesus Link, what the hell are you made of bricks and lead? Jesus”
He shrugs, “I’ve developed a lot of muscle mass over the years, has something to do with it”
“Strange you don’t look very strong, I mean you look strong but you don’t have weird bulgy muscles sprouting all over the place”
“Yeah well part of that is my build, and part of that is that I do so much yoga that it keeps everything stretched out. After all flexibility is just as important as pure strength”
She blinks in surprise, “Wait you do yoga?”
He nods, “Yeah I know it seems strange, but man that shit works. I hate all the spiritual crap that comes with it. You would think that people would want to exercise without a god damned sermon but nope, every week it is some dumb shit. Eventually I just started going once every other month to make sure my positions were correct. Otherwise I don’t need or like those people”
She laughs, “I know what you mean actually, sometimes what they say is so terrible. It’s to much even for me”. The laughter doesn’t fade away the way normal healthy laughter does. Instead it dies, abruptly and violently. She looks pensive for a moment.
He looks at her trying to be patient but the ground is hard and he really wants to take a shower, “It’s alright just say what you need to say”
“Well after the insident at the bar I vowed never to speak to you again. I saw something inside you there that night, something so dark and, I don’t know, primordial, that I realized that I just can’t be around you. It was before you did your whole vilonce for violence sake thing. It was just the way you changed, the way you stood, the way you looked, even smelled. You were completely altered in there, like you were shedding your skin and becoming what you really are. Strangly it was only after you started punching people in the mouth that you began become youself again. As if coming to my aid and pounding some poor sods into the dirt let you put the mask you wear back on. At that point I felt safer taking my chances with the thing in the woods than with you.” She stops for a long while, and Link lets her gather herself. She seems to go very far away, her voice becoming almost sad and hollow, “But I see now that sometimes these things happen to people. I saw a woman I loved turn into an unspeakable monster, and my own views on life became so twisted that I could no longer hold onto my values and I went and got you to solve my problems. You the last person who’s help I wanted. In a way I guess we all become what she want’s us to. But I can’t blame her for everything that happened. I need to step up and take responsibility too. I was there after all, and I let my lovesick blindness get the best of me. I guess what I am saying is that sometimes we become things and we don’t mean to and we forget that we have control over ourselves. So here is the deal, give me your left hand”, from one of the pockets on her worn out green vest she produces a hematite ring and slides it on his finger. It immediately shatters into a thousand pieces. She smiles faintly, pulls out another one and tries again. It’s a snug fit and once she gets it on he realizes that it isn’t coming off any time soon, “Good this ring serves two purposes. One, hematite absorbes negative energy, and two they are pretty fragile. Now you can’t be punching people because otherwise you will break your ring and that will upset me. Now you have a greater incentive to settle things peacefully” Her smile beams with an innocent warm nurturing light that you couldn’t help but love, “Your left hand is for love. Use it well please. Now come on lets get back to campus, you really need a shower”
As they walk back he begins to think to himself about the things she’s been saying. A life without violence? More like a life with a future. He’s tempted to tell her things, things like the gun, what happened to Alex, the white room, and other things about him. Things that make a violence non violence binary almost impossible. It’s easy to wash your hands of a series of events and to wrap yourself in a blanket of idealism but at the end of the day sometimes you just need to throw a punch to get a point across. Sara hasn’t given up, hell Sara hasn’t even used up all of her forces of darkness. Even if she could be reasoned with, and he highly doubted she could be, the blond boys? They are something else entirely. Link suspects that hippy knows more than she’s saying when she accused them of not being entirely human. Individually they might be talked down, but when that wolf looking one is precent? No way. He is the key to many of the things going on around here, and he is a man who only speaks one language. He doesn’t care about life, about building something better than yourself, or even the petty war games of others. He is in it for the blood. Pure and simple. You can’t just talk to people like him, so how are you suppose to take responsibility for your own actions when your own actions are nothing more than reactions? Hippy didn’t choose to go get Link she chose instead to react to her situation, as a result Link reacted quickly and efficiently because that is what he does, it is the reason why she came to him wether she admits it or not. It is more or less what he’s been built to do, first by himself, then refined by Sara. He suppose he could proact, but against the blonde haired boys? He doesn’t even know how to find them, or if they can currently be found. Somewhere along the line he suspects that the wolf looking one appoched Sara and they made some sort of dark compact, not that Sara sought him out so that she could put him under her thumb. He suspects that the wolf looking one is the Sara of this geographical region, the lady in white, the golden lady, the bar, all these things have their own careful balance. Now Link and Sara are damaging that balance without understanding it. Maybe that is the way to deal with this whole situation without needing to punch more blond haired rednecks in the face. With most of his knuckles bruised it is a prospect that appeals to Link. Still now is not the moment to voice serious doubts. Well it is, and if Link were a stonger man he’d realize that.
His room mate is out predictably. He sends her on her way, promising that he can rebandange his own wounds and that letting her see him naked is a little bit much for him. Mostly though, he just wants some time alone. Some time so that he could take a chance, roll some dice and hope that all this pain, misery and stupidity could just go away. He can’t do it with her running around playing nurse Ratchet. So with new ring on his finger he sends her on her way with thoughts of suicide in his heart hoping that he never has to see her again, for he knows that unless he dies, he will let her down.
But the hammer hits empty and for one day at least life goes on.

This is 17 WC 2140

Link jerks awake in a cold sweat with more than a little panic in his heart. Vomiting profusely, the events of the last time he was awake slowly start to come back to him. Looking about wildly he sees that he is still in the garden underneath a makeshift lean to, then pain overwhelms him and he goes back to lying down. Less by choice and more by nessisity. Nearly in a state of collapse he wonders how long its been since he’s collapsed. The garden is still in a state of wild disrepair, eveidence of the preveiouse battle can be seen acrost the ground. Looking at the sky Link pretends that he knows it is sometime in the early afternoon but really he has no earthly idea. Not far from him he sees a tiny grave which he assumes holds the body of the little bird, “Well that was needlessly tragic”. Time continues to pass. After a bit he looks around his body. His shirt is gone, apparently they decided to use it as a tournaquit for his wounds, or a few of them at least. Over the course of his body he quickly catalouged most of the contense of his first aid kit. It’s a good think someone knew it was in his backpack. Judging from the bruises and the freshness of the bandages he couldn’t of been asleep for more than a day. Truth be told he is more than likely still supposed to be asleep. Bodies can be ornery son’s of bitches.
Giving up on lying down he tries to get up again when he hears hippy coming through the woods, “Jesus Link what the hell are you doing awake?” She rushes over to him focing him back down, doing more harm than good truth be told. Still it makes point, “God Link you got hurt so bad you shouldn’t be awake at the moment let alone trying to move”. She continues to fret about him talking frantically. She’s apparently been to his dorm room, she either didn’t find the gun or decided not to mention it. She’s apparently gone through two first aid kits getting him patched up. The combined might of her and Sara weren’t enough to move him back to civilization. She has no idea what happened to the blonde boys. They all were scrapped up while she was going back to grab more bandages.
He couldn’t really understand her rammbling monolauge. Brain still fuzzy from the pain he manages to caught just a couple of details, “Wait did you leave me with Sara?”
Hippy stops for a moment, “Yeah, look I think even she realizes she might of gone a little bit to far last night. You sure you shouldn’t be sleeping more? You only been asleep for 8 hours. After something like that I expected you to be down for at least a day or more”
Chucking a bit, “8 hours? That is the most I’ve slept in years. Increadble.”
“”Yeah but insomina is different than recovering from physical injuries right?”
Taking ten minutes or so to drag himself up on his side he looks around, “I dunno, I don’t have a major but I certainly don’t think you are pre med so I’m guessing we should just save the concern over my physical well being for later. Since I didn’t die in the middle of the night I am guessing that everything that happened to me is all superficial shit. Fortunatly, I’ve learned long ago to not let people punch me in the face so I can get on with my life without people freaking out constantly. Speaking of which, nice girlfriend you got there. What the fuck was with her cutting my face up like that” The hippy reddening a bit is apparently not ready to talk about everything that just happened, “Don’t worry about it, as you can see from my body it isn’t the first time I’ve been cut by some crazy person. A lot of what happened is really fuzzy, and I am pretty sure I, I, umm I guess went away for a little bit. Eventually I’d like to have some of the gaps filled in. I’ve apparently bruised half of my knuckes which sucks. I have a paper to type soon”
Stunned, she looks at him, “Look I don’t, I, I mean what is”
Link reaches up and affectionately pats her head, he hippies she can’t see how much pain that motion put him in, “Look so you haven’t really delt with many insidences of mass violence before in your life. Granted this one will go down as one of the worst incidences in my history, but it isn’t the worst, god what the hell happened to my chest, it feels like a chemical burn”. He sees the look on her face and realizes that a lot of things happened that night. He sighs and flops back down on his back, “Hey did I really punch Sara”
“Yeah right in the jaw, she was pissed about that, but then you’d past out and, well I threatened her with a knife and she ended up backing off. Then that wolf looking mother fucker started dragging people off in the woods. There were more of them out there, I could hear them, but they never came in the boundaries of the garden. To be honest I think even Sara was a little bit worried about dealing with the wolf looking guy. They didn’t really talk to each other, he seemed amused by the whole thing and when he left he just said, ‘until next time’ and he vanished into the forest just leaving you there. I was worried he would try to do something to you but it seemed like he got everything he needed from everything that happened.” Link looks up at her sadly. She really isn’t someone who is cut out for this sort of thing. The whole night seems to have shaken up her up profoundly. There is much she wants to talk about but something is holding her back, tangling her up. Almost absentmindly she starts fiddling with his bandages like they are some sort of safety blanket, “You know you never really talked about Sara that much. She always seemed like more of a myth than a person. When I met her along with my girlfriend, for the longest time I thought that you were crazy. That everything you had ever said about her was a lie and that you were a dangerous person. She was so sweet, and she really seemed to get me she..”
Link smiles at her, “She turned you against me, turned your world upside down, made your heart race, and when you are alone with her you feel like the most important person in the world, then when she is with someone else and you would feel this profound sense of loss. Then things kept happening she would leave little hints, and you would start to question things, and soon you find yourself agreeing to or almost agreeing to anything. Then whatever happens, happens. You aren’t the first. Since I have nothing really to say about it, you won’t be the last, sorry. Don’t feel to bad about it, she’s done worse to much better people than you”.
Somewhat mollified she smiles, “Yeah it happened something like that. I was just so happy to be back with Vanessa again and Sara was just so nice, and being busy with school I just got tangled up with all sorts of things, I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to us.”
Link nods, “Yeah from the looks of it she got her hooks pretty deep into your lady friend, Vanessa was it?”
The Hippy sniffled a bit at that, “Yeah it is pretty terrible, I don’t even know how I noticed it, and I mean at that night it was like, she was like a totally different” Link saw it coming long before it happened. Tears welling up, voice, hicking, the stress and pain of what’s happened to her over the past few days finally caught up to her and the tears burst forth from her like a great cleaning rain. She collapses on his chest, and he does his best trying to gasp and flail about in pain. The salt from her tears infliltrates his bandages and everything starts to burn. She really knows how to cry when it comes right down to it. Clawing at him she leaves red marks across white skin, then it happens again and again until once again the skin is broken and more blood flows, he thinks to himself “At this point there is more of my blood lying around this stupid garden than water”. He does his best to comfort her but being mostly unable to move hampers him. At any rate she’s gone at this point, this is going to be one of those long good solid cleansing cries that drag on forever. Idly he wonder’s what having a cry like that is like. Someday it is something he should try out. “That’s the thing about people like the hippy their whole world could end over the course of 48 hours and then at the end of it they cry and they can go on with life. She’s a strong woman when it is all said and done. She doesn’t really understand just how hard Sara was going for her. There is something special about her, something worth Sara spending all that time on her, something that drew her to me, no matter though. After a night like this she will more than likely spend weeks rebuilding her forces of darkness, and that’s assuming school doesn’t get in the way and she has to put off plans till spring. Spring. Jesus god how could things go on that long? How did things get like this, and why does she feel it necessary to beat her fists against me right on the mysterious chest wounds, god they hurt where the hell did they come from?” He suspects that, the mystery cuts will remain just that, a mystery. It’s been a long time since he’s blacked out like that and the hippy girl needs a lot to talk about.
She tires out, and eventually the sobs slow down and finnaly she is able to talk to him. She looks up from his chest, “Oh god I just opened up all your cuts again, fuck I am so sorry”
“Its already wouldn’t be the first time. Try to relax, I just took a physical beating. That will all heal with time, and ultimately it is no big deal. What you’ve gone through? A mind fuck like that just doesn’t go away, not easily at any rate. So relax, breathe, take it one moment at a time, and why don’t we start by getting these bandages changed”
Nodding quietly she wordlessly starts unpacking a first aid kit as he struggles to sit up. We watches carefully as the bandages come off wanting to get a view of what happened to him. She takes out a cotton swab along with, some hydrogen peroxide. Three minuts of rather intense burning pain passes before the wounds are finally cleaned. Three long ragged cuts about the length of a finger each streached from nipple to happy trial. Now that is something to be worried about, and in all truth they should probably be stiched closed, but the bleeding is surprisingly not bad despite everything that’s happened. There will be new scars though, great just what he needs.
Gauze pads, then a bandage, followed by an ace bandage she’s a woman who knows her first aid, “ Hey Link, I’ve been thinking. How long have you been doing this?”
“Well pretty much since 10th grade it’s been like this. That’s pretty much when Sara became the Sara she is today. She wasn’t always like that you know. I don’t know, to long, why do you ask?”
She looks around for a bit, “I don’t know I am so confused, I don’t even know what to do”
He grabs her by the shoulders, “Shhhhh look relax, what did she say to you”
“We didn’t talk to each other, not for a long time. It was after the blonde hair boys cleaned themselves up, and I started building the lean to over you she walks up to me, and when I tried to ask about what happened, she just shrugged and said to ask you. You have a lot of first aid stuff by the way…”
He nods, “Alright, I’ll tell you, but not right now. I don’t want to spend anymore time out here than I have to, so how about we get me back to civilization yeah?”