7:43 pm
2/2/06
(c) Meghann Pardee
If she hadn't read "Death Note," the entire thing might've been a little bit confusing, even scary. However, she had read it, so the idea of a winged being becoming visible only after touching a magical object seemed perfectly normal to her. She'd grown up on myths and legends. She knew what muses were- the nine(?) daughters of Zeus in charge of inspiring men with the ability to write, to sing, and to dance among other things. She never studied them extensively and only knew some of the names and roles. Creatures and the main deities were more her thing. So how did a mortal come in contact with a mythological creature in a time when all gods but money and fame are dead? Simple, she decided to socialize.
Karin slung her backpack onto the back of the chair in the cyber-cafe. For a couple dollars she was allowed to surf the net for an hour. It was kinda a rip-off, but the cafe's hot chocolate was good. She logged in to her email, saw nothing but junk, and headed into a chat room. After watching the endless stream of "If you want to cyber, hit 6969," and "Wanna see me naked? Whisper me," she decided to find some decent person in all of this. She typed "Any nice boys in here? Send me a whisper." The first two loved football, beer, and sex. The third, well, three's a lucky number, right? His handle was HadesWing and he liked to write and listen to music. It wasn't much but he didn't ask to see her boobs. They began talking and then decided to exchange email addresses and talk in messenger. After an hour she had decided this guy was so cool she said she'd BRB then got up to pay another couple bucks. They talked about movies and music for a little bit longer, then she had to go. They agreed to talk again the same time the next day. She thought nothing of the meeting until the next day. They continued talking like this for a few weeks. He was nice to her and never said anything lewd. One day he asked, "Um, hey...would you like to see some of the things I've written?" She told him sure right after she paid for another hour. When she came back there was a notebook sitting by her keyboard. She looked around but everyone was busy typing while hooked up to headphones. She asked the woman next to her but she said she hadn't see anyone put it there. She sat down and peeked inside to see if there was a name. There wasn't one, but there on the first page was a poem. It was written in black gel-pen, so the ink made a cool effect. It said "Death comes by night On two wings One leather One feather. Death comes by window Kissing maidens Stealing their souls." Underneath it was a crosshatched skull with a bat wing coming from one temple and a bird one out the other. Her response- "Cool." Blip. She looked up; there was a new message from HadesWing. "So, what do you think?" "Of what?" "My writing." She looked down at the notebook. Then she got up and looked around. Outside the window she could just see what looked like a winged being turn the corner outside the window. She burst out the door and ran to the side of the building but nothing was there. She went back in, saw HadesWing was signed off, and collected her backpack and went to the front desk. She asked if they could check the IP address of the person she was talking to. The woman at the desk said it was against their policy. Karin said she thought she was being stalked and wished to know if the person was local. She said if the police were brought in they would have to cooperate then. The woman said shed be most happy to help her. So the woman went over, typed in a few things, and HadesWing's IP came up. "Oh dear," was all she said. "What?" asked Karin. "It seems the IP is from one of our computers here." "Which one?" "Um, #8," she said, pointing in its direction. "Who was signed on there?" "No one that paid." "But I thought you had to have a password to use a computer." "You do."
Karin was walking home, pondering all this. Was the poem a warning? Was "Death" going to kill her while she slept? She really wished she had a boyfriend. Then she'd have someone to defend her while she slept. What good is a boyfriend against a psycho with wings though? Lovely, she thought, as it began to rain. Now all his fingerprints and shoe prints will wash away. I should start on my Last Will & Testament when I get home. She looked around, saw no one, and proceeded to enter the code to get into her apartment building. She went up the stairs to the second level. Down the dank hallway she walked until she came to her door. B17 it read. Being seventeen seemed like such a cool idea to her. It was the year between youth and becoming an adult. Maybe she'd live to se it. Checking all the rooms and closets carefully, she decided it was safe to sit in her bedroom and read the rest of the notebook before she died. Maybe it would give her hints on what to beware of, that or just be a narrative for her last few hours or minutes. After turning past the skull, she began to read a story about an amnesiac hero in the middle of a war. It was a great story, but certain parts confused her. So she figured "Heck, if I'm going to die, I refuse to die confused. I'll make the author explain these things to me before I die." So she started writing comments and questions in the margins lightly in pencil. She also crossed out misspelled words and used other punctuation marks. What harm was she doing? Everything was done in ink, so pencil wouldn't be too hard to erase. Then she read some poems on heartbreak and some on random topics comparing darkness to romance and such. Then she came across some more short stories, this time about a monster in a blood-stained laboratory and a couple seeking to kill it. There were more: some about experiments gone wrong, one about a girl committing suicide, another about a plane crashing. [Then she found song lyrics with the music written above them. Betrayed love, hatred for stupid people, dream imagery, and even more about old loves that had failed.] All of these things created such wonderful images in her mind that she jumped up and looked for her drawing supplies. She hadn't done much with them, just some tracing of pictures and attempting to edit certain elements. Then there was also the unflattering portraits she'd spent her life thinking were good thanks to adults. Now she began sketching what she thought the characters from the stories looked like. She did facial drawings, playing with the length of their hair and clothing styles. She drew a rose laying in the snow with a figure fading into the distance, snowflakes already dusting the impressions his boots had made. This was for one of the short stories. She sketched a sad looking fellow with rectangular buildings in the background.
She did this until 1:03 A.M. She hadn't even noticed it was dark. She was so tired by then she forgot about the killer author and fell asleep on her bed next to her pencils and erasers. The next morning she woke up and realized she was still alive. She put the notebook in her backpack along with the now-dried painting and sketches, then headed out the door. Deciding to break her cycle, she stopped by the cyber cafe before noon and checked her emails. There was a concert tonight, said an email from a classmate, it'll be awesome. She loved music and figured why not. That night she threw on her favorite pair of jeans and a black top with a duck on it that said "Put it on my Bill." She didn't know any of the bands, but she wasn't about to skip on an invite. She couldn't understand any of the lyrics, but the music was cool, so she jumped around and moshed and generally had fun though she didn't really know anyone. The person who'd invited her was around but hadn't noticed her. "You've got a Kiera Knightly thing going on." She looked at the person who'd tapped her on the shoulder. He was slightly taller than her and had black hair with long bangs. "Um...is that a good or bad thing?" she asked as she fumbled with her hair, trying to figure out what made her resemble the actress. "I dunno, you just do. It's not a bad thing." She wasn't sure what to do. A mosh broke out and she joined it. The two of them jumped up and down together after that, and she felt a smile coming across her face. "What's your name?" She didn't think she knew him, but then again she did have a bad memory. "Jared." She immediately thought of the Goblin King in Labyrinth. "Karin." "Hey, wanna hang out next week? There's going to be an indie concert." "Probably."
One week later, she walked nervously into the club. She was hesitant. Guys looked all the same when you'd only met them once and weren't focusing. "Hey, you made it." She was right, he was standing by the door. "Jared?" "Yep," he said with a smile. She noticed this time that he had a lip ring. It suited him. She paid and went around to sit next to him. The concert was alright, and at the end they exchanged phone numbers. That weekend they hanged out and really hit off while playing pool.
A couple weeks later, he blushed and asked her out. She said yes. She'd never had a real boyfriend so love was new to her. One afternoon she signed into the computer and HadesWing popped up. "So, how'd you like my stories?" Confidant because she had a boyfriend now, she typed back "I really enjoyed them. You're amazing. I illustrated some of your stuff." "You did?" "Yeah, I can scan them if you like." "Sure, that'd be really cool." So she scanned them and sent them. "Wow, these are really good."