The first person I noticed was an excessively tall guy with a small blue mohawk, brown eyes, and clothes that came out of last year's stock at Hot Topic. He was standing next to a painfully short girl with fiery eyes and a shirt with Spongebob on it. There were other people too, but those two really stood out to me.
Them, and a guy sitting at a square table toward the back of the room. Brown hair, brown eyes, slightly tan skin. Basically an older version of Vladimir. The only difference is a general aura of confidence. Vlad seemed a bit quieter. This guy seems to run the show.
He looks at us like he's never seen me before. This seems logical, considering he's actually never seen me before.
He gives Delaina a nod hello, walks over to us, gives Vlad a brotherly hug, leaving no doubt about their relationship. The older Vlad waves them away, and they step back.
I'm standing alone, by myself, in a room full of people I've never see before, and two I only met recently. Older Vlad is circling me. Wondering why the hell I'm here. Either he doesn't really like me or he's trying to read my aura.
"He's not reading your aura, he's trying to see if you're legit. Which she is." he directs the last sentence at his older clone. "I wouldn't have brought her here otherwise."
"That doesn't explain why you brought that girl Yasmine last year."
"I didn't bring her because she was legit. I brought Yasmine because I thought she'd understand what we were...
"Which she didn't. So excuse me for examining this one." With that, Vlad seemed to back off. Damn, I could have used the defense. Older Vlad continues.
"Even if she is legit, she doesn't seem to have a clue about what she is or what she can do, if she can do anything at all."
This is too much. I'm standing right there.
"Excuse me, ummm...what's you're name?" I say, interrupting the debate between older and younger clone.
He gives me a quizzical look, not expecting that response from me. Considering I'm the newbie, I technically shouldn't question what appears to be the de facto leader.
"Aleksandar."
"Okay, Aleksandar. I don't know anything about you, or this room, or why I can't touch the walls without hallucinating, or why I had to pick a door which I couldn't touch before I came down here with them. All I know is that I want to know why I'm here."
He stops dead. He looks at me, then at Vlad.
"She hallucinates when she touches the walls?"
"There's history in the walls. She touches anything that has a past to it, and she overloads. I don't know what it's called, but it's happened twice, at least when I was there." Vladimir explains as Aleksandar circles around me some more. God, that's annoying.
"I know the circling's annoying, but it's his thing. He knows vibes." Vlad says, with a hint of humor in his voice. Already, he knows how to calm me down. How does he do that?
He looks at me like he's registered that last thought, but he's going to say something later. I break eye contact with Vlad and return to the circling clone. Aleksandar stops, looking directly at me. He's staring at me, eyes burning directly into my brain.
"She's legit. Vlad, you finally found someone half dead, huh?" he says
This statement freaks me the hell out. "Wait...you guys are dead?" I say with a hint of panic in my voice. Delaina grabs my hand, making sure I don't leave. I look at her, probably with new eyes. They were cool, and they were nice to me, but deadness is freaky on even the nicest of people.
Aleksandar walks me over to one of the sofas, past the five or so people who stopped paying attention, along with everyone else that also did, and sits me down. "Not exactly. We are alive. I couldn't find a better word for us...our condition, if you will."
"It's a covert operation, what we have here." he continues. "We all found each other, except Vlad and I....we're stuck with each other." he says with a smile.
"...found?" I ask.
"Yeah." he says. "We all did. Just like Vlad and Delaina found you. It's no coincidence you got that basket. Vlad, Delaina and I saw you, and we sent him over to test you. A test drive, if you will. Now that we know you're one of us, we can explain everything."
He studied my bewildered look.
"You know, you are excessively pretty. No wonder he likes you." he says simply. I blush. Aww, how sweet.
"You wanted answers? You're going to get them."
No comments:
Post a Comment