Dark Requiem | Role-Play

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Marianna had been checking Al's forehead to ensure that he was merely in need of food and water, not suffering of a fever or something as well, when she felt a shadow fall over her and looked up to see that Charlie has stood up, now standing in a location directly in front of the sun. "What are-" she begins, but stops when he drops Al's glasses into her lap, apparently not intending to hold them any longer. What is he doing? Going to get supplies? Returning to his home? I kind of assumed that his intentions were to stay with this boy until he woke up. Did I guess incorrectly? she wonders, staring at the young man until he turns and begins to walk wordlessly. She might've called something out to him, had Charlie not turned around and looked at her for a last moment. The expression on his face seemed set, towards what she does not know, but there is the tiniest flicker of uncertainty in his cool green eyes. The young woman shifts slightly so that she is a kneeling position, about to stand up, when he breaks the brief silence.

She is able to get the gist of what he says: something about leaving, and then a short farewell before his back is turned towards she and Al once more, looking like some cowboy from an American Western, if only due to his posture and the position of the sun. He seems to nearly take a step forward, but freezes for a moment, the action confirming her belief in the indecision she had observed earlier. If you are going to hesitate, is it really worth doing? Marianna wonders, having always been taught to put in your all from the get go, or to not bother. This may stem from her impulsive nature, of course, but she doesn't believe in second guessing one's self. Instinct is the truest form of acting upon desires.

"Where you going? If you stop, is it really right?" she asks, not entirely sure how to say 'worthy' or 'hesitate' in English. She remains still by Al's side, but is positioned so that she can stand in a moment's notice.

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Marianna's eyes widen immediately when Charlie suddenly clutches his head and begins to stumble about. She places the glasses on top of Al and appears as though she is preparing to spring out and catch him if he falls, as he appears to be about to. Is everyone just collapsing today? I didn't say anything that would freak him out. This is so strange, she thinks, muscles still coiled in case of an emergency. He had frozen completely at her words, leading her to be proud, thinking that she had expressed herself clearly enough to be fully understood. Of course, the foreign young woman doesn't realize what is going on in his head at the moment: the collision of her figure and that of someone within his fragmented memory. Instead, she merely watches cautiously, not wanting to leave Al's side but not wanting to allow Charlie to fall and hit the ground as well either. It is quite a quandary, though one she can solve rather easily thanks to her own speed: it would not be too much of a task for her to leap forward, catch Charlie, and drag him over within a few seconds. There are some benefits to having a life as an athlete decided for you at a very young age, it should seem, and one of those is athleticism, as one would guess.

Of course, even more unsettling than the stumbling is when Charlie stops and stares at her. At first she merely stares back, not the sort to dart away from eye contact unless she is hiding something, which she is not, but after the first two minutes or so it becomes rather disconcerting and even she feels a bit uncomfortable. As two minutes turns to five, and five to seven, Marianna cannot help that slightly awkward habit of hers: she begins to chuckle nervously. Whenever she is feeling awkward, nervous, or frightened, the young woman tends to begin laughing softly or giggling, unable to control the immediate reaction. Luckily, she has managed to suppress it by the time that he appears to return to the real world mentally, suddenly looking very confused indeed. He touches his head with a puzzled expression and turns his gaze towards Marianna and Al.

"Was I...going somewhere?" he asks, but Marianna has little in the way of answer for that. Clearly he had planned on leaving, but she isn't aware of the intended destination. He didn't tell her, for lack of reason to do so, after all.

"Yes?" The young woman responds, though it is really more of a question due to her own confusion on the matter. "But now you are not- yes?"

Allen came to with a horrible pounding head.

With a groan, he immediately tried to sit up (it was instinct--one was to never sit still for too long under the sun where its rays and Tenebrai found one defenseless), but the pain overwhelmed him and he had no other choice but to lay back down. Spots danced across his already blurry vision--too blurry, in fact. His world was but a blur of ash gray. "Wha...?" Then, it struck him. My glasses. "Oh, ship," Allen grunted as he began to grope around for the said object, his heart throwing itself against his ribcage so hard it hurt. Without his glasses, he was virtually useless! Oh, lord...if he'd collapsed and an animal had dragged them away..."No no no no..." Allen was frantic by then. His head was exploding with pain and he was sweating from both the sudden rush of heat and terror, before suddenly, common sense caught up to the boy.

Red hair and red flames and Marry-And-A and Charlotte. There had been people, immune people, when he'd blacked out, and he was certain that they hadn't been a mere hallucination. They couldn't be. "Charlotte? Mary-And-A? Um...S-Stalker? Actually, never mind. Stalker can stay away from. He'll just maul me to death...gah, I'm really thirsty...it's a shame saliva doesn't relieve thirst, eh? Yeah..."

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Marianna continues to look at Charlie without wavering, waiting for confirmation that his plans to leave have, at this point, been eliminated. Besides, she very much would prefer to have people with her when she goes to this Five House. She may have survived well enough on her own, but it is an unpleasant experience for her and she would far rather have companions, even if she must cling on to them like a needy child. She simply dislikes being alone, after all. Charlie opens his mouth and begins to explain himself, his only two words ones which Marianna can understand well enough as he says, "Well, I-" before the two of them simultaneously look towards Al, who has groaned and sat up instantly, shooting up in a way which is almost reminiscent of a robot or some other type of machine. Marianna smiles, pleased that he has awakened, and her hand shoots out to grab his spectacles when they slide off of his chest at the young man's jerky movements. The young man begins reaching out everywhere and groping around, presumably to search for them. In fact, he nearly touches Marianna, though she moves away before he accidentally does so. When Charlie asks if she has the glasses, Marianna raises the hand which holds them.

"These? Yes, I have," she says, turning back towards Al as he begins talking quickly, saying something about being thirsty and death, though the rest is kind of a mystery to Marianna, who seems slightly alarmed. Is he that dehydrated? She wonders with concern before going down on both knees so that her body is parallel to his, to some extent. "Still. Be Still," she requests, putting one hand on his shoulder to lock Al in place with her surprising strength and using the other hand to slide glasses onto his face. It seemed like a faster method than trying to get him to slow down with his quick and difficult-to-understand speech patterns.

A second later, Charlie is also by their side, placing Marianna's water bottle, which she got out for Al's sake, into the bespectacled young man's hand and correcting the fact that Al has been calling him Charlotte. It seems that both of them have decided that Al needs help, especially based on the fact that they put the things directly into his hands and onto his face, as one would to a child. Marianna's expression cracks into a warm, cheerful smile, seeming to be enjoying herself already.

"Hello!" she greets them again, this time with more enthusiasm.

"Don't sleep away the pain," was a lyric from some song Adelheid had forgotten the name of, but she was going to do the exact opposite and not follow the advice. Which was strange, since she'd basically begun living by quotes and lyrics to survive. And she was still alive, with scraps of sanity left. That was a big achievement today. It could have been day or night, but that mattered not. When Adel felt like sleeping, she slept. It was a way of wasting time, though honestly, the girl wasn't sure what she was wasting time until. It wasn't as if anyone was going to come through the door and tell her the whole thing had been a nightmare, and she could go back to her family. It was possible, though. But she was alone, and this was her new life, by choice. All the monster stuff was complete and utter nonsense really, made up in her own mind in an attempt to make her life more exciting. But she needed to confirm that, and not just in her mind. So, Adel took out one of her last pens and began writing on the wall, over and over. "Mom is not dead. Dad is not dead. Rory is not dead. Rosie is not dead." That was just a bad dream, an illusion surely. And those monsters? Hah. Her mind was playing tricks again. Perhaps she should get it checked. But then again, it was better in the apartment, in her own little world. In her own world, everyone was free and happy.
There was no sadness, no anger, no prejudice. No guilt. A strange smile on her face, Adel picked up Coby (who didn't object) and lay down on the sofa, before covering both of them with a blanket. Rosie used to say it could suffocate him, but Adel always thought she was over-reacting. As she closed her eyes, flashbacks of her blonde sister filled her head. The girl reached and got a pen, and to put her mind at ease, wrote a quick sentence in block capitals on her wrist, in permanent marker. She then proceeded to fall asleep quietly. It could be seen clearly what was written, and it was probably the point. So she could wake up and remember all the bad things were a dream.
The ink that stained her wrist read, quite simply;
"You didn't kill Rosie."

"Still. be still."

Allen screamed like a little girl not when he heard a feminine voice speak, a thick accent laid over her simple and choppy words, but when a strong and cool hand clamped down on his shoulder, locking him into place. Images of people in white and black straps and oddly-colored liquids flashes through his hazy mind in horribly vivid blurs, and Allen began to struggle frantically. "No! No! Let me go! Let--me--GO! Stop it!" Shouting at the top of his lungs, flailing his arms around for his glasses, and kicking his legs like he was about to die, all the while squinting his eyes and basically freaking the fudge out, somewhere in the back of his mind, he had buried his face in his hands in sheer humiliation. But he never registered any feelings of awkwardness, because he was too busy trying to extricate his weak body from those strong hands (or were they straps?) and figure out where he was.

And then, it all came into focus--literally. The familiar cool metal of his glasses touched his skin, and the world sudden made sense again. Well, kind of. A girl who looked his age was eyeing him, her bright green eyes (he flinched at the color) oddly bright. her hair was a bold shade of red, and her features were foreign, as were her words. She had been the one holding his shoulder, and guessing from her position, the one who had slipped on his glasses. "You're..." Allen squinted hard, "You're very pretty," he decided with a satisfied nod. Moments later, he felt something cool in his hands. Turning to his left, he spotted the younger boy, with blond hair and equally bright green eyes (Allen flinched again--stupid green). He nodded in reply to the boy's question, "Yep. I can do that. With perfect ease, too. My arm isn't damaged in any way, and I have enough strength to--" before he could delve any deeper in his ramble though, the boy had stated that his name was, in fact, Charlie. "Not Charlotte, eh?" Allen gave an embarrassed, dimpled smile, "Sorry there, Charlie. I'm Al--" Another wave of nausea hit the greenette, this time more forcefully. "Oh no..." Allen murmured, "Uh, can we move out from under the sun? I think I've spent over at least five hours underneath its rays...and I have a slight fever, added with serious dehydration...you don't have any water by any chance, do you?" he asked, forgetting about the bottle in his hand.

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Marianna requires some degree of stability in order to keep herself from leaping away as Al flails and screams wildly while she tries to put on his glasses. She had ducked her head around quite a lot before finally placing the glass spectacles over the panicking young man's face, at which point he finally calms down, blinking like a child who has just been woken up from some terrible nightmare which they had fancied to be reality. The red-haired young woman, who could possibly be called a ginger thanks to a sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks and on her arms -all rather light, because she has minimized exposure to the sun-, can't help the curiosity as to why he has reacted in such a dramatic and, frankly, frightening way to her touch. Did I do something wrong? Does he have a phobia to physical contact? No- it didn't seem so much like that. Childhood trauma? Poor boy, she thinks with sympathy, the tender-hearted sort in the fact that she is a sucker for sad stories and will impulsively leap to help others if they seem to have even the tiniest shred of miserable justification. This stems from a sort of motherly instinct within her, brought out by the need of others.

There is a moment in which they both simply stare at each other, both rather confused and, apparently, not entirely sure what to say. Marianna wants to ask if he is okay, but he speaks before she has the chance to say anything. "You're. . ." he begins, and Marianna tilts her head slightly, wondering if he will finish the statement. Guesses of his next words scatter through her mind. Marianna? Funny looking? Sitting on me? she believes her guesses to be rather accurate to what will be said, and thus is taken off guard by his actual choice of words. "Very pretty," he finishes with a nod, as though to confirm that he is telling the truth. Now, Marianna is typically a very confident young woman, but she doesn't really get out much. Sure, she used to sneak out as a child, but only maybe once a month. Her exposure to others was rather small when compared to those raised in a more orthodox manner, and this especially applies to boys. Most of her friends were fellow female gymnasts, after all. She is used to compliments, but pretty much entirely in regards to her gymnastics or, from her tutor, ability to pick up on material. It is perhaps due to this inexperience that his simple compliment prompts a bright blush across her face, the green and red clashing to make her look just a bit like a strawberry.

"Erm. . .thank you," she says awkwardly, before realizing that she is practically straddling his chest -although not actually sitting on him- and quickly getting off of him. She sits down, a foot or two away from him now, and watches as Charlie points out the water bottle for Al's convenience. Realizing that she doesn't have time to be embarrassed by the compliment, the young woman quickly grabs the food that she had laid out and crawls back over towards Al. "Food, too. Eat, or you will sleep," she says, not knowing the word for fainting. Realizing that he may need sugar as well, she sets the applesauce in front of him. "No knife," she apologizes, not realizing that she has mixed up her utensils. Can we stay as a group? Yes, she thinks, rather optimistic in her decision, simply assuming that the others will approve of forming a group.

Charlie seems to have similar plans, pointing up towards a tall building and saying that they could stay there. This, however, does not completely align with Marianna's personal plans, though Al has said something about the sun. "You are not to Five House? It said it is safe there. Oh- Al needs to out sun?" she says, revising her statement to fit the apparent needs of the weak boy in the glasses.

Perhaps Allen ought to have felt a bit awkward, having a girl (a rather attractive one, too) be half-straddling him, even if he was sick and disoriented. However, being the dense little boy he was, Allen didn't even notice until his chest suddenly felt very light. "Huh--?" Lifting his head slightly with hazy, half-asleep eyes, he quickly realized that the girl--Marry-And-A, was it?--had jumped off of him, and was now a good two feet away. His observation skills kicking in, Allen thought he spotted the faintest trace of pink spread across her face. He didn't quite understand as to why she had turned such a color (was it too hot for her?), so he asked. "Why are you blushing?" he questioned, eyes wide, "Do you usually blush like that? It's a lovely shade, you know. Rosy pink. I've never seen anyone who blushed such a rosy shade of pink. Well, there was Adella, but her face was already pink, so when she blushed, it looked red. It took me forever to realize that..."

Allen trailed off as Charlotte (first impressions always stuck to Allen, and he soon realized that the young boy with his golden hair and emerald eyes would forever and always be Charlotte to him) pointed towards his hands, and with a starled yelp, Allen quickly realized he was, in fact, holding water. "OH MY GOD. YOU--IT JUST---APPEARED!" he yelled as he open the cap to gulp down the water, throwing his head back in a highly unneeded and exaggerated manner. Naturally, he choked on the water, and resurfaced coughing violently, but still making an attempt to speak, "ARE YOU--A--MAGICIAN?" He was grinning so big his mouth hurt, and despite his pounding head, he leaped forward and attacked Charlotte in a hug, "I LO--LOVE MAGICIANS! THERE WAS THIS ONE--THAT--" Allen laughed and pulled back, "Oh my fudging god, can you like, pull a rabbit from my ear? A magician did that once. Or was it a coin? I don't quite remember, sad to say. All those experimentations the APFWC did on me completely butchered my mind, so I remember my past, but it's all warped up at some parts...crying shame, isn't it?"

Now, Allen was a bit on the childish and immature side, but he wasn't full out nuts. Usually. However, it seemed the fever and the sun were getting to him, and dulling his common sense, thus making him ramble even more. "Thanks, Marry-And-A. Your name is soooo weird, you know. Oh, I'm sorry. That sounded mean," Allen mused, nodding his thanks at the food she had laid out for him. He, obviously, had missed the girl's quiet comment on what her real name was, "Mind if I shorted it? How about...Maa? It stands for Marry-And-A, see! HA! I'm a fudging genius!" he clung onto Charlie tighter and began to eat the applesauce, "DIS ISH DELISHISH!" he cried joyously, "YOO HAF TO TRY ET SHARLOTTE!" And with that, he promptly shoved the applesauce into Charlotte's face, all the while laughing like a maniac, "ISHNIT DELISHISH! MAA, YOU'RE A SHINISHUS! HAHAHAHA!"

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"Why are -?" Al questions Marianna with clear puzzlement, but the ginger young woman is uncertain as to what he is asking, because the word blushing hadn't really cropped up among 'words one must know in English', for obvious reasons. Instead, she just kind of stares at him blankly, just before the young man begins to freak out again- this time in a different way than he had previously. Instead of flailing limbs and screaming, his voice begins moving so quickly that the young woman doubts she would understand what he is saying even if she did speak English fluently. Although some of the words are familiar, they aren't nearly enough to form into a coherent sentence for her to at least get the gist of. Instead, she just hears 'pink', 'red', and a few other unhelpful words like 'was'. Unsure how to react, if simply for uncertainty on his words, the green-eyed girl remains seated in her place while he babbles on and then turns to Charlie -Is it actually Charlotte?- and begins to basically scream at the poor fellow.

She certainly does not envy that attack-like hug he gives Charlie/Charlotte, as it doesn't look the least bit comfortable. Although she wouldn't dream of abandoning him, the young woman is becoming steadily more concerned about Al's behavior. Is it he heat, or is he just a bit strange?

He turns to her and begins saying something, but once again Marianna is left behind in regards to the actual content. He says 'Mary-and-a' again, but the young woman takes it as a strange pronunciation of her name rather than a mistake in the knowledge of the name. Before she can ask him to slow down, he begins to eat the applesauce and then, once more, freaks the hell out. Marianna isn't sure whether to laugh or to scoot away, and finds herself caught between the two as her lips quirk into a smile and she moves slightly away from the apparently unstable young man. We need to get him out of the sun, and quickly, before he hugs someone to death, she observes with an involuntary grin as she watches Al turn and begin to try and shove the sugary snack into Charlie/Charlotte's face, apparently determined to share it.

He bleats out a word which sounds like a goat or a baby, MAA, but she takes it as an English word or something of the like. Charlie/Charlotte is a bit more under control, darting away from Al and speaking to her once more with slow, relatively clear words. "Let's go inside first. Inside. Then we'll see what we have to do. Understand?" he asks, and Mari is rather grateful that, unlike Al, he can actually speak in a relatively coherent ways.

"Understand," she responds with a nod.

With sleeping, came dreams.
Sometimes they were just memories, days of sunshine and green grass and stupid family outings with melting ice-cream that stained clothing and bright kites that someone would pull along while it flew higher than they'd ever get. Sometimes Adel just saw faces, faces of her family and then they blurred into shapes or pictures of random places or things that were now in ruins, or didn't even exist. At bad times though, there were nightmares. There were the Tenebrai, inciting fear in everyone around, and as they ripped apart their victims, screams filled the air. And they inched closer, their forms splattered with blood, ready to kill..
For the first time that week, Adelheid woke up screaming. She was disappointed before anything else - such nightmares had become routine. She'd hardly gotten a half hour of sleep. The girl didn't want to fall into slumber again, not with such images fresh in her mind. But what else was there to do? It sometimes felt like she was on the edge of despair, and everything she had left would just go. Disappear. Be ripped away. Yet, she had to stay here. It was the perfect place - she needed to stay there. Despite her internal battle, the pretty lies always trumped. It was better not to change, after all.
Coby had jumped off the sofa and scampered away, but Adel was unsurprised. Rabbits, with their excellent hearing, hated loud noises, even though he was probably used to her shouting by now. Then suddenly, she froze. Was that.. voices she heard? People? Did people even come by anymore? Maybe to visit the neighbours or something. That was her best guess. It was strange to hear people talking. Her hearing was good, but she still couldn't figure out what they were saying. Just in case, Adel took one of the saucepans under the sink and readied the knife hitched to her belt, then sat, hoping the people would just leave her alone in her own little world. There was no room for anyone else.