CHAPTER TWO: Cecilia: Searching

[Kadael]

"I... I might come around for, you know, birthdays and holidays..." She sighs. Is she telling the truth here? Will she even try? The house will be so empty... what would she do with Katie's old room?

Cecilia pulls a foot out of the water momentarily. Her stockings have fallen down to her ankles, and her slacks are sticking to her skin. It's almost funny - she would be so much less stressed if she'd just stayed home. "Yes. I was pretty sure I would die a little while ago. You had to ask?"

The hostility is obviously to avoid further questions.

[Seon]

"Not like that!" Jack hissed. "Have you ever felt as if you were slipping away, hurt so bad that you can't even... ohhh forget it!"

"My memories... they can't be real, right? I couldn't... I couldn't have been stabbed there... right? Heheh... it... it didn't even feel like it was my memory though.... as if... as if it was an echo of somebody else's memory..."

"It can't be my memory..."

That voice...

Nathan?

"Right?"

[Kadael]

Cecilia almost tunes him out. She's tired of his personal questions. Tired of telling her life story to a stranger (never mind that she's been doing that with her therapist).

But there's something in his voice that makes her heart skip a beat. Her mouth dries, and her breath catches.

She turns and looks at him - really looks at him. It's hard in the dark, but her eyes travel up and down his body, from his mussed hair to where his legs disappear into the water.

No. It's not possible; you're hearing things.

"...Jack...?"

[Seon]

"What?"

He doesn't look exactly like Nathan did... but the semblance was there. She could have easily mistaken Jack for Nathan at a distance.

[Kadael]

"Never mind." She pulls Rochelle's coat tighter around herself and wades forward, head down.

Was it wishful thinking, projection, or is she really going insane?

[Laraqua]

The water reaches up to their knees now and it sloshes around their legs. It's cold, icy, and seems to sap the energy from them until it feels like they realise that they're moving much slower than they intended. There's a mournful vibe to this whole place. So cold, so wet, so dark.... Nothing leaps up to attack them but it's all so hard to find their way. Each street looks largely the same and the street signs seem almost wilted, the metal from the sign having run into the pole. Are they even heading in the right direction? Some streets seem to lift somewhat out of the water but that would be heading in a different direction, back towards the hospital, rather than forward, towards the lake's edge, to follow it to the Amusement Park.

[Seon]

"How are you holding up?" Jack whispered in that familiar voice. "I hate this water. It's so cold too..."

[Kadael]

"I'm cold." Cecilia puts her left hand - the one without the flashlight - into a pocket to warm it up. "Are we going the right way?"

She's shivering now. So much for the coat. The pain in her face flares up again, and she bites back a groan, touching the bridge of her nose.

[Seon]

Jack sighed and put the shotgun into the coat's pocket.

"We are," he said. He put an arm around her shoulder. "We'll keep each other warm."

Isn't that what she told Nathan once during their trip to the beach? It was night, and the weather had suddenly turned cold. She pulled Nathan close to her, giggling. He didn't give much of a reaction back then. She thought he was just being nervous... He was always nervous.

[Kadael]

Being this close to a violently insane man who keeps pressing her emotional buttons? It's ridiculous. It's stupid. It's a complete and total violation of common sense.

It's also decently warm.

"Okay." She's mumbling - now she's the nervous one. This shouldn't remind her of those days, damn it. She was young and silly and, well, Jack isn't Nathan. No matter how much he looks like him, or sounds like him.

It's only because she's lonely.

[Laraqua]

They can hear a soft splashing coming from somewhere around the next corner. They have to be nearing the lake's edge but it's hard to be sure. Then they follow a narrow route into a wide open space where the flashlight can no longer reach the edges of the walls. Is this the lake or the park? It's too hard to tell for sure. Then as they continue on, the water lapping at their hips, they see jagged shards of metal wrapped around wood that thrusts upward toward the sky. Each one glistens with rusty water. Each one has holes hear and there that almost seems to bleed the water.

[Seon]

He loved her. He wanted nothing more than to ensure that no living thing in the world would harm her. He would have gladly sacrificed himself for her. He would have gladly given his life if her whims desired so.

But why? Why did he feel that way? The emotion was not his, but he was feeling it nonetheless. His mind demanded that he feel that this way, clamoring, not really understanding why. When he looked at her like this, he felt as if he could melt.

He also hated her.

He recognized his feelings towards her were responsible for all the pain and misery that he went through in the course of this day. He recognized that she was at least partially responsible for his very existence. The unnatural emotions that he had felt the moment that he saw her in the bar proved it. She was something that had refused to let him finally rest.

It would have been easy to kill her. It would have ended the entire farce right there and then. He simply had to kick her leg out from under her and hold her there below the waters of the Lake...

His hand tensed for a bit around her shoulders, grabbing onto her arm painfully. He relaxed his grip moments later.

Even if the emotions that he felt were not true. Even if it was just a trick, it seemed real to him as of this moment.

That's all that mattered.

He just had to help her find Katie again.

One last job for the day. Closing hours.

Maybe afterwards, he would just close his eyes and go to sleep. It was a rather stressful day after all.

Yeah. That would be nice.

He held Cecilia tightly towards him. "We are almost there," he whispered to her.

[Kadael]

"If you're sure." She can't make sense of this twisted, flooded labyrinth. Which way did they go from the hospital? Is it even there anymore?

Back in the bar, when he had gone to the morgue, Cecilia was sure that she could find Katie on her own. She had a location, a map, and even a weapon. But no - Katie found her.

And Cecilia let her get away again.

Why can't I do anything right on my own?

"You thinking about something?" Cecilia leans closer, wrapping an arm around his waist. If nothing else, Jack is like a furnace in this cold. This might be nice, if her rational thoughts would shut up.

Wait.

"Shit!" Water sloshes around her as she pulls away, hands diving into her pocket. "The kitten-- the water--" She scoops it out and carefully inspects it.

[Seon]

No, please... don't let me go...

[Laraqua]

The kitten gazes up at her, bleary-eyed and bedraggled, and gives a little meow as it nervously shakes off the water and gazes around itself. It cowers between her fingers, cold and soggy and alone, as it gazes around at the strange shapes that erupt out of the water in so many places. There is a tension to the air. A sense that somehow things are just about to get a whole lot worse....

[Kadael]

Cecilia holds the kitten close to her chest, gently petting its wet fur. Good, it's alive and safe.

While she's trying to straighten its bow-tie collar, she glances at Jack. "Are you okay? Sorry, I didn't want the kitten to drown..."

[Seon]

"I am fine..." Jafk muttered, looking and listening everything around him warily.

Everytime he passed over Cecilia, he stopped for a moment to gaze longingly at her.

[Laraqua]

The kitten meows again nervously and begins to growl but, other than that, and a slight hiss from Jack's radio, all seems to be calm. Water drips down from some of the metal-and-wood constructions with a tick-tick-tick sound as it strikes the water and somewhere on the more distant 'trees' seem to be vaguely moving shapes. Perhaps branches? It's so hard to see in this heavy darkness. The water itself reaches up to their waist in full now and it slows them down, dragging against them, as they walk. Here and there the water ripples as though unseen fish were darting about beneath it.

[Kadael]

"Shh, it's okay..." Cecilia cradles the kitten in her arms, trying to calm it down. It's like baby Katie all over again, but smaller and with more hair. She was inconsolable at the worst of times, but sometimes all it took was nursing or a song.

If only she had some kitten food.

She notices Jack looking at her, and raises an eyebrow. "What?" she asks, clearly not understanding. "Is there something on my face? That isn't blood?"

[Seon]

"Shh!" Jack suddenly said, turning quickly away from her. He pulled out a shotgun and gazed into the waters.

"Cecilia," he said. "Get ready to run."