[SOLO] Shapes in the Rain. (Naya)

[Kinu]

"Naya.... Naaaayaaa..." The voice whispered as a set of jagged, pearly white, teeth split the darkness. Spreading into a large grin. One silver eye shimmered, like a tiny moon, the other was so dark it couldn't be seen. Distorted laughter echoed in the background around her but it didn't come from him. He didnt laugh, ever. "I'll never let you go." The laughter turned to screams.

Naya bolted upright, her body drenched in sweat, her chest rising and falling rapidly as the adrenaline pumped through her veins. Rain pelted against the dimly lit window of the room she'd broken into. It was dark but the glow from outside cast everything in an eerie light, throwing the contents of the room into ominous shadows. She didn't know who this place belonged to but she'd fallen asleep there. It appeared the owners hadn't returned. Luckily it had been so deeply overcast the day before that she hadn't died. She hadn't noticed there were no curtains to shield the sunlight when she crawled into bed, probably because of how dark it had already been before sleep claimed her.

Her empty gaze stared unblinkingly across the room, exhausted. Maybe it would have been better if she had died. Her face turned to the window, staring out at the storm as it distorted the shapes of the city. He couldn't follow her in death. Her claws dug into the blanket which was absently pressed against her chest. Would they stop? Ever? The nightmares? She hadn't seen The Black Cat in years now. He hadn't darkened her doorway since her embrace and not even the Malkavian Web had any information regarding his current whereabouts. Fine. Maybe he was dead. But she doubted it. And the uncertainty didn't make it any easier to live with.

Naya had become a ghost. She rarely connected with her clan, only in passing, but many Malkavians were solitary creatures anyway. She wasn't exactly strange. At least not in that regard. She didn't have anyone now. Not that she did before. He never allowed her to. She had adopted Deranged on a whim, but that had ended up in disaster. What made her think she could care for a baby? It was probably the worst thing that could have happened to him, even if she had honestly tried to love him. It was a funny thing, loving someone when you yourself didn't know what it felt like to love or be loved. That luxury wasn't one her life had ever been able to afford. Or so it felt.

Her legs slid to the side of the bed, fingers gripping the mattress as her feet touched the chilly floor. Looking down Naya closed her eyes, eyebrows furrowed in a mixture of exhaustion and frustration as a sigh broke the silence. It was covered in markings. She must have done them in her sleep at some point. Shapes, figures, words. None of them made sense to her. She'd end up leaving them anyway. She didn't bother to cover them up. Who knew? Maybe they were for whoever lived here. She could hope they had some purpose. Better that than the fractured ravings of a lunatic.

 

[Kinu]

She pulled her body from the bed, ignoring the drawings and walking over them dismissively to stand in the center of the room. She didn't have the will to try and decipher any of it. There were too many anyway. She needed to eat sooner rather than later, and the beast had begun to stir, it was the only company she kept anymore. How long had it been since her last feed? She didn't know that either. She didn't feed often. Her little ribs were a bit more pronounced than they likely should have been. She headed back toward the window. Resting a temple against the cool frame and watching the colors melt with the rain. So many souls. So many lives just out of reach. So close and yet worlds apart. She didn't know how to be part of it. The place beyond the window. She didn't really know if she wanted to be. It was all a relatively foreign concept.

Everything moved in a rhythm somewhere between slow motion and fast forward. But she felt like she was standing still. She'd always been standing still. Her compass pointed nowhere. Naya had hoped, somewhere in the depths of her mortal madness, that being a vampire would have fixed her. Vindicated her. And at first, she'd found power in it, power over her monsters, if only because she finally had control of her life. That feeling faded fast. Now she felt like a question mark. Skulking in shadows. Plagued by visions. Empty.

Being under TBC's thumb wasn't any way to live, going back to that wasn't an option. She'd walk into the sun first. She needed to find purpose but what purpose was there for a broken toy? She felt dizzy all of a sudden and her claws dug into the wood of the window sill as she tightly closed her eyes against the coming onslaught. A rough vision, it was disjointed and broken, and none of it made sense. If she'd been mortal her body would have been wracked with nausea, like it used to, she used to vomit. Thankfully that finally stopped a few years back. Now they were just aggressive sometimes. Like a violent tremor. Or a seizure. And then it was gone. Her eyes opened again, slowly, and she continued to watch the rain fall.  

[Kinu]

There didn't appear to be anyone else in the building. Nothing moved except for the rats and the ghosts who wandered the halls, long forgotten and unable to move on. As much as she hated to admit it they seemed to have something in common with one another. Her gaze slid to the door and a shiver slithered across her skin. Something wanted in, she wasn't interested in letting it in. She didn't want to deal with ghosts of the past right now. Especially her own. There wasn't a reason to. Any development seemed exhausting and pointless. It didn't feel necessary. She didn't need herself to be whole for any reason. In fact, if she did, she knew she would have to reintegrate back into the world. She couldn't find the desire. Floating through the mire of time with fractured sight was tolerable. At least she wasn't trapped anymore. Or it was a different trap anyway.

The crack of lightning illuminated the room's far wall and she spotted something strange where her other drawings seemed to converge. Thunder growled loudly as it chased the tail of electricity, lending a haunting feeling to the omen that sat across the room. The words circle around a single point. She frowned, her body drawn to the spot like a moth to a flame, footfalls silent as she closed the distance. Her paw fanned out over the words scribbled furiously into the wood. The image made her stomach drop. It was her body. Bloody. Broken. Lying in a pool of what she could only determine was her own blood. She couldn't tell if she was dead or alive. The eyes were open. Staring at something, but she couldn't say what. She hadn't drawn whatever it was. Naya scratched the image, leaving deep ruts in the wood that marred it beyond recognition. She felt panic rising, her beast was squirming now, terrified. She'd never drawn herself before. This was new. The adrenaline heightened, and her body tensed. What was this? A nightmare? A warning? Her future? She thought she heard the laughter and the screams, the monsters again. There were so many monsters in the world. Was she going to end up devoured anyway? They always found her. The monsters. The last one had been the worst. But she didn't doubt there were others, worse ones, ones that lurked beyond her sight.

Naya's fist curled in on itself as she slammed it into the wall, her spirit defiant. She wasn't afraid of monsters. Not when they were all she had ever known. In this life and the one before. She had to get out of this room. She didn't want to look at the image anymore. Whatever it meant. It could have very easily been telling her lies. The spirit lurking outside her door had gone, uninvited it didn't wait around. She reached for the handle and turned the knob. A slow groan squealed as the hinges strained, and the sound echoed eerily into the hall. The hallway itself was dimly lit and the stench of mold hit her aggressively as she moved through the stale air. She was in an abandoned building all right. Now how did she get out of here?  

[Kinu]

She heard coughing from somewhere and the fur along her spine stood on end. She wasn’t as alone as she thought. The small female moved silently through the hall. She could see in the dark but still braced her paws against the walls for comfort just in case something happened to slam one of the doors open and come for her. She could hear movement. The smell of old wood, damp, rodents, and… what was that? It smelled dead. She didn’t want to know. No. Nonono. She didn’t care. Naya kept going, down the hallway alone in the darkness, up to the room where something had obviously died. She closed her eyes as she passed it, hoping she wouldn’t see it in her head. She’d go somewhere better in her head if she could remember something. But there was nothing there. No fields of sunlight from her mortal life. No happy moments that didn’t end in tears or horror. She couldn’t find any. So she thought about the rain and the lights. How beautiful they looked when they melted together.

She slipped past the door in a burst of courage, and nothing happened. Relief flooded her. Small blessings. Where had she heard that? Who knew? Naya hurried down the hallway until she came to the stairs, it was a long way down and completely black. If she’d been a mortal she wouldn’t have been able to see at all. As it stood it just felt ominous. But she wanted out of here now. The drawing had ruined this haven for her. She wouldn’t spend another day in the same room where she’d drawn her own battered and bloody body like it had been any other vision. The sound of rain was deafening as she began to descend the stairs. She expected to see teeth at any moment. Gnashing from the darkness. Biting at her heels. Ready to devour her.

With every step her speed increased, her fear growing in the darkness even when she logically knew she was the only monster here. She was running down the stairs now. As fast as she could, like the hounds of hell were chasing her, she wanted out of this spiral. When the end came into view, she practically tripped down the last couple of steps and slammed into the opposite wall. Sliding her back down against the hardwood she sat there for a moment, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes wide as they stared into the darkness. Any minute he’d come back. Any minute The Black Cat would appear. Those eyes would devour her soul. That mouth would rend her flesh. She’d be just like the picture.. there wasn’t anyone else it could be. He was the only one who had ever broken her. Over and over again. Until she'd lost her mind so completely that the Malkavians had found her. Funny thing that. It was the only thing that brought her back from oblivion.  

[Kinu]

Naya eventually calmed herself. There wasn't anything there. She had to remind herself. There wasn't anything there anymore. Not in the darkness. Just her. She latched onto the walls, pulling herself up off the floor. Wrapping her arms around her body, more a gesture left over from her mortality and not a response to how cold the building was, the small female turned to wander down the hallway in her search for the exit. There were a lot of doors down here too and she realized these ones were occupied, at least mostly. The flicker of light from under them caught her attention but she kept moving, she didn't want to stop and have someone notice her. But a door opened somewhere further down and a head peered out from inside. Naya froze in place as it looked at her. She half expected it to smile. The teeth would be razor sharp. But it didn't.

In the dusky light, she could make out a male baddie. Definitely an adult. He looked grungy. Like he'd partied too much in the past five years. Her stomach growled. The Beast began to claw at her insides. She wanted him. Naya moved with purpose towards the confused-looking mortal until she stood in front of his door. Her eyes were mesmerizing. Large, innocent, orbs were easy to get lost in. She whispered to him softly. "Please... help me." He seemed confused at first but then he swayed a bit on his feet, his head fuzzy. Naya backed him into the room and shut the door behind them. There weren't screams. She didn't kill him. But he was close to death when she left him. Sealing the wound with a swift lick to his neck. No one would know. She left him in the apartment without a second glance, leaving his door open for someone to find him. Hopefully, someone nice would.

As Naya found the exit and swung the door open to be greeted by the bright lights of Hemlock she yawned, her tiny canines flashing for a moment. She'd forgotten how low she got when she was hungry. The monsters liked to play with her when she starved herself. The Beast didn't like being denied. Her body had filled out, the ribs no longer protruding, her fur extra silky, her eyes shimmery and alert. Naya was an extremely cute Kat. She'd been adorable as a mortal and that was now cemented into eternity. But that adorable façade hid an absolutely predatory nature, one that had developed as a result of her immortality. No one would have suspected her. Not unless they knew. In fact, she was often hassled by mortals who wondered what someone so innocent looking was doing in some of the rougher parts of the city. She'd been a Regular before she was turned. It didn't do her any favors when she tried to maneuver through the tougher parts of Hemlock. But she managed. As usual. She was resilient and clever. She survived. At this point, she considered it a gift. With her most recent terrors left behind in the building, she slipped into the throng of Kats out for a night on the town and melted out of sight.