Episode Ten: "Black Dress"

Episode Ten: "Black Dress"

I woke from my dream and hollered out in the dead of night. I grabbed my face, and made certain that I was real. The rain continued to beat the roof and flood the streets and at first I believed the it to be the rain that flooded the floors across the store. My sleeping pad and clothes had been soaked with at least an inch of water.

Thunder roared, and lightning flashed in the distance. My breathing matched that of my dreams. The man, Hayxrin, I knew so little about him. His presence frightened me, and worst is he took on Kaze's semblance, but failed to act as he acted. Questions bubbled in my mind, but answering them was near impossible at the moment in time.

I went to the front of the store, dragging my feet through the water; and the lightning guided me to the front of the store.

The hazy streets flashed before me like photographs, and standing in the rain stood a figure. My chest thumped before I caught his face. The Collector stood, and watched me. I bolted for the door, and hollered at him. "Come inside." I waved my hand as the wind blew mist around my feet.

But he never moved. He stood motionless, and with a lightless gap, a halt of lightning, he disappeared. I knew what he looked for. But his blue object was not in the store. I knew every item sitting on the shelves better than I knew my own bedroom and personal items.

I closed the door, and examined the flooding. "It must've come in under the doors." I vocalized, and then improvised my sleeping arrangements by clearing off the counter tops, and laying blankets across it. I rolled and peered over the edge of the counter: the floor seemed so far away when my feet weren't grounded, and as a result, my paranoia kept my sleep going into fade-ins and fade-outs.

The next few days would be similar, except Krio visited for only long enough to throw my clothes on top of a shelf, and I didn't dream of Ray and Hayxrin. I believed and hoped for them to be gone from my mind, and that one day I'd completely forget they ever happened.

But on a day not so long before The Suns Festival, I ventured out when my insanity grew into suffering. Loneliness began to flake away the parts that made me me, and I left the store. I packed my clothes, and went back to Gairee's house. This would be the last time this happened.

Nothing about the cabin had changed. I knocked on the door, and Gairee unlocked the chains after several minutes of delay. She ran back, jumped on her newly made bed in the corner of the living quarters. I sighed when I caught it, and knew I'd have to clean the area again.

She knew I'd come back by the expression on her face. With nothing but her mouth, nose, and eyes visible, she spoke to me from beneath the blankets. "Kaze told me what happened."

"Did he, now?" I threw my belongings just through a gap in the bedroom door. "Did he tell you about how he allowed me to be arrested?"

"He told me everything, dear. Patrix knows better than to come here. But Dyllynn? She'll come to see about me. She always does."

"I suppose I can lock myself away in the bedroom."

Gairee giggled to herself, stretched, and yawned simultaneously. "She'll want to speak with you, I'm sure. Patrix tells her everything. She knows everything. And I'm sure she knows that you're here."

"It's been days." I explained. "She's not going to know a thing."

Gairee huffed. "You're one of those who has to learn for themselves. I like that in a person."

My thoughts came, and went as I shuffled around in the kitchen. "I do like learning things by myself. I always have. I've also never had a choice."

"With the world in its current state, we have to. You can trust no one."

"I agree. I agree with you entirely."

And I didn't trust Gairee, but I grew to like her more and more. I also found her to be correct, and my blood boiled when I was wrong.

That next day, Kaze visited.

Gairee had just woke, and her mood was beyond groggy.

Kaze halted in the front door with his eyes wide with a glare that could kill.

I washed Gairee's dishes, simply glanced at him, and moved back to my chores.

"I thought you were gone." He said blatantly.

"I was. But you�""

That's when I saw her.

All the matter in the universe felt as if it froze, and halted in time. She shimmied between Kaze and the frame of the door without any spoken words. She might as well had pushed him out of the way. Dyllynn observed the room without any emotion, and went straight to the tea table.

I carefully laid the dishes back in the sink, and waited for her to see me.

She swiped her finger across the tea table, and brought the tip to the end of her nose. "It's actually...clean."

She pursed her thin lips that were blanched in a pasty red coat. Then she pulled her long and perfect hair across her shoulder and over her breast.

"Kaze, might I ask who you were speaking to?"

And she pretended not to see standing just at the countertop. Kaze's mouth fell ajar as his eyes blinked from me to her.

I said to Kaze "I took a break from work. Now I'm back."

Dyllynn placed her eyes on me as she tightened her lips. When she walked, she tapped the tips of her fingers together in a continuous motion. They acted as a metronome for the sway of her hips, and somehow everything about her was perfectly synchronized into utter perfection.

She kept her chin held high when she spoke. "I've never met you, yet I know exactly who you are."

"And I know you." I kept my arms to my side, but I refused to raise my chin as she did.

Gairee's eyes broadened, and she straightened her backside.

Dyllynn continued to tap her fingers across one another. "Might it be necessary to greet one another, would you?" Her brow rose.

"I'm afraid not." My tone rose. "I have never cared to meet you."

"I'm Dyllynn." She gave me her hand as if our brief conversation before hadn't just happened. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

I offered my hand. "I'm Serenity."

But when she glanced at my wet palms covered in bubbles and the residue of dirty water, she sneered, and pulled her hand back down to her side.

Kaze came between us. "Dyllynn, I do believe we need to get going."

"This will only take a second. I'll be with you shortly. Wait for me on the porch, will you?"

Gairee spoke. "Kaze, I'm watching them."

Dyllynn jerked her head, her locks flying across her back. "Gairee, do keep your thoughts to yourself."

Gairee sat herself down with rage in her eyes. Dyllynn urged Kaze to leave the room with a smile, and she grabbed his collar and shook it very faintly. "Please, everything is fine."

Kaze took himself from the room, but left the front door opened.

"I'm assuming you'll tell Patrix where I am now." I took in a breath.

"Serenity, dear, what kind of person do you think I'd be if I did such a horrible thing? You shouldn't have to answer for Krio's mistakes. He needs to step forward. He should own up to his mistakes like a Man. No, it'd do nothing for me to see you behind bars."

Confusion swept over me, and I looked away for a moment. "Why is that?"

Dyllynn went through yet another expression, one including a smile that I'd never forget. "I want you to attend our wedding. You can't attend a wedding behind bars."

"I thought everyone was invited?" Gairee intruded yet again. "It's the passing down of the Village Leader title. The whole village is invited."

Dyllynn shot back to Gairee. "You still fail to defuse the point that she can't go if she's in jail."

Gairee crossed her arms. "Are you done here?" She asked with her hand thrown out.

"And I just wanted to say too that I'm terribly sorry for what happened to your parents."

"No." I bit my lip and rolled my eyes. "No, you don't have to be sorry."

"But I am. And as a matter of fact, let me make it up to you."

Dyllynn reached into her coin purse, and I turned away from her. "No, keep your money. I don't want it."

"I insist." The coins clattered against the counter top. "Take it. You can buy something nice for the wedding. I'm sure you'll be there."

I leaned over the sink. The woman knew exactly what her choice of words would do. She had everything planned out into a deep void beyond perfection. I even imagined that their wedding would be flawless.

Dyllynn crossed paths with Gairee, looking down upon her as she continued to sit. Her body language told the story of someone too powerful for their own good; and with the information I withheld, I knew that Dyllynn had more power over Gairee than she could stand to endure.

My body trembled. "I had never met her until now." I told Gariee.

"You'll meet her again as long as you continue to hold feelings for Kaze. She doesn't like when people touch her things."

I peered into my faded reflection on the kitchen window. I peered into my own eyes for once. I searched for my own personal needs and wants, and I found them. I pulled the tie out of my hair, and finger-combed it out as jealousy brought on emotions I thought I'd never have.

As I peered into myself, I said to Gairee "I do believe he was mine first. If she thinks Kaze an object to own, she mistaken. I think I can potentially fix this."

"You're human. What will you do?"

"It doesn't matter what I will do. What matters is what everyone else will do."

I questioned every tiny detail of my situation, and devised a plan that may or may not work. In those moments of jealousy, hate and rage, I created a darker version of myself, and became the very thing I hated.