Legends End Chapter 1

“The human race is dy-ying…The dead are scattered aro-o-ound…”

Ozzy Osborne’s voice comes blaring out of the alarm clock next to her bed.  Raven reaches out a hand and lazily hits the off button, groaning and mumbling under her breath.  She has to be downstairs to open her shop in less than two hours.  Hurray for Saturdays.  Thankfully, she can already smell the coffee from the other room.  Automatic coffee pots…invention of the gods. 

            She flings the covers off and sits up, looking at the end of the bed when she hears a disgruntled 'meow'. 

            "Oops...sorry, Bast, I didn't realize you were down there," she apologizes as she pulls the covers off the rudely awakened black cat.  Bast merely flicks her tail and launches herself onto the floor. 

            Raven slides her feet onto the floor and stretches as she stands up.  Snagging a hair band from beside the bed, she pulls her long ebony hair into a tail at the back of her head.  She'd brush it out later.  Making her way into the kitchen, she yawns and wonders where the other two monsters have gotten to.  She grabs a coffee mug and pours a generous amount of sugar into it and then pours her coffee in.  Splashing in a little cream from the fridge, she looks out onto the upstairs patio.  If they aren't inside, they'll be out there, she thinks.

            As though waiting for her to notice them, two ravens that had been perched on the patio railing take flight, followed closely by the barking of her two akitas as they try to follow the birds into the air.  Was it her imagination or had the birds and the dogs been staring at each other right before she had actually looked at them?  Nah, she thought, my hounds chase birds all the time.  They don't just sit and stare at 'em.   Shaking her head at her own delusions, she makes her way over to the living room and plops herself down in her oversized chair.  Grabbing the remote, she flips on the T.V. 

            She turns on the local news channel as she sips her morning caffeine and for the thousandth time since she quit months ago, wishes she had a cigarette for her other hand. 

"Damn, girl, that's part of why you wanted to quit, remember?" she mumbles to herself in a disgusted voice.  

            She had decided several months ago that smoking was not the way she wanted to die.  Besides, it was getting way too expensive and she had been up to more than a pack a day.  That was at least five bucks a day out of her wallet just to keep on killing herself.  Not what she needed when she had a shop to run.  Elysium had done quite well for the last three years since she had opened the doors.  But sales had been falling off recently.  Who really needed occult items or incense when the city was falling apart?  So many strange deaths had been reported recently that people were starting to freak out about the smallest things. 

            She hears the weather report starting and looks up, breaking herself out of her daydreaming. 

            "…slightly cloudy with a chance of rain early in the evening hours, low of 55, high around 70.  Now back to oth…" she hits the power button on the remote.  No need to hear about more weird stuff going on around town.  Enough was happening everyday in Elysium that she didn't need to hear reports from a stranger to know what was happening. 

            She hears the dog door flap on the kitchen door and looks up as her two dogs come bounding towards her.  She manages to set the coffee mug aside before they attempt to launch themselves into her lap.  Both of them at the same time.  Given the fact that Freki and Geri were almost the same size she was, this was always amusing.  Giving short yips, barks, and growls, they finish saying good morning to her and she finally manages to shove them away from her. 

            "Okay you two demons give me a sec and I'll get your food!" she laughs as she yells at the two now patiently waiting near their food bowls. 

            She gets herself up out of her chair and stretches again as she heads to the pantry to get the animals their breakfast.  Bast comes bolting out of the laundry area and leaps up to her food station as well, meowing pitifully.  Obviously she doesn't want to be forgotten.  Looking up at Raven, she almost seems like she's going to speak.  The dogs seem to be the same way.  But everyone knows that's impossible. 

            Bast blinks and meows again and Raven is jerked out of her strange thoughts.  Shaking her head to clear what is most likely a left over dream that hasn't quite cleared, she grabs to large container of dog food and the smaller one of cat food out and gives the right portions to each of the animals.  Putting the containers away, she catches a glimpse of the patio area again.  The ravens are back on the railing.  She turns and looks at them through the window.  They simply stare right back for a moment before lazily flapping their wings and, once again, taking flight.  Raven shakes herself and turns back to the pantry.  Grabbing herself a cereal bar, she closes the pantry door and walks back to the other room and her coffee, eating as she goes. 

            Instead of sitting back down in the chair, Raven sits herself down on the floor in front of it.  Snagging her coffee mug, she sets it down in front of her and leans back against the soft fabric of the chair.  She closes her eyes and lays her head back and tries to think of absolutely nothing.  This is a morning ritual that she has been doing now for about two years.  It helps clear her head and helps her think things through.  She silently asks for a sign that she will have a good day in the shop.  She takes three very deep, even breaths and as she lets out the last, she feels something touch her face.  Opening her eyes, she stares up into Bast's emerald green ones.

            "Well, this is certainly a sign of some kind," she says to her cat as she sits up the rest of the way.  "You never come near me when I'm doing this."

            Shaking her head at the vague strangeness of the morning, she stands up.  Grabbing her coffee mug off the floor, she drains what's left in it and walks over to the kitchen to put it in the sink.  Since she has no dishwasher, she tries to only have to do dishes once a day.  Walking back to the bed room, she pulls her hair out of the band she'd put it up in earlier.  Grabbing her brush out of the bathroom, she sits on the side of her bed and begins to work through the knots that a night of tossing and turning have left in her thigh length hair.  She had forgotten to braid it before she went to sleep again.  It takes a while but she manages to get the knots all worked out and she gets it up and braided at the back of her head with the help of another hair tie.  Looking over at the clock she sighs.  It’s time to get dressed and down to her shop. 

Elysium is a novelty and occult shop that Raven opened three years ago.  Her friends help her out when she needs it and she can pay them by either feeding them or parting with some of the merchandise in the shop.  She usually gets them fast food of some kind.  It’s cheaper than most of the stuff they’d want from the shop.  And money wasn’t tight yet, but it could get that way real quick.  The country was falling apart and no one really seemed to know why.  The most recent in a long line of problems was the mass epidemic sweeping through parts of the United States.  People were getting sick.  Some were even dying.  With no cause that any doctor could find.  Raven hadn’t really been paying attention to the rest of the world, but she thought she remembered a report the other day about Europe having the same problem.  Oh well, she silently tells herself, there isn’t anything I can do about it.  As long as it doesn’t affect me directly, I’ll let someone else deal with this issue for now.

She puts her brush down on the bedside table and pulls the necklaces sitting there over her head.  One of them is a Thor’s Hammer.  The other is her dragon pentacle.  She was a practicing witch in a world that didn’t believe in magic.  But the things that her and some of her friends had seen and done made them all very firm believers.  Her dogs were proof of the rest of her belief.  Freki and Geri were the names of Thor’s wolves.  They were also his best friends.  Just like her dogs were hers. 

Standing up, she heads to her closet to pull out clothing for the day.  She decides on a pair of her black jeans that she had doctored to look like the bondage/strap pants that were popular.  Only hers had chain links instead of fabric.  She’d done the chains herself.  She pulls out a light weight, long-sleeved black pull over shirt that has the flowing sleeves that she likes so much.  It also has a very low oval-cut front that shows off her tattoos nicely.  A hammer on one side and a star on the other. 

.  She quickly pulls the clothing on and grabs her cell phone off the charger as she heads back to the bathroom.  She notices that she has a missed call as she glances at the phone before shoving it into a pocket.  She reaches for her makeup and applies the normal amount for the day.  Powder, blush, eye shadow, and lipstick and she is ready to head downstairs to open for the day. 

She walks back into the kitchen, grabs her keys off the counter and turns to the two large dogs sitting near the back door. 

“Guard the place while I’m gone, boys.  I’ll be right downstairs.  If you need me, just howl,” she smiles as she speaks.  Freki and Geri c**k their heads to one side and pant at her.  She giggles as she unlocks the door to the stairway leading from her apartment to her shop on the first floor.  Knowing that the dogs liked to come down and join her occasionally, she leaves the door open a crack.  Enough for them to grab it with a paw and open it the rest of the way.  She heads down the semi-dark stairs and reaches for the door at the bottom with her keys in hand.  Twisting the lock open with the right key, she flings the door wide and looks around at her second home. 

Elysium was the best idea she had ever had.  She had told them at one point that the only way she would be able to open her own place was if she had a million dollars.  Her friends had helped out.  A group of them had all applied for business grants from the government and had gotten them.  She had applied herself at the same time.  No one thought that it would work, but she ended up with almost 1 million dollars in her name.  She had started crying when her friends told her what they had done.  They spent the next five months looking for a good location and finally had found this one.  It had shop space on the first level, and apartment space above it.  She actually owned the entire thing.  Bought and paid for with money from her chosen family. 

She looses her grip on reality as she moves around the shop turning on the lights and turning off the alarm.  Her mind drifts back four years to the last time she saw her parents.  It was dinner time at the house.  Her dad had just gotten home from work.  Her mother was putting the finishing touches on dinner before putting it on the table.  Her twin siblings were sitting in the living room playing one of their many video games.  Her mother turned and looked at her.  ‘I don’t want you wearing that THING to the dinner table, young lady. Go upstairs and take it off this instant.’  Her mother was referring to the pentacle hanging around Raven’s neck.  She had made disapproving sounds about it non-stop since she had started wearing it openly. But she had never been this rude about it.  ‘Fine,’ I replied, ‘I’ll take off my star if you take off your cross.’  Not the best way to respond to her at that point in time.  She had blown up at Raven.  Raven had screamed right back.  Her father got involved and it fell apart from there.  Her twin  sibs, one boy and  one girl, just sat in shock and watched as their big sister got kicked out of the house. 

She shakes her head as the memories come flooding back.  Four years and it could still feel like it happened yesterday.  Trying to shake the thoughts from her mind, she finishes the morning ritual for opening the shop and walks over to open up the front door.  The door chime goes off she opens the door to the late morning sun and a good spring breeze.  She unlocks the screen door as well and turns back to the shop.  She walks back to the counter and reaches under it for one of her water jugs.  She snags a coffee mug from the same hiding space and pours the water in.  She carries the mug and a small container of instant flavored coffee over to the microwave in the miniature office in the back of the shop.  Minutes later, she walks back out with a steaming cup of chocolate hazelnut coffee. 

Sitting down behind the counter near the register, she pulls her cell phone out and flips it open.  She doesn’t recognize the number that called.  Wondering who it could be, she dials her voice mail to listen to the message that they left. 

She nearly drops the phone when she hears the message.  It’s from her sister.

“Raven?  It’s Tammy.  Mom’s sick.  She started getting headaches a few days ago.  The doctor isn’t sure what’s wrong with her.  Tim and I are getting really scared.  Dad hasn’t been home from the hospital in three days and we don’t know what to do.  Can we come and crash at your place for a day or two? Please?  I’ll help out in the shop.  Give me a call back, sis.  Please?”

The end of message tone sounds and Raven just sits and stares at the phone for a moment.  Tammy and Tim were just about sixteen.  Identical twins except that on was a boy and one a girl.  Tammy wasn’t afraid of anything and yet she sounded terrified on the message.  She pulls up the number to call her sister back but has to look up as the bell on the screen door jingles.

“Good morning, Raven.  How are you this fine day?”  The woman who walks into the shop is Rebecca, one of her regulars.  She comes in once every few days to get fresh incense and herbs for whatever she’s doing for the day.  Raven can’t help but smile at her most mornings, but she has no smile for her this morning.  Rebecca’s smile slips and she looks at Raven very closely as she walks over to her. 

“What’s wrong?  You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I just got a call from my little sister.  My mother seems to be one of the people getting sick.  Tammy and Timothy haven’t seen our father in a few days, either,” Raven shakes her head and then looks back up at her friend.  “Go ahead and grab what you need.  I have to call Tammy back real quick.”

“Ok.  You let me know if you need any help, ok?  I’m always around and I’m just a phone call away,” she pats my hand and turns o the shop and her supplies.  She’s a wonderfully nice person, but a little spaced out sometimes. 

Raven glances back down at the phone and hits the call button.  The last number that called in was her sister, so she hits the talk button to dial.  After only two rings, it’s picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Tam.  It’s Raven.  I got your message.”

“Oh thank heavens. We’re really scared, Rave.  Please tell me you’re ok with us coming over,” her sister begs.  She sounds like she’s nearly in tears. 

“Yeah, Tam.  Get enough stuff together for a few days and you guys can come over.  I’m in the shop right now, so just come in the front door.  I’ll be waiting.”

“Ok.  We’ll be over soon.  Bye,” Tammy squeaks into the phone. 

“Later,” Raven almost whispers.  The phone goes dead and she quietly flips it closed and stashes it back in her pocket.  For the second time that day, she wishes she had a cigarette. 

She looks up again as Rebecca comes back to the counter with her small pile of items.  She lays them out on the counter in a somewhat neat pile.  The same stuff almost everyday.  But today she has almost twice the herbs that she normally does. 

What’s with all the extras today, Becca?” Raven asks as she rings up the items.  She has an older register, so it takes a minute to get everything. 

“I need to protect myself from the sickness spreading through here.  I also need to bless my home and pets.  I don’t want to get sick like so many already have.  And my cats need to be safe as well,” she states in a tone that says that I should not have needed to ask such a silly question.  “I would think that you would be doing the same thing.  Especially with your family coming over. 

“I’ll keep that in mind, Becca.  Thanks,” Raven turns away for a moment to finish ringing everything up, thus ending the conversation.   What she hadn’t said out loud was that her home was as safe as it could be right now.  She lives above an occult shop that she blesses every full moon and has her dogs and cat upstairs watching her home.  Pretty safe as far as she could tell. 

 

Author's Note

Please give me your honest opinion on this writing.

Reviews

[Tazredrum]

A good job setting up the characters environment and life. It's like I know her. But that's just the first chapter.

[a Messenger]

I think this is excellent work. I like Raven, she's a very
interesting character and it's obvious some very
exciting things will soon be happening to her.
Your story flows smoothly, is easy to read, and holds
the reader's interest throughout.
Your grammar and spelling are extremely good for
the Cafe.
A great write.

[The M Graphics]

Nice work. I will be checking back for more of your work.