Too long I've been away and too long I've not contributed to this site. So here's a tale featuring the delightful, odd and virtually silent, Zazie Rainyday and a girl who you'll come to find as brutality and violence incarnate whose name I'll reveal in the next chapter. Enjoy.

The cool of autumn air, the leaves rustling within the mildly chilled winds and the mesmerizing spectacle of the array of colors within the trees reached out and greeted 3-A's very own, Zazie Rainyday as she stepped out of the gym where her acrobatics club had met that day. She'd changed out of her leotard that she used for class, which she decided to leave with the club mentor, and switched back to the commonplace maroon Mahora uniform and a wool overcoat.

October was a beautiful month and it wasn't that far into the month only being the 7th day but already the cool of the approaching winter were apparent. The dark skinned girl gave a contented glance to the partly cloudy blue sky above feeling a sense of peace and an odd feeling she couldn't quite describe exactly but she associated with a sense of belonging and like the entire environment around her was conspiring together to create the perfect atmosphere.

She lost awareness of everything around herself and came to realize that she'd been standing there looking into the sky for ten minutes straight when a girl from her acrobatics club gave her a confused look, called her name and informed her that Zazie had left in the said timeframe. The dark skinned girl left after shaking off the questioning of her well being with silent nods, hand gestures and lastly a smile before her feet started taking her onto the road to a place she hadn't consciously planned on going to. Wherever that would be.

Her footsteps were silent as they carried her to the park where the peak of beauty within Mahora seemed to be other than the mountains that surrounded Mahora but she didn't feel like walking to such a distance. The girl's white bangs shifted along with the subtle breeze that was flowing within the park as her feet kept silently trekking on the hard stones packed into the ground for the pathway. Zazie again was finding herself lost. There were no birds except for the crows that stayed behind even as winter was approaching. Such odd creatures...Zazie thought as they made their caws somewhere in the distance. However as she kept walking she began to hear more caws, and the more she walked the louder they became. Eventually Zazie stopped in her tracks and peered around the area with her yellow eyes that almost seemed to glow to see where this mysterious bunch of black birds was. Perhaps they found a bit of food, the dark skinned girl thought trying to pinpoint just where exactly they were coming from.

Normally Zazie wouldn't give a care but a curiosity had taken ahold of her on this pleasureful little nature walk. Her head fixated on what seemed like a beaten down dirt path of the side of the stone walkway. The path she'd never noticed before but probably because the only times she remembered visiting the park were times during the spring and summer when the undergrowth of the surrounding forests was immensely dense to the point you couldn't see the ground.

The girl put one foot in front of the other and started walking down the path which only fed her curiosity even more. From here Zazie could hear the caws growing louder and louder. Eventually she started hearing wings flapping. The dirt path winded only slightly and then it dropped at a very steep angle into some sort of creek bed filled with small pebbles but there was very miniscule amounts of water pooled at the lowest points. The girl raised her head as another crow flapped over her head and passed by her and she increased her pace, her feet once touching compacted dirt reached the pebbles which weren't that gave way to the weight of her body slightly as she stepped upon it.

Zazie followed the crow keeping her eyes fixated on it in it's slow gradual flight. The caws turned into a constant chatter and Zazie found herself looking at the end of a slightly elevated embankment of pebbles and the murder of crows that had congregated at it base focusing their attention on something human in shape that laid on the embankment. Their chatter was almost deafening. Her sensitive ears were delved into their noises so much that she lost track of the sounds of everything else. She wasn't giving much thought into the noises, she was too fixated at the humanoid shape that was on the embankment. She drew closer with her curiosity growing more and more with every step she took. The murder didn't pay much attention to the girl as she came closer to them, closer to the humanoid shape laying in the pebbles.

A scent tingled Zazie's nose as she drew closer. The smell was familiar. Very familiar. Blood and death. It was intense. Something inside the girl told her to turn around and leave but she kept on. The shape with a closer look was that of a female human but her senses told her it wasn't strictly human there was something more that she couldn't identify. Zazie stepped onto the embankment less than a few feet away from where the female laid facing away from the silent acrobat. Her skin was dark like Zazie's own but it was darker, her hair unlike Zazie's was pitch black, long, unkempt and flowing with debris, dirt, and dried spots of blood caked in. Her clothes were...odd. They were latex, gray in color with red trim and much too adult in nature. It consisted of a long sleeved belly jacket that revealed the bare skin of her abdomen which had droplets of dried blood resting on the surface, a short skirt that seemed similar to a cheerleader's skirt with red lines patterning the frilled creases closer to where latex ended mid thigh, and knee high boots also latex with a blocky toe and sole on the underside which was caked in dirt and dried blood and something dried that was...Fleshy.

Zazie simply stood there and tried to gather as much as she could with her eyes from the distance she stood away from the female. Suddenly the crows stopped cawing and chattering amongst themselves. Zazie turned her head and looked behind her to see the murder just standing in place staring straight in her direction. Not at her but the female beyond her.

The silent acrobat swallowed from a growing sense of unease and turned her head to look at the female once more. As her head turned her vision was metal with nothing but a copper like tinge of metallic luster less than an inch away from her face. She blinked from the sudden startling she received and took a step back nearly stepping on one of the crows.

The female was no longer laying on the ground but standing right in her wake like a statue. She was about Zazie's height maybe an inch taller. Zazie didn't say a word nor make a gesture she was too affixed on the copper like metallic mask that covered the female's face which resembled the likeness of a woman with African facial features locked forever in an eternal blank expression however the "nose" of the mask resembled the nasal pits of a skeleton which added to the eeriness of its appearance. Zazie tried but she could not see the eyes through the eyeholes of the metal mask. They were overshadowed almost like it was designed to do so but she could feel these unearthly eyes looking at her. Zazie gave a glance at the dried blood that stained the female's clothes which should've cued her to get away from the female as fast as her body possibly could muster but Zazie didn't have no such response.

The acrobat was so intent on rarely gracing anyone's ears with her voice but she felt a need to break this minutes long silence that only harbored a growing tension because of this feeling she had if she didn't, something terrible might happen. Zazie opened her mouth and managed to squeeze out a simple "Hello" with a mild wave of her hand.

She didn't receive a vocal reply. The female's head only cocked from what Zazie tell the girl didn't really seem to understand what she said but understood her waving gesture but she also perceived a sort of feeling within the girl she marked as curiosity. The acrobat felt the tension ease slightly and started to think that this girl was much like herself in terms of speaking habits. The acrobat was beyond interested at this point. Zazie didn't say another word instead she started making gestures, pointing in the general direction of the Academy and herself before slowly taking one of the girl's hands and making another gesture to the Academy pulling the girl's arm a little to signal that she wanted her to follow. The girl cocked her head again and she lingered in her statue like stance before her feet started to give way making steps in the direction of force Zazie was apply. Her stride even though she was being lightly guided was much like she wasn't being pulled at all, and each time her boots touched the ground they hit almost flatly against the pebbles. There was no hurry, and nothing uncertain.

When the girl started moving the crows scattered and took flight making no other sound other than the flap of their wings which prompted another stop from the acrobat to gaze at the beyond eerie spectacle. She didn't know why the crows had congregated to this girl's location but she had a vague feeling they were actually leading her to the girl. Perhaps this entire incident was a force of nature at work and not something simply of coincidence however Zazie pushed that idea out of her mind. Those crows could've been just been attracted to the unexplained blood on the girl for all Zazie knew but something was disagreeing within herself to the contrary.

Zazie wasn't sure what she was doing at this point but her interest in this girl was at a peak she'd never experienced before. She wanted to know more about what she'd discovered. Who this girl was, what this girl was, where she was from, why she wore that mask, why she was covered in blood, and the questions in her head went on. The white haired girl hastily decided that she was going to take this girl to her dorm and perhaps do other things but none of which she could decide on at the moment.

As Zazie made it up onto the regular path again she felt the girl's hand slowly but surely slip out her own. The white haired girl stopped and turned back but nothing seemed to be the matter. The girl still stood closely by her like she waiting for Zazie to start walking again so she could follow. The acrobat did so and like she thought the girl followed behind. Her and Zazie walked all the way from the park back to the dorm that Zazie lived. There was no people around which Zazie was appreciative of because she didn't want any unwanted attention especially with her companion covered in blood.

Zazie had took a little more caution when she was in the dorms making sure nobody was around when she came through the stairs and hallways, going as fast as she could with her companion's unconcerned pace. She hurriedly opened her dorm room door and went inside with her friend following suit. She closed the door and locked it up. Okay...Now what? Zazie thought looking at the masked girl who was now looking around her room.

The white haired acrobat had a thought thinking that since the girl was dirty perhaps she'd want to clean up a little. Zazie with a bit of uncertainty about her walked up to her companion who wasn't paying her any mind and lightly tapped her shoulder to get her attention. When the girl turned Zazie made a few gestures to the bathroom in her dorm and started walking to it to which the girl followed her similarly dark skinned host.

When they were inside Zazie made more gestures which the girl seemed to grasp fairly. Zazie pointed to the shower and made a scrubbing gesture then pointed to the girl's clothes to which the girl looked down at the blood stained clothes she was wearing. The girl turned to the shower and looked at it through the mask's eye holes before turning to Zazie who made a "One moment" gesture and went behind her bathroom door to a group of shelves embedded in the wall and pulled out a fluffy bathrobe handing it to her companion cautiously who said nothing only looked at the robe then looked to her.

Zazie nervously turned to the door and left shutting the door behind her.

When the girl was sure that Zazie was not coming back she turned to the mirror above the sink looking at her face through the mask she wore. She set aside the robe and reached into the waist band of the skirt she wore pulling out a sharp jagged metal makeshift knife like weapon that was crudely fashioned from a rusty piece of steel that had a piece of cloth wrapped around the "handle" part of the weapon. It was smeared with blood and the girl glanced down to the sink before tossing it into the basin where stray drops of blood that were dry splattered onto the porcelain of the sink. The girl stared at the weapon for a moment before looking back into the mirror. Her hands slowly reached to the back of her head where the mask was held onto her head by black leather belt like straps which she unstrapped. The metal mask dropped into the sink with a clang.

Slowly she peered back up to the image of her face in the mirror. Caked in filth as a result from prolonged sweating, the touch of the mask she wore, and the neglect to maintain herself for sometime. Other than the lack of care and cleanliness her facial features showed with some refinement, beauty and the youth of an early teen. Her nose was small and mildly narrow, her lips were somewhat full but subtle showing no expression whatsoever and her eyes were caught between almond and rounded in shape, the iris being an unnaturally bright neon green color which showed nothing but emptiness. No expression and nothing that even resembled humanity or any sort of life to them. They were just deathly and sucked in anything that had life and destroyed it.

Behind her empty facade her mind was processing what she'd done over the last few days and this strange girl that had taken her in. Zazie puzzled her. Every other person she'd encountered would've steered clear but not this one. Not this strange dark skinned girl with white hair and these odd markings on her face. Zazie was beyond her contemplation at the moment and she realized it so she went about doing what that other girl had "suggested" or "offered" whichever it be.

Outside Zazie nervously tending to her pets even though she tended to them before she went to acrobatics. A small yellow bird inside one of the cages chirped to her in a way that it'd never done before. Zazie turned her head to the bird, "What's wrong?", the girl spoke in her soft toned voice. The bird replied with a bit of wild chirping in a sort of "You know what." response. Zazie stayed silent and turned away. She could sense it and so could her pets. Something was extremely wrong with the girl she'd brought and there were dead giveaways to that conclusion, all of which she ignored because of an overwhelming sense of curiosity.

Zazie couldn't find herself to do anything else but wait for the running water to stop in the shower and greet her guest as she came out. It dragged on and eventually Zazie turned on her television set simply to fill the air with a sound other than running water. She only passed a glance to the screen to see the TV was turned onto a Japanese international news station not unlike BBC before turning back to the hallway where the bathroom was.

The moment finally came, the girl stepped out of the bathroom and Zazie brightened up thinking she would actually get a view of the girl's face but she was met with only the metallic gleam of the mask. The acrobat was fixated on the strange visage of the object covering the girl's face as the girl turned her attention to Zazie and walked to her stopping a few feet from Zazie.

Their eyes met but not fully because of the mask. The mysterious girl made a slow gesture of writing which snapped Zazie out of her daze rather quickly in search of a pen and pad, taking it off her desk and handing it to the girl. The white haired girl watched as her "friend" started to write something before turning it to Zazie.

"Why?"

I've been out of writing practice for at least two years now so if it's not top notch sorry.

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