Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lucia grinned as she looked in the duffle bag and found that only her balloon was left. She was so psyched that she had managed to remember whose was whose and get everything done so quickly. Now it was only her own balloon left to deliver. "Let's go home, Yuurei. I need to pop my balloon."

When they pulled in the driveway, Lucia hopped out with just her balloon, leaving Yuu to grab the empty bag. She floated in a bouncy way out to the back yard, practically skipping. Holding the pretty black balloon, Lucia tossed it up in the air, feeling the tons of sparkles and shapes hitting the top of the balloon. With a silly smile, the kitten held the balloon above her head and dug her finger nails into the black rubber.

Her body jumped at the large boom of the balloon popping and shook her hair, her pigtails whipping from side to side as the glitter tumbled out of them, but otherwise left her a sparkly mess, just like she intended. Floating down, she laid on the grass next to the garden and reached for the purple folded paper. Opening it up, a smile lit up her face and she reached out a hand to bat at one of the flowers by her. Pasha had drawn her soul.

Halloween Horrors

Who: Cordelia, Ebony, Lucia, and Yuurei
Where: Gambino Mall
When: Afternoon
Weather: Cool and Crisp

When Lucia goes costume shopping for her Halloween party, who knew that it would result in meeting a new raevan. Looking through the store of Halloween Horrors who knows what will happen?!

Lucia's Pre-Halloween Extravaganza

Who: Owners only ORP
Where: Yuurei and Lucia's home
When: sunset and after dark
Weather: clear, cool and crisp

Lucia throws a Halloween party for the raevans, but when the symptoms being displaying on those who were infected earlier, the night takes a turn for the worst. Lucia's Pre-Halloween Extravaganza will certainly be an event to remember!

Lucia woke up cold. She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying not to open her eyes. It was still dark out, but something had woken the kitten up. Why was it so bright in her room? She leaned her head back on her black silk pillow case and sobbed tearlessly. The party had been crap because of all the bullshit drama. She couldn’t stand it. And then she had attacked Pasha, not that the girl should have been in her room after she said to leave, but still. Not to mention that her body hurt: her fingers, her wrists, her spine. Everything just ached. Groaning she opened her eyes and her enlarged pupils made her squint at the bright light. Had she left a light on? No. That shine… What the hell?! That shine was coming from her! Radiating from her rune was not the typical soft purple that typically illuminated her absent lower body, but a bright glowing white light like a spot light shinning below her. Lucia was full awake now, scrambling up out of her bed and against the wall. What the hell happened to her?! To her rune?! That color wasn’t right at all!!!

Something was wrong and Lucia didn’t know what to do or who to turn to. Yuurei couldn’t help, Rivener was a jerk and Aphi was retarded either way. She didn’t want to wake Ebony and Cordelia, Zul and his guardian, whoever that was – something like Chrystal or whatever, or Aki and Pasha. Vyn seemed busy enough already and she didn’t know anyone else well enough. The frei could not think of a single soul to turn to. She was alone and abandoned. She began to hyperventilate and the kitten sank to the floor, curling up in a ball and staring up at the ceiling. Suddenly a looming shadow passed across the patch of moonlight she had been focusing on and the kitten let out a small scream.

Standing up and moving to the opposite side of the room, Lucia stared out of her balcony door, the only obvious place for the shadow to originate from. Oh my god oh my god! There’s a burglar or a rapist or something out there and he’s going to kill me! Looking around her room frantically, the cat couldn’t think of a weapon. She was spastically looking for something, anything. She flipped over her mattress tossing it to the floor, just incase she or Yuurei had hidden a knife there. She pushed over a floor light and screamed as the burglar broke in a window. Spinning to look there was no sign of broken glass on her floor, but the window certainly was broken.

Her frenzied search continued. I need something. Anything. She pulled out all of the clothing in her drawers tossing all of it around. NOTHING! She pushed her sewing machine aside and jumped as it fell on its side. She had to find something, anything! Lucia pushed her things off of the top of her dresser and scanned the room. Flying towards her closet she ripped everything out trying to find at least one wire hanger. ”Damn Yuurei and her ******** plastic and wooden hangers! I need something to fight with!” Spinning around she tore the curtain rod off of the window directly next to the door. She ripped off the shimmery black and silver curtain tearing it in attempt to have SOMETHING to fight with. The curtain rod could do well enough she thought. As a shadow crossed over her, Lucia screamed and swung the curtain rod wildly smacking nothing but the wall. She heard a click of her balcony door closing and whipped around. He must have left suddenly.

Holding the curtain rod like a baseball bat, Lucia stealthily slid towards the door, preparing to slam it open, leap out onto the balcony and attack anyone out there. Holding her breath Lucia’s eyes closed. Come on. If you don’t he’ll kill you. ONE. Her eyes snapped open. The kitten eyed the handle and kept her eye through the window, ready to attack right then if necessary. She floated as low to the ground as possible, trying to hide the bright glowing rune indicating her location to anyone spying, even from the road. TWO. She took a deep breath and held it in her lungs, depriving her brain of oxygen for a bit to calm herself and steal her nerves. Her eyes narrowed as she released her breath. ”THREE!” she screamed as her fingers grasped the door handle, slammed the door open so hard that the handle went through the dry wall and she scrambled out, looking down the length of the balcony. No one. Suddenly a shadow loomed over her from behind and the kitten scrambled again, swinging wildly through air and not connecting with anything. In the rush to hit her assailant, she lost her ability to judge her surroundings and the cat cried out as the base of her rune scraped against the banister and she fell backwards over the edge. She screamed and, her eyes pleading, she glanced at the source of the shadow without seeing anything at all. She knew she was done. She had placed a glowing scarecrow holding a shovel with its head vertically right below her room because she had liked it so much. The stake she propped the scarecrow on would kill her, she realized, even if her impact on the shovel didn't. She had helped dozens of souls cross over. She fed from graveyards, but Lucia had never really contemplated her own death. Now, as it was upon her, she had no choice but to accept it. As Lucia started to take a deep breath, her wrist slapped against the head of the shovel with a sickening crack and her body slammed awkwardly into hard ground and she moaned in pain. But for some reason, this ground was not her yard full of Halloween decorations, pumpkins and the scarecrow she expected to be impaled on, but a hard grassless wasteland with not the single glowing orb above her, but three moons overhead. Closing her eyes in pain, Lucia’s wail slowly faded as her world became black.

For a while I thought I fell asleep, / lying motionless inside a dream. / Then rising suddenly, I felt a chilling breath upon me. / She softly whispered in my ear, / Forsaken, I have come for you tonight. / Awaken, look in my eyes / And take my hand. / Give yourself up to me.

Lucia’s eyes blinked open and she was staring up at three moons. As her senses returned, she howled in pain and her eyes clenched closed. She was in pain all over, as before, but specifically in her left wrist. Wincing and turning on her left side in an almost fetal position, she opened her eyes to look at her wrist and had to close them again because of the bright glare of her rune. Moaning she unarched her upper back so her rune was pointing away from her and looked down at her wrist. Eyes widening in horror, she saw that there was a pointy thing poking at her skin from the inside when she looked the palm-side of her wrist. ”Oh my gaaaaawwwd!” She moaned and looked away, not wanting to see one of her wrist bones poking at her skin from the inside. At least it hadn’t broken through her skin…yet.

She bit her lip and curled her head back in pain. Her eyes clenched closed and she wished to be dreaming painlessly again. Soft fingers stroked her brow and she leaned into them, wishing it was Yuurei/Rivener again. The only problem was the pain in her wrist wasn’t disappearing.

Sitting up she looked at who was touching her and her ears twitched in surprise and she cowered back. A young woman, about eighteen years old, smiled at her with a toothy grin. ”How – Where?” she stammered, looking around. Above her in a vast starry sky were three glowing moons, one at a quarter, one full and one waning. The quarter had a yellowish golden glow to it; the full glowed with a magenta tinge to it; the waning was bluish. Where was she? Looking around Lucia was in a sparsely wooded forest with a hard dirt but leafless ground. The ground was flat around her, but in the not so far away distance was the base of a mountain so large that even in the mostly clear night she couldn’t see the top of it. The temperature was cool but not uncomfortably so. The trees were like those around her home in the middle of winter; the leafless twisting branches seemed almost menacing in the strange environment. In the moons’ light, the world was all a soft grey.

Lucia looked at the girl who had brushed her face and her brows furrowed. ”Am – I . . . dead? she asked the girl who pursed her lips in a smile and shook her head slowly with mirth. It was not the first time she had seen this human. In fact, Lucia had met her only recently in the other side of the woods by her house. The woman had been stumbling away from a fatal car wreck, one that had taken her life. Lucia, as before, helped her spirit do what it needed to do before it left the mortal world: say goodbye to her little brother.

”Then what’s going on?” she asked Shanna, wincing as she moved her arm. The girl shrugged and smiled at her. A soft ethereal voice spoke, ”You’re definitely still alive. That’s a in a body, not a soul.” she said gesturing softly to Lucia’s wrist. ”But you’re dead. . .” the cat asked rhetorically. She knew the girl was dead. She had helped dozens of spirits. So, she realized, this was where they went after she helped them. She thought back to that evening when she had been walking in the woods only a few nights before her phone call with LuLu.

Yuurei woke up in her bed and stretched lithely. Sammy was curled up at her feet when she woke, but her movement disturbed the butterflox and the animal tiredly pawed and lazily flapped her wings to stand on her owner’s chest, a slightly rough red tongue licking Yuurei’s cheek. The blonde turned her head to look at the clock: 2 pm. The woman’s brows furrowed. Normally Lucia had barged into her room by 10 in the morning, scolding how she was being lazy and needed to get up. Where was the frei?

Yuurei got up and wrapped a robe around her. Did the party wipe Lucia out that much? Slipping on some black fuzzy slippers, the blonde pet Sammy gently and walked out of her room, into the foyer and up the stairs. ”Lou-Shya!” she called. The kitten’s door was still closed. Yuurei turned the antique brass handle and stepped backwards when she saw the mess. ”Lucia?!” she called out. ”LUCIA?!” Yuurei stepped into the war zone. Everything Lucia owned was tossed about! Her clothes and jewelry were all over the floor. Her mattress was tossed off the bed. Everything was overturned and in shambles. Someone had been looking for something in here. The floor lamp was pushed over and the balcony door was open. Stepping out onto the balcony, Yuurei saw that a window on door was broken and she was glad she had slippers on as glass crunched beneath her feet.

”LUCIA!!!” she screamed towards the ocean. It couldn’t have been a burglar, Lucia’s expensive laptop, mp3 player, and jewelry was all still there. Someone had kidnapped her raevan!!! Panic ensued as Yuurei tripped back into Lucia’s room and tried to look for the phone. Finding it off the hook and turned over, Lucia quickly hung up and picked up the receiver, restoring the dial tone. Where was Lucia?! Who would do something like this!

9-1-1. ”Hello 911. What is your emergency?” Yuurei clenched her eyes. ”My –um – daughter is missing! I think she’s been kidnapped.” Lucia and she didn’t have a mother-daughter relationship, but that would most easily describe the situation. ”Okay. Stay on the line, I’ll send over a uniformed officer right now.” Yuurei let out a breath. Thank god. ”What makes you think she is kidnapped?” Yuurei rolled her eyes, knowing she would have to repeat all of this to the uniformed officer. ”Her room is destroyed. Just – when will the officer be here?” ”They were in the area and are approaching your house right now. Good luck finding her, ma’am. Good bye.” Yuurei’s eyebrows raised and she looked out her window as a black and white pulled in her driveway and a pair of male officers stepped out of the car, and looked around. One pointed at the open balcony door as they stepped up to the front door, rang the bell and then knocked.

Yuurei ran down stairs and opened the door. Officers Christopher and Stephen were there to help. As she lead them up the stairs and into the room, Yuurei explained, ”She’s not exactly my daughter. She’s a part cat part human creature” she stumbled, pointing to a picture on the wall that Lucia had so enthusiastically posed for. The kitten was very photogenic. The officers nodded as Yuurei took the picture off of the wall and handed it to them, just in case they needed it. Stepping into Lucia’s room, the officers quickly looked over the room. ”And nothing was missing?” Chris asked, noting the laptop on the ground. ”No I told you that,” she said, getting a little frustrated with the handsome officer. ”The balcony has glass on it? And that door opens out?” Stephen asked. ”Yes, you can see for yourself.” The officers stepped out on the balcony and noted the glass.

”Ma’am, I think – Lucia you said her name was? – I think Luica ran away. The window,” Stephen noted, ”was broken from the inside, not the outside. Since nothing is missing, it seems obvious that this was staged.” Yuurei’s mouth dropped open, she hadn’t even thought about that. But still, why would Lucia run away? Where would she go? ”Can we put her on a missing child list?” she asked the officer. Chris nodded, ”Normally we require that they be missing for 24 hours, but considering the circumstances, we will make an exception. You should call around – call her friends – and see if she’s anywhere around.” The blonde nodded slowly, trying to think of who to call. Picking up Lucia’s laptop that held all of her contacts, Yuurei thanked the officers and went downstairs, letting them finish their investigation.

After they left, leaving their cards and information she would need incase the girl turned up, Yuurei opened Lucia’s laptop and brought up her contacts:

Melisande Phone
LuLu Phone
Rivener Phone Address
Vyn Phone
Zul Phone
Chloe Phone

So everyone had a phone except for Rivener. Clicking on the crossed out “Phone” Yuurei discovered that Lucia had deleted the last four numbers from her phone book. Wasn't Rivener the one who had ruined Lucia's party? Well, she thought, pulling up Melisande’s phone number, he would be the last she would try.

Melisande, no. Vyn, no. Chloe didn’t answer. Zul didn’t answer. Yuurei pushed her hand back through her hair, messing up her already bed-tousled hair. She wasn’t leaving messages, thinking that there wasn’t enough time. The blonde phoned Josh and LuLu. He hadn’t seen her, but he wanted to phone when she knew more. Sighing Yuurei looked at the computer screen. She had gone through the list except for Rivener. Who else could she call? Ebony!! Picking up the phone she dialed the woman’s phone number, hoping for a more reassuring answer. Looking out the window, still in her pajamas, Yuurei leaned her head back, the sun would be down soon. If not, she decided, she'd have to get dressed and drive to all of Lucia's spots, every graveyard she could think of, and then try Rivener's home.

A disheveled Yuurei picked up the phone and dialed Ebony’s number. She had already made a half dozen of these phone calls with no luck yet. Lucia had run away. Did it make sense that she went to see Cordelia? Maybe not, but the blonde, still in her pajamas, was desperate. Ring. Please someone pick up. Ring. Please someone pick up.

"Ello?" The Brit's voice was tired and aged with a tinge of breathlessness, as if she'd rushed to pick up the phone.

"Ebony? " Oh thank god! It wasn’t just another ringing phone. "Hi – it’s Yuurei! I need to ask you something. " How does one word that they can’t find something they’re responsible for without looking completely incompetent. Yuurei didn’t care how she sounded. She was desperate, for the first time in a long time. Where was Lucia?!

"Yuurei!" Here Ebony had been thinking about whether it was too late to call the blonde and yet here she was calling instead. Talk about a stroke of serendipity! "I'm glad you called! There's something I need to discuss with you. Oh sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. What did you want to ask? Is something wrong?" She certainly hoped it wasn't something to do with Lucia.

Yuurei bit her lip; "Have you seen Lucia? She -- umm -- ran away after destroying her room." Please say you have, please say you have, the woman shook her head, her mind going a mile a minute with desperation. The sun was down and Yuurei had been calling around since she had woken up. Lucia was nowhere to be found.

"W-what?" Had she heard correct? Lucia was now missing! Dear lord, could this night get any worse than it already had? Shaking those purple strands, "No I haven't Yuurei. But..." She bit her lip. This was the hard part, telling the woman that it was her fault and carelessness that had possibly lead to her charge's disappearance. "...there's been an incident with the Lab. Lazarus was infected with a virus while I was picking Cordelia up. I didn't think she was exposed at the time when we met up with you two, but it's been confirmed tonight that she's indeed contracted the virus as well. I think Lucia's been infected. I'm so sorry hon."

The blonde’s heart sunk. Somehow, as the last one to call, she had hoped that the cat frei would be there. But Ebony hadn’t seen her. As the woman continued, Yuurei’s eyes snapped open. "Infected? What kind of virus? What’s happened so far? Lucia seemed fine, but maybe –" Yuurei cut off her talking. Was Lucia infected? She had seemed fine at the party, but maybe not. Yuurei wanted more information, but she got what she needed, Lucia wasn’t at Ebony’s. She would need to search for the frei. She would need to search now.

"I don't know. Kyou had said something about a fel essence and it only affecting the Raevans? I'm not entirely sure." She hadn't been paying that much attention to Kyou at the time, more content on glaring at Lazarus while worrying whether Cordelia was okay. "What I do know is that it's causing them to act very out of character, possibly even more so like their souls. At least...that's how Lazarus was acting." She gripped the phone tighter, suddenly very worried for Yuurei. "Are you okay? Do you need me to come over and help look?" The woman was tired and didn't really want to drag Delia out after what had occurred, but...this was her fault and she needed to help her friends.

The woman wasn’t really listening to Ebony’s description. She was more worried and thinking about where she would look. The Gambino graveyard, the little pet cemetery in the woods, the Barton graveyard. Ebony was saying something about Lazarus. She began to interrupt her when Ebony asked about helping. The woman considered it, but Yuurei couldn’t wait that long. She needed to throw on some clothes and get out. She couldn’t wait for anyone to come over. "No, that’s okay. I need to get going – like – now. I can let you know when I find her or something. She should be on the news tonight too…I told the police. " This day wasn’t going the way she had planned. "I’m sorry, she said, I need to go. "

She blinked. The news? The police? Was it really wise to bring those people into it? After all, they knew nothing about the Raevans and if Lucia was acting out because of the virus...Ebony felt a knot develop in the pit of her stomach. Things just kept getting worse it seemed. For the sake of Lucia and Yuurei, she hoped the Cat was found soon and without anyone getting hurt in the process. "All right. Call me as soon as you know something!"

Yuurei nodded; "I will, but I must go. I need to find her as soon as possible. Thanks for your help and information. Bye." Yuurei hung up the phone, not meaning to be rude, but also panicking. Running to her room to toss on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt (an outfit she was never seen in outside of the house, the blonde ran out of the house, grabbing her car keys. The search began.