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The Scream (4) - Late one night, you find yourself in a fairly under populated area of town. You’ve been strangely alone for the past few moments when you see movement out of the corner of your eye. Only a few yards away you see a young woman with tear-stained cheeks and a long white gown. It is difficult to make out any more details; she seems to be running from something. She looks like she is screaming but makes no sound; even her footsteps seem to be silent. If you try to chase her, you will wind up in a dead end—alone, and suddenly, cold. It feels like something has slammed into you and turned your blood to ice, but there’s no one around. No matter what you do, the chill remains until morning—but the image of the woman’s fear-filled face may haunt your dreams for much longer.
It had been a slow night for her, she had moved to a new area after the last mess with that group of knights. The area she walked through now was quiet, giving her time to think about things. There was still that prickly feeling in her spine as she thought about the pile of star seeds in her subspace. She had kept them as a backup but part of her was nervous to keep eating them, not because they were literally people's souls but because she couldn't quite get over the way it made her feel when she did eat them. She was very aware now that she was riskier when she was boosted by them, as she hadn't even considered calling for backup even though she was really outnumbered the last time.
Taking slow steps, she looked around at the buildings and thought of all the things and people she had met so far in the Negaverse. They had all treated her so well and she vibed with most of them pretty well. They felt like family to her and she wanted to do more to make them all proud of her. Part of her worried that if she kept eating these star seeds it would push them away, that she would become a monster far different than the one she wanted to be. She only wanted to hurt those she had been hurt by, not those who supported her.
That's when she saw a shape running down the alley. They looked small and frail as they ran, she could see them crying. It filled her with hatred as she felt like she had been looking in a long-forgotten mirror. "Wait! Miss! Are you ok?!" Gone was her usual voice, replaced by one filled with worry and concern. Chasing after them, she looked for who might have been chasing them or what caused them to be so distraught. "Please, I want to help ya!" She would kill whoever hurt this woman, she just had to catch up to them first to find out what happened.
They turned a corner and as Beatrix followed them around the bend, the woman was gone. Calling out, she looked for them for a moment before feeling like she had been entered into the ice bucket challenge without notice. She felt like she had stepped into a freezer and even as she backed out of the alley to continue looking for the woman, that ice seemed to move into her veins. That woman's face looked just like hers had years back before she joined the Negaverse, back to the night that left her dropping out of college. She felt so very small as she made her way slowly back home, wondering for just a moment if this was how her Dullahan left people feeling.
Tonight she would turn the space heater on and pile on the blankets, trying not to think of the past. Tomorrow, she would take a few more drunks out of the picture. Even if that woman was long gone, she felt she had to do her part to prevent that from happening in the future.
WC: 526
