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The Creature in the Well (9) : While Destiny City has a modern water system, it’s not uncommon to see decorative wells around the city. Often in parks or around gardens, they grant a peaceful, countryside flair to the otherwise busy metropolis. Most days, they blend into the background. Not today. Maybe you heard a powerful, fierce splash, like something smacking violently against the water, or maybe it was the unnerving croak that echoed from deep below, but something has clearly gotten trapped in the well. Sometimes, there’s the distinct sound of something clawing, scratching, climbing–desperate to get out. The noise its making is deep enough to vibrate through the ground. If you go to investigate, you’ll see nothing but a pair of golden, snakelike eyes staring back up at you. Whatever it is, its body is completely submerged under the water, but just looking into its eyes is enough to petrify someone. There’s something hypnotic about it, something that seems like it’s drawing you into the well. And why shouldn’t you climb in? What’s stopping you? Danger is forgotten; the creature in the well has made a target of you. Hopefully you have someone to pull you out of the trance–or, maybe if you’re strong enough, you can do it yourself. If you lose the battle with the creature, you will fall unconscious just as you hit the water in the well; you will feel the sensation of something coiling around you, crushing you, and then–blackness. You will wake up in a hospital with a day lost and no memory of what happened in the well, or how you were pulled out. You only have bumps and bruises, and when you close your eyes you’re haunted by the chilling golden eyes in the well. If you return to it, you’ll find nothing but a strange, croaking echo.
Cleeia found himself....going out more, lately. Like he'd finally figured out what he wanted to do as a Senshi, and it involved a lot of long walks and avoiding Chaos signatures and just enjoying being magical. He didn't have to throw down every time! And even if he did end up in a fight, he was very talented at running away and his magic was often distracting enough to give him just that little bit of extra time he needed.
Frankly, it was a good gig. He really didn't need to do anything but show up, look pretty, and do his best, and all things considered, he felt like he was almost in a sort of waiting mode for the next time he got to go to space. He'd tried, a few times, since getting back from that little visit to his world--but nothing had happened when he pressed the button, and he was getting the impression that maybe he needed to be patient. Behave. Wait.
It was killing him, waiting. But he was doing his best.
In any case, Destiny City felt....well, it, too, felt like ti was waiting. tHe end of October approached. The season got spookier. The thinning of the veil and blah blah blah, all of that. Cleeia really, really did not believe in that sort of thing (magic? obviously real. Ghosts? Nonsense, obviously) but he knew other people did, and it was the time of year where they got very, very silly about those beliefs.
Well. That was fine. They could do whatever they wanted with that.
He, of course, was enlightened, and knew that no such things were possible, and so when he leapt from a rooftop down into a park and heard a strange croaking sound, he dismissed it. Probably a frog, there was a well sitting nearby and animals made noises like that. Even if it felt....deeper, and louder, and echoier than any frog he had ever heard. It was just a frog, and he needed to ignore it and move on.
And then there was a splash.
A very, very loud splash. A splash like something moving in the well that was quite a bit larger than a frog.
Cleeia froze in place. Whatever this was, everything in him screamed to run, but he couldn't quite make himself do it. What if.....what if.....he wasn't sure what if, but what if something, and what if whatever it was needed him to stay, and.....
He turned, slowly, back towards the pretty, decorative little well. This was a lovely corner of the park; a little circular sitting area with a cute well that he bet plenty of people threw coins into on a normal day. It had that "wishing well" sort of vibe to it, and the stone benches positioned near what Cleeia guessed were probably ornamental flower bushes that encircled the whole little area were quaint and attractive. Metal, with pretty wrought iron flowers on top of them, giving the whole place a very cottagey vibe. He could even see a circle around the well that would probably be full of plants in the spring and summer--but this far into fall, whatever was there was long dead, and it was just dirt waiting for perennials to rebloom or new annuals to be planted or whatever the parks department did with that sort of thing.
A very cute, ordinary bit of park. Nothing that Cleeia needed to think about. A quaint little well surrounded by quaint little benches and pretty bushes and he could totally leave, right? That was exactly what he needed to do. Turn around and leave and pretend he'd never come here, because whatever those noies were, surely they weren't his business.
Except that he couldn't.
Because they were his business. Somehow. Clearly. He had come here, after all, and there might be someone in danger, and could he really live with himself if he left them to whatever awful fate they'd suffer at the bottom of a dank, dark well? No, obviously.
There were more noises coming from the well. Scratching, scrabbling. Groans and croaks and splashes. And Cleeia found his attention drawn, entirely, to it.
Maybe there was someone in there. Maybe they needed help. Maybe that was why Cleeia had wandered this particular way. Maybe he needed to walk over there and....and...and see. what. was. in. the. water.
after all. it might be someone that needed help.
and cleeia was a senshi.
it was his duty to help people.
he wasn't very good at it. that was why it was so very important that he, personally, do this.
he had to.
if he wanted to be worthy of that beautiful planet out there...
he
had
to.
So he walked over to the well and leaned over the edge.
He didn't see anything, really, in the darkness. Maybe the slightest bit of movement, perhaps? But the sounds continued, and he found himself
leaning
forward
further and further
towards whatever resided inside....
A pair of bright, golden eyes, stared up at him, out of the dark, watching.
He had to get there. Had to get down into the water. And why shouldn't he? There was nothing stopping him. Clearly, it was perfectly safe. There was water, if he fell, and it couldn't be that deep, so there was nothing at all for him to worry about. And something down there....
It wanted him. Called to him. Pulled him forward, forward, and
over
the
side.
It was such an easy fall, and he tumbled into the dark, and he felt something--strange--wrap around him, squeezing, crushing, but--
but he never hit the water.
Of that, Cleeia was certain.
He jolted awake, and he was Camille again, and he was--there were machines, beeping, and it was very bright and very white, and he wasn't sure where he was for a long confusing moment until he realized that he had to be in a hospital.
Everything hurt.
And he had absolutely no memory of how he had gotten there.
[wc:1005 words]
