NoraVonInitiative 2 Share Posted November 21, 2016 Sometimes I like to exercise my creative liberties and make gratuitous posts in RPGs. Enjoy! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The first half of Cassandra’s day was filled with coffee, smiles, and the smell of roses. Cassandra woke up at 6am, did some yoga, fed her cat, and took a quick shower. Her damp hair still smelled like her orange flower and rose scented conditioner when she poured some coffee into her thermos, and she gave her cat a scratch on the head before she rushed across the street to James’ home. She knocked on the door, the two greeted each other, and they were on their way. The car ride to work was mostly quiet as caffeine hadn’t kicked in for either of them, but Cassandra enjoyed the new company. -------- Cassandra still needed a second cup of coffee when eleven o’clock rolled around. Tony was back from working at his home office, and he was spending some time with Akemi. Cassandra was taking her coffee break and had just reserved a dress on Rent-The-Runway when Emily popped her head in to greet her. “Thanks for forgetting us yesterday,” Cassandra quipped to her friend. “You missed out on the best tempeh wrap of your life.” “Oh, I’ll live,” Emily nodded. “But I’d really like to hear about how your little date went.” “… That wasn’t a date, Emily.” Cassandra set her coffee mug down a little too harshly. “I didn’t forget for nothing, Cass-An-Draaa,” Emily sang quietly. Cassandra’s mouth dropped a little bit and Emily let out a shrill giggle. The two talked in hush voices (“Emily, what the fuck?” “I was mostly kidding, but then Hans said that he ran into you two when you both arrived at the shop and now I don’t feel bad about forgetting!”) before Tony walked back through the door. Emily rushed out, and Tony asked Cassandra if she was feeling well (“I feel fine, why?” “Well, your face looks a little red-“ “I’M FINE, TONY”). -------------------------------------------------------- The second half of Cassandra’s day was filled with lamination and loss. Cassandra was in the middle of a meeting with Akemi and Tony, two account managers, and an IT specialist when she got a call. She quickly silenced her phone to continue, but she found the caller had left a voicemail for her when she got out of the meeting. “Ms. Webster-Hawker, my name is Detective Bran with the county police department. This is in regards to your friend, Helena Ashwell. The matter is fairly urgent, so I have to ask you to give me a call soon.” Cassandra called the number back quickly, and the detective picked up. He didn’t exactly say what the matter was, but he did give her an address to go to “before the end of the day, please.” In a hushed voice and with a lead heart, Cassandra told Tony the nature of the call. Cassandra watched Tony’s face go a little white, and he quietly urged to go to the address “I’ll take care of things here. Just go.” Cassandra left quickly without saying goodbye to anyone else, but unbeknownst to her, Tony had already relayed the information to Emily. She arrived to the address (which was the police station) and met with the detective, who sat her down, handed her a cup of water, and gave her a piece of news that Cassandra was dreading. “I’m sorry to say that your friend Helena was found dead today.” Cassandra was stunned. Helena had been perfectly healthy. She had just spoken to her on the phone. How could this have happened? “How did she die?” She asked with a quivering lip. “The nature of her death is a little…” The detective paused. “Gruesome, Ms. Webster-Hawker,” and then he explained what happened. Helena was found dead, lying a block away from her home with several stab wounds and some burns to her body. Her neighbors had called in to report a fire outside of her home while a witness described a tall man rushing out of the neighborhood. The police believed that the man fleeing the scene was the murderer. Cassandra’s heart stopped each time the words she heard cut through. Stab wounds. Burns. Fire. Murder. “You’re the closest thing to her family, it seems, so we’ll need you to identify her body, to be sure that it is her.” --------------------------------------------------- Identifying a body was nothing like what is portrayed in the movies. Rather than driving Cassandra to a morgue to show her a body in a refrigerated drawer, the detective moved Cassandra into a quiet room with a window. A woman who introduced herself as a grief counselor, and then said a few things about loss and condolences. Then, she warned Cassandra what would be in the photographs. (“We’ll only be showing you her face in the photographs and of a mark on her arm. She did obtain black eye and a cut to the side of her face.”) Then, the woman showed Cassandra a laminated photo of what was, without a doubt, Helena’s face. “I don’t know if you knew Helena to have a mark on her left forearm, but I can show you that picture, too, if you’re unsure-“ “It’s her,” Cassandra said quietly, tears prickling her face. She slid the shiny photo back, her hand covering the blood mark on Helena’s face. She felt her bottom lip quiver, and she tried to keep her shoulders from shaking. “It’s her. It’s Helena.” And Helena had been murdered. --------------------------------------------------------- The police asked Cassandra a few more questions, but they didn’t bother her more than that. The grief counselor gave Cassandra a card, and Cassandra promised to give her a call within a week. When she gave Tony a call to explain what happened, she heard him sigh as if he had just been given news that he desperately didn’t want to hear. He offered his condolences and told her to take two weeks off to relax. (“I have everything covered from her, don’t worry about it) Cassandra initially refused, but she did settle to take a few days off. That night and every night after, Cassandra’s sleep was plagued with nightmares of fire, screams, and blood-stained steel. ---------------------------------------------------------- Cassandra didn’t make it back to the studio until a week after her visit to the police station. By then, Emily had quietly let everyone know that Cassandra had just taken some time to work from home, but she did tell a few close co-workers what had happened. James had been included in the news. “She is, like, so upset,” Emily said, looking sad for her friend. “Her friend knew her family since before Cassandra was a baby, so she basically knew her through everything. No one knows who would have done it or why.” Cassandra had an idea of why Helena was murdered. When the detective told her about the arson, she knew immediately that someone wanted a witch dead. The murderer stabbed her and dragged her to her garden to set her on fire, but Helena had somehow escaped and rushed a block away before her heart was out of blood to pump. And now, Cassandra’s heart was beating through her chest. No one brought the topic up (much to Cassandra’s relief). She didn't want to talk about it, but she ended up talking to no one at all. On the surface, Cassandra was just steely and robotic, but on the inside, she was one touch on the shoulder away from shattering and breaking into tears. She wanted to tell someone how lonely and afraid she felt, but that information required her to come clean about her witchcraft. How was she supposed to tell someone that she was a witch when someone out there had killed her friend for being one? (She wasn’t. She wasn’t supposed to. She had been taught to keep quiet her entire life so something like that could never happen to her.) Cassandra was left in the office a little later. She told Tony that she wanted to play catch-up (“I just want shit to go to normal for a minute”), and he left her to her own devices. An hour after the office had closed up, Cassandra appeared to be the only one in the office. She was typing away on her laptop, but a few tears eventually began to fall on the keys and Cassandra needed to take a minute to step back from her desk and try to breath. “Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry…” She murmured, squeezing her eyes shut. You can't have plants if you haven't botany. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts