Sometimes Vahn Writes Stuff Options

[Frisk]

She is sleepy, but she stirs. There is a warmth and an aggravation tucked in beside her, and her name is Mia. The girl is pressed painfully into Alice's ribs, and her breathing, deep and rhythmic, is not soothing. Over the night she has stolen the cover and wrapped herself in it, leaving Alice cold on the bed. Looking at her twin, she sees herself and her fists ball up for a moment before relaxing. With one quick motion she clenches her hand around Mia's hair and yanks upward, harder than she should. Mia cries out.

The moment is quiet, and the two sisters watch each other, waiting. Mia springs first, and soon they are rolling on top of each other, scratching and biting at every opening. They do not punch, yet.

Their house is big, and their parents live on the other side of it. They are free to beat the living hell out of each other as much as they want. Their fight ends when they fall off the bed and Alice's head smashes against the side dresser on the way down. She does not cry, or scream, but simply stares at Mia, and they know the fight is over.

"I'm sorry," Mia says first. Alice considers not saying anything back.

"I'm sorry too," she replies. They get dressed and go downstairs, to the kitchen. Alice pours both of them a bowl of cereal, and they sit in the quiet of the morning, eating. Outside the sky is still grey; the sun still hasn't risen.

"Looks like it's going to rain. When the sky is grey like that, it means rain," Mia says, looking from the dark sky outside to her sister.

"Not in the morning. It just means the sun isn't up yet," Alice says without looking at Mia. She breathes in, then breathes out heavily, leaning back to stretch. Little fingers drum a tune on the kitchen counter. Mia watches, then taps her spoon on her bowl in the middle of Alice's beat. Her head rocks gently back and forth, miserably failing to move with the rhythm. Soon her foot is tapping, and then Alice's hips are swaying on the chair, and of course they end up dancing around the kitchen, keeping just short of too loud.

It's almost twenty minutes before they notice the steady rain beating against the window.

[Frisk]

Alice was asleep, and Mia wished she wasn't. The wind moved gently through the leaves outside, stirring something old and familiar in Mia. If Alice was awake, she could get at this feeling by talking things out. Instead,she listened, and once the first drops of rain began to beat across the window, she could no longer tell if she was awake or asleep.

Lightning cleaved the night and stars; first one, and then the other. Mia sank deeper into the cover, languidly listening as the wind began to call for something. Its voice was shrill, and reminded Mia of a teapot whistling, like in the movies. The sound grew muffled and the night became still, and it was dark under the cover, but Mia felt Alice there, breathing lightly.


Once, back in the old house, they had built a campfort in the corner, with a foundation made by two couches' sides and a cover placed across. There was also a stick propping the blanket up that would probably (definitely) fall by the end of the night. It was hot and a little stuffy, and the house was full with friends of Mia and Alice's parents, friends that the kids ignored in favor of their own world.

Darren was over, and he laid on the pallet spread out on the floor of the campfort. He was lookin' at the ceiling, with his hands dug into the folds of the quilt for added warmth. Alice was sitting up with her back against one couch side, reading. It was an old picture book their mom had found. Her feet were buried under Darren. Sleep wordlessly stalked her, inching ever closer, closing the distance between her eyelids.

Mia was leaned against a wall, making careful strokes of nail polish on her toes. The bottle was balanced (badly) on the blanket, and it fell over at a slight brush of Mia's leg when she went to switch feet. Time froze, the world greyed out. A thousand screaming yells from Mia's mother began to echo in her mind. The polish was already soaking into the quilted blanket.

For a few breathless moments Mia stared at the mess, hoping she would blink and it would be gone. No such luck. So, doing the only thing she could think of, she went to work covering it up. Panic time was over; it was time to take action.
In a graceful and smooth stretch she arced her legs over the spill, and took a quick look around. Nobody suspected a thing. As inconspicuously as she could, she reached for the bottle with her hand. Once she had it, she pinched a small fold of the quilt and pulled it over the spill to hide it.

"Well I'm thirsty. I'm going to go get some tea. You guys want some?" she asked.

"No thanks. Also, Alice is asleep," Darren said.

"Bring warm milk. Got you," Mia said, before crawling out of the campfort.

She walked through the living room as a ghost, ignoring and being ignored by those around her. Mr. Motes and Tabbie were sitting on the couch in the living room, laughing as Harold (was that his name?) danced to the music.

"What do you need, doll?" Some guy definitely unknown to Mia, with a red face and lots of scabs, asked her when she got to the kitchen.

"A glass of tea.' When he got up to get it, she slid the polish onto a shelf and grabbed a dry rag from beside the sink. She tucked it into her pocket and went back to the fort. When Darren wasn't looking she placed it on the stain and spent the rest of the night sitting on top of it, hoping very hard the problem would go unnoticed. At the end, she didn't remember much, just the feeling of the three of them close together under the covers, falling asleep as the room moved on into a party that could not comprehend or care about their world.


Looking back on it, Mia realized Alice was always the one who fell asleep first. Mia thought about how the sound of falling rain was such a lovely song. She dug back out of the covers in time to watch lightning flash and shed light across the room.
Darren was there, staring up at the ceiling just as he had that night. But the light left, and Mia saw his outline fog over and melt into the corners and shadow of the room. She worried that in the morning her mind would mix what she had seen with the memory she had called up, and that's just what happened. She couldn't shake the feeling, as unremembered dreams began to hone in, that it would be unforgivable to let that happen.