LCNWRIWE- The Noir side Options

[Frisk]

So yeah, I'm writing two. If that's a problem Shio can tell me and I'll drop one. If I do, I'd like input on which one to keep writing, but I guess it doesn't matter. *Ahem*


DAY 1- IN WHICH OUR PROTAGONIST IS A CHILD WHO IS NOT FOND OF RELIGION


“Hey, do you remember how we met? It seems like so long ago, that it didn’t actually happen. Like it was all part of a dream I eventually had to wake up from. Memories are weird, huh? People tend to smooth over the rough parts. It casts everything from our youth in a positive light. I don’t want to do that, but I know I will, like everyone else.”

Adam sat on the left side, in a row near the middle. He sat there every Sunday, without fail, next to his grandmother. He stared at the ground while older people came and went, commenting on his cuteness, his shyness, his intelligence. Anything they could think of, because that was the custom. Make a round and talk to everyone before service began. And every Sunday, his grandmother would brag about how smart he was; how his grades were the top of the class, how he was reading on an eighth grade level in elementary school. Even at that age, he knew she just wanted to inflate herself. Something about the way she talked, blowing up each and every achievement to anyone who would listen, aggravated Adam.
For the most part, church meant nothing to him. The ideas of heaven and hell, of a creating father and loving savior, were all just that to him: ideas. The fiery passion which his preacher imbued into every word, stirring the congregation with a fervent desire to repent for their wrongdoings… Swept by Adam completely. Honestly, he hated it here. The only people his age avoided him and thought he was weird, and he didn’t like being around adults. He wanted to just go home and never come back, but any mention of skipping church reduced his grandmother to tears. She was so sure that he would lose his soul. In the end, it wasn’t worth the trouble or the aggravation. He kept going, ignoring the people around him.
The floor of the church was a worn-down green carpet. He amused himself by running his foot up and down it, drawing designs in it. His forehead rested on the back of the pew in front of him, obscuring his face from the rest of the church. Sometimes his grandmother would lightly tap his leg and tell him to sit up straight. He didn’t. He slowly traced circles over and over. It was still about twenty minutes before church started. Twenty minutes of his life he would never get back. He sighed and leaned his face up to rest his chin on the pew, and his eyes met someone else’s, centimeters from him.
It was a girl, somewhere around his age. He had never seen her before. She had bright blue eyes, and they were staring at him curiously. She smiled at him, and he saw small dimples form in her cheeks. Her hair was brown, a really light brown, and it fell down in waves. They sat there for a while, neither saying anything.
“…Hi,” he finally said. She was silent. “What’s your name?” After watching him for a few more moments, she answered.
“Anne.” She started to say something else, but Adam’s grandmother cut him off.
“Christine! Is this Dana’s child? She is just the cutest thing. How’ve you been? Oh, I haven’t been too good myself,” shut up, “but you know how it is. Adam’s dad is up to his ways again. But I guess I can’t complain too much. I know the lord will see me through. So, how have you been, Christine?” Anne looked at Adam’s grandmother for a while, then back to him, still smiling. She turned from sitting sideways along the pew to facing her whole body towards Adam, sitting her knees on the pew. She began silently mimicking both of the adults talking around them. Adam couldn’t help but laugh. Then he noticed that her right arm was wrapped in a thick cast.
“What happened to your arm?” he asked.
“She fell and broke it when she was climbing a tree house,” Christine said. Anne’s face turned red, and she looked at Christine angrily.
“Mawmaw!”
“What?” Christine asked. Anne didn’t say anything, but she continued to stare sullenly at the old lady for a while. Then she suddenly turned back towards Adam, with a strange look on her face.
“Hey. Let me see your hand.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
“No.”
“Pleaaassee,” she whined, utilizing every drop of cuteness she could muster. Adam had already lost.
“No.” But he could still fight.
“I can make your hand smell like flowers,” she said. And that was what ended it. Bear in mind that he was still in elementary school, and was quite an impressionable and naïve child. He stuck his left hand out towards her, and she began to trace circles around it in much the same way he had drawn circles in the church’s carpet. Then she started doing fancy loops. Finally she raised her hand and brought it down into a poke on the center of his. Curious and confused, he raised his hand to sniff. The instant he did, she smashed her hand into his. It hurt like hell. And she just laughed.
“Want to come over to my house after church?” she asked.
“That hurt.”
“Sorry. So, do you want to come over?”
“I’ll ask my grandma,” he said, rubbing his sore nose.

After a valiant amount of whining and arguing, Adam’s grandmother agreed to let him stay at Anne’s until church started again for the evening. Once the invitation to join our lord and savior Jesus Christ in blessed redemption had finished, he left the church with Anne and Christine. He sat in the back, watching the terrain pass by quickly and quietly. It wasn’t long before they were at Anne’s house. Actually, Adam remembered it vaguely. Maybe his grandmother had brought him here once before.
Anne led him through the house into her living room and pushed him onto a couch placed near one corner. She then ran to the opposite corner and grabbed a massive chest, straining to pull it with her good arm. Adam thought about helping her, but she had laid this seat on the couch out for him. It would be rude to just get up after that.
“O…kay. Here’s,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath, “all my toys.” She went to the back of the chest, and lifted the lid. The amount of toys was staggering. She had action figures, and dolls, and those weird little things made of wire and beads. You know the one. She had video game toys, and coloring books, and and everything. She looked at Adam and put her hands on her hips, smiling smugly. She was just so proud.
“Well? What do you think?”
“You have some cool toys. I guess.” Her proud look turned to shock. Payback for the face beating.
“What? I have the coolest toys. I bet you don’t have toys as cool as me. Don’t even lie.”
“Whatever you say,” Adam said, picking up a few action figures.

After several hours of intense action figure battling, Christine came in with a tray of pizza rolls and drinks for Adam and Anne. The two of them paused their play long enough to devour the food.
“You know what I like?” Anne asked, in between pizza rolls.
“Yes,” Adam said. Anne just looked at him, confused. “But just so you can tell me anyway, what?”
“I like eating noodles.”
“Me too. My mom used to make them for me and my older sister.”
“But I like them not cooked.” This girl was weird. She stretched out at the table and took a large sip of her drink. She was easy to talk to and get along with. She could be annoying, but she was fun to annoy back. He wondered why she had never come to church before. His grandmother had said she was Dana’s kid, so she must not be Christine’s. Maybe Dana was Christine’s daughter. He wondered if Christine was going to start bringing Anne to church every Sunday.
“Alright you two, start getting ready for church. It’s almost time to go back.” They finished up their food and got in the car.
No one said anything about the two of them coming to church together. No one even seemed to notice. The old people were too busy making sure everyone was okay to pay attention to two kids, and the other kids went right on ignoring anything to do with Adam. They went back to their pews and talked until service started. When it did, Adam kept himself distracted by watching every twist and turn of Anne’s hair as she moved.

“You know, after that, I didn’t really mind coming to church as much. I finally had a friend there. After that, I sat at the pew watching the door every morning until you showed up. As I got older, I was made an usher. I took up offering and sang in the choir, and all that other stuff. But every Sunday morning and night, I also helped at the front door, opening it and shaking hands. I waited for you to get there, so we could smile at each other. You made church bearable for me.”

[Frisk]

Day 3- IN WHICH A SEVERED LEG MAKES AN APPEARANCE

“Every day back then was like a game. We were never at a loss for something to do, something to discover. Do you remember these things? All of these irreplaceable memories in my heart? I can’t, I won’t forget them. Even if you were to forget, I’ll hold on to them. So, just listen to them for now, okay?”

These fries were delicious. Salty and delicious and Adam was enjoying every bite of them. The only thing that beat them was the grease-filled kickass burger he was munching on. He took a gulp of his ice-cold, refreshing beverage. Fast food really was the best ever. He took another sip of his drink, looking over the top of it towards Anne. She was focused on her meal, squeezing out a packet of ketchup onto the food tray. About the time she dropped a ketchup-dipped fry into her mouth, Adam caught her eye. She looked back at him, dipping another fry into the sauce. Then she threw it at him, trying to catch it off guard. It worked.
“Lo~ser,” she said, barely able to hold back her laughter. In return, he jacked her burger, taking a bite out of it. Less than pleased at this turn of events, she made short work of Adam’s own burger.
“Why am I even friends with you?”
“I keep your life interesting,” she said, taking a small handful of fries.
“No arguing that,” Adam said. They ate in silence for a while. A few tables away, Anne and Adam’s grandmothers sat gossiping to each other. Macy sat with them, carefully inspecting her brand new toy. It stayed that way for a while, until…
“Anne,” Adam said, between a mouthful of fries.
“What now?” she asked.
“That car outside. Look at that car. Do you see it?” She had to see it. It was like… She had to see it.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, getting up from her seat to sit closer to him. She looked out the restaurant window. “What car? I don’t see-” she cut herself off. She saw it. “Oh my gosh! Is that for real? Adam, there’s no way that’s real.”
“It can’t be. It’s gotta be fake or something.”
“Adam what if they’re murderers what are we gonna do oh my gosh should we tell mawmaw?”
Sitting outside of the Burger King that Adam and Anne were currently dining at, a car had parked. It was your typical, average, run of the mill car. Adam couldn’t tell you what kind of car, of course. He knew nothing about them. But it was totally commonplace, other than the human leg sticking out of the trunk. It looked bloody. Adam examined it intensely for a while.
“It’s not real,” he said, finally.
“Like how can you tell?”
“It’s like a toy. The inside isn’t really a leg, it’s just something that’ll stay connected to the trunk so that when the trunk’s closed, it looks like a real leg.”
“Oooh, okay,” she said, satisfied. Her attention span was drained, so she drifted back to her food without giving the bloody leg a second thought.

“You really can’t?”
“No.”
“Seriously. You can’t?”
“I said no, Anne. Never have, never will.”
“I can teach you!”
“No, you can’t.”
“Yep. Come on, let’s go try. Just once.”
“If you think I’m going to go outside and-” Anne yanked him by the arm and forced him to his feet. She began dragging him outside, with him fighting every step of the way. It was a bright blue, sunny sky kind of day. Adam knew this was simply a ruse of God to convince him he was about to be spared from horrible physical pain. Anne momentarily disappeared around the back of her house, but soon came back. She brought with her a bicycle. It was a lovely pink color, with ribbons to match. Her smile seemed so innocent and believable.
Five minutes later, and Adam was atop the two-wheeled vehicle of doom. “Okay, I’ll push you some of the way, and when I let go you keep pedaling. Got it?” she said, holding on to the bike for him.
“… I really hate you.”
“That’s the spirit! Alright, here we go!” she casually took off, pushing Adam gently. After a few feet, she let go. Adam was going to do it this time. He was going to make it. All the way. Four inches. A new record! Before he could celebrate, he should really deal with the ground rushing up to hug his face.
“Are you okay?” Anne said, running to help him up.
“Yeah, I think.”
“You really can’t ride a bike,” she said. There were no further attempts at teaching.

They got older. High school rolled around. As the years slipped by, it became harder and harder for the two to stay close. They had always gone to different schools; Anne stayed at her hometown’s school, while Adam attended a school with a better reputation in the next city over. Their parents stopped associating with each other, and their grandparents fell on bad terms. Neither of them attended church often, and when they did they missed each other.
Adam sat in the bed of a truck, tucking his coat close to keep warm. The wind sailed through the truck, blasting him from every direction. He leaned back and stared at the sky. The temperature was starting to drop. Days were getting shorter. Anne had tryouts for color guard today, and he was on his way to watch her try out.
The girls were all lined up in rows on a small grassy field near the school. There were probably about fifteen of them, with only about five going at a time. He took a seat on some steps where a few parents were sitting, and watched. He felt completely out of place, sitting alone next to a bunch of southern moms. He drifted in and out of their conversations; who was doing what, why their child was the best, how this person’s daughter had messed up, how that person’s daughter had the try out in the bag. As their droning went on, Adam realized it was the same as the conversations at his church: mindless gossip and bragging. They danced around each other with words full of implications and unspoken accusations, and you could bet as soon as one got up to fetch something from their car the rest would pick apart every shortcoming she had before she returned.
What about him? If he moved, would they start asking about him? They would. Who was that boy? Do you know what family he’s from? Who’s he hear to see? Does he know what this is? Adam’s head started hurting, and he pushed the thoughts away, instead focusing on Anne.
After they finished, the girls ran up and down the walkway of the band room. In a few minutes the results would be posted. Adam held back from talking to Anne, uncomfortable being around so many total strangers. She mixed in and out of the girls with ease, consoling one who had slipped up, praising one who had performed well, high-fiving a close friend. When the results came out, she was among the girls who screamed in excitement. Not that there had been any doubt. Eventually she noticed Adam, and she made her way to him. They stood next to each other for a minute, not saying anything.
“Good job,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Hey! Anne! Come here!” Another student called. She ran off to talk to them, only to return a moment later with something in her hand. Before he could blink, she had gotten behind him and slammed something into his back.
“What was that,” he said, trying to reach for it.
“My name tag,” she said, before running back into the crowd of girls. She was so hyper, running this way and that. In no time at all she was back, holding a soda in her hand. She leaned against the rail of the walkway beside him, drinking it.
“Let me have some of that,” Adam said. She looked at him, then at her drink. And then she chugged the whole thing, every last drop. When she finished she turned to Adam and smiled, swirling the empty can around before crushing it and throwing it in the trash. She walked away.
He shouted a bye to her as he left. Her face… Was twisted in annoyance. She watched him ride away with an agitated look for a moment before turning her attention away.