July 15th 9:45 PM

The unexpected storm of that night worsened by the hour. As night prolonged, the storm twisted and grew in power. Catching winds from the East allowed its spiraling wrath to carry its wells of rain. From what started as a harmless patter soon became a crash of loud sound. Howling winds, roaring thunders, and slamming rains on every piece of solid. The lighting screened across windows, lighting up any dark room. However, as the weather became disturbing, it fell to have little effect on Malon in the dining room.

Tucked away in the warm, candle-lit dining room, a haze fell on the soft cheeks on her face, revealing a fretful expression. While the outside was a wreak and creating havoc, there was despair and worry threatening her thoughts. Dark still wasn't back?

Her azure eyes slanted to gaze out the dark window of the storm's abyss, and as she saw nothing but flashes of lightning, her wonder circulated... It was a horrible storm... It was too horrible for any creature to thrive out there... Even for Dark... The rain would drench his clothes and leave him to freeze...

Out of exasperation and lost, her head fell into her hands with a frustrated sigh. "Where are you, Dark...?!" she said out loud. The silence bit back at her, however, with a howl from the wind. The voices of no return only spoke to remind her of her lonesome self. Alone, in the large, homely house with only the animals that lived with her to supply a sort of comfort.

A lightning bolt struck the earth and rumbled down onto it with erupting thunder. The moment of the struck, a black cat leaped into Malon's lap, and her cellphone buzzed, lighting up her face with a notification.

Blue light crossed her face—capturing an attentive look in her eyes—and she came to clutch her phone. Excited energy fidgeted within her, causing her to jump from her seat and the feline to fall from her lap. From her spring, she paced the dining room back and forth with fiddling fingers, responding in text to a message she had received.

Meet me at my house around ten... The sender told her.

I can get there as soon as possible! She sent.

Glee wrapped her face, and a genuine smile peeked with hope. A sparkle came to her azure eyes, and a fluttering feeling of warmth embraced her. In bliss, she pranced into the kitchen, hopping from tile-to-tile to take her raincoat off its hanger. A yellow raincoat. She lifted it from its hanger and popped her arms into the sleeves.

Upon fluffing her ginger hair, she let out a tiny squeal from under her breath. "Dark just might be alright!"

Alright, in fact...

In that moment of her breath, a sudden daze came over her. Dizziness toppled her head and weight came to her lids. After the rush of euphoria, there came a load of fatigue. After feeling like a feather, her body weight shifted and turned to feel a weight down on her shoulders that brought her to slump her head.

Her eyes drifted, and her arms dropped. A chill met her as her temperature drastically decreased, and confusion unraveled on her. She drew a breath to comment on her sudden feeling, but sleep took her out like a light. Her body toppled onto the floor with a thump...

There... she lied... taken by a joy that seemed to distract her mind. Her back was turned, and she was vulnerable... A lovely vessel she would pertain to be.

Her cellphone rung its song to an incoming call, luring an unwelcomed guest behind her.

A morphing creature... that took the form of those he desired.

July 15th 9:38 PM

Blue screens... Blue screens... A light reflected onto us... The morph of technology in age, enhancing itself within time. What do blue screens do for us? Weaken our vision? Take our time for rest?

It is a distraction. A tool for idleness.

From the counter behind where he had stood as he faced the door, he opened up a laptop, hazing a blue light onto his fair-skinned face and the lonely darkness sitting in the room. Once the door to the garage had been shut, a cold air puffed back into the comparted house. It sifted through, puckering goosebumps across the blonde's skin with a shiver as a reminder of the frame of time. The night was only setting with a trace of uncertain thoughts.

Shadow had a pawn in the game... A chance to revive himself... and through that revival... all that was needed was a moment of vulnerability... a weakened creature...

It would be obvious he would go to Link after... After...

The keyboard mouse clicked after a shot of lightning crossed the sky, rolling with a rumble. White light flashed through the window, featuring the blonde's folded glasses on the counter, the shines of his hair, and his pale, troubled reflection on the laptop's screen. Squinting his eyes to see, he checked his surveillance camera application, double-clicking on the mouse to pull up a live video hooked up for the front of his house, revealing only what he anticipated... Link's parallel-parked car pulling out and away from the driveway. It was only caught for a moment before the car moved and sped off out of the camera's frame.

A sigh of relief came over the blonde as his eyes wandered over to a drawer, stealing a stern reflection in his eyes. Intention took him as the plan written in his head unraveled. He reached and slid the drawer open with close attention to his surrounding sounds... Only rain was his companion, however. The drawer's wheels squeaked as they rolled on their rack and opened its compartment of tools. His slender hand took the large, black remote object, pulling an antenna up from it.

He turned a dial on the device—bringing a buzzing sound into the kitchen he stood in—and found the appropriate setting for the device. He then shared a glimpse with the darkness in the living room and brought the device to his mouth. "It's Vio. Please respond if you hear me."

A sudden crack of static muffled on his device, and then a respondent's voice was captured with noise. "Are you okay?"—quiet concern.

His lips firmed and his hand ran to quickly attempt to tune the device for a better sound, but it failed. The quality of the weather had an intervention in their communication. "Yes, yes... Fine. Did you get to the house?"

The speaker's voice—a frail boy's voice—came with confirmation. "Yes. I believe I have everything as well... you don't have to worry..." There came a short pause of cracking silence as a thought came through. "Will you be okay getting here? The weather is not great..."

"I know," The man tilted the device towards the blue laptop screen, narrowing his eyes to analyze the device's details. Glistening with soft blues from the screen, the black plastic from the device became sleek in its design in his blurred vision... The rubber pieces of covering and plastic dials lightened by the only light source in the room. The device in his hand—a walkie-talkie... Staring at it conformed as a distraction.

He tapped his fingers on the counter and leaned in close to the laptop screen, causing his pupils to constrict to the laptop's brightness. "I need you to stay put with the best of your ability." He spoke with divided attention. A tremble began to fidget with his fingers as he attempted to compose himself in his thoughts. His eyes searched the laptop screen. "As we discussed before, I cannot assure to you whether or not we will meet up... Although, I am going to try my best. Once I have the house secured, I will be able to..."

"...Did you see him, yet?"

Silence rocked down to the bottom. His lightened blue eyes fixated, and a vacant expression stole him in a moment of bewilderment. That bewilderment would tumble and cause an instinctual feeling of fear.

Did you... see... him? Did you see him? Him?

The darkness in the room coiled and strangled the air. His slender hand dropped, and his hazed eyes jumped to the opened drawer. The opened drawer with its compartment of tools. The tools... The assortment of tools... Pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches... The thin wired lines across the room only seen by light... The drawer is the cause of this... His paranoia is the CAUSE for...

The death trap.

"Vio?" the walkie-talkie interrupted in concern. "Vio, sorry, I..."

His head quivered and a tingle ran down to his fingers... "I-I'm..." A ragged breath contorted from him, but he twisted it back with the clench of his teeth, choking himself of an emotion—bringing only retch. "No." he bit off. "No, I did not... see him... and I am still..."

A flash of light came to reflect off his face from the laptop's screen, drawing a widened gaze from his face. A sound ruffled and silence softened with the crash of pouring rain.

He blinked... uncertain, dragging his lip to gape. The cold air in the room began to intensify... Was it his imagination...? Was he just hallucinating? Maybe taking the cold air to an extreme? The power was out... The laptop's battery was low... He...

A thought rolled into his head and settled. A slow reaction, but a response... he would take instinctively. "I will call you back... Ray." he uttered—his mind distracted by the laptop's screen, searching and listening for any sudden change.

"Did something happen?"

No.

The antenna clicked as the radio transmission ended by his sly hand. Then, shoving it into one of the pockets of his trousers, his hands rose to rummage and scramble pass the tools in the drawer until he found it—a blade in its sheath wrapped in a handkerchief. The handkerchief parted into his pocket, the blade equipped—ready in his hand—and he turned in fright towards the black corridor before the front door... Nobody. Nobody in sight.

There was jitter in his nerves that only intensified his movement. Paranoia seeped into him in a rush of hype. His palm pushed the laptop lid down, his hand felt to his thigh—finding a leg strap tightened—and he slid the sheath-contained blade into a slip on the strap. In a brisk moment, he paused in terror to meet the black corridor eye-to-eye before he snatched his laptop and concealed it under his arm. He ducked down to the floor behind the counter and opened a pantry to quickly hide the laptop into, closing it before edging his back against the pantry.

His breath heaved against his clench teeth, and his companion of sound opened his ears. Listening—waiting for a footstep, waiting for a vibration from a wire, waiting for a twist of a knob. His pulse rung in his ears with the collection of the rain and thunder, twirling nausea in his head. In the back of his mind, delusions fed, and euphemisms came to buzz and disorientate his emotions. The sounds, the voices, the visions could all be false... This could be an overreaction... A mind trick fueled by paranoia... an absolute retarded game of...

A death trap... An endless loop of death... all ridden by lack of certainty... Ridden from the inability to take precautions for the hundredth time... He should check another time... Check the drawer. Check the wire. Check the screw against the wall. Access the door another time, and certainly give the corridor and the car another look. It certainly was not enough... Not enough... Never enough... and it will not be enough until there is certainty that there is NO issue...

Never enough until the room is tangled in wire... tangled with the attachments of explosives... to determine the ends and the possibility of security until it is clear, you stupid retard.

The only means of the secluded stone is to determine that there WILL be safety... Separating the stones, cutting the stone, and lending one off for the means of USE... is for the means of SAFETY... If those means are not met there is surely enough time to...

Thunder rumbled down, and a shudder came to the blonde. His fuzzed vision edged around the counter to view the tiny glints of light on his death trap... The wires wrapped... surrounding a center-piece blob against the wall... the pistol equipped in his hand before... No use... No...

No... No...

Pain shriveled up on his face as a realization was met... A submission... The plan, the idea, the need... the... instinctual need.

A cold riff of air puffed into the room, sounding an entity... shadowing the energy in the room. The prism of energy leaned... The wave rolled... A change in the darkness.

How odd it was, though. There was a shift. Footstep of a smooth heel thumped with the floor, and a charming... motherly voice entered. "Are you here?" it called.

Confusion set on the blonde's face, but he did not dare to look. Blood pressure weighed him down, and he declined a reaction. Either the sounding was a figment of imagination or...

Soft footsteps... moving forward. "I know you are here. It's okay...!" they sweetly murmured.

How far was their step? Did they notice the wires...? Why is there no sound...? Why is there...?

A heavy blink rose his eyes to the drawer of tools as a thought processed, but he made up his mind in a moment... If he had any choice... there had to be an option... He stole the handkerchief from his pocket and bit down on it to begin tying a gag at his mouth back around his head.

"I mean no harm, of course... I wanted to ask you about Link..."

The sweet, sing-song words watered down to bitter in his head as he moved his hands to unravel the bandage on his right hand. The blade slipped out of his sheath, and he readied the knife to a closed wound on his hand. He winced at the sight. No... The knife staggered at his hand unwillingly... There could not possibly... be...

Words closed in, inching closer. "Zelda was here, too, right? She's a good friend, I will admit!"

He clenched his teeth on the cloth, biting down tightly to hold back his need to gasp in retortion against the act... It was the only way... The only way... He winced a second time before strangling his attention back to his hand and drawing the knife. If it was the only way... The only way... There had to be... had to be a reason... A reason... A reason for...

Acceptance.

It flew in a slash. Red streams on a wide gash on his hand, throwing his head back against the pantry with a thump and a choke on his heavy breath.

The gag could do as much as it could, but a thump and a slight sound of his plead for breath would, in turn, be doom for him. 

"What are you doing over there?!" the voice sound with a smile behind their words... A smile of satisfaction.

The blonde squeezed a breath down his throat, shifting his eyes in his view to capture how close the other was for his spatial awareness through perhaps a shadow, but he immediately resumed to regret in realization of his troubled position. His heart throbbed against his head as he attempted to gather his focus. He shuffled to rummage into his pocket with his uninjured hand as thick crimson began to leak and pool down his arm. Everything felt heavy and a world of pain was just the beginning... There was no time to stop... to rest... to think.

Into his pocket, he pinched the sliced bits from a crismanite stone, pulling it out to flaunt a reddish glow before his face of sweat. After a moment of battling hesitation, he gritted his teeth in a sense to hold back and shoved the sharp pieces into his reopened wound. A knife's slash and then a submersion of tiny daggers being pressed against a sensitive palm. A bloodcurdling scream choked into his burning throat, bringing his hand over his mouth to mute a cry. Tears streamed, a tingle rumbled down his palm, his lungs flattened, bringing a contorted cringe onto his face. Why...? Why...? WHY?!

"Perhaps you are behind the counter~?"

His breath squeaked, and his widened eyes jumped. He slipped the blade back into its sheath and tore the handkerchief—rinsed in his saliva—out of his mouth almost unconsciously, and his eyes rose with bewilderment as a figure came before him.

A petite woman with bouncy, ginger curls wore a yellow raincoat.

A crooked hook formed from her lips.