Eventide Stories

## INTRO

These are a series of mini-stories set in the "Lizzy Eventide" universe.  As the overall tale of the Lizzy Eventide chronology is not fully written, these are basically scenes that I've thought of over the years, and really wanted to write out.  They are partly stream of consciousness, but I try to apply good writing into them.

## YEAR ONE

### Reflection

**Timeline: First Year, Autumn**

It was late at night… Well incredibly early in morning to be quite accurate.  The black cat walked to the kitchen and stuck her hand through the refridgerator: phasing through the matter and waving her digits to grasp the placement of the milk that always seemed to be in that location.  Tonight it wasn’t there, and she was forced to open the door: causing the faint humming to get slightly louder, and the light to turn on.

It was unlikely her parents would hear in their bedroom, but past events left a paranoia.  She was almost an adult now.  It wasn’t as if she couldn’t risk some hours lost of sleep.  She’d be sleeping in tomorrow anyway so really what was there to bother her?

“Hm,” A single huff of humored breath came out as she noticed the left light in the fridge blinking.  *‘Hard to believe they haven’t gotten someone to fix that before I saw it’* she pondered while searching for her target.  The milk was behind some items for once, in the back, not the door.  *‘Weird’*.

She pulled it out, unscrewing the lid and prepared to guzzle down a sip right there, but paused: considering the option of a cup instead.  Her teeth gnashed at the idea of having to maintain such manners with these people.

Her thoughts kept getting more and more remote from her circumstance, and the blinking light became increasingly distracting.  She was leaning for about a minute now, just staring at it, and softly muttering to herself.

“What now?” She asked herself.  “I won’t be here long for sure.  Mph!” She shoved the door shut: milk jug still in hand.  It was a thwap heard throughout the house but she couldn’t cling to a care at the moment.

The flustered cat sat herself at a nearby counter, at some point having subconsciously gathered a cup and poured herself a fair amount.  “Could just end it…” She pondered, taking a sip.  What did ‘end it’ mean though?  Her life?  No, probably not.  She wasn’t about to waste her own powers like that.

“… Them?” She narrowed down.  The thought had crossed her mind… a lot.  “I don’t… they aren’t… “ She wanted to say they weren’t bad people but they were, so she settled on “They aren’t monsters.”

Then she remembered what they did with her grandfather.  She heard herself, her child self screaming while being dragged from him.  The whole time, he was telling her it was okay.  “They are monsters,” She spoke.

“Every time… I used to love travelling but-“

“Only got yourself to blame,” She groaned, taking another sip.  “You knew it was going to happen.  You decided to make friendly with those two.”

The twins.  It was ridiculous but they were unbearably friendly.  She suspected them the first time they met by how accepting at least Tess was of her.  Then she remembered that first day, in the dark, saving them… and them finding out.  “Had to… They knew… Couldn’t just kill them.  Kind of defeats the purpose of trying to save the day.”

**SHING** like a blade cutting through a wall, she heard the memory of all the petty criminals she did horrible things to.  She almost never killed of course, but a severed hand or two- “I stopped that… mostly…”

“I started cutting them without breaking them instead… like some kind of pyscho… Maybe that’s what I am.”

“That’s not the point,” She sighed, pouring another drink.  “I’ve… built things here…”

“Like him?”

“Don’t…” She couldn’t stop herself.  Herself was already thinking about the adorable casual and perfect face.  He really was such a nice guy, not that she was willing to get closer to him.  Now she’d have to break the news.  She heard them talking that it was time to move on.  What she would have done to see them working in retail as poor people trying to make ends meet.  Then she could… mock them, having her own job: the job she got on her own.

“They deserve to pay,” She growled.  Her hand fell through the counter, taking her out of the moment.  She blinked, looking over her condition. She was fine.  The cat took a breath.  “… Overreacting…  I just want… to stay…”

“No one would know.  Foster parents would work better than these.”

“Not fair… Not…fair…they… Just want their plastic toy girl to do what they say and…” she sighed, “follow in their footsteps.”

“They think it’s just a phase.”

“They’re wrong.”

“Too wrong…  Just take things… into your own hands!  Stop letting them hold you back!”

The cat gasped, bracing her hands on the counter. The milk had spilled.  She spent about twenty seconds panting before she saw a taller figure walk into the kitchen, turning a low light on.

“Lizzy, what- oh,” Her mother sighed.  “Well, clean it up.”

Lizzy looked with wide eyes at her mother.  The daughter wasn’t tearing up but she looked almost scared.  Silently, she got off her chair and went to the sink: taking a towel to clean up.

“Were you talking on your phone?  Who was that?”

Lizzy froze: hand curling at the drenched towel soaking up the white drink.  Her other hand slowed to her lower leg: the small slot she often kept her strange dagger.

“No one… I think…”

## YEAR TWO

### Displaced Community

**Timeline: First Year, Late Autumn**

The yellow chameleon, the black skunk, and the black cat; they were all together in the skunk’s newly-repaired car.  Memberlake St. was the area they drove to.  None of them seemed to have any particular recollection or personal connection to the place.  Jack lived the furthest out of the city, and it took him almost an hour to drive them all there.

“Well we’re here now,” The cat promptly stated whilst exiting the vehicle as one would had there been a stench they were holding their breath from the entire time.  In this case, it was simply the chatty and awkward discussion during the trip that deterred her, which would have only been lessened slightly if it were not intended to mask an interruption of a restated lie concerning who had a crush on whom.  These were topics Lizzy had no desire to embark on socially whatsoever.

“But seriously, I don’t know why people complain about how many there are,” The chameleon kept going: restating once more her opinions on the plethora of law-enforcement television shows.  She only stopped now because she was realizing just how… surreal and… haunting their new location appeared.  Tess just got out of the vehicle and immediately wanted back in, but the others were already walking forward anyway.

The neighborhood was incredibly quiet, and a thick fog filled most of the scenery.  It was rather high up in the city: near some suburban mountains, but clearly not on the lively side.  The houses looked as though they had been kept up nicely enough, but something was faintly off about them.

“These… do these…” The skunk peered, turning his head horizontal back and forth as he distracted himself, “look… stretched to you guys?  Just barely?”  As they got further into the fogged series of buildings, his long-sleeved grey shirt seemed less warming.  He tucked his hands into his dark blue jean pockets.

“A little taller I guess,” Lizzy shrugged: fixing her long grey scarf she kept tied around her upper arm.  She didn’t seem to care what the temperature was.  Her hands passed her purple tank-top and purple skirt to her grey boots: pressing a small metal hilt further down from view.  “Mystery Man’s somewhere here,” her eyes rolled with a groaning growl.

Tess made sure to stay close between the two.  She had her own long green sweater on, and black pants: doing her some comfort.  “Why is he here?” She whined.

“More like ‘why can’t he just answer his phone’…” Lizzy growled once more as the three were now nearly a block into the seemingly empty neighborhood of his nearly mid-day winter’s start.

“Could be off,” Jack guessed.  “Maybe it’s broken.  You said he comes here every weak, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Probably wants some privacy.”

“How cute… tch, Sorry you had to drive us here, Jack,” She didn’t sound particularly saddened while making this apology, but the feline had no reason to not be genuine, so the skunk took it as honest.

“Got nothing else to do right now, and I need the recorded driving hours after what… happened.”

“Oon,” Tess winced: distracted from the intimidation of the environment for the moment.  “Sorry you had to go through that.”

He shrugged.  “I’ll get through it… I’ll need you guys to sign off as witnesses for the hours I did though.”

“La-…ter,” Lizzy stopped as they came to a slight clearing of the fog.  It was still quite thick, but they could at least see far ahead of themselves now.

A large parking lot… well large being around 120 yards wide, and… well across at least double that it seemed.  Very faint sinks in the pavement were about, as were noticeable cracks.  No cars were parked.  In fact, a very eye-catching chain reading “No Trespassing” was hung in front of the drive-entrance.

Tess found it very unnerving when a long uphill and downhill forest, with ditches and small canyons, could be seen at the far left of the parking lot.  She didn’t go a step further once she saw it.

“C’mon, Tess,” Lizzy urged: taking the cream-yellow chameleon’s hand and dragging her forward.  Tess gave a small whine as they went.

“That’s a horror title there,” Tess sheepishly joked, “Three Teens In A Haunted Parking Lot-“

“Church,” Jack corrected.  He pointed to the right.  Both girls glanced over and saw it.  Wood and concrete: old and abandoned.  It looked still in good shape, but as empty as the rest.  The wood was so pale that it didn’t even give a dark impression.  The large cross at the front of the building’s side was barely visible with how similar it shaded to the fog.

“…Okay, I’m calling out names now,” Lizzy cupped her hands to her mouth and called out the name.

“CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLS!”

Jack joined in but Tess was still very reluctant.  She began receiving flashbacks of a very old horror game her brother had played when they were younger.  It also involved a search in a mist-covered city, and the results were far from pleasant.  Strangely enough, the more she thought about their strange friend being there, the more she realized she felt safer if she knew where he was.

They were all calling for him now.  Eventually they stopped when a figure started walking toward them from the back of the parking lot.  Lizzy didn’t approach yet.  She wasn’t going to let her guard down till she saw his face.

A male fox with pale brown-orange fur; he wore a grey turtleneck top with a black jacket around him—unzipped—with black jeans and black shoes.  Unlike Lizzy’s grey finger-gloves and grey arm-glove, his black gloves didn’t appear very fashion-based.  He always had that striking appearance piece however: his glazed over eyes, and the black shades that hung over them.

He did not sound particularly joyful at their arrival when he prompted “Yes?”

“What are y- what are you doing here?” Lizzy had paused with the faint suspicion of some other-wordly works, but her better nature prevailed: forcing her to believe this was a simple matter of the blind fox being incredibly odd…as per usual.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever really been humored by someone responding to their question with a question, Lizzy,” The fox taunted with his unchanging expression.

Jack and Tess were silent, though this was due to their distraction with the architecture.  Lizzy shook her head with irritation before answering “Fine!  I’m here to find out if you had all the file stuff finished and ready for us.”

“Out in public, right next to someone thankfully too distracted to understand what you just said,” He replied: his tone going to a whisper as to not become a hypocrite with his own words.

“Do you have it ready or not?”  The feline grumbled.

The fox didn’t immediately answer.  He was looking to Jack for a bit, and Jack eventually noticed: his expression prompting a desire for an explanation for this stare, which he did not receive as Chells looked back to Lizzy.  “What’s your Email?”

“What fo- oh.”

“So I can stalk you t-“

“I get it, smart guy,” She snapped.  “purpledagger@K-O-L.”

“… Subtle… friendly… also subtle-“

“You know, if I wanted to constantly get insulted, I could just-“

“But you wanted to find me so badly and I did say this was my own ‘alone time’ in a sense.  I guess you could say I’m ‘miffed’.”

Lizzy was becoming too curious about the area to really get more annoyed, so she just asked “What is this all exactly?”

“Feels strange, doesn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jack added with a near scoff.  “This whole neighborhood is strange-“

“Not to mention empty,” Tess jolted in.  “Like, unpopulated, VACANT???”

“Well that’s not something I could really tell you about,” The fox shrugged off.  “Feels like it’s from some different kind of world I imagine?  The doors are a bit taller.  If you were to go inside, you might even notice the pews aren’t the right length… everything’s…” his hands gave a little upward twitch “bigger.”

Without anything else, Chells began walking past the group.  As he passed by Lizzy, she noted “Y’know, you’re really creepy when you want to be.”

“You asked, I answered,” He replied, still making his way toward the exit of the parking lot.

“… Did you drive here?” Jack asked.  “I didn’t see any cars.”

“No, I didn’t drive here,” Chells replied, still walking.  The others—with Lizzy being the last to do so—eventually followed after him.

“So you walked?” Jack guessed.

“… Sure.”

“You want a ride back?”

The fox stopped, back still turned to them.  “Is that an offer?”

“Yeah, if you can be polite about it.”

“… Then I accept it.  Thank you,” The fox’s course changed.  They hadn’t told him where the car was, but he met them there soon after.

Tess waited until the car was starting up again to ask “But really, what is this place about?  Do people actually live here?”

“Not for many… many years,” Chells answered.  The four were soon out of the fog-filled mountain neighborhood, but as they got closer to the rest of the city, they noticed the downtown section of Lexistropolis was… on fire.  Some kind of letter engraved in the massive carnage.  A massive…

“V”

### Tour Call

**Timeline: Second Year, Spring**

The phone rang for a minute almost before he finally picked it up, a groggy “Hello?” forced out as he wasn’t awake enough to open his eyes and read the caller ID.

“… You were sleeping,” She realized immediately, sighing immediately after.  “Thought it would’ve been morning there if it was night here.”

“Well… It,” He rubbed his eyes a bit, trying to focus on the turquoise light that made the hotel’s alarm clock.  “It’s uh… 4:32 so technically…”

“… Sorry.”

“No, it’s good- it’s fine,” He said quickly before he had to yawn.  “Wa’tchu need?”

“Well… uh- how’s the tour going?”

“Pretty good.  I’m not blown away with the audience’s response, but we’re hardly the biggest thing nowadays.”

“You will be soon enough… Lo-look, Jack, I’m… I’m really sorry- I didn’t really explain much about not going with you.”

“It’s okay-“

“Doesn’t mean you don’t deserve an explanation.”

He knew she wasn’t going to feel better until she got it off her chest, so he straightened up against the back of the bed, and replied “Alright, go ahead.”

“It wasn’t because I didn’t want to go with.  I’ve just got a whole lot of other responsibilities back here…” She was trying desperately in her head to come up with something that would explain further without revealing what these responsibilities were, but it ended up as a long pause before he replied “I understand.”

She sighed again.  “If only…”

“What?”

“N- no!  Not like that, I meant, it’s just really complicated is all…”

“Is this about your family?” His hand tensed just a bit, testing the waters of his question, preparing for a spat but a cynical chuckle, or scoff, sounded back from her.

“Yeah, that’s not helping for sure… This isn’t about me,” Her tone rose slightly.  He knew a nerve was hit, but he wasn’t aware that she was angry at herself, not him.  “I don’t have a good excuse here.  Nothing I’d say would fix that I should have come with.”

“Did you actually want to?”

“Yes, yes, I really did- I do, but… I just wish I could.  That’s the risk of getting close to someone.”

“It won’t be too long,” He tried to comfort.  “In a few weeks we’ll be back and we can go do something.”

“Yeah… I guess… I’ll just be here, spending a few weeks-… forget it.”

“… Uh- look, I want to talk more about this, but Dave’s telling me to stop talking so he can sleep.”

“Sharing a room?”

“Kind of.  He’s on the floor.  He found it a bit too creepy to be in the same bed- now he’s getting a bit angrier.”

“Alright, I’ll let you go… I’ll make it up to you when you get back.  That’s going to be a while but there’s got to be something-“

“Lizzy, you care.  I get that.  You don’t need to prove it, I believe it already.”

“… Okay.  G’night.”

“… Night.”

### Play Traitor

**Timeline: Second Year, Winter**

Lizzy, Zen, Tess, and Siera were sitting in the blonde chipmunk’s new college dorm.  After graduating, Siera had invited Tess and her friends to hang out between the semesters, if only because they hadn’t actually gotten to see her dorm yet.  It was evening, with each gripping a warm drink as they lounged the couches.  They had intended to play games or watch a movie, but the conversation had become too engaging to start on the intended activities.

“I guess the scariest thing that happened to me was… honestly it’s hard to choose from all that’s happened this last year.” The green chameleon shook his head.  “Honestly I feel like nothing scares me at this point, but… not in a good way.  Like, I’d prefer to be scared because, because at least then, I can react and try to defend myself.  Now?”

“You feel like you’ll get stabbed in the shoulder, and you won’t feel it, or you will but you won’t have reacted to stop it?” The black cat offered.

“Pretty much.”

“You’re all way too depressing.” Siera sighed.  “I should have expected a bunch of vigilante justice ‘super heroes’ would have something dark or depressing as opposed to ‘Oh no, spiders!’.”

“Well, Tess hasn’t said anything yet.” Zen rolled his head to his sister in a tired fashion.

The yellow chameleon immediately sat down her drink and stiffened in the face of all the faces.  “… Well, I mean, it’s not because of all this ‘crime-fighting’ stuff, but it’s weird.  Y-you’ll just think it’s weird.”

“Yeah.  Weirder than a spirit in your family heirloom that whispers to you sometimes.” Lizzy immediately dismissed.  Seeing her friend turning away at this comment, the feline winced a bit.  “… Alright, what is it, Tess?”

Tess didn’t actually want to share about this, contrary to how open she normally was in social interactions.  After a few seconds of no one moving on, she accepted her fate.  “I wasn’t really scared exactly.  It was kind of like an… what’s the wo- elongated!  It was like an elongated jump-scare; like someone jumping in your face and going ‘boo!’ but you’re kind of stuck in that moment of confusion.”

Siera peered a bit.  “Wait… I think I know where this is going.  Meredith?”

Tess nodded, but her brother asked “Meredith?  Wait, we haven’t seen her in like, two years?”

“You don’t know what happened?” Siera’s peer went tighter, now focused on the male twin of the two chameleons.

“I never asked?  People change frien-“

“Okay, what happened, Tess?” Lizzy held her arms out.

Tess leaned back now.  “We went to a play.  I don’t really remember the name.  Meredith invited me- she invited both of us.  Siera was there too.”

“So I was there?” inquired Zen.

“Yeah.  Meredith was sitting next to me while we watched.  It was a nice play; holiday romance and all that.  They started to sing at one point, and I started to hear Meredith singing  with the people on stage.  I didn’t really know the words, but I decided to follow along anyway.  Meredith kept looking at me with this smile, and I thought she just wanted me to sing too.  I smiled back while following, but then I saw her stand up.  I didn’t get what was happening.  Honestly I thought maybe she was going to dance, but she just walked up on to the stage… then I noticed she had one of those ear-piece thingies.”

“So… she was part of the play?” Lizzy asked.

“And that’s what scared me…” Tess sighed after a good ten seconds, seeing that she would need to explain further.  “I felt… tricked.  It was like a mean trick, that’s what I thought at least.  One second, I was just with a friend, and we were being casual, but it turned out she didn’t just want me there as a friend.  She wanted me to be at something she was a part of, and she hid that from me.  I felt used… I know!  I know it sounds silly!  I know it- it’s an overreaction.  I couldn’t stop thinking about how she could pull off her face and show she was an alien or something… and I didn’t… really talk to her much after that.  The worst part is that she didn’t talk to me either.  I avoided her a bit and she picked up, but she didn’t try to talk to me.  She probably didn’t want to hurt my feelings.  She moved on, literally moving away, and I’m probably just a faint memory now.”

Tess stood up now, and walked to the exit of the dorm.  “I still feel kind of angry and… tense when I think about it.  I know I shouldn’t…”