TheProphecyTrilogy : Message: [TheProphecyTrilogy] FIC: Daughter of Chaos (6/?)

PREMONITION (2)

After her short visit at the St. Andrew's Sanitarium Ms Rosenberg had
returned home in a quite upset mood. The disapproving attitude her lover's
daughter had taken up towards her was an irritating element of her
relationship with him. Usually she had not been that tolerant when Luna had
formerly made similar attempts to seperate the two of them. But since
yesterday, when Mr. Riley had asked her to finally pay a visit to his ill
daughter, who was jealosy incarnate, she had admonished herself again and
again not to react on the gibings of her self-styled enemy, in order to not
excite her too much in her bad condition - and above all not to be forced to
listen to her lover's reproaches.

What hadn't she already tried to at least win Luna's acceptance! - Since to
the degree this one defied her, the hope to win her sympathy was sheer utopy.
Ms Rosenberg had always tried to make her understand that she had no
intention to compete with her in her father's life, and she had been more
than patient for a long time while Luna kept on regarding her as some sort of
enemy. And although the girl left no stone unturned to make her take to her
heels, the woman had started to feel sympathy and some sort of responsebility
for her. She could very well understand how traumatic it must have been for
her to lose her mother and how desperately she clinged to the only remaining
parent now. Luna was at an age when one was normally seeking for more
independence from one's parent's home indeed, but obviously a very strong
bond had formed between father and daughter after Mrs. Riley's death, which
the girl defended against everbody who dared to push himself into that little
family. And her way of defence against such "mischief-makers" was a very
subtle and obstinate one.

Even now in her weak condition she maintained that defence. Thus she had
payed just as little attention to the picture the artist had given to her as
a present as well as to its creator. To think of her maybe being able to pay
almost the whole rent for her studio from this picture, the girl's behaviour
was so much the annoying for Ms Rosenberg. But however, the artist could not
bring herself to now dislike Luna just as that one seemed to dislike her.
Deep inside she could understand the motives which made the teenage girl act
the way she did and she could sympathize a part of her pain and her anger on
the whole world bursting with vitality. The thought of that obstinate but
also charming and independent young woman maybe losing the fight against that
proliferating thing in her head made her very sad. It would be almost as
terrible as if she lost a child of her own, when she would have to see the
unbounded pain and grief in the eyes of her lover, who then would already
have lost the second loved person and the last part of his formerly intact
family life.

Would she be the mainstay he would need then? Would she be able to fill the
emptiness Luna's death would surely leave; she, the capricious and only
average succesful artist, who considered a shabby and usually vacant house as
her home, whose rooms were filled with paintings, painting utensils,
sculptures and tools up to the ceiling and which she proudly called her
studio? Would she not rather need his support, although it should be the
other way round? - Yes, once, before she had met him, she had been free and
independent, not caring about anybody's needs than her own, now she was
nothing without him.

While thinking so, she let down her long black hair from the knot that had
become her workday hairdo, and brushed them in front of a battered mirror, in
which she could hardly see her reflection since the day was drawing to a
close.

Using the light switch, she noticed, that something was wrong about it. Damn
it, no current again! If I just had payed that damn current bill!

Fortunately, she had - as a precaution - provided herself with whole bundles
of candles, since she had't experienced this for the first time. Although she
already economized on everything, the profit from the sell of her art
occassionally was not even sufficient to pay the living extras. A
freelancer's life was hard, that she had already been told at the university
she had studied at, against her parents' will. "Unemployed arts" they had
always called it, and although the "unemployed artist" mostly denied it, she
had long ago realized that they obviously had been right.

Now she lighted the candles she had prudently spread over the whole flat,
that actually was almost like one single big room, some sort of appartment.
This kind of illumination maybe wasn't able to compete with electrical light,
but instead of that the flat was more cosy now and the disorder that had
spread itself in it over the years now virtually vanished in the soft shadows
casted by the candlelight.

After she had finished this, she let herself fall into the cushions of her
somewhat old-fashioned looking couch, whose loudly creaking springs proved
that they had already gone through a lot. While she was draping her legs over
one armrest, her gaze wandered over the room lost in thought. It finally got
caught on the little art nouveau bureau she had purchased at a junk shop some
years ago. A neatly framed photo, that showed her and her lover stood on it.
It had been taken in front of the giant wheel at the last publical festival
of Phoenix about five months ago, only a few weeks after she had met him.
They'd had to ask some stranger to take this photo, since Luna, who had gone
there with them, had refused to do this as well as to be photographed with
them. Finally she had seperated from the couple shortly after they had
arrived there, telling that she preferred having fun on her own. As always
she had been succesful in spoiling their good mood, but not to the degree she
might have wished. Afterwards, inspite of that the two of them had had a lot
of fun together, as the picture still showed: two faces were smiling happily
at the beholder.

Almost half of a year had passed since then. Ms Rosenberg recalled that she
had been very angry on the girl that day; only the fact that she had gone
there to enjoy herself together with her lover had prevented her from turning
on her heel and returning home. But now she wondered if Luna might have
suffered from the consequences of the tumor in her head even then, which
could have been a more understandable reason for her meanness. At that time,
she had sometimes cursed the mere existence of the girl who constantly gave
her a hard time. It was her who had been the original reason why she had
stayed at her not very luxurious "studio" instead of moving in at her lover's
house in Paradise Valley. If that little bastard would only eventually vanish
sometime, she had thought again and again.
Now she regretted to have had such thoughts about Luna, who had maybe been
suffering at that time without any of them noticing her pain.

She certainly doesn't feel very happy now. Alone, within those cold, sterile
surroundings, the only remaining loved person visiting her only one or two
times a week. Plus constant headaches. - How would I feel if I were her?

Now she remembered again how concerned the doctor's facial expression had
been when he'd come into the sick-room, interrupting the somewhat frosty
family meeting. Apparently, there had been problems concerning Luna's process
of healing. Her father had pinned all his hope on the new treating methods
that had been developed against serious forms of cancer by the doctors of the
sanitarium in Mesa. She'd let him infect her with his optimism concerning his
daughter's chances of being cured. Although one could not claim that she
liked Luna too much, however, she had felt very relieved when learning that
most of the people treated at the St. Andrew's Sanitarium had been cured from
cancer. Just like her lover she had reckoned with a soon onset of first
effects of the therapy, but the first positive results they had hoped for
seemed to have kept them waiting so far, if they had not even failed to
materialize. Anyway, she couldn't recall that - since she had learned of
Luna's admission to the sanitarium- she had received a message from her lover
saying anything else.

The misgivings she'd had when she'd left the room while the doctor had made
his report was creeping over her again, demanding her getting clarity for
herself. So she grabbed her mobile and by simply finding it in its memory she
dialed Mr. Riley's business number without giving it much thought, hoping to
not interrupt him at something important. Relieved she noticed that it wasn't
so, because his secretary passed her on without much questioning. But only
after over one minute, that seemed like half of an eternity to her, he
finally answered the phone.

"Hello, this is Riley," a quite matter-of-fact sounding voice answered.

"Hi, Henry, it's me."

"Oh, Yase, my angel, it's you." - He seemed to be relieved when hearing her
voice, his voice getting warmer now.- "I wouldn't have guessed you'd call the
next few days..."

"Why so?" she asked with pretended surprise.

"Oh, I just thought you'd be angry on me, 'cause I wheedled you into visiting
Luna with me. Honestly, if I'd known that she'd be that hostile -"

"You needn't apologize for her, darling. We both know that she does this just
to hide her weakness from us."

"Do you really think so? I didn't know that you suddenly judge her so
mildly..."

"Well, I've just thought about her a bit. For this reason I called you,
'cause I want to know how she is. What did the doctor tell you?"

For a while an embarrassed silence reigned at the other end of the line,
before a voice that was striving for composure answered.

"Nothing pleasant, honey. They've already tried everything possible, but
obviously the treatment doesn't help. That tumor is still growing instead of
vanishing. Doctor Johnson gives her not more than 6 weeks..."

"Oh my god, how terrible!" the woman exclaimed. "But how's that possible?
Didn't you tell me the therapy would work to almost 90 percent?"

"Nobody has an explanation for this. - The only thing certain is that my
dauhgter is dying!"

These last words he had virtually screamed into the receiver, making her
eardrum hurt. And shortly after this she believed to hear a continuous, in
vain suppressed sob at the other end of the line. The man whose self-control
and strenght of character she had always admired as now completely desperate
and helpless.

Never before had she seen him cry, but just to hear him doing so was already
heart-rending. For the first moment she didn't know what to do or say just to
make him stop. A deep urge to hug him came over her, which made the fact that
they were seperated by a distance of several miles almost unbearable. So she
had to put all her sympathy into her voice to calm him down and finally she
managed to find some consoling words, which sputtered out of her without her
having to think about them too much. For quite a long time she talked
insistently to him that way and finally he seemed to have regained his
composure.

"Thank you," he murmured almost inaudibly, without being able to hide the
embarrasement due to his sudden emotional outburst. "It's just that..."

"Tell me," she demanded, more energetically than it was maybe suitable, but
suddenly a strange mixture of curiosity and anxiety had come over her.

"It's just that Doctor Johnson wanted to speak with me later on. But since
they called me back to the company, I lacked the time to meet him. So he
phoned me, shortly before you called me."

"And, what did he say this time?"

"He said that there were still some more complications I'd possibly have to
adapt to..."

"And this would be?"

"He said I'd have to be prepared for some more ore less noticeable changes in
Luna's behaviour. It might be that one day I enter her room and she is...like
another person."

"Can a brain tumor really cause personality changes? After all, it's only
located to the brain, not to the consciousness of the person."

"This I asked him, too. But he only said that since the brain was the
residence of consciousness that possibility existed. And it's also supposed
to have been noticed frequently."

That was really bad. Not only would this man soon lose his daughter to the
other world , no, her original personality might even die before her actual
death. Hardly was there anything more terrible than to see how more and more
of a person you knew vanished to then be substituted by a completely altered
one. Henry just didn't deserve such a thing!

She just wanted to reply something when suddenly something strange happened
to her. It started so unexpectedly and fiercely that she fell down to the
ground like hit by an invisible blow. Chaotic, blurred images appeared in her
mind, shooting through her brain with unbelieveable speed and intensity,
causing such infernal headaches that she was afraid of going insane.

It was at night. Something was falling down from the sky, impacting in
something like a half-desert scenery. - A meteroite! A glittering stone in
the centre of a hollow, that suddenly started to hover. A man, trying to get
out of the crater, but its growing walls didn't allow him to flee. A dark,
viscous liquid dropped out of a crack at the underside of the hovering
object, accumulating in a black, shining pool at the bottom of the crater.
Something like a finger came out of it, which finally took on the contours of
a human. It was growing further until it projected the crater's edge. She
could feel the panic arising in the man when two glowing, pulsating eyes
looked down on him. They seemed to shine from inside out. Then that thing
suddenenly pounced down on him, wrapping his whole figure up in a dark,
deadly mantle.

Then it was as if she was that man, who struggled for his life against that
living liquid. A never known feeling of weakness came over her while she was
diving into a dark tunnel that seemed to be endless. Through the silence,
that had enveloped her like into cotton wool, she perceived a voice, deadened
and like from a long, long distance. It called for her, horrified and
frantic. Desperately she tried to cling to it to pull herself out of the
silence and the darkness around her. And finally, there was light at the end
of the tunnel, she was drifting in its direction, eager to come back into
reality.

After a few seconds the nightmare had an end. The darkness around her had
grown thinner and finally she opened her eyes, blinking, then noticing that
she had fallen down from the couch. Her mobile was lying on the floor next to
her; obviously she had dropped it during her...attack.

Still the excited voice of her lover rang out of it. Her loud cries of pain
seemed to have disconcerted him completely. With some effort she managed to
grab the phone to report back, exhausted, but yet physically well, apart from
a strongly throbbing head.

"Everything's allright, darling. Just a little...attack." she said with a
hoarse voice.

"Attack? ATTACK? That sounded more like you were going through real torments
of hell!"

- You just don't know how right you are with that, she thought with a
suffering smile. -

"I almost called the police 'cause I thought you'd been mugged or even
worse... You really scared the hell out of me, you know that?"

"Won't happen again, I promise you," she answered weakly while rubbing her
forehead, behind which the headaches were still pounding fiercely. When she
tried to rise, she moaned as her head started swamming and hurting even more.
Maybe this was because her mind had still difficulties to digest those heaps
of impressions that she had just been inundated with.

"Are you really well, darling?" came the concerned question from the other
end of the line.

Only after she had assured him several times that she was save and relatively
well, he finally seemed to have calmed down.

"Does this happen to you frequently?" he then asked.

The artist hesitated for a moment.

"Yeah," she finally answered. "Ever since my childhood. It's some sort of
migraine, nothing serious, only occurs once in a while when you're prepared
for it the least of all..."

"Migraine? You never told me 'bout this", he stated, again with this
extremely concerned undertone.

"I didn't want you to worry about me. - Since you've got greater problems
with Luna. At first, her headaches also seemed to be just a 'migraine',
didn't they? - And furthermore you've never asked me about this, so why
should I have bothered you with my little sufferings?" she asked as
innocently as she could with that throbbing head of hers.

"I see," he uttered only, but somehow he didn't seem to be content with that
answer. "And you are really sure, that you are alright, Yase?"

"That you're surely asking me for the tenth time," the slightly irritated
reply returned. "And still I have to say that I'm well, except to the fact
that my head's gonna be exploding soon. What about finishing this
conversation for today? I'm really done in by that -"

"Attack, I see," he finished for her. "Of course, just do so. I'll phone you
tomorrow to see if you're better then. Get well soon, honey."

"Thank you, darling. I love you", she whispered.

"I love you, too. Until tomorrow..."

"Bye, bye", she said, giving him a farewell kiss through the receiver before
replacing once and for all. Now it was time to take care of her headaches.

How disappointed she was when she noticed that there were no ice cubes in her
deep-freeze compartement any more. They had melted long ago after the power
supply had been cut. Angrily she shut the refrigerator's door so that it
rattled and dragged herself back into the "living room", where she let
herself fall onto the couch, leaning back sighing, closing her eyes, waiting
for the headache vanishing by itself.

But she couldn't remain that way for long. An indefinable anxiety, that was
almost next door to panic, had seized her, as soon as she allowed the images
she had just seen come back to her mind again.

Something's very wrong here, her deepest inside warned her. Not that she
hadn't already experienced such an "attack" at an earlier time. When she had
told her lover that she had already suffered from migraine attacks during her
childhood, she had told him only one half of the truth.

Actually she had been seized with some sort of visions as long as she could
remember. Those had regularly given her insight into other spheres that were
at first incomprehensible and terrifying to her: Heaven. Images of violent
battles and crucified winged beings had appeared to her, when she was but a
small girl. With horror she had seen heaps of corpses of slaughtered angels,
whose lovely white wings were spilled with blood. Heaven resembled a sole
battlefield, that echoed with the screams of the dying warriors, who had
fallen victim to a "civil war" of envy and hatred, that had been raging for
an inconceivably long time and would maybe last for eternity.

The only way to digest that shocking knowledge had been painting. From those
quite confusing, mostly unexpectedly occuring visions she took the theme of
her abstract paintings, which, however, did not come up to the intensity of
the experienced, concerning their colouredness and luminosity. But hardly one
art critic or only relatively few gallery owners showed themselves impressed
by her art, nor were they able to interprete the depicted things correctly.
But the artist, who worked under the strange pseudonym "Yase", had not been
surprised by the hesitant reactions of her clients. Even if those people
would have known what her sources of inspiration were like, they probably
still wouldn't have understood it, however. After all, it had taken her lots
of years until she had finally understood what had been revealed to her that
way.

But what she had seen today had been different, like a warning of something
that was still going to happen. Something terrible was in store for them,
every nerve of her body sensed this - and it had something to do with her.
This worried her even more, for although she had seen how the tramp had died,
however, she had no idea who or what had actually killed him. At least she
could tell that it had been nothing human. It was not from this and also not
from the "other" world, as it seemed. But it was dangerous. Very dangerous.

But what could one actually do against such an unknown, powerful entity? Who
knows which power it held and what it intended to do on this world. Surely
nothing good. She had virtually sensed the evil that came from the entity
with the shining eyes. Those eyes - they had been glowing with such a cold
light. The light of death, she thought frightening. She had looked directly
into them and that sight had made her hair stand on end. Everything had
seemed so real... That poor guy in the crater had really been to the mercy of
this...thing. And noone except her had felt his mortal fear or heard his
screams, when it had virtually devoured him.

I gotta do something, before that thing's driving me insane.

At that thought she rose from her seat and despite her still aching head she
went up the spiral staircase that led up to her workplace, after having
"armed" herself with enough candles and a lighter. Her headache-creating
inspiration had to be turned into a proper piece of art...

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