Nightmares Vs Magic

They don't usually appear during the day, they mostly gather when it's dark, just ignore the ones crawling near the doors as you enter a building, don't acknowledge them, and you'll be fine. Even the ones that look grabby or bitey.

The Asian food court place was a new place still unheard of and a little further down Maine, a singular building with stalls inside, or more like different counters to order different types of Asian food.

Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, and even Indian.

Dove volunteered to find a table while they all went to go order, feeling overwhelmed in an unfamiliar place, especially since she did like Asian food, and everything everywhere smelled good. Vernon sat with her, also not liking the unfamiliar, cold place where he barely saw a pot plant. He thought there was one on a counter, but he immediately knew it was fake.

Annabelle is Celtic and has mostly been part of the Western world, but that didn't stop her from going off on her own to each food stall to order something small but different.

"She said she was ordering for us; I hope she doesn't like overly spicy."

"She does." Vernon said to Dove, the girl was resigned to hearing that.

"One time, she came up to the garden to ask if there were any pepper plants. I don't grow any pepper plants yet, but I currently grow herbs and oranges, and carnivorous eaters, and other things that I'm not allowed to talk about outside of the garden's vicinity." He said, fiddling with the soft fabric of the sleeves he had rolled up earlier when working on the bushes before.

Dove sat across from him on the table, feeling relaxed listening to him, then staring at the pot plant he brought. 

It was only soil for now.

"Joon doesn't like spicy food."

"He doesn't?"

"No, he likes mild, but he asked if I was growing any mint leaves, he likes the smell of those."

Dove hummed as she looked at the soil in the pot.

"What's growing in here?"

"Nothing yet, this was an experiment I was working on before they pulled me out here. I'm not planning to fully talk about it yet, but so far it's holding some seeds for flowers I'm not very fond of." 

The two eccentrics finally came back, both carrying completely different trays.

Joon's had milder food, pot stickers and a couple bento looking plastic trays, Annabelle however had a tray carrying a still boiling, mini hot pot. The smell could reach far.

Dove frantically stood up to go find some utensils or napkins as the trays were set down, getting the instinct that the sauces were going to be very messy. She also stared at the clock on her phone in the process.

Joon has careful hands, of course he does. Good for crafting practice models with just cardboard and paper, and chopsticks. Although, that wouldn't stop the pot stickers from occasionally slipping and falling into the dipping sauce.

"Blame it on the cooks purposefully folding the dough in a way that's difficult to grab." He grits his teeth while holding back a smile, also finding this funny.

"I don't think there's any beneficial reason for why they would purposefully fold it like that, the cooks simply make the food by following the instructions they were given. Restaurants are too busy to make any different decisions like that unless they want to risk slowing down work." Vernon replied thoughtlessly, picking up a piece of kimbap. 

Joon purposefully picked him one that didn't have avocado in it.

He grumbled when Annabelle teased him about owning up to his own inability to properly use chopsticks... Not like she was doing any better, she has so far just stabbed everything instead of picking it up, subtly pretending like she's a hunter as she tries to stab a piece of fried fish in the deeply red-hot soup.

The other customers, mostly Asians, some were staring at her, and I felt like shrinking.

"Watch your hair." Dove said quietly as she got a spare hair tie out of her suit pocket, handing it over for the girl to use, to which the girl rejected so Dove had to walk around the table, and put the braided rope hair into a shorter bundle to prevent it from falling into the soup or food.

She ended up grabbing just a bit more napkins that she hoped wasn't a disturbing amount for a customer to grab to clean the table later. She stared at some spots of soup that spilled out as they were all eating. She too ended up spilling a bit of water during the bits of daydreaming that occurred to her in this relaxing event, observing the mess, the napkins she grabbed and a janitor cleaning some of the messy, empty tables a good few yards away.

A tired face and slightly slouched shoulders, yet a smile for passersby who wave or speak to them. 

Are they doing that on impulse as a customer service worker, or are they genuinely happy to socialize? Or could it be them trying desperately to hide their negative feelings? She has no ghost looming over her shoulder.

"An even more unlikely theory than Joon's spiteful chefs one, would be that the chefs purposefully make food that is easy to make a mess of, so as to make more work for the janitors, and that would either be a slightly kind, or very rude thing of them to do, depending on how the janitors are paid. But then again, also very unlikely, as in this world it takes too much effort to do anything out of what work already requires of you." She said quietly, looking off into the distance where the Janitor just was.

She turns her head and feels unnerved by their heads that have leaned in, clearly listening.

Annabelle hummed in interest.

"Well, a very small detail but if it were true, then I think it'd be very nice if they knew the janitor might get canned for not being useful enough."

"They do take a lot of janitors for granted nowadays."

Dove blinked surprised, humming to herself as she continued eating one of the mild plastic bento trays Joon chose.

"Thanks for humoring me."

"I think I like your dry humor so far." Joon said, to which Dove was speechless.

How was I supposed to respond to that without ruining it?

"This is twigim, it's really good. Here, eat it with these rice cakes too." He said as he pushed it towards her.

The rice cakes were covered in this orange sauce, it smelled a bit spicy but tasted mild, tangy and perfectly salted. I wish I was able to try more unique foods when I was little.

She made no objections and had since been trying to carefully eat it with the chopsticks she is still getting used to holding, but it was easy.

A person just needs to hold it the way they would hold a pencil, just with an extra finger.

"I was worried you two would get a lot."

"I was going to, but then I saw this." Annabelle gestured to the pot on her tray filled with red soup that was just now cooling down, having almost picked all the fish filets out, the vegetables were too difficult to stab in the soup, she had to eat those normally.

The smiling blonde would stab some pieces, holding her chopstick up like a skewer and eating them like that, almost forgetting the rice, even putting some pieces on the others plates every now and then. There was a lot. Vernon would take the ones Annabelle gave him and put them on Dove's tray, when it became too much for her, she would take some and put them on Joon's, Joon had already pushed one of the bowls of noodles he ordered towards Annabelle.

"Do you not like rice?"

"I just can't stand the texture, usually if I didn't have a choice, I'd just mash them down more."

"They're fully cooked, see." Dove leaned over to pick up some with her chopsticks, squishing the few grains with ease and letting them fall back on the tray, they made no sound, unlike rice that isn't fully cooked.

Fully cooked rice is squishable and doesn't make clattering sounds when it falls. I remember learning that, it made me sort of happy to be able to share that knowledge for once.

"No, I know, but I still don't like the texture."

"Alright then, I'll take them." Joon said as Dove passed them to him across the table.

Dove helped with cleaning and took that as her chance to collect the receipts for each of the meals the two ordered, doing the math and memory in her head as she pocketed the receipts, stacking up the bowls and wiping down the table. Annabelle was looking for a place to place the trays as Joon helped her to wipe down the table.

"Should probably avoid sauce next time." She murmured mostly to herself.

"The tasty sauce is worth cleaning up the mess." He murmured back to her.

I feel I should add that sure it was a bit messy, and I was a little embarrassed being there, but I was still giddy- I was actually invited to and had a good time eating lunch with people I barely met! I was afraid I messed it up with my weird thought, but I think we're all weird. This was my first time hanging out with company like this! We even talked about a stupid theory like the chefs and their whole- making food slippery so customers make a mess for the janitor. Who would talk about something stupid like that? Apparently, we did, I made probably the dumbest theory about it, but no one looked or talked down on me for it.

She pulls her wallet out of her suit jacket's pockets as they leave the food court, even the type to keep cash on for convenience, and pulls out the calculated amount for the bento she ate, handing it to Joon.

He gives her a weird look.

"Huh?"

"Uh, it's to pay you for the rice cakes and stuff?"

"Oh, nah no need! I'm not the one in college, you drove us here anyway."

"Oh that's right..." Annabelle said out of her daze after feeling the wind.

The silver-haired girl puts her money away hesitantly as she thinks to herself.

Around the corner of the food court, she spots some kind of bush thing moving, no one else gave it any attention, some walked disturbingly close to it. It looked like it had eyes. Dove started ushering everyone to their seats.

This one looked like it had a fully stitched face, and took great effort in opening it's eyes, but it did to look at us.

"I don't think I've seen any of you anywhere around campus during the spring semester." She says as Dove leads them back to the car, looking over the seats before letting Annabelle hop in again.

Joon wanted to do the same but his prosthetic bends just slower than his other knee and he didn't want to be rude in kicking the vehicle.

Annabelle, ever the graceful being, somehow avoids hitting the seats with her shoes, more graceful than any human, hopping into the front passenger seat.

"I dropped out, didn't really hang out much with anyone anyway. That's probably why you never heard of me, if we were in high school though, that would be a different story."

Dove was in her own world as she listened to them, starting her car gently, the vehicle model was built stronger than most modern cars, but she worries for the engine even though there's never been an issue before.

Vernon goes to a different university that specializes in horticulture, he's still taking the summer semester as he wanted to keep his routine the same, Joon dropped out, but he used to major in engineering, Annabelle is currently majoring in Psychology, and she's already signed up for a minor in theater arts-

"Hello!"

The girl let out an annoyed sound as she focuses back on the road.

"Don't scream like that, what if I jerk the wheel?"

She simply shrugs.

"Sorry but you weren't listening."

"I was, just not to the right things I guess."

"What are you majoring in?" The tall blonde asked, to which the company became silent.

Dove took a deep breath in.

"I'm not in college, I'm just working right now."

The silence then disappeared as Annabelle tilted her head.

"Why did it take you so long to say that? Sheesh. Well, might be a good choice, I have no idea what I'm doing!" She said before cackling carelessly.

Dove grimaced for her out of concern, and in thinking of herself in her place.

The last time I did something long term without a full plan, I damn near wanted to bury myself.

"I just took the semester off because I wanted my summer freedom."

"If you're the type of person for freedom, then why did you sign up for college? You're gonna graduate poor, when the money you're earning now could be used for traveling." Joon told her in a symphonic-teasing voice as he leaned back in the back seat with Vernon, taking in the wind without having to lean his head past the car door.

"Character development obviously! Besides, I have to look like one of the normal people, no matter how many dumb choices they make financially and medically. Although, I guess another reason is because my mother said it would give me something different to be proud of, since she said college was hard"

"I don't usually feel proud after achieving a goal if the process was bad and sucked, I'll just remember that it sucked, and even when my mother will ask, 'aren't you proud of yourself?', I tell her, 'No, my body hurts, and I forgot the whole reason I did this for'. I can't finish a goal if I know I won't like the process."

The girl driving hummed to herself, gripping the old-style steering wheel.

"Yeah, I can't either..."

She tried to rush back into the building after parking, unfortunately she was yanked back as Annabelle pulled her phone out.

"Here." She held her phone up.

Dove jerked back, her brain nearly having an error at the fast social interaction.

"Your number." Annabelle said as she shook her phone in Dove's face, showing the screen to be on a page to input the number into new contacts.

"Oh..."

The silver haired girl looked at the two boys who shrugged.

"She has ours too so it's only fair."

Right, she's pretty eccentric, definitely already had their numbers since she met them first.

Dove doesn't usually say no, in fear of a lot of things, not unless she could feel something wrong, which was ironic because she did feel something different with Annabelle. How she felt oddly worried about answering yes or no to the tall blonde, the way the girl seemed to have a powerful alluring presence yet an unnerving smile, like a Cheshire cat waiting to pounce. 

Her hair swayed like rope after she took off the hair tie and gave it back to me, so long that if she undid her braid, she could tie her hair into a noose.

Dove rushed inside the building after typing in her number and only that. Annabelle wanted to urge her to type in her email address too, but it didn't work on her.

She rushed back inside Macabre House, feeling oddly safe behind its doors. 

Of course I could tell how safe the building was, considering it worked like a repellant, keeping those other entities away and I never saw any inside, at least the ones that weren't invited.

Two of them took the lift while Dove willingly took the stairs, enjoying the few minutes of peace, and surprisingly with company for once.

Vernon continued to list all the plants with a silver appearance that her hair reminded him of, until he then listed a different color of flower.

"Balloon flower."

"Huh?" Dove said, shifting her body to face him as they paused on the stairs.

"Scorpion grasses?"

He tilts his head staring at her eyes, Dove didn't know that. She couldn't see his eyes behind his hair. She tilts her head along with him and hums.

"Virginia bluebells maybe."

"...."

"Borage?... No..." He walks off on his own, a hand up to hold his chin as he mutters to himself, trudging up the rest of the stairs, forgetting her presence.

Dove shrugs, feeling a bit bothered as she wanted to hear him talk more. 

The girl wiped her mouth with the back of her hand one more time to check for any food remnants before entering the door on the fourth flight of stairs.

There was more noise, evidence that some of the other workers had come back from their cases, or there were people visiting from the other floors. The girl breathed in and out, holding herself upon entering.

A tall, dark and handsome man in a lab coat was seen talking to Laurance at one of the desks, leaning against the desk with one hand as they both looked at the screen for something.

She chose not to bother them as she tried to dodge the other people kindly, getting to the filing room.

"Welcome back Dove, did you enjoy your lunch?"

The girl's spine shivered as she halted in place, hearing Bence's voice.

He had changed into a new suit with a redder tone, patterns of roses aligned on the collared lines of his jacket piece, and a small skull sat in his pocket square.

He was holding his book, previously having a discussion with a Dutch woman who was wearing a customized suit of her own, designed as an outfit with pants and a coat with a tail, tailored to expose her back, revealing an intricate, spinal tattoo. Her book, unlike his skull one, had the words, 'Captum', etched onto it.

It looked like they changed into different outfits for a new case to go on.

Dove restrained herself from also seeing the snake and centipede tattoos on the woman's exposed arms.

"It was nice. Were you two able to enjoy your lunch break?" She asked formally.

The beautiful Dutch lady chuckled at the young girl's lingering eyes.

"I'm not a lunch type of person, but it was a nice break thank you."

She turns to Bence.

"I better get going now. New Jersey is gonna be a wreck when I get back."

"I'm sure they will, but at least that state seems more put together than New York."

She sighs, shaking her head as she heads to the elevator.

"New Jersey?" Dove muttered to herself, standing in place as she watched the woman go.

"Her name is Merel. She's one of our Night guards; her designated area is New Jersey." Bence adjusted the skull book in his hands and went to his desk, waking up his desktop.

"Poor thing, got one of the humid states."

The girl hummed to herself, getting back to walking to the files room, before stopping again and deciding to try some small talk with someone she was growing trust in.

"Her short wavy hair, she looked like Marilyn Monroe to me."

The necromancer gave her a curious smile, leaning on his interlocked hands.

"Really? You're the first person to think that." 

I felt a little giddy when he said that. Being the first for anything felt like a tiny win, even though no one else would care.

"It's, her hair mostly, I guess."

The man propped his elbows on his desk and rested his chin on his folded hands thinking and humming.

"Ah, that would explain it. Don't know how I never noticed, I'm very meticulous."

"Maybe because she wasn't a corpse." Said a very handsome, hollow voice.

The handsome man in the lab coat had finished his conversation with Laurence and had been eavesdropping on theirs out of boredom.

His smirk that complimented the rest of his handsome features as he watched Bence's playful sneer.

"I'm sorry but I highly doubt you can be meticulous with how much I have to repair your exoskeletons, example the one today?"

"Maybe if you actually let the intern on your floor do more than just copy how to design prototypes, he can take over and make the exoskeletons for you. Then you won't have to bother with them." Bence tilted his head in a disturbing smile towards the scientist.

The handsome man, with brilliant dark skin, seemed to fume a bit as he smiled back forcibly.

"You're saying my designs are faulty?"

Dove wasn't afraid more that she felt the need to keep herself out of this as she backed away from the both of them. She could feel Laurence grab her shoulders and turn her around so they could both leave the two to have the whole for their sarcastic and mocking banter.

"If you say I managed to break them so often that you're complaining about repairing them a lot, then maybe the problem isn't me anymore."

He led her to the filing room, where he silently confirmed that the inner lock really is so that some people can just have a silent moment in the most comforting room on the floor.

"Is the lock necessary?" Dove asked, her voice near raspy with how quiet she was speaking.

"Maybe, hopefully not." The detective looked between her and the door lock, hands on his hips.

"But it's best we don't test the theory of simply standing in the same room as them. I honestly thought Bence was still changing, he's getting quicker every time. I should bell that man somehow." He muttered mostly to himself.

Dove awkwardly looked down and away, looking wherever or just searching around the room through the cabinet file of old cases.

"You sure don't question much." 

Dove seemed to purse her lips as she frowned and kept her back to him. 

"I learned I'd have an easier time if I just didn't. Besides, even if I did get the answers, what else is there? If I don't like it, there's not much I can do, I certainly won't try to argue with anyone about it." She said much more honestly than she'd like and proceeded to bite her tongue as she pressed a hand against her regretful expression, digging the nails into her face. 

The man with tan-brown hair eyed her actions as he studied her words, crossing his arms and leaning against the bookshelf. 

"You lost your motivation too?"

"... I guess you could say that..." She responded, taking out some files from the files in the Detective/Alchemist category, curious of it.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO GATHER THE MATERIALS FOR THESE EXOSKELETONS?" The hollow voice, now a booming voice, could be heard down the hall from the main room.

Laurence huffed in annoyance as he covered his ears, checking on Dove who had dropped some papers on the floor in surprise.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO HAVE TO SCALE AN OLD BUILDING WITHOUT FALLING, JUST TO CHASE SOME CULTISTS? ALL WHILE DODGING THEIR DAMN SACRIFICIAL THROWING KNIVES??"

Dove shrank from the noise as she leaned against the edge of the filing drawer, covering her ears tightly and sliding down, sitting in a fetus position, the booming voices sending chills down her spine, she was almost in a daze.

"I'm really sorry about this kid, they don't always fight." 

"... It's okay, everyone fights, this shouldn't be surprising at all. It'll pass. It always ends eventually..."

Dove's chest rose and fell just a bit more gently as she watched him, wondering if he was actually searching or simply making noise to cancel out the voices outside. Then she heard him curse to himself.

"Is everything ok?"

"Yeah, I just realized Sienna was going to come visit today." He groaned into both his hands, rearing his head up to the ceiling.

"If they're still yelling when she and her buddies get here..."

The girl listened to him intently, then crawling over to press her ear against the door, wondering about any more noise outside.

"Don't act like you didn't always like being reckless before! You're still the same apocalypse loving guy who likes causing trouble!"

"Look who's talking?! Just a year ago, you'd have been making a new weapon, and now you won't even let your intern make cardboard stuff without watching him!"

"You have no idea the thoughts running through my head each time I see him go through my lab! He is a hyper and easily distracted boy"

Dove blinked as she thought of an idea while Laurence ruffled his neat hair, pacing in the room, looking down at some papers that never got organized.

Old cases regarding items and other such weapons or odd inventions.

She crawled over to pick those up, looking at the names and titles, flipping them over, almost getting distracted by the smell of the old pages as she stacked them together.

The girl stood up and unlocked the door, the noises becoming as quiet as brown noise to her as she moved with purpose down the hall, taking deep breaths with every quick step in her power walk. She pressed the button for the elevator as soon as she entered the main room again.

"I've seen you deal with worse!"

"Yes! Yes! And it's all thanks to the time you tried to-"

"Do not bring that up again! It was years ago!"

Papers divided into two stacks were shoved into both the men's arms as she then silently grabbed both of them by the sleeves, keeping her head low and pulling them to the elevator, just as the doors opened in time.

"Dove what are-"

"We have visitors coming soon, please have your conversation elsewhere." She blurted out in a customer-service-like voice, pressing the 5th floor button and stepping out, running away and not daring to look back as the two men called out to her in confusion through the closing doors.

The girl ran all the way back to the filing room, slamming the door behind her as she leaned against it and slid down again. Anxious.

Laurence stared down at her curiously, holding one of the books labeled psychology.

"Are you alright?"

Dove pondered the words to herself as she stuttered out.

"Do... Does Bence and the Scientist, do they get angry easily?... With other people? Do you think they are the type for scolding others for interrupting conversations?" She asked, mostly afraid for herself.

The detective stared down at her, seemingly grinning to himself as he gently closed the book, putting it back on the shelf.

"No kid, they have to be strong people, but they would never hurt others when fighting each other. I choose wisely."

"Huh?"