Diantha's Gate

6

Two nights later, I found myself sitting in a booth at Steam, sipping on my trusted plum tea while considering my next move. I'd had to abandon my sacred seat; there were five of us tonight, as Lavender wasn't working for once, and we'd convinced Corinne to join us for a night out. I was told my laptop was banned from this excursion, so I instead stared intently at the game board in front of me, nearly certain that Mrs. White had used a knife to butcher the forever reviving, forever dying, Mr. Body. It was always Mrs. White, the creepy old hag. Mrs. White. White.

I began to zone out, conjuring up another image. It too was white. A white, empty face. A suit, blacker than the night itself, a contrast that made that pallid face nearly glow. The sheen of waxen flesh near the mouth's indentation forming a menacing hole.

"Are you going to roll, Nia?"

Corinne was watching me with a concerned smile. She handed me the dice, and I mentally shook myself before rolling the cubes before me. I couldn't even make it to a guessing space. After my turn was quickly concluded, she gently leaned toward me.

"You ok?" she asked under her breath, a soft smile still resting on that perfect face.

"Oh my god, are you reading my aura again?" I said with some exasperation, the others laughing at something Drew had said.

"Umm, no. You have goosebumps, and you're shivering. And you were making a face like something was hurting you. Or smelled bad. Or both. So I thought I'd check." She gave my forearm a gentle squeeze.

"Oh." I hadn't realized.

"You two whisperin' about how tantalizin' my body is?" Drew said loudly, giving Corinne an obnoxious wink. "You don't have to be shy about it, ladies- nothin' I haven't heard before."

"You don't stand a chance," Brynn said to him mercilessly. "Eventually that reality is going to make it past those pretty little curls and into that ear of yours."

"Corinne, could you do somethin' for me?" Drew ignored Brynn's comment and continued to smirk at her aunt. Before Corinne could reply he continued, "I need Brynncess to be the first you inform when you find that you've fallen irrevocably in love with me."

"I'll be sure to do that," Corinne answered. And in her sweetest voice, she asked the rest of us, "How long do you think we have before hell freezes over?"

While the girls indulged in a laugh at Drew's expense, he began nodding appreciatively. "Hard to get. I like that in a gal."

"Ok, so not to change the subject, as I can tell it's really goin' somewhere with the two of you and all," Lav says, throwing Drew a quick grin, "but, did you two-" she nodded at me and Corinne- "figure out what's going on with.... You know, the nightmares, or whatever they are?"

"Yeah, yeah," Drew said, leaning forward and replacing his laugh with a serious expression. "What do you think Nia's seein'?" We were all looking at Corinne. I didn't bother to correct Lavender's terminology. While I myself was in no way sure what to call the Faceless Man's appearances, I couldn't exactly say that the experiences weren't nightmares.

"I really can't be sure," Corinne said, looking over at me apologetically. "When Nia described him to me- the man she sees, I mean- she mentioned that he wears a hat like one her dad used to own. On one hand, that leads me to believe this entity is one that she conjures as some sort of subconscious replica of her father."

"But why wouldn't he have facial features? I mean that's just bloody creepy," Lav said, stating aloud something that had always troubled me about my own theory.