Homesick

II. The Puppet Show

TWO.
The Puppet Show / 5 July, 2010
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If someone was to tell Mi-rae Noe that on the humid night of 2010's Fourth of July - and in the early hours of the following morning - that she would watch as a building caves in around her; she would have just stayed in bed. Complaining about some debilitating ailment to her boss, and ignored the outside world for a week.

As she walked through the main hall of the over-the-top mansion she'd lived in for over four years of her life, she found herself remembering every detail. Every step, path and dead end she'd come across. Every face, masked or not, of the people she'd temporarily allied herself to.

Her mind was an almost perfect re-enactment of everything that happened. Every single thing.

The place she lived in was just how you'd expect an extravagant mansion to look. Money was never a hindrance to her benefactor, somehow his business behind the mask was always thriving, even if she didn't exactly know what he did. She'd stopped asking at thirteen, and he'd still refused to tell her. A good work ethic is when you do nothing but your work, keep your head down, and stay out of other people's stuff.

As she came to a stop at the grand staircase, that split halfway up and branched in two opposite directions, with its spotless red carpet, she was looked down by Sicarius' usual masked glare. The taller woman stood where she always did, centre stage beside His Self-declared Majesty Lord Zephyr.

Putting Mi-rae in her place. Reminding her what she was; always a rabbit. That's what they had been all along, all six of them. Puppets, in someone else's show.

Who the Puppeteer was, was something they still didn't know.

"So," Zephyr asked nonchalantly from beneath the decorative mask that covered his entire face; as if he was capable of ever being calm, even if it was two in the morning, "how did it go?" Eyes stalked her from around the room, Zephyr's guards lurking on the upper level, Sicarius' death stare, and common thugs he occasionally hired out swarming every door.

A breath. That's all it took for her to collect her thoughts, disconnect fact from fiction, and calm her irregular heartbeat.

No kid should have a life spent hidden in the dark. Not even her.

Four hours earlier.

"Do you have a plan, or are we just going to run around like headless chickens?" The child Mi-rae had 'kidnapped' queried.

She wasn't wrong though, Mi-rae had absolutely no idea where they were going, and the thing the kid was so adamant about bringing along was creeping her out. Especially since this girl was insistent on having it perch on her shoulder.

Its non-blinking bug eyes were disturbing.

"Do you have one?" She bit back. They'd been trying to stay as hidden from sight as possible; crouch, crawl, walk. Except they had no destination. "Because I'm sorry if I'm drawing a blank here!"

It had been a complete surprise when the girl had agreed to help her in the first place. She'd put on an old oversized lab coat and told her to lead the way, with strange blue eyes glistening directly at her.