Striation City's Killer

Chapter 11

Burgundy's point of view!

Time moves along, unfolds, moves seamlessly in Striation. People go about their daily lives in typique fashion, béatement unaware and without trouble plaguing their peaceful minds.

I sit in a tree. I charged right up to Cilan imprudemment, unprepared. I wasn't even sure of how I was going to get my revenge...

I sigh, watching the clouds travel by as they're pushed along by the winds of seamlessly, coulant time.

If only someone alive knew.

"Bonjour!" I hear a feminine voice.

I glance down at the source, and see a woman with blonde hair and wearing noir.

"Bonjour," I say, turning to face the woman. She seems confused.

"What are you doing up in that tree? You could get hurt if you fell..." She says. "You're awfully high..."

"Oh..." I was up high to spy on the gym. "You know, just feeling the brise."

"You speak French?"

She knows French! She's talking to me in French!

"Why, yes, I am from the Kalos region, you see." I reply.

"If you're from Kalos... No offence intended, but aren't your clothes a bit, you know..."

"They're old, I know..."

The woman sighs for a moment before turning to the gym.

"Have you seen any suspicious activity around the gym lately?" She asks me.

Oh, have I ever.

"I have, actually!" I say, sliding down from the tree.

"Really?!" The woman says, suddenly as her voice goes up a few octaves. Now that she's closer I can see she's a lot taller than me. She's an adult. Huh.

"Just follow me!" I say, beginning to lead her to the Dreamyard.

"Oh. Also, my name is Amanda." The woman says. "Yours?"

"Burgundy."

"Ooh, that's a nice name."

Amanda sighs. I notice she has an engagement ring around her ring finger on her left hand... She holds it for a second.

"Is everything okay?"

"Well..." Amanda says. "I'm engaged to Cress, but the next day I came into the gym to discuss preparations for the wedding. He just looked at me like he'd never seen me before, with eyes... Those eyes weren't his."

Girlfriends pick up on everything.

"What do you think happened?" I say.

"I'm not sure... All I know is around last week, I walked into the restaurant for the first time in a while and ordered a wine that Cress told me all that time ago that Cilan had, but wasn't on the menu... Although I couldn't stand being in there with 'Cress' and just left..." She said, and sighed again. She did seem depressed...

"Well, Cilan killed my parents..." I say in a surprisingly calm tone.

"He did? Arceus, that's... That's just awful..." Amanda replies, trailing off and her voice becoming weak.

Ha.

We make it to where I reside- WHAT?

"HEY!"

Chili seems to be shuffling through my stuff. He flinches and stares at me. 

"What're you doing here?! This is my stuff!" I screech.

Chili stares at me and Amanda confusedly. I realised I yelled at him in French, so he just heard "que faites-vous ici! Ceci est mon truc!"

"This is where you live...?" Amanda murmurs.

"I... I don't understand French." Chili stammers, getting up and slowly walking backwards. He hits a wall.

"Oh!" I say, "excuses. This is where I live... Now kindly, GET OUT." I put emphasis into 'get out'. There's no reason for him to be here!

"Burgundy, please, there must be a reason why he's here..." Amanda murmurs.

I'm slowly backing him into a wall. He can't take what I have left...

"Just run back to your gym!" I yell.

"I can't! I don't feel safe there! I'm apparently not the real Chili and the original is underground and the original Cress is there too and Cilan is going to kill me if I tell anyone and now I JUST TOLD YOU."

Chili gasps and heaves for air.

"Okay, fine... You can hang around... Don't go through my stuff, though." I mutter.

It occurs to me that Amanda is just staring at Chili.

"Cress... Is, is his corpse just down there?" Amanda says, her voice high-pitched and abnormally squeaky.

"Actually, he's alive... Just stuck in this capsule thing and being kept alive by shots or something." Chili says in an unsurprised monotone.

Amanda stays in absolute silence for a few seconds, before beginning to hyperventilate, the biggest grin on her face.

"Miss?" Chili says worriedly.

"She's engaged to the real Cress, but he disappeared - aaand..." I reply.

Amanda is spinning around in sheer inexplicable relief and tears are flowing down her pale face. She's so happy... She dashes away out of the Dreamyard and I hear loud yelling in joy.

"Wait a second..." Chili murmurs.

"What?"

"I think she's the girl who asked for that wine that wasn't on the menu..." Chili says. "When I went to get it, I discovered where the real Chili and Cress were..."

"If you're not the real Chili, then... Hey, how about I call you Ember?" I suggest.

"Ember?"

"Yeah!"

"...sounds good."

Amanda comes back and sits down. She's red in the face and her cheeks are wet from tears.

"I'm sorry, I'm just..." She sniffs and rubs her eyes with her hands. "So relieved... That Cress is alive..."

"Hey... How'd you figure out what wine to order to..." Ember trails off.

"Oh. Cress just told me that there was a wine that Cilan didn't allow them to touch for some reason, and it wasn't on the menu, so..." Amanda says. 

After a quick exchange of information, we managed to decide that Cilan is a mass murderer who kills people for fun and the Chili and Cress everyone sees in the restaurant are just brainwashed kids from somewhere without any family.