Chasing Chaos: The Rise of Chaos

Chapter 1: Restless Nights

The cat hopped smoothly and silently onto the bed and landed right on Caitlin's bladder, all four paws pressing down. Her eyes popped open immediately as an oof involuntarily escaped her lips.

"Ladybug!" Caitlin yelled out, swatting the cat off of her abdomen with a start. Ladybug leapt gracefully from the bed, landing on the nightstand where she regarded Caitlin with a bored and guiltless expression.

The urge to pee had been so strong before, but now it was do or die . Caitlin threw back her quilt and sprang out of bed, rocketing out of the room and down the hall. After relieving herself for several minutes, she quietly crept back under her covers and lay staring at the ceiling, arms folded behind her head. What had she just been dreaming about? The memory was just beyond reach, but she knew it had been interesting enough for her to hold her bladder until it reached critical mass. She hadn't wet the bed in years, but it had been just that close to happening.

Light from the streetlamps outside poured through a crack in her curtains, illuminating the small room. Ladybug was now curled up atop her backpack which sat slumped on her computer chair.

"Jerk," Caitlin hissed as she sat up. "You ruined my dream."

Ladybug lifted her head only slightly and yawned. One eye popped open lazily but did not have the will to continue and just rolled backward as the cat fell asleep.The useless thing.

"Maybe I should wake you up from a dead sleep, see how you like it?"

Ladybug did not acknowledge her.

If it were only so easy for Caitlin to fall asleep. Lately each night she'd wake up, sometimes for no reason, and find herself wide awake despite exhaustion. It had been a couple weeks since she'd slept through the night.

The restless nights were due in part to strange dreams she'd been having. Dreams of bizarre things, sometimes things she couldn't quite remember. They started off as nightmares--

of monsters chasing her relentlessly, of a voice whispering to her. This particular dream she could not recall. Ladybug's abrupt awakening had seen to that.

It was three in the morning. She'd have to be up in three hours for school. She'd gone to bed around midnight. Caitlin groaned and massaged her temples, her eyes feeling heavy with lack of rest. It would take forever for her to fall back to sleep now-- and even if she tried, sleep was not a guarantee. Instead she rolled out of bed again and crossed the room to Ladybug. She stopped and looked at the black fuzzball, sighed,and scooped her up into her arms.

"I need this," Caitlin said, stroking the cat's ear absently. "Besides, I don't want your fur stuck to my backpack."

Lady squirmed and hopped to the floor. Without a backward glance the cat disappeared out the door and into the hallway.

Caitlin unzipped her backpack and withdrew a binder stuffed with loose papers, some of which floated to the floor. Weeks worth of unfinished homework, homework which she had spent all semester ignoring. Now, with a month left of the school year, she was having to play catch-up and do all of it at once or risk flunking chemistry class.

"If I'm up, might as well be productive." It was probably the stress of having all that work hanging over her that kept her up anyway. She fell into the chair and rolled to her desk, cracking open the binder and setting to work. Or trying to.

Outside, raindrops began to fall. Caitlin slowly dragged her pencil across the paper to the sharp, quick sound of rain striking her window, lost in the sound. It wasn't long before the endlessly boring worksheet on balancing chemical equations began to blur into the background noise. In ten minutes she was slumped over in her chair, half of the worksheet done and very incorrectly at that.

From the hallway, Ladybug's eyes fixed on Caitlin and flashed.