Apoxalypse

Chapter 1

Mathilde Manon Louise Deofurre - written by 4444Jenks/FangirlSkills!

The world around one madame Mathilde Deofurre was viewed as a bleak, pathetic place- totally barren of interest and purpose. Yes, you guessed it... Welcome to good 'ole democratic America, where people vote like maniacs and drive just as well.

Mathilde had no idea how someone as classy and elegant as my aunt could stand to live in this runt of a place. She opened the wind-up window with as much pompous she could muster whilst using such an old-fashioned tool.

The smell of rotted manure, as if a racing storm of thunderous melodies dashing towards Mathilde from on high, flooding her flaring nostrils as she examined the countryside around the taxicab she rode in and attempted to breathe in air to cure her squeamish carsickness. Mathilde wrinkles her nose immediately at both the smell and the thought of traveling anywhere without subways as no matter how 'elevated-people-term-for-classless-railroads' her friends considered them to be, railcars were essential to Mathilde's adventurer take on life and it's many assets.

"Ew!" Manon screech to herself at the stench surrounded her, and rushed to roll back up the window.

"'Ere ye are," the man in the front of the cab muttered in a foreign accent that's origin Manon couldn't decipher nor detect a few seconds later. She'd tried to have a conversation with him earlier, but his words all sounded like skewed versions of the same few syllables.

"No, no. This cannot be right," I mutter in response with mild distaste evident in my voice. My aunt couldn't possibly live here. My aunt was from a high-class society full of the grandest caliber of French cooks and doctors that anyone could employ. Mathilde's thoughts turned smoothly back to herself at the brief pondering of her own family. Mathilde was no doctor nor a cook. She didn't have a bone in her body that could take blood or half the tastes the fine wines France produced. Her aunt wasn't like that at all before she moved to America, however, and probably hadn't changed at all. Why on Earth would she be living at a farm that stunk of cow manure and animal corn. I glanced around as if to locate a familiar face or sight on the run-down little operation I saw around me, but there was nothing in sight, not even the echo of a familiar herb or the remains of a desolate grapevine.

"Miss, I took ya where ya tol' me." The driver snapped in response as his patience with her seemingly ran short. Sure, she'd ignored him most of the drive, but she hadn't been nearly as rude as to trigger this level of disrespect.

"Are you sure?" Mathilde questioned briefly, nose scrunching up in confusion at the cab driver's assured confidence.

"I've lived 'round these parts since I was a mere child," the driver said. "This is the Fellon residence. If you want me to take you somewhere else, more upscale, perhaps, you'll miss the wedding of this place's residents 'cause you won't find anything like what you're looking for before we get out of the county. Get out now, or give me a destination that isn't the Fellon house."

"But-" Mathilde started to argue then thought the opposite of it. Maybe the people inside the house, as they clearly could not be her well-to-do aunt's new family, would be nicer than the vicious cabbie and they could help her locate her aunt. "Never mind," Mathilde muttered and grabbed her over-the-shoulder purse and the lightly-packed bag she'd brought.

Mathilde temporarily frowned at her suitcase's weight. She, unlike her bus-lugging mother, was never one to prepare that well for trips. She'd went on a brief trip to Italy just last week, and when she'd arrived at her home in Paris, she'd been immediately called rushed off to America by her mother who didn't want her daughter to miss her aunt's apparently shotgun wedding.