Nighter: A Town In The Middle Of Nowhere - Second Edition

Chapter 3 - 24 Tasksonn Place

The house that was before him stuck out like a sore thumb. No colour, no (surviving) nature, a few dirty, stained windows, two of which broken and boarded up, and a 'welcoming' wooden door with an assortment of visible dents and cracks in it, almost like someone had been thrown into it more than once. He inhaled a moderate amount of air, later exhaling in a large, forced gust of nervousness, and looked back to the stepping stones that paved the way over the dead grass, leading to the brick road that lead him here. There was no reason why I should return now if I've already made it this far, Leo thought to himself. He's clearly a far distance away from his home and there was a very low chance of him returning anytime soon, so he may as well spend his time at the futuristic unknown location productively. He looked at the symbols painted on the wall next to the door in confusion. Definitely not from any language he knew or had even seen before. There was no sign of knowing that this house was the right house, just pure instinct. There were no street signs around, only the occasional painted symbol near the doors of the houses, which could possibly represent a number. He took another deep breath in and softly knocked on the door three times. He was gifted a few tiny splinters of the wooden door pierced in his knuckle as he moved his hand down and waited in anticipation, then realising that the reason why he was here, the package, was still in his messenger bag. He rummaged through the deep bag and pulled out the paper wrapped box, and later tidied up his scruffy hair a tad and repositioned his cap to make his appearance acceptable. He could hear the faint conversations, thankfully in the english language, occurring inside the house, and the faint but increasing volume of footsteps approaching him through the ruined door, making his heart race and forehead and armpits slightly moist. The footsteps stopped just on the other side of the door, and the lock on the door, which probably wasn't too useful since it was easily possible to break through the already half broken door itself, clicked open. The door creaked open, ever so slightly, and a dark eye from the other side peered though to observe their visitor. Leo noticed this, and had a nervous chill crawl up his back. He didn't know if he should look back or just ignore it and act natural, but by the time his mind had come to a decision, the door abruptly shut again, later to be fully reopened to reveal a lady, about the same height as him, wearing a grey hoodie with two orange and blue stripes down the side of the sleeves. Her hair was tied up into a messy spiral bun, with two long strips of hair pulled down the sides of her face, covering her ears. Ears? No, not like any normal human's ears. Only two dark red gradient, furless rabbit ear like attachments to each of the sides of her face. And her skin was grey, and scaly. 'Not again' Leo thought, still trying to recover from the thought of the incident that had happened earlier involving the gender confused furry.

Whilst he was still trying to get his mind together, he didn't notice was the Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle-musket firmly gripped in the lady's hands. Leo finally opened his mouth and let out the words he was trying to say, 'I-Is this 24 Tasksonn Plac-', before being abruptly stopped by the earsplitting crack of the gun going off on his forehead. For a split second all he could see was a blinding light, followed by him dropping the package on the floor and his body immediately following. His vision was blurry and red, and the only thing he could see was the dark red substance pouring out from the front of his head, dying the wooden planks of the veranda. He placed his shaking hand on the wound, his breathing was heavy and his body was numb. It would only take a few seconds before he fully blacked out to a point of no return. This was the end of his story, but why? Why did his story have to end so quickly? The last thing he could hear before he drifted off into the forever silence of death was his murderer casually speaking soft mumbled words that he could only just make out from the high pitched tone now occurring in his head. Those words sounded like "You can never trust postmen, can you...". The tone in his head stopped, soon followed by everything else. His story then swiftly ended.

The lady at the door bent down and stared at the blood soaked package next to the freshly dead body on her veranda, and picked the box up from the small river of blood coming from the victims' head, placing the rifle down next to an umbrella the the left of the inside of the door in the process. Her expression was neutral, like nothing had happened, not at all traumatised in any way but more like she didn't experience anything in the past few minutes. She fully stood back up and looked around before she was going to close the door, noticing the other body a few paces away from the one she just shot, and hesitated the action. "Fox, there's someone at the door!" she shouted into the house, trying to get someone's attention and failing. She closed the door and slammed the red stained parcel on the kitchen counter ferociously, trying to get at least one of the five other people that live in the house to pay attention to her. Everyone was in the living room, which connected to the kitchen area, and were having meaningless conversations with each other to waste time and to forget about the troubling things in life, whilst all being slightly drunk. She gave up on her impossible quest and went back out onto the veranda, pushed the postman's cold body onto the grass (which was also dead), and went back into the house, into the kitchen to retrieve a mop to clean up the blood with, before being stopped by a mildly drunk young adult known in the household as Fox, full name Phoxen Buetter. She and Fox were friends, even though she hated him, the friendship was more for ironic purposes. "You called, Arcana?" he said, trying to act smooth and failing, holding a green bottle in his hand and leaning against the wall with his elbow. "Yeah, about an hour ago," Arcana replied, "There's someone, asleep, out on our veranda. I have a feeling she's yours." Phoxen peered out the door, first noticing the large puddle of blood just outside, then noticing the young woman slumped against the wall in a deep slumber, almost dead looking. He was about to reply, but was disrupted by a tall figure behind him, shadowing over Phoxen's weak, underweight body.

Hsakia Niseki, also known as Saki, the so called 'alpha' and the oldest of the house at 25 Earth years, stood behind the two, silent. He was holding a navy blue notepad in his right hand and a pen in his left, and was writing down something, looking up from the notepad at Arcana and Phoxen. He stopped writing and turned his head back toward the living room, signalling the designated person to come to him. The person, that being Wester Dedana, the only sober woman in the house at the time, quickly stood up from the couch and glided towards Hsakia's side, peering over to the symbols written in his book. She was the only one in the house that was trusted enough by Hsakia to learn the silent language of his scribbles, and was therefore needed by his side at almost all times as his personal translator. "Phoxen, who's that being, out in the cold on our veranda?" Wester politely announced for Hsakia, "And Arcana, please clean up the mess you've made." Hsakia, around seven feet tall with antlers knocking the doorframe as he walked out, stood out on the front porch, in the bloody puddle, and crouched down to assess the sleeping body on their property. He checked her pulse in her neck, picked her up, and walked back into the house, making the two remaining people on the couch shuffle over and placed the body in the middle, which made the two uncomfortable. His movements were smooth and relaxed, as Wester followed his every move with eyes of innocents and loyalty. After picking up another notebook, Hsakia returned outside to the veranda, gently touching the shoulder of Arcana, who was mopping up all the blood that hadn't seeped through the wooden planks, who signalled him to the dead postman's body to the left of her. He walked over to the body and analysed the face of the victim and the bullet wound. He scribbled down a quick sketch in a blue and white book, different to the one he wrote in, and rested his hand on the forehead of the unlucky receiver. He pulled out his navy, pocket sized notebook and quickly wrote down more symbols. "I still don't really understand your fear of postmen, Arcana," Wester spoke for Hsakia.

"It's not that I fear them, I just can't trust them. And I had reason for this one. No-one wants to read an entire story about the boring life of a mailman." Arcana replied.

"But they're innocent beings. Would you kill me if I delivered your mail?"

"Well...no. I trust you. I know that you won't kill me first."

"I appreciate that, but..."

"So you would kill me? Since you would've become one with the delivery boys and would be involved in their evil ways."

"No. I just wanted to ask you to please dispose of the bodies yourself so I don't have to keep getting my hooves and hands dirty burying them in the pit. And what's so evil about kindly delivering packages?"

"Never mind. You wont understand unless you've witnessed it." Arcana concluded as she finished mopping.