"In my restless dreams...I see that part. Part 15. You promised you'd write it one day...but you never did. Well, I'm waiting for it now...still stranded in this introduction...waiting for it to start. Below our introduction, in that special place..." Geez, Mary, this is part 15, quit lying to yourself! Welcome to part 15 of Love Lost, folks. Sorry Mary is being such a LYING EMO! "Am not!"
The details on that screen...they had to be false. Harry couldn't possibly believe them. But...they were right there, glowing on the monitor of the computer as clear as crystal. But he just couldn't believe what he was seeing. Looking at Cheryl Heather's profile...it was all wrong. It had to be.
"I...I don't...understand." Harry's voice was coming out in shallow gasps, his hands trembling. "I really, really don't get it..."
Angela had gotten used to not getting things. Combined with the homocide of her father, she just didn't care about the unknown anymore. She didn't care about anything.
Michelle leaned down by Harry, examining everything. "Huh. Well, I don't know what to say...she's not your daughter, though, so I wouldn't worry about-"
"No. That's Cheryl, that's my Cheryl." Harry worriedly groaned. He somehow knew for a fact that no matter how much he denied it, that teenager's picture in the hall...it was his Cheryl, whether she was 7 or 17 or 24 or 31 and got creepy phone calls from an unknown stalker wishing her a happy birthday. "That's...that's my Cheryl. My little...sweet Cheryl..." Even though that tug in his chest was telling him that "stranger" was Cheryl, he was still having trouble grasping it, being yanked between reality and fantasy.
"Harry..." Angela broke out of her long silence. "Are you alright?"
"We...we've got to go, Angela. We've got to get out of here." Harry grabbed Angela's shoulder and dragged her away, quickly fleeing the principal's office and leaving Michelle standing and wondering what was wrong.
"You must have had a horrible time in high school," Kaufmann was smirking as he said this, giving Cheryl an even larger hatred toward him. "Bullies, bad grades, depression. And a large portion of that depression must have came from the demise of your father."
Now Cheryl was simply infuriated. Here this cocky shrink was going off about her father's "death". Harry wasn't gone...he was with her..."Dad isn't dead, stop saying that." She snapped, making Kaufmann jump and groan in frustration.
"He is dead. Otherwise you wouldn't be here, trying to accept it." Kaufmann stated in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.
"No, he's not!" Now Cheryl was starting to cry. "How many times do I have to say it?!" She leaped up from the leather couch. "He isn't dead!"
"Cheryl, wait a damn second, sit down!" Kaufmann had started to yell. Cheryl was walking away, starting toward the door. "Get back here!"
Cheryl looked back over her shoulder, her eyes swarmed up in tears. "Dad isn't dead. He...he's not...he..."
"Harry, where are we going?!" Angela blurted out while Harry dragged her through the school.
"We're getting out of here. I think I might know where Cheryl..." Before he could finish his answer, the entire world around him started to freeze. By now, he wasn't as horrified. He had seen this before. The only thing that scared him was those creatures...what if one of them got hold of his daughter?! "...is..."
Angela noticed her world change, too. Once again, a blazing inferno roared out, eating away at everything in sight. The entire school had burst into flames. The heat was intense, causing her to sweat, she could almost feel her flesh starting to burn. She was unable to hold in her fear. And the stress, the guilt that had came from murdering Thomas was full-out insanity, bursting out of her like a raging river, fleeing the chains inside her mind and soaring up her throat, out of her mouth. "NOOOO!"
Watching his friend fall to her knees, Harry groaned. He didn't have time for this, he had a daughter to find and a ton of furious demons that hungered for his flesh.
"Come on, Angela, get up-" Harry tried reaching for Angela's hand. She smacked it away.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" She screamed. And she started running like a wild bull, fleeing the room before Harry could stop her. Great, now he had to find his daughter and a depressed unstable young woman. And make it out of here with his life.
"Oh...yes, we're home." Mandy clasped her hands together and laughed long and hard. "Now, Mandy, you just act like me until I find away out of this hideous chick body."
"Gotcha." Nero cracked his knuckles and grinned. How hard was it to act like a sexy half-demon bad boy?
Opening the door, Mandy looked around. "Hmmm, looks like Jean and Dante stopped kissing, NERO." Mandy put great emphasis on Nero's name and winked.
'"Alright...time to act like Nero...I hope I get this right." Nero groaned to himself, wondering what living with Dante was like.
Jean lolled back on the couch, grinning as if she had just won a million bucks. "Hey Mandy, I kissed Dante for almost 4 hours. Jealous?!"
Mandy cringed. What was she supposed to say? If she said she was jealous that Jean had kissed Dante...well, technically, she was Nero, so it would sound pretty weird to her if she had said "Yeah." So what was she supposed to do?
"Gross, hell no." Mandy coughed out, still wondering if she had said the right thing.
"Well, that's weird. You always tell me how smokin' hot Dante is." Jean was confused.
"Ugh...it's so hard being a chick...I mean, uhm...I do?" The Nero inside Mandy was utterly blushing and he desperately wanted to get back into his own body.
"Yeah, all the time." Jean snickered, puckering her lips and admiring the time on the stopwatch. "I bet me and Dante'll beat that record."
Nero, or Mandy in Nero's body, went straight for the kitchen. Mandy would always hog up on food and here was no exception. "Hmm...let's see what's in the fridge." Nero skimmed through everything, the beer, the pizza...that was all there was. Beer and pizza. "Gosh...hmm, never tried beer before...but I love myself some pizza." Nero felt himself growing an evil grin.
A sticky note was left on the open pizza box, hanging lazily off.
"Nero, touch my pizza and you're dead.
Dante"
"Maybe I shouldn't...naaaaaah, 'course I should." Nero reached into the fridge and touched a slice of pizza. The second he did, a siren went off and erupted through the entire house.
It made Jean jump, and Mandy shook her forehead and sighed. "Looks like Mandy went for Dante's pizza..." She groaned.
"But...you're Mandy." Now Jean was even more weirded out.
Bob had face-planted into the snow for the last time. She had a mission to complete, a mission to annihalate those two wretches, Jean and Mandy. And those boys were getting in her way. Nobody messed with Bob. "It's quite obvious that I need to resort to more...drastic methods..."
Reaching into her pocket, Bob pulled out a syringe. "Project Aurora...never have I needed to use such a ghastly approach to a mission." She examined the glowing contents of the syringe, as the beaming purple liquid sloshed around wildly. "But if this is what it takes to get rid of those boys, so be it."
To test out the strange mixture, Bob pressed down on the switch, making the syringe dispense a small amount of the medication hit the snow. The snow sizzled a little bit, and melted, and a small stream of smoke danced into the air. "Ahaha...beautiful."
Part 15 is done, but the battle is just beginning! Part 16, anyone?