Ponders-turned-character ideas:

As I sit here, wondering where the hell my life is going, I'm finally thinking back to what led me to the good parts of this point. The parts I wanted to achieve. And if I've achieved them.

It's really invaluable just to DO. All those things you realise really are true, just a tad too late to be convenient.

Maybe I should do story ideas on YouTube, too. Combining my own efforts would relieve some stress.  Also, it's great to be inspired by people and all that, but no reinventing their ideas. And returning to former good values is crucial. Yesyes.

I'm okay. I'm protected. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay.

Emotion. Emmotion. The good and deep kind. I'd almost forgotten. In fact, I HAD forgotten that was what I was aiming for all along. Oh my. Laughter. Thanks.

Death

"Well.. how to put this.. I think death is beautiful. I'm not talking about myself, no," he continued, smiling at Clara's giggles, "I mean the process itself. And even the result."

*

"Hey, you know that Beatles' song, right? Eleanor Rigby?"

Clara nodded.

Death hummed a couple of lines anyway: 

"All the lonely people.. Where do they all come from?

All the lonely people.. Where do they all belong?

That concept of belonging, it fits, you see."

"But isn't belonging just an idea?"

"No, not really, that's either some enlightened detachedness or angsty teenage talk. No offense." he grinned. "Humans are social animals, the concept is natural. What I meant was, I have this idea of everybody belonging together in life. And death. It doesn't occur to everybody to think at such a scale, and to actually pull it off in any respectable way is more of a challenge than what you'd expect. And yet, it's very simplistic."

Clara tilted her head. "I guess.. Yeah, I can see that. What I can't see is people warming to that idea."

"Not unlikely as you might think. Dear old planet Earth is a horrible place, sure, but it's a great one, too."

"You keep talking in ultimatums."

"Mm, a habit of mine. I'm sure you understand why."

*

Clara stared at the boy, his utterly familiar face. "I.. know you."

"Hello, Clara. Yes, you certainly do."

*

"It's mostly pointless to look sullen and hope that someone's going to take pity and engage you in a conversation."

*

"A sophisticated mind is less likely to be found among the innocent." 

Energy-verse

Persephone picked up one of the blades of grass and watched the energy trickle out. She cupped her hand under it, so it pooled in her palm. Cautiously, she started playing around with it. The more she did so, the more a bond seemed to form between her and the green light, to [Clara] it looked almost like a bond of trust. As the corners of Persephone's mouth started gradually turning upwards into their usual position, [Clara] too found herself cheered by this little spectacle, even letting out a giggle. The little sphere of life-force was shining very brightly by now, in symbiosis with the hands turning and weaving it.
After a while, Persephone nuzzled the sphere lightly, and passed it back into the shimmering field.

*

"In this parallel, well, alternate place, my name happens to be Persephone." Harmony was explaining as best she could.

*

"At times, you can carry the energy out of here. But you have to be careful, oh-so-careful, and, more importantly - care. If you're an unworthy bearer, it will be obvious. You won't be able to handle the energy and it might just escape and wreak havoc on a cat or something. Which would be bad.
Anyhow, you can keep it in anything that fits its element. There are thirteen of them, I'll get to that in a bit. If you pool one kind of energy into a different element, it gets weakened, or, if the element is sinister enough, cancelled out altogether."

The Ms.

Clara felt a tap on her shoulder, looked up, and was faced with the most stunningly beautiful woman she had ever seen. She had hair the colour of dark chocolate, a nose that seemed to be sniffing dangerously close to perfection, and green eyes, seemingly flecked with gold.
"Hello, Clara," she said, "my name is Blossom Lenvere. Harmony said I'd find you here."

*

"And Harmony, dear, don't forget to mind the garden, make sure it doesn't get into too much trouble."

"Yes'm." Harmony gazed up at Ms. Lenvere adoringly. 

Clara continued to look at the floor. Ugly, concrete. 

Shaking her distracting hair, Ms. continued: "I'm sure the vines will want a bit of attention.."

And even from here, Clara could clearly see the spiderwebs that covered the chandelier. "..and so will the butterflies.." not that it actually revolted her, they gave it a very dream-like quality, but the light which flooded the room seemed distinctly nauseating. ".. and my dear old Baobab seems to have gotten in quite a temper recently (don't give me that look, switching emotions is an extremely lengthy process for trees, dear), but, if you are lucky, she will be asleep for most of the time." Oh, no. Exactly. Nausea. Clara held her breath. "That's really all I can think of, I'm sure you two will be just fine. If there is anything, however, you can reach me by phone - I left the number inside the topmost left drawer in the black cupboard." That didn't help. She closed her eyes instead. Better. "Well, then. Be good, Harmonica. Clara, it was a pleasure meeting you. Oh, here, sweetie, take this." Clara felt Ms. Lenvere's fingers press something into her hand. Keeping her eyes closed, she muttered a thank you(, and did a clumsy half-curtsy?). 

"Farewell, miss! We'll be waiting!" Harmony burst out, as if she'd been impatient for Ms. to finish talking, which, come to think of it, she probably had.
"Yes. Yes, goodbye. I must go." Ms. Lenvere gave both girls a brief glance and hurried out the door, into the pale day. The heavy door closed, leaving them standing in the quiet, vast hall. 

"Flowerpot?" Harmony gave Clara a nudge.

"Don't call me that," she muttered.

"Open your eyes."

Clara did, and immediately felt like her stomach was trying to waltz, so she closed them again.

"No, no, keep them open."

"I'd rather not." Clara shook her head lightly.

"Clara, I mean it. Look." Harmony pried open her hand, and Clara noticed only now that it had been clenched. She looked down. Resting in her palm was a vividly blue stone, set in a round, intricate silver locket on a silver chain. The nausea dissipated instantly. 

"I knew it." Harmony gave one of her trademark grins.

"She.. Ms. Lenvere.. She couldn't possibly have-"

"Yep, she did. This is yours. Here." Harmony took the necklace and fastened it around Clara's neck. "They're very good to have in a place like this."

*

Ms. Lenvere looked on as the youth swiftly opened the new packet of tobacco, found papers and filters, and expertly rolled two cigarettes. He presented one with a smile and a bow, lit the other and proceeded on his way, leaving Ms. Lenvere in the alley, holding "one of those sticks they burn in their mouths". She looked at it for a moment, contemplating, hesitant - then fished a dainty little silver lighter from her pocket and lit it. Inhaling, she closed her eyes, and blew the smoke out slowly. Then she let out a little cough and said "I don't know how you humans can do this stuff." She took another drag, made a face, then put the cigarette out whilst exhaling and walked off, abandoning it on the side of a trashcan for some hobo to find.

coming together

Suddenly, instead of music, there was a crackling in her earphones. Clara stopped to fumble around and see what had gone wrong. Before she could do much, the crackling was replaced by a voice. "Hello, Clara," it said. Terribly unoriginal.

*switching story lines?*

"I have a message for you." Clara waited, anticipating a threat or something else of the sinister kind, wondering how the hell this got on to her player. But, there was nothing. Just about two minutes of silence, and then her player [Fred?] switched to the next song. Clara gave it a sarcastic look, realized she was acting like Harmony would, then wore a grin which gradually shifted into a mystified expression.

*

Clara sat idly, staring into her teacup, then suddenly got up, hesitated, and then moved Harmony out of the way and sat down by her computer, got to her music, and started looking for something.
"What are you doing?" Harmony asked, and received no reply.
"Hey. Hey. Flowerpot."
Clara continued to ignore her, but stopped scrolling. [Fred] contained three songs with the title "unknown". Slowly, Clara moved her mouse over the first.
Cli-click.
"There's a little church-yard, just along the way. Used to be Lambeth's finest array, of tom-"
Cli-click.
"Clara, really." Harmony was getting impatient."
Soft piano music floated through the speakers, and Clara remained silent. She held her breath, and clicked on the third song.
A moment of silence. Then - "Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage-"
Clara breathed out, and turned it off. She turned to look at Harmony, who had been waiting for a while with her face portraying dozens of questions. Clara laughed lightly, then said "Fine. I'll tell you. Something kind of weird happened last week.."

*

Clara wondered what to do. She stared at the walls for a bit, then the ceiling, then she remembered that she had [Fred] with her, which cheered her up at once. she dug around in her bag until she found him. Clara wondered what she'd like to listen to, couldn't think of anything, so she switched to the list of Artists and scrolled down quickly, hoping something would jump out at her. Something did, but subtly - just enough to make her subconscious make a connection. It then tried nagging her about it, albeit unsuccessfully. She might have stopped for half a second, she might not have. In the end she settled for 'Manic Street Preachers'. 

*

Clara eyed [Fred], the odd name of the song, and cautiously clicked play. 

"Clara, really," said Harmony's voice, and she spun, but no one was there. No Harmony. 

then she nearly smacked herself in the face as she realized that the song had come from [Fred]. That was the conversation she'd had with Harmony the day before. It had somehow been recorded.. It was almost as if whoever had done this was mockingly screwing with her attempts of finding out what it all was. Actually, no, this person was definitely mocking her. 

"And it can't be Thomas or something?"

"Nah, he's smart, and he can be sneaky, but not nearly sneaky enough fo-" Click. 

And again, there were a couple minutes of silence, then [Fred] switched to a random song.

~Thrown Out

... Cer had no idea where he was. The little daemon had suffered a very nasty shock, but that wasn't the most disorienting issue. Everything was.. well, fresh? Cold. There were no fumes. And everything was alive, alive in the way that makes blood course through your veins, that makes you breathe.. air..

Cer understood. He was no longer in the underworld. He was no longer in Hworlodoth. He was among humans.
They had thrown him out.

***

He is a demon-like thing, with a perpetual bewildered expression and unfathomable motives for doing.. whatever he does. I don't know. Another thing that stays with him is a peculiar shadow, more of a watery reflection of his soul. So. Tell me what you think.

And, yes, that puddle-shadow-thingy is the reflection of his soul. Don't be judgemental, now, it's the only one he's got.

The triangle his MOUTH, not his NOSE!! His nose is hidden.

***

"I've developed a kind of story for him, he was a happy little demon living in hell, but he screwed up in one way or another, and was banished. The experience was quite horrible, and changed him in the depths of his soul, which altered appearance as well. Now he roams the earth, doing good or bad, I'm not sure. The poor, twisted thing. 
He has powers, he doesn't want to tell me what they are, yet.. 
I know his eyes change when he uses them. 

Belated, but found

It was the 11th when the air turned.
Clara breathed it in. Fresh, not sharp, but with a certain clearness to it. The light had the quality of a perfectionist. Autumn was approaching.

*

I could put in a couple of fancy terms in latin. Yeah, that could work.

*

Harmony and Clara looked at each other, grinned, and simultaneously said "You're amazing." 

"Jinx!!" Harmony cried gleefully. 

*

From that despiseable radio there came a song, one of Harmony's favourites, in fact. [Madness - Our House] In Slovenian. AND incorporated into a commercial. Our girl sat there, chewing rapidly and giving the radio a disbelieving and rather bewildered stare. She stopped doing both of these things for a moment, her mind going through all the possible ways to most effectively destroy that measly little piece of machinery, then she swallowed and resolutely gave the radio the most disheartening glare she could muster. The radio, unperturbed, carried on with the horrid commercial quite cheerfully.

*

Harmony leaned in, and whispered, trying to sound sinister: "Let me tell you.. about the Paper Man."

*

"..and so this is why we we have to run out into the field, and tell the cows exactly, I cannot stress this enough, exactly, what that guy said about mixing cocktails, and give them each an apple and pat them on the head, but we must be sure to remove any bugs (from the cows, not the apples), because bugs would eavesdrop and jeopardise the whole thing. In conclusion, the cows will be so overcome by our kindness that they will tell us everything we need to know about grass. There." 

Harmony finished triumphantly, then, after a moment's thought, added - "And we absolutely must be sure that there are no ugly houses in sight, they keep me from concentrating." 

Dante was doing his best to make sense out of this, and that was his mistake. 

"Ok.. But really, how does that fit in with-"

Harmony, who had realised this, interrupted: "Oh, don't worry about the logic, that's completely unnecessary."

"But-"

"In fact, it can be rather annoying at times, getting in the way of my ingenious plans. Probably because it's so misunderstood.. "

Dante sighed, and stopped trying to make sense. 

Much better, Harmony thought.

"Alright, so what do we have to do now?"

"We don't have to do anything. Except prepare. Blankets, apples, some other snacks, your book, flashlights." 

"Flashlights?"

"We're going at night, obviously."

"What? Why?"

"Because I said so. Oh, and orange juice. Can't forget the orange juice."

*

Breathless as he was, Dante ran up to Clara, breathless, looked at her with absolute panic in his eyes and said, breathlessly: "What are you doing this Saturday?"

Oliver

It was chilly, the sky was grey, and there was a storm not far off. The wind and the little rain there was nagged at anyone who hadn't thought to get inside in time. Oliver included.
He'd been sitting on the docks for more than an hour. His trousers were torn, but not ragged, hair was mussed by the wind, and he'd shaved three days ago at best. Beside him there was the case of a fiddle, the fiddle itself - absent, and it's place was taken by a comb (probably rarely used), a box of matches, a pipe, a little brown leather-bound book, a couple of coloured pencils, a sheathed knife, a few precious stones and other odd items.
Oliver sat there, shivering occasionally, and whistling a cheerful tune. Then a seagull squawked at him just as the rain started coming down in earnest, and the tune acquired a distinctive minor quality.
Just as he began to contemplate moving to a dryer meeting place, the man he was waiting for arrived, along with the clomping of heavy boots and a rugged, weather-beaten feel about him.
"Jack." Oliver greeted the man without turning his head.
"Aye. Got a bit o somethin' for ye," the man replied, seating himself beside Oliver with a mixture of nonchalance, intimidation and physical difficulty. A man who had achieved much, but with his greatest days behind him.
Oliver turned to face Jack, to face the rain "Oh did you? I thought I was the one with the goods."
Jack grinned. "Ye still are. I just saw something on the way I reckoned ye would like. Here."
He dug into his pocked and pulled out something wrapped in fabric, which he carefully unwound/removed, revealing/uncovering a little figure carved out of ivory of a size that would rest comfortable in the palm of a man's hand. It was a kneeling woman, cloaked, one hand resting in her lap and the other raised to her forehead, her index finger touching the place people with a number of colourful layers of clothing tend to refer to as the third eye. Her face was wearing a soft, distant expression, as well as stunning beauty, especially for a face that was not of flesh. Around her neck was a heavy looking talisman, intricate designs centered around a tiny, deep-blue sapphire, the only piece of the figurine that wasn't ivory. The base, as opposed to being flat, had made no deformity of the woman's legs, but would not topple if placed on a surface. Whoever had carved this had done so with utmost love, refining every detail, achieving perfection.
"The Goddess Kiara!" Oliver exclaimed, having expected little more than a practical joke. He gestured to Jack to hand him the figurine, then examined it, running his fingertips over the tiny folds of her cloak, her serene face, the amazingly detailed talisman. A good moment passed before he remembered he was in the middle of a conversation.
"This is exquisite.. Jack, I don't know what's got into you to give away a piece like this, but I thank you."

Catalyst

Just as the strings began their sorrowful tune, the sun decided that she had had enough of the clouds and showed her face where there were none. (This was most unexpected, as the people had more or less accepted that she would be gone 'til spring, save those bleak, warmth-less moments in winter when she admitted that the least she could do was peek from behind the endless white and remind everyone of what they were despairingly missing.) Several faces turned to the sky, as if they had already forgotten how it was not to live in endless grey. As the band grew in it's volume and sorrow, the sunlight became brighter. Now more of the audience were looking up, and many of them were gripped by a sense of surreality. The string instruments, which had been playing alone until now, were joined by a piano, a low, slow melody, and shortly after a flute, softly echoing the piano several octaves higher, the two melodies dancing around each other gracefully. Tears started trickling down a woman's cheeks, her still facing upwards, her eyes closed. Then, the sun disappeared again. The grey light returned, as did reality. The band continued to play.

yeah, she finished her drink. she really did.

One morning, everyone woke up feeling kinda good.
And looking forward to the day.
And everyone knew exactly how to solve all the problems that had appeared previously over the course of their lives. Unconditional love all over the place.
It somehow felt.. well, wrong. This sudden warmth and clarity surrounding everybody was simply not natural.
Although, as humans remain humans, the clarity was rather limited. Not one had the foggiest idea of what the cause of all this could be. So, they carried on as well as they could with this new-found peace, and instead the animals held a conference, their minds in a bubble of consciousness, an agreement of peace between them in this void.
The butterflies and dolphins thought that nothing needed to be found out, that all life was better off this way. The dogs agreed heartily, so did the tuna, and the monkeys concurred after a while. The seals remained indifferent, but the sloths thought it was an outrage. The armadillos couldn't decide, and the slugs kept getting distracted. The cats, great and small, held their silence, but everybody knew they were against the new order, most of them, anyway. It was too innocent for their taste. The jellyfish were silent as well, but no one knew what they thought, as no one does still. The snakes and spiders spoke amongst themselves, and were taking awfully long, but eventually a black widow crawled over to explain that they thought it was no use to participate in the larger discussion, as it was improbable that much could be changed.
More time passed, then, caving in to the impatience humming in the air, the horseshoe crabs decided to take action. They voiced their idea. Upon hearing it, a great squabble arose, the peace momentarily forgotten. Finally, the animals managed to find a calm of sorts - and took a vote. It was close, but it turned out in the favour of the crabs. So they sent an armadillo, (who wouldn't be biased) down to hell, to see where all the evils had gone. It got help from the underground beings, and got there within three days, but nonetheless suffered many a hardship on the way.
Hell. Fire. There, in a great, dark cave the Evils sat, their presence filling the air. Some were spinning, some smouldering, screeching, staring, wailing, laughing.. but most of them reminiscing in some way or another. The armadillo went up to them and asked them what they had done, and why. Silence. The armadillo, now taking in all the terrible power around it, started trembling. But it knew that no harm would come to it, as this was such a grave matter. That fact not one of the beings in the cave was ignorant of. It took a breath, raised it's voice, and asked again. Silence. At last, Famine stepped forwards. "Very well. You may receive your answer. We kill. We destroy. We do all imaginable and unimaginable things to those souls up there. Is it right? Is it wrong? We had been discussing this amongst ourselves for a few hundred years, but a number of us had had our doubts for far longer. We wanted difference, an answer, perspective, a pause. So we left. The younger ones persuaded the old to participate in this chance, this change, and see how it felt to leave things be. Feel guilt, if one had the capacity. Those who couldn't be persuaded otherwise regard this as an experiment, to see if the humans are capable of handling good in a much purer form. Not completely, mind you, we left a very few of us up there, as not to throw off the balance completely. Still, we wonder if this wasn't foolish, extraordinarily so. However, most of us refuse to return."
"Will you stay down here forever?" the armadillo asked.
"We don't know," Famine replied.
Suddenly, with a terrifying rumble, the ceiling of the cave was no more, and shining, shouting furiously, was the angel of justice - Raguel. His eyes blazed, and his presence was overwhelming to even the most ruthless of the bad that stood there.. You see, no one dared attack or even look him in the eye, because they knew they had disrupted what Raguel stood for. If you tear apart, in such a way, what a god, and angel or any other immortal being protects, you know you bow to them, and either flee or beg for mercy. Such were the rules of existence. The Evils were muted in their shame.
What the angel said to them the armadillo, upon returning, could not repeat, but he said it had something to do with the balance and harmony of the universe, and in each and every heart of the beings of earth, which were also the universe, and at this point the armadillo got a bit confused, doubled back and started muttering to itself, so the rest of the animal kingdom gave up trying to get to the bottom of it. The Evils were returning, and that was enough.
After another few days, most of humanity started getting reluctant to get out of bed again, started shouting at their kin, cradling their own swollen pride, stomping on the helpless and all the usual bullshit we all know we get up to. Balance was being restored.
The armadillo remembered one more thing, in the end. He said that before leaving, Raguel had mentioned the souls that needed to learn.. that they could not do it any other way, if they were to proceed  to something else in the afterlife, or next life, or whatever happens next. The armadillo did not know what that meant, but it was glad to have escaped such an ordeal without too much trouble, but it would rather not repeat it, even in it's mind, too disturbing.
So it tried to forget about it.

encounter.

Harmony was bored. This happened very rarely, but when it did, she usually did something that scared others, and the boredom was very much dealt with for the rest of the day. She wandered around the train station for a bit, watching the people, selecting her prey.. Then she noticed a girl who looked like she might keel over at any moment, skipped up to her, and said. "Hi. I'm Harmony. Let's go get ice cream."

**

Clara stared at this girl who had suddenly appeared out out the hurrying masses and introduced herself. She had shortish, naturally black hair which nearly covered her right eye, headphones that looked well loved and worn, a pair of drumsticks sticking out of her bag, multicoloured beads around her wrist, green fingernails.. Funky. Her eyes were a pale grey and her voice was low and pleasant to the ear.

Clara wondered how often something like this happened to the average person. She wondered why the girl had picked her. She found herself considering the girl's offer. Did she say Harriet? Ha-, oh, Harmony, that was it.. Harmony made no move to hide her impatience, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Clara, having thought about it, realised that ice cream sounded like a very good idea, so she croaked, cleared her throat and tried again, this time with success: "Okay."

**

Harmony grinned, congratulated herself inwardly and set off, followed by a slightly bemused Clara.

Harmony.

There was a sting in her side, her feet were protesting, and the rain was making it hard to see where she was going, but she was running. Quite fast. In fact, we might as well go as far as to say that she was running as if she was running for her life. If that was the case, then her chances would not be bad at all, because Harmony was a very good runner. She enjoyed running, most of the time, as long as it didn't go on for too long, or was slow enough to be called jogging. She hated jogging with a passion. Harmony did a lot of things with passion. Or, more precisely - enthusiastically. On fact, one should say that's the most adequate word for her you'll find in the dictionary.
Back to the running, then. She wasn't running for her life. She was following a tune. A little tune known well by all the children in the neighbourhood. Namely, the one played by the local ice cream truck. The driver of this truck knew Harmony, too, and he, indeed, feared for his life when he saw this multi-coloured girl sprinting towards his vehicle. He simply couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something about that girl that he found exclusively terrifying. On these occasions he would hurriedly finish up with whatever customers he had at the moment, and drive away as fast as he could, Harmony close behind. He often lay awake at night, wondering why no one had thought of making the damn truck go faster. Surely, someone must have thought at least some situation where it would be useful to have a fast ice cream truck. Or a truck so fast, it could race keep up with other cars on the highway. Now, wouldn't that be a great investment for the company? The driver sure thought it would. Damn that girl.

dialouge3

 - Argh!

 - Argh?

 - Argh!

 - *giggle*

 - Is that Blur on the radio?

 - Yeah.

 - Nice.

 - a moment of silence of the shorter kind -

   ...argh.

 - *giggle*

dialouge2

 - But meow.

 - 'scuse me?

 - *cat meows once, insistently*

 - Oh..
What do you want?

 - Nothing.

 - I don't think I believe you.

 - Everything.

 - No! *comes out as more of a gasp*

 - At least I'm confident about it. Just listen t' yourself. "I don't think I believe you." 

Were you really not sure, or did you just want to soften the sentence in case it offended me?

 - I just thought I'd make it a little more flexible. 'Nothing' is a pretty sneaky word, you know.

 - Yes. It is. Can you play the flute?

 - Can I make a suggestion?

 - Another soft-ish sentence. Sure, go ahead.

 - Don't ask me personal questions.

 - You know, you revealed quite a lot by saying that. 'Yes' or 'No' or 'A little' would have saved you the trouble.

 - But I thought you were going to ask me, um, to play. Also, what trouble?

 - I'm curious now.

 - Don't be.

 - That's a terrible thing to say.

 - Is it? I'm sorry.

 - And again! Find a stable inner ground, man! You don't even know what you're apologising for!

 - Stop shouting. And just because I'm considerate doesn't mean I'm feeble.

 - Now that was much better.

 - *sigh*

 - So, d'ya play any other instruments?

Clara. Continuing chpt. 1

Clara entered her room and flopped onto the bed, next to her grey tabby, Antoine, who ignored her. She lay there for about 5 minutes before summoning the energy to lift herself off of it and persuade her feet to support her weight again. Silly that long bus-rides take away so much energy, when you do practically nothing at all. Well, nothing physical. Maybe it's all the thinking that tires you out. She yawned, searched through her bag to find her uneaten lunch of an apple and a bag of crackers, also a nearly empty bottle of water. These she put on the table, pointedly pushed the crackers away, lifted the apple to her mouth, put it down again, rummaged in the bag a bit more, pulled out her notebook, and then proceeded down to the kitchen to make herself some hot cocoa. That would cheer her up. Not that she was feeling particularly down or anything, just demotivated. Halfway down the stairs she retraced her steps to her room, picked up the apple and the crackers, then again proceeded to the kitchen. She put the uninteresting crackers away, put the milk on to heat, then sat down to review what she had written down during the ride. Halfway through the first page she realised she was staring at it without reading much at all, so she looked at the wall instead. That was more comforting, because there was this old painting on the wall, of a view of an alien planet. Or something. But the sight was extremely pretty - a plain, stretched out, covered with tallish grass, dotted by a few european-looking trees here and there. And, quite low, (but not too low) over the horizon there were five suns of variating sizes, laid out approximately like this: {pic here}
Clara jumped up when she noticed the milk was boiling over, cursed herself for being so absent, caught herself, shook her head, then cursed the milk instead.

somber

I never water the plants.
I never wanted to.
It makes no difference, they'll thrive anyway.
The Others admonish me, they do.
But they don't know.
The plants don't need me.
No one does.
Maybe the spiders on the walls have become somewhat fond of me.
Probably on account of that their numbers don't bother me.
But that's just because I don't care.
About much.
Hardly anything at all.
I couldn't care less.
I think the Others should care less. Or more.
They admonish me for not watering the plants.
The plants don't care.
They thrive anyway.

Typewriter!! (alternate intro?)

Amongst the smouldering remains of a newly burned down building is a place you will generally be advised not to be. If the creature slowly shuffling around a barely recognisable chair had received any such advice, it had chosen to ignore it. A rather peculiar-looking thing. The creature, that is. Well, the chair was too, at this point, but that is irrelevant.
Anyway, the creature looked like something might if a cat, a polar bear, and a barn owl had submerged and somehow managed to make something adorable out of the combination. It was roughly the size of a toddler, and had light brown, almost beige fur on its body, a tail that was little more than a stump, pointy ears, and nimble, hand-like paws, the fingers being black, tapered, sharp claws. It's face was honest and aww-inspiring (and yes, I mean aww, not awe), with a tiny black nose and very large green eyes. It's chest was flecked with white spots, and it had a heartbreakingly tiny pair of wings on it's back, most likely useless in flight.
Having successfully avoided being singed by any of the surrounding objects, most of them still smoking, the creature approached the only four walls that were still in tact. tactful walls This, you would agree, was also peculiar, as the rest of the building basically lay in ruin. The creature tentatively opened the charred door..
The inside of the room looked exactly as it did before the fire, perhaps with the exception of a lack of ceiling. In the centre of the room there sat a shivering figure, arms wrapped around itself. It was a boy, with sandy hair and wide eyes, with which, having been startled by the sound, he cautiously regarded this strange thing approaching him.
"Don't be scared," it said. "not of me. I'm here to help."
The boy, still shaking, tried to decide whether it or not it was okay to trust the creature. It was not as if he had anyone else to trust..
"Dante. You don't have to be afraid anymore."
Whoa. It knew his name. But, suspicious as it might seem, it really seemed to be sort of honest. So he would trust it. For now. Just a little.