Angst and Petulance, Late Night Phone Calls [Flat 413][Pen]

Following:
Esra Dean and the Darkness Inside
Matters of Spirit

Night Day 4

It was stuffy, not hot in the normal sense but it felt heavy. Tired, worn out, so very worn out Esra should have found sleep easily. Normally once her head touched the pillow she was out like a light. Tonight she just lay there, eyes wet, looking at the ceiling a few feet above her. A tank top and shorts and on top of the covers. It almost looked like she had fallen rather than gone to bed, stunned in the darkness. Unable to sleep, she had no choice but to think.

One thing was picking at her, nibbling away at her insides right now. She was certain that something had been watching her though her window, a darkness with red eyes. She could look right at it and see nothing and yet, she was so certain. That boy, he had offered to help and she was an idiot. He was a risk to be sure, yet that was already certain. If he could. What if it was, what could she do? Go to the authorities, how would she explain what she knew? They might just arrest her for what had been trying to find out. If he was involved then they would get him to, or the demons might. What right did she have to put him at risk?

She had no right.

That hadn't stopped her from finding out who Wallace Pendleton was, where he lived and his contact details. Being a class rep meant people assumed you were a good person. Something despite her anger and distance she tried to cultivate. One where she did almost everything alone and didn't need help from anyone else. It never came before, so why now? Then again, could she deal with a Demon when even knowing about them was a bad idea?

Rounding, around and around.

Finally sucking in air she rolled onto her chest and fumbled for her phone in the dark. Flipping it open she sighed at the time, late O'clock. If not now then, would she have the courage later? It was already too late, she was dialling the number she had saved.

It rang, it kept ringing. Maybe it was too late, she should just give up. Then the ringing stopped silence, a greeting.

Esra didn't sound the same as she normally did, soft but not so rough. The emotionless cut out so something a little more human, yet deflated. Like she had already lost, "Sorry, it's late. We spoke this morning about the books I had." You never knew who was listening so best not to say anything incriminating. "I shouldn't have said what I did." It was a statement and not an apology.

Pendleton felt quite honestly exhausted. The day had been long, and quite honestly, stressful. Between the death threat, the general stress of school, and the fact that he had decided to finish several stories in one night...however, now he was burnt out, flopped onto his bed. His head was pounding, and it STILL wasn't distracting enough. The Light from his TV was the only thing stopping the room from being completely dark.

He rolled over once, and twice, occasionally opening his Laptop to read, before closing it when the light from his screen only worsened his headache. Oh well...at least he could take some comfort in the fact she didn't know where he lived, or his phone number.

Or at least, he thought so, until his dorm phone rang. He assumed it was a call from his parents...and then paled when he realized that it was HER. As he listened to what she had to say, he swallowed, heavily. "I...think threatening someone with death deserves more than a 'whoops'. But fine. Are you calling about anything else?" He tried...and failed...to keep his tone neutral.

"I,"

It was hard enough for her to admit to herself that she was wrong, why was he intent on making it as hard as possible. For a moment she really did try to apologise, all that came though was a strangled silence. Did he not get that if he talked about what she was looking into, it was more than just a threat? He was throwing her and maybe even himself under a bus. Had he missed how much making that threat had hurt her?

Still soft and almost pleading she sucked up her words, "You said, you offered to help before and I was stupid." At least she could admit this much, "I was scared." There would he be happy now? "Do you still want to help?" Taking a deep breath she sagged into her pillow and closed her eyes for a moment. This was not who she was, what she showed people. Why were there cracks appearing in who she was all of a sudden? For years she had been the same and today it was like the world was pulled from under her. New people doing weird things. She even reacted to them in ways that made perfect sense and yet, they were different. Joking with people, talking to them, was this part of it? What about appearing weak to people, she never did that, not ever.

A fist weakly thumped the pillow, why now?

Pendleton was silent for a long moment. He seemed to slowly realize he wasn't going to be getting anything better. Still...did he want to help her? She seemed very abrasive, and ontop of that, she had threatened him...but it seemed like it was more of a reflex thing that had kicked in...she DID say she was scared...maybe she had just been a bit too cautious. "I...guess I'll still help you,
if you want it." He finally decided. It was probably a bad idea, but...eh. He couldn't just leave her to deal with demons on her own, no matter how much of a bad idea it was.

"Do I even want to know how you got my phone number? I'm pretty sure the school doesn't just hand that information out to ANYBODY." He sounded...well, he sounded confused. "...er...nevermind that. Did you get ANY helpful information from those books, or have you not started reading any of them yet?" He leaned against the wall, with a slight frown. Part of him felt as thought this was a horrible idea, but...leaving her to deal with it on her own was probably a bad idea.

Yeah, I found out that I'm completely nuts and mythology of demons is completely useless when it comes to dealing with them. Esra knew she had issues, she had a perfectly good way of dealing with them though, completely ignoring them. Until recently she had been more than strong enough to deal with anything life threw at her. Failing that she would run away until it didn't matter any more, only this time it didn't seem something she could run away from. Not for lack of trying.

"Nothing useful," She answered deflated, "Thank you." The words tasted acidic but she did mean it, for all his chiding he did say yes. Still it felt bitter, "Your sure, even if it is dangerous?" He was offering to help but did he know what he was getting into? As for the number, she just needed to contact a student. So she'd walked right into the teachers office, asked to look the record for his address relating to homework and checked that against the dorm room assignments.

Sitting up she looked at the window. For a second she was sure there where two red orbs outside, instantly vanishing. The wind was blowing, it was dark, yet. Esra bit her lip, why her? Was it because of what she did before? Was this another punishment?

"...I'm sure. I'm kinda curious now, anyway...and even if it is dangerous, that's only another reason for me to help.
Leaving you now would be...kind of a jerk move, thinking about it.
Something may go wrong if I just leave you alone to investigate it.
It may turn out way more dangerous than either of us could have imagined." Pendleton decided. Even if it turned out just to be nothing...they'd have to figure it out. Or else he just wouldn't be satisfied.

"...I don't know where we could get started looking for more information, though. It's kind of a forbidden subject, from what I've heard." He sounded a bit dejected. He had offered to help her, but only a few minutes in he was...pretty much just proving to be useless. "Unless we did something stupid and decided to go look for a demon ourselves."

He was right, it would be a total jerk move. Way more of a jerky move than he was already pulling, making this so hard. By way of thanks Esra did not inform him of this, holding her tongue about a lot else beside. Instead, still looking out the window she wriggle under her duvet and wrapped it around herself. Starting to recover a little more of her abrasiveness she answered, "That would be stupid, without a plan." How was he not afraid of them, had he not seen one? Of course not. Normal people didn't see things out of the corners of their eyes. Palm to forehead she went on, "What if we found one, do you think it would be happy? We'd just disappear like everyone else." At least it wouldn't just be her disappearing then.

"No one would find it weird, you asking about demons or looking for books. You said you were a writer." It was clearly outside of her normal behaviour to be taking a casual interest in this sort of thing. It would be clear to anyone that looked that she was involved in something. A horror writer though, well, that made sense. To her at least.

There was nothing in the window, there never seemed to be. Like it knew when she was looking at it and didn't want her to see. Why? Was it scared of her? Maybe it couldn't hurt her, then why was she so afraid of it?

"I said it was a stupid idea, didn't I? Demons probably don't like being disturbed, honestly. If we DID go down that route, it probably wouldn't end very well. I don't feel like dying right now, anyway..." Pendleton shook his head. Really, even the idea of going to look for a demon made him very uncomfortable. It was bad enough even thinking about it, actually going and meeting one face to face...it was unthinkable for him. Who knew what sort of awful things a demon could do to people...it was sickening.

"You have a point there, at least...alright, tomorrow at school I'll ask around a bit...I'll have to try and avoid asking a cadet though. It may be treason to even ask, or something...and even if i did ask a cadet, I doubt they'd give me an honest answer...and after school I'll head to some more obscure bookstores...maybe I can find something a bit more helpful than anything in the library to read." He mused. Though hopefully, demons weren't actually involved at all.

"Okay, thanks." They didn't seem to exactly be getting along but they were working together. He was putting himself on the line for her and agreed that it made sense for him to do the work. He didn't even complain, that was nice. There was most of a plan in front of them now, at least until tomorrow. As for what she could do, that was somewhat harder. Maybe if he was around her then when she saw flashes of it he might as well. At least it would prove that she wasn't crazy.

"Do you need me to do anything?" It didn't seem to Esra that there was much she could do. Try not to draw attention to herself, that should be easy enough. It wouldn't be too weird to be seen with this new guy at school, she could spread reasons. She was kind of in his debt at this point, she didn't like owing people favours. Shifting under the covers she blew out her cheeks and willed tiredness away, "I'm sorry." Those words flopped out like a dead fish, even she was shocked at them. Huddling up in her bed clothes, how many years had it been since she'd said them?

Pendleton thought about it. "Hmm...if you can think of any places that may have answers, it'd help if you could check them out. Covering more ground is always a good thing, and you probably know more places than I do around here." He admitted. And...I just realized I don't actually know your name, or Phone Number. You...apparently know mine, but I don't really know much about you." He admitted...it was just another thing that made him wonder what was going through his mind...he barely knew this person, and was already going out of his way to help her.

"Eh? It's okay, you don't have to worry...I get you were just scared...this is a very worrying situation...just...try not to do it again, okay, and we'll be fine..." Pen blinked. She...was apologizing...

Swaddled in her bedclothes Esra only felt very slightly safer, quickly starting to get too hot. Maybe that was the topic they were straying into, herself. "Just don't do anything that puts us at needless risk, I might not be the one you need to worry about." Her threat was not just about protecting herself after all.

"My name is Esra Dean, I live off campus but not far. You can catch me at school tomorrow, if you need my number just reverse call after this, it is my mobile." Fighting the urge to fling off the covers while watching the empty window. "I can look into the disappearances I guess, see if any of them are weird," Of course they were weird, just demon weird? Reading over the news was next to useless on details, she could ask around school though. A few students had known people that had vanished and might know if they were acting weird. Just like she was.

"What else did you want to know about me?" She almost certainly wouldn't answer properly but he was the one complaining he didn't know her. All she knew was he was a writer who lived in dorms and thought he knew something that might help. For all she knew he was the one behind the whole thing, trying to manipulate her for something.

"I mean, I'm really unlucky, but I think I can investigate without drawing too much attention...we should probably carry out our investigations separately in case I DO mess it up somehow." Pendleton sighed. He would NOT be surprised if his string of bad luck somehow got them into MORE trouble.

"Got it, I'll catch you at school tomorrow, Esra...I guess you already know, but my name's Wallace Pendleton...everyone just usually calls me by my last name, though.
I'll make sure I call you with my Cell Phone, so you have that number...it's probably way easier than using my dorm phone, since I'll probably always have access to it. Investigating the Disappearances is probably a good idea. I'm sure there has to be SOME evidence of some kind...I think I know a guy who MAY be willing to help, too...I'll talk to him at school tomorrow, explain our situation." Their horror movie group was getting bigger...usually that just meant there'd be more death scenes, but maybe not...

"Er...I may have already asked too many personal questions for one conversation...we barely know each other.
If there's anything you want to ask me, I can probably answer..."

"Just, don't tell him anything about me." She was just about managing to trust Pendleton because she had no choice. Bringing in strangers she doesn't know and certainly doesn't trust was by far the last thing she wanted to do. If he wanted to ask for general information then fine, there was almost nothing she could think of that required her to be mentioned.

He hadn't taken her offer to ask more questions which was nice, there wasn't anything particular that she wanted to know about him. A paticular question that hung around was one she would bring up though, "Why do you want to help me?" Would she help him in the same situation, maybe? She didn't know. Esra didn't want to admit that the answer would be no, it seemed likely. Why would she put her life on the line, even if she hated herself, for a stranger?

"I wasn't going to. You seem like you enjoy your secrecy...or at least, you don't want anyone thinking you're seeing demons...that probably wouldn't be great to have spreading around the school. Don't worry, I'm not gonna tell anyone." Pendleton assured. He had been on the wrong end of a bad rumor before. It was actually pretty terrible. Everyone always gave you weird looks, no matter what you were doing, like they suddenly expected you to do something weird.

"Because...I don't want to hear in a few days that you vanished. Or that you died, or SOMETHING and that I could have helped, but didn't. It may sound selfish, but...I actually am worried about you." He admitted. "These types of stories rarely end well...and especially if no-one bothers to help."

"I see," Esra wasn't that kind of person, she didn't worry about strangers and what happened to them. She cared about people close to her to be certain but strangers. They died all the time, you couldn't worry about them all. Still it wasn't like he was an alien, she understood and was even a little resentful that he could be like that. Even for selfish reasons it was nice to know that people cared, it was nice to be told it.

"Thank you," She didn't have anything else to add to that, it was better to just go, "You should get some sleep, I'll see you tomorrow." Throwing the covers off she looked at the phone screen before hanging up, when was the last time she talked to anyone on the phone?