The Night Is Rising // O/O // Closed

"Awesomely awesomerest." Ana laughed. "We could make an entirely new portion of the dictionary, with words to describe us alone. We'd be amazing. And people would start using our words, and we'd be so cool." She snorted. "You see? This is what I think about when I'm bored."

Laurel laughed along with Ana, a bright smile on her face. If someone had told her the apocalypse was coming, she would have been skeptical. If they had told her that while the apocalypse was happening, she would be laughing her head off with someone she had just met, she probably would have laughed in their face. "Oh, we should!" Laurel agreed, nodding. "Well, I think it's brilliant. You should be bored more often!"

"I should be," Ana agreed. "I could invent something useful, that the world would need! Like peace! I don't think that's ever been tried before." She snorted.
"So… what now?" She asked, after a moment.

"Yeah, that would be something new," Laurel laughed, shaking her head a little as she did. "Well… I guess we try to make it to the town and find those weapons. And avoid the Shadow King, because as much as I think we're awesome, I think he's more powerful than we are. How else could he have such a weird name?" Her laugh was weaker this time, probably because she was talking about something that could kill both of them.

"That's true." Ana sensed the darkness and fear behind Laurel's words and tries to cheer him up. "But maybe one of the weapons we'll be getting is something that could give us magic. That would be cool, and totally worth it. Maybe the powers that we'll be given is pure awesomeness!"

"Yeah. It probably will." Laurel said, trying to say those words with as much certainty as she could. "Ha! If that's true, then our combined awesomeness will actually overpower whatever magic he has!" She was already moving the fear of the Shadow King out of her mind. It could come back if they actually faced him, and if that time came, they would probably have a bunch of magic and weapons on their side.

"Exactly! And then he'd never dare to show his face here again!" Ana laughed. She tried to act like nothing was wrong, that she wasn't afraid of anything, and certainly not this Shadow King. Which, of course, was a lie.
She sighed. "I wish that was true."

"We wouldn't even have to do much." Laurel sighed softly, eyes slightly dreamy. "That would be nice. I wish it was true as well." If the Shadow King lived up to everything that Laurel had heard– which honestly wasn't much, but what she had heard was bad– they would probably have to kill him in order to get rid of him. She wasn't looking forward to that. Hopefully, they'd only have to banish him or something.

"Yeah." Ana brushed her hair from her face. "I wish this was a VR game," she said slowly. "It'd be really, really cool."
She kept driving, trying not to think.

Laurel hummed in agreement, eyes focused on the road ahead of them. She was feeling sort of jittery now, unable to wait for the town to appear. She wanted those maybe-magical weapons now, and she wanted to believe that they would help her and Ana. There was nothing else to do but wait, though.

"We should be there in a few minutes," Ana said after a while. "I really hope there's candy," she said with a laugh. "I'm craving some big-time right now."
She flexed her hands on the steering wheel. What she didn't say was that she hoped that there was no monsters there, either. But if she said it out loud, she'd feel like she jinxed them.

"Oh, good," Laurel laughed, a slightly nervous undertone to it. "Yeah, totally. Something sweet would defiantly help here." She curled her hands into fists. It was great that they were almost there, but it also made her stomach turn. What if they ran into monsters? What if they ran into other people who weren't too friendly? What if… what if they ran into the Shadow King? They both had nothing but a few small knives to defend themselves with.

"It would. And then I could stop tasting stale air." Ana made a face. "My breath tastes terrible, ever since we started fighting the monsters. I think I got a little bit of their blood in my mouth, and it tastes awful." She laughed.
"Oh well." She turned a corner, and the small town grew into view, just a mile away. It was perfectly empty, and a bit eerie.

Laurel looked over at Ana, a slightly goofy smile on her face. "Ha, that is disgusting. How in the world did you manage that? And I hope that it never happens again. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy." She shook her head slightly and looked ahead of them. At the sight of the town, her heart skipped a beat. "Well, that isn't creepy at all. Let's hope it stays empty," she continued in a soft voice.

"Well… if you hate a person that much…" Ana trailed off.
"I hope it stays empty too… although I wonder where the people are." It was so silent it was giving her the creeps.

"Yeah. Do you think…" Laurel paused, unsure if she should actually say it. "Do you think they're all dead?" She finally asked, her voice barely a whisper. "But, uh, at least there aren't any monsters around just yet." She shook her head slightly, trying to stop thinking about her dark question.

"I mean, given the lack of bodies, I don't think they're dead." Ana pulled into the parking lot of the candy shop. "Come on, let's get some sweets."
She stopped the car and stepped out, calling her daggers to her, so that she would be prepared in case there really were monsters around here.

"They might have been eaten…" Laurel breathed, her voice almost inaudible. Them pulling into the candy shop took her mind off of that terrible thought, for which she was glad. "Yeah, okay." She opened the door and got out, taking her knives with her. There was no way she was going anywhere without them again, even if everything looked perfectly safe. Even when she was going to a freaking candy shop, she had to be on edge. These monsters sucked.

"They wouldn't have been eaten," Ana said, sliding the door to the candy shop open, body tense and wary. "Unless the poor people were swallowed whole. There's no blood to show that they've been eaten." She slid the knives into her sleeves and tried to act normal.
"Well, at least we get free candy," she said, trying to sound energetic and optimistic.

"Well, that's a relief." Laurel blinked quickly, glancing around nervously. She really wanted to know where all the people were. But Ana had soothed her fears quite a bit. Those monsters didn't look like they could handle swallowing a human whole. "Yeah. That's defiantly a plus." She nodded, following Ana into the store. Laurel was determined to drown her fears in candy– just looking at it and hoarding, though. Getting sick to her stomach wouldn't help her chances of survival.

"How much do we want to get?" Ana asked, looking around at the shelves. "Because there might be enough room in the jeep to take about half of this… if we don't want anything else in the car." She gave a small smile. "Do we want to grab some bags to put the candy in?"
Already her mouth was watering, and her fingers were desperate to pick up the beautiful, glimmering, sweet candy. She loved candy with a passion.

"We should get a good amount." Laurel grinned at the shelves of candy. "Enough to last us forever." She laughed and looked over at Ana. "Yes. Let's get all the bags!" Laurel looked around and spotted the place where all the bags were kept. She skipped over and grabbed one, then looked around. What kind of candy should she get first? Gummy bears? Sour candy? Jelly beans? Yeah, she wanted to get jelly beans. Laurel started towards them, eyes darting around to make sure there weren't any monsters hiding behind the displays.

"I don't think there's enough for forever," Ana said wryly, but she grinned. "We still need room for the other stuff in the back of the car, you know. So don't grab too much."
Despite her words, she started to load up several bags with candy. Lollipops, taffy, jelly beans, gummy bears, licorice. There was so much, and it made her mouth water. She wasn't being as cautious as she should be, but then again, who could blame her? There was candy. And candy always made people lower their defenses.

"True, true. But enough for a good amount of time should work, right?" Laurel grinned over at Ana, then turned her eyes towards the display of jelly beans. She filled up a bag with all her favorite flavors, then went over to grab a generous helping of gummy bears. Laurel was browsing through some sour candy near the front of the store when a flash of movement caught her eye. She frowned, eyes darting up and down the street. There was nothing, nothing… and then she spotted it. A monster slipped around a corner a little way down the road and started gliding up it, head twitching back and forth… almost as if it was hunting. "Ana!" Laurel hissed, backing away from the window. "There's a monster in the street coming this way! We need to hide or something." Even though her life was in potential danger, she kept a tight grip on the bags of candy. There was no need to waste good candy– unless she was seconds away from death.

"Shit," Ana cursed. She went to the window, peering through at the monster before ducking back. "It's too big for us to handle without getting hurt. We're too weak right now." She looked around the store. "Should we try to hide behind the counter? It faces towards the door, so we can stay out of sight that way." She chucked her bags of candy behind the counter and ducked, holding the blades of the knives from Endor tightly.

"Agreed." Laurel took a deep breath and looked around the shop. "Yeah, that's probably the best thing to do right now." She hurried behind the counter and dropped down behind it. She had to drop the candy to grab her knives, but she was determined not to forget them. "Let's hope it just goes right by…" Laurel whispered, biting her lip nervously. The shop was silent except for her and Ana.

"I hope it does, too," Ana said, her voice barely louder than a breath of wind. "Or we're screwed. We might even have to leave the candy behind."
And then she started. "Oh no! The jeep! If this creature smells our scent, it might come here!"

Laurel let out a small, breathy laugh. "That wouldn't be good." Her eyes widened at Ana's realization. "Well, it doesn't have eyes, so it's probably navigating by scent alone…" She trailed off, her hands clenched so tight around the knives that her knuckles turned white. "Maybe it'll ignore it?" Laurel said, so softly she could barely hear herself. Although she wanted to check where the monster was, she couldn't make herself move. A lump of cold, heavy fear was growing in her stomach, keeping her right where she was.

"I sure hope so," Ana said. "But when has hope ever done anything for me?"
She spared a glance at the monster, and froze. It had stopped, and was slowly swaying, as if looking for somehitng.

"Hmm," Laurel hummed in agreement. She was glad that Ana checked to see where the monster was, as she still hadn't been able to convince herself to move. "What's it doing?" Laurel breathed, not liking how Ana had froze. That usually meant something bad, right?