Iceblue - A short Story

Welcome to my first attempt on a short story. And YES I know it is rather long, thank you very much *g* ATTENTION PLEASE THIS STORY CONTAINS SOME UGLY THINGS

No. 11 Jabba Drive... it was pretty late as I arrived, but I did not really care

And why would I, I was in no hurry. I was a bit dissapointed at first, the house was not very impressive, neither on the outside, nor on the inside

When I entered the actual appartment, though, I was pleasantly surprised- at least the effort to add some colour had been made

I took the time to take a look around. Hm. Grey, lilac and iceblue? Why not. A bit retro, sure, but quiet nice... private bar...

Oh. Eh, yes, rrrright... is it just me, or is someone here... a little, how shall I put this...

OBSESSED with those colours, and that girl?!? Dear me...  really... I mean, LOOK at all these pictures!

Seriously, I had never seen her before, so it was hardly possible that she was some kind of celebrity. Yet the room was cluttered with photographs of her

Ah but who cares, weirdos come in all types. I shrugged it off and explored the place some more- bubble machine... I was not too impressed, the whole place breathed "money" and "party" anyway

The all to shiny kitchen only added to my impression so far, it looked as if nothing in it had ever been used, except the coffee machine and maybe, just maybe the microwave oven

I remember how a grin spread on my face while I climded the stairs to the upper level of the condo. Rich weirdo can´t cook, eh? Tough...

The next floor offered two doors.Hm, two more rooms? This place sure was bigger than I expected it to be...

Out of habit, I chose to check the door on the left hand side first. It was open, naturally, and apparently led into a bathroom

I stopped dead as I found myself facing a man- what the?! Ts, I couldn´t believe it. Full wall to wall, floor to ceiling mirrors on all four walls? Listen weirdo, in case no one told you yet, this is CREEPY

Still startled, I decided to be a little more careful as I proceeded into the connecting room. Should be the bedroom, and who knows what pleasant little suprises weirdo has placed there...

And I had guessed right, it was a bedroom. Big surprise, it was grey, lilac and iceblue... not that intrigueing on the long run, can tell you that

I was not surprised to find nude pictures of the same girl on the walls here- the only thing that made me frown was the fact that she was looking away from the bed in all of them. Hm. As I don´t understand it, this must be art, I thought

I decided to snoop around a bit in this all to tidy place, but even the fancy dresser was pretty dissapointing. Most of the drawers were empty

Admittingly, I was starting to get seriously bored. Then I spotted there was another door opposite to the one that led into the freaky mirrored bathroom

When I opened it, the stench made my eyes water. What on earth?!

I´ll nerver forget, first thing I saw was a teddy bear, I thought how odd, how can a little toy be so smelly?

How can a little toy bear carry a stink of death and decay so strong?

Then I realised that the unbearable stench evaporated from the body of a girl

She was lying in on of those dream chairs. Sleepers... I clenched my teeth in disgust. Sleepers. Rich kids who do not want to ruin their precious bodies by using common drugs and buy dream chairs. Connect to the Elyssium Network and dream their days away. Until something goes wrong and they don´t wake up anymore. Damn. My luck again

And then I realized that she was not dead yet

The shock was almost to much for me. To think I might not have noticed! To think I might have...

There was no time to loose, I immidiately rushed downstairs as fast as humanly possible- phone, where was the phone?!

I ran for the coffee table, grabbed the frigging thing, started to hit the buttons madly...

... and right there, right then I realized that I could not do it

I don´t know how long I just stood there, staring at the phone in my hand until I put it back on the station and finally, slowly went back upstairs

Holding my breath, I carefully entered the room again... no doubt about it, she was still alive- if only barely, by the looks of it

With a sigh, I carefully diconnected her from the monstrosity that had almost taken her life... hm... interesting, someone had fiddled around with the safety circuit, that explained why no alarm had gone off...

I felt my heart sink as I lifted her up... she was so fragile, light like a feather... I feared I might break her in half with any clumsy move

She hardly moved at all as I carefully undressed her, but while I carried her into the bathroom her tiny skeletal fingers slowly crept up to my shoulders like they were searching for something to stop her from falling

I lowered her oh so slowly into the cursed lilac bathtube, filled it with a nice warm bubble bath and gently started to scrub all the dirt from her skin... dirt... blood... excrements...If any of you has feelings of envy now, screw them. It was nothing but very, very sad

It felt like ages until she was finally looking, and moreover, smelling like a human being again, so I towelled her and carried her back to the bedroom to tuck her in

It was only then that I understood that she was the girl from the pictures, and most likely the person who lived in this appartement. The lover of grey, lilac and iceblue. The weirdo

While I was sitting there, watching over her unnatural sleep, I tried to wrap my mind around this insight. I tried to imagine her fiddling with the security circuit of her favorite toy

She must be pretty skillfull to do this sick modification the right way, I remembered all to well how the producers of those wretched things had proclaimed how much safety they had added... after the first deaths

I tried to understand how on earth anybody would be able to do something like that to himself, coldblooded and determined not to wake again

But no matter how hard I tried, it all circled around the one question - WHY?!

I just didn´t get it. Staring at her sleeping face did not help either, so I decided to pour myself a stiff one and went downstairs to the bar

While I stood there, lost in thought and sipping on my drink, I heard a faint beeping sound

Ah, the doorbell. Who could that be, in the middle of the night? I took a look at the display of the front door camera... some boy...

Weird. He looked vaguely familiar, I just couldn´t put a finger on it... did we meet before? Shouldn´t be so hard to remember really... I took another mouthful

"Kayla, it´s me again. Will you please stop playing games and answer the doorbell? I know that you are in, I called the company, they told me that you took the rest of the month off, and we both know that you won´t leave your condo at night if it was for your life"

Oh oh, sounds like a true Mr. Nice Guy... bad taste in guys, have you, Kayla? Hmmm Kayla... nice name...

Then he freaked out seriously "Now open that frigging DOOR you stupid COW or this will be the last you see of ME I SWEAR TO GOD! I am so SICK and TIRED of your little girl games, you know that?! I only played along ´cause you did what I like, too, it was a DEAL, gottit you SICK brat?!"

And on and on he ranted, but I did not really listen anymore, my ears were buzzing... I stared at Kayla´s picture on the wall right in front of me, his words ringing in my ears......................... "little girl games"

The glass slipped from my hand and shattered on the tiles, and I did not even notice. I climbed the glass stairs once again, his yelling and shouting shrinking into the background of my concience

Little girl games... the pictures in that stinking dreamchair room... the teddy...   shivers ran down my spine

The couple on the sofa... Mum and Dad?

The woman alone.. her Mum?

The teenager that Daddy hugged just a little to tightly...Kayla....?

I bit my knuckles to stifle a cry, so all that escaped my mouth was a squeaky sound like made by some small animal

The nutter at the front door with the piercing blue eyes, I had seen that scowl before indeed

The psycho, Kayla´s lover, looked like a carbon copy of her father

And that was when I suddenly got a pretty clear image of what exactly the expression "little girl games" was referring to

Call me a sissy if you like. I don´t care. I totally puked my guts out

I couldn´t help but stare at her for what seemed like hours back then. Kayla the weirdo... boy when I first called her that, I had no idea...

Finally, I managed to drag myself away and wandered around aimlessly, ending up in the living room again, staring at the stars... luckily, the guy had left in the meantime. I just don´t know what I would have done to him

I tried to watch some tv, but there was nothing on at that time of the night... and all those pictures seemed to stare at me... should I leave now?

In the end I decided to stay and spend the night on the sofa       .

To be frank, I have slept on less comfy furniture... eh, just don´t ask

I also had much better nights though, can tell you that.

I pulled my jumper over my head and took a look at the bright new day that had dawned upon the human race once more

Yawning, I stumbled into the kitchen and tried to convince the coffee-o-mat to produce something that contained as much caffeine, sugar and milk as possible

What the hell am I still doing here? I asked myself. I knew all to well that I should be going. She would be ok, surely...  only, I would never know for sure if I left now

I had just grabbed my third mug when I heard her. She was slowly shuffling down the glass stairs

She stopped at the sight of me, naturally. But she didn´t scream, or faint, or anything like that, rather impressing... or she simply didn´t really come around yet, hard to tell. After all she had seriously messed around with her brain lately

I decided to leave the first move to her and simply took another sip from my mug, examining her from the corner of my eye at the same time

I couldn´t help but smile. She looked so much better... better than at the time when I found her yesterday, obviously, but I´d say she looked a million times better than in all those stupid pinup pose pictures, too

As she stood there so patiently, I gave in in the end and spoke first.      "Good morning Kayla. I am glad to see you are better today"

I nodded towards the counter, where one sorry mug of coffee was still awaiting "How about some coffee? Milk and sugar, I hope you like it that way..."

She rubbed he tummy, which was growling so loudly that I could here it from the other side of the room "Eh, normally not, but I guess I can really do with some... extra energy today..."

She grabbed the final survivor and sat down opposite of me, lowering herself carefully on the seat... oh yes. I bet her backside hurt like hell, I tried my best with the ointment I found in the first aid cabinet, but still...

I just sat there. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her... after a few gulps she became more vivid and started to examine me more closely

I became nervous... this could get ugly... I started to shift uneasily and averted my eyes

After some forced silence, she turned to see what might be so extremely interesting to her right, rising an eyebrow ironically                          "Say, am I missing something about the coffeemaker?"

"

"Eh, no, dunno..." I blushed like an idiot. Jeeze! What had gotten into me that I stayed in the first place?! I could easily have waited in my ride, outside, and just have watched the house to see if she would be ok! How was I going to get out of this one?!

"I am sorry. I - don´t remember to much of what happened... lately... but... I am pretty sure, that you..." her voice trailed off

She swallowed hard "Hell, I am pretty sure that you saved my life. And to avoid any misunderstanding, I am glad that you did it, and don´t worry, I will not waste that second chance I´ve been given- but- my brain really is a mess-       do I know you?!"

"Me? Oh no, I wouldnt´s say that you know me"

Her expression was somehow pained "I mean, do I know you? Are we friends, collegues? I am a total loss here- who are you?"

Oh. My name is Gordon... I am a burglar