I read the news today, oh boy Who: Maddie and Santiago (NPC) Where: Maddie's house, her "bedroom" When: Before dawn
Maddie had a fitful night's sleep. She was not a light sleeper by nature but she'd worked the late shift at The Mudhouse and drank too much caffeine. Plus her cellphone kept going off. Vickie was a girl who worked some of the same shifts Maddie did at SOPD dispatch. They kept each other in the loop when something was going down, like a crazed murderer on the loose and other important information like that. Scarlet Oak was a place where keeping up with the news from PD was a good idea. Maddie had been working when the first child had died from demon legionaries (of course, she'd had to figure that out herself from the talk around the station instead of directly from dispatch). And, now, Vickie kept texting her about this elderly couple in the park. "Why do you think I care about the crazy old people?" Maddie yelled at her phone.
"Dios Mio, hija, go to sleep," Santiago muttered from beyond the curtain that separated her "bedroom" from the rest of the house. Maddie was not apologetic. Instead, she pushed the power button until her phone turned off and then threw it at the curtain. "You missed."
She'd finally fallen asleep between three or four in the morning (she couldn't tell without her phone). And then she'd had a terrible dream. She was walking through her parents' home in Tucson. Except it didn't look like the Tucson house. There were two stories...and she was full of dread. She saw her mom first. Dead on the stairs. Maddie started screaming and ran towards her bedroom to hide. Except it wasn't her bedroom. It was her dad's and he was dead, too. Maddie started sobbing right before she caught her reflection the mirror. Male, her age, thick curly hair, decently attractive.
"Mija! Mija!" Yelling broke into her dream and she jerked awake, chest heaving. Santiago's face was a few inches from her. He smelled like a sheep. "Que paso, mija? You were crying in your sleep." Maddie touched her face and found it was wet. She wiped it away with one hand as she grabbed Santiago's nose and pushed his face away from hers. He took a step or two back and then tilted his head. "Who is that boy?"
"Get out of my head!" Maddie screamed at the llama, reaching for anything on her bedside table to chuck at him. A pen would do. It hit two feet to the left of Santiago. "Goddamn, you are worse than a vampire. I didn't even invite you in!"
Santiago stomped his feet and snorted. "I didn't ask for you either. But you are stuck with me so I suggest you just...how do you say? GET OVER IT."
"Get out of my bedroom before I set you on fire," Maddie growled.
"I would like to see you try," was the cheeky response.
They both knew she wasn't at a place where she could set things on fire yet but it wasn't like Maddie to not even try. She narrowed her eyes at the llama and flipped her hand over, concentrating very hard to create a flame. She'd done it a couple of times before with Santiago's aid. She tried not to think about that. Looking down at her hand, Maddie focused all of her energy into creating a flame. C'mon...c'moooon....
Suddenly, her window shattered. Both Maddie and Santiago let out a loud shriek and stared at the abomination creeping in through her window. Santiago started cursing in Spanish. "What is that?!" Maddie stared in disbelief. She didn't even notice she was halfway out of bed until her legs got tangled in her sheets and she fell over onto the floor.
One of the giant sunflowers that danced in front of her father's house had grown the size of large pizza and broken in through her window. It bobbed up and down happily as if laughing at the pair of them.
"Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore," Santiago telepathically whispered.
"No more movie nights with my dad for you." Speaking of. "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!!!"