The Stray and The Innocent

The library was a place the student was quite familiar with for someone of his age. Most kept to their homes and hardly visited this large structure due to having the things they needed for research at school or within their residences. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have access to much of anything at home, and the school library was booked on both laptops and had little to offer him with research material. Though, the teen wasn’t actually short on the research material itself, he did need internet connection to access the required electronic sources in order to write his paper. If it wasn’t easy to guess from that statement alone, Keith did not have internet at home, nor did he have a computer to work with.

With that complication, he was forced to go to the library almost daily to get any work done. Why did all his classes require everything to be done online ? It’d be much easier on him if he could handwrite things. Or actually, he might be forced to type it up anyway with his handwriting being inconsistent in legibility. Having the checked out laptop tucked under his arm, Keith made his way towards the study room he had reserved to use for the afternoon. Three o’clock was an optimal time for him to get something done since he didn’t have classes for the remainder of the day, and he’d easily get home before dark. The boy disliked walking home after sunset for a reason; bad things could happen.

He was slightly late this time, having been held up by one of his teachers wanting to talk with him after class. Hopefully nobody had decided to be a jerk and take the room because he was late. It wouldn’t be the first time someone did that should he get to the room and find a person inside without a reservation. As much as he’d like to sort things out calmly, most scenarios forced him to grab the librarian to check the reservation times and kick the unwanted occupant out of the room so he could actually use the room he had placed his name on.

Unfortunately, upon reaching the door to the study room he had reserved for the current hour, he had peeked in to see a dark haired woman acting out some weird motions and picked up some cringe-y snippets of dialogue. Was she acting out some sort of script by herself ? Well, it didn’t matter; it was his turn to use the room. This lady had overstayed her welcome. With his free hand, the redhead placed his knuckles against the door below the window, then proceeded to knock on the wood. His eyes fixed on the door handle, watching for its movement.

The woman’s voice increased in volume as her face dramatically switched expressions. Ugh, she didn’t hear the knocking. Knowing the door was unlocked, Keith turned the doorknob and opened the door. He stood in the doorway in silence, waiting for her theatrics to end before speaking up while he adjusted his grip on the laptop under his arm. 

❝ Excuse me, but it’s my turn to use this room, ❞ he stated as his gaze fixated on the eccentric woman.

His voice snapped her out of her one-man performance. She instinctively looked at the clock with a surprised look. ” Oh, has it been three hours already?!”  wow, time does fly. She was pretty sure it was 2:00 afew minutes ago. 

 Elisa didn’t look particular embarrassed that someone saw her private performance, although she was slightly annoyed that someone saw her incomplete work. It didn’t reach her usual standard for an audience. She didn’t expect someone to reserve the last slot this late. She was hoping to reserve the room until the library close. Oh, how annoying?! she didn’t even finish anything new after an entire three hours and now she needed to move her stuff that completely dominated the room. The small conference table was filled with a book, papers, and reference drawings of characters. it was a bloody mess that would take a while to clean up.

“ Oh... well that is going to take a while... why don’t take a seat while I sort out that mess.”  maybe she can do some research outside or something? Staying in a closed room for three hours without a break was really depressing. She started sorting out her things and putting them inside her back bag. Her book collection was a sight to see. It went from the morbid like the big book of pain: torture & punishment through history to self-help book that mainly centered around relationships and love. Bottom line, her things were all over the place.

The floor boards creaked as Sachiko walked through the house. An abandoned home might not be most people’s first choice, but for Sachiko and her younger sister, it was quite perfect. Nobody bothered them much, or at all for that matter. And they liked that.

So naturally, when the zombie saw a stranger in their home, she wasn’t really surprised. People liked places that they thought were haunted, right? Maybe she should say something…

“…boo…”

Probably not that.

Laura nearly jumped out of her skin in fright. She was expecting the actual place to be haunted. Responding to her fear the beast in her shadow growled. The sound echoed in the house snapping Laura out of her initial surprise.

With an embarrassed smile, she faced the girl“ Oh...you scared me...” She tried to calm down to prevent the beast from escaping her shadow. The girl didn’t look that dangerous so there was a need for it to attack anyone. 

Once I find a good shot, I can’t help myself. Um, wasn’t that an excuse almost every photographer said when taking photos of unsuspecting people ? But, to be fair, if they asked first, they probably wouldn’t be able to get a natural posture or expression, especially if the subject was camera shy. And, maybe this woman did make a habit of taking photos as soon as she saw a potential good one. It was probably similar to an artist wanting to immediately grab a canvas and paint as soon as an inspiring image came to mind. He could… somewhat relate to that, he guessed. Might as well cut her some slack.

His eyes widened for a moment upon her picking up the pencil. They then shifted to the open bag hung on his left shoulder, peering inside to see if the pencil was actually in there or not. Upon seeing the empty slot where he would’ve had the drawing tool, his gaze went back to the other, who was now holding out his sketching utensil. How clumsy of him. He took out his sketchbook and placed it inside his bag; if he didn’t and ended up moving his arms to grab the pencil first, it’d fall to the ground and potentially fold pages. After putting the sketchbook away properly, Keith took the pencil from her grasp and placed it inside his bag, in it’s special holder.

Her offer was a little persistent. Or at least it sounded that way to him. She must really want to keep this photo. Was it really that good anyway ? What good would possibly come out of a photo featuring someone sketching a cat that just so happened to be cooperative ? It wasn’t like he’d allow her to submit it to any competitions or anything or keep it in the first place. It was one thing if family had taken the photo, but she was a stranger.  The teen didn’t even allow friends of his to keep photos because, well, it was embarrassing. And to be honest, he didn’t like being in photos to begin with.

Yet, upon seeing the photo itself, he had to agree it didn’t look half bad (okay, it was pretty good). So this was what it was like having a professional take a photo. The photo was actually decently appealing to look at if anything, and since he was being generous about admitting things, he might as well comment that he would probably consider hanging it on the wall in his room (that is, if he were even comfortable with people knowing of this stupid hobby of his anyway). But, did he really want her, this stranger, to keep a photo of him ? Definitely not.

His right hand moved to grip the bag’s strap as he responded to her offer, ❝ Even if this photo isn’t bad, I’m not going to take it, ❞ the redhead replied bluntly, ❝ I don’t like displaying photos of things I’d rather not have people know about. ❞ 

  Laura pouted at his blunt response. It was such a waste to delete such a good photo. She really hoped he would at least keep it for his personal use. She childishly sulked as she fiddled with her camera. 

“ Too bad then.” Despite her personal feelings, she was still a professional so she placed the camera in front of him as she promptly deleted the photo. It looked like the simple action of pressing the delete button was physically painful for her. She disliked wasting photos especially good ones. 

Her attention was drawn to the cat laying on the fountain and her mood shifted. Now the cat was a much cuter subject. She laid on the grass softly as she observed the tabby cat incomplete silence waiting for a good shot. It was sunny out and natural lighting was perfect for taking bright and cheerful themed photos.

For someone who was normally so full of energy, Laura could stand still for hours to get the perfect shot. Her focus when it came to photography was pretty ironic since she couldn’t stay focus for long on anything else. Photography was her passion and drive. Anyone who saw her taking photos could see her dedication to her craft.

“Those seem like realistic reactions!” Luke assured her. “Where does the plot go from there, though? Do either of them have some sort of goal? Something they need to achieve? That’s the best way to keep a plot compelling.” 

So far she didn’t seem to be struggling with writer’s block, the ideas were just spilling out onto him. Maybe she was just overwhelmed by deadlines… He could relate. 

“ Now this the heart of the problem... Lance’s backstory I got on lock, but his character is fickle and hard to write. Anna, on the other hand, I haven’t even decided what type of character is she. My editor wants me to hint at a romance between the two of them so their personalities should be compatible......” She wanted to pull her hair in frustrations. Why the romance part? She was shitty at writing good romantic relationships.