Chapter 1
1
21 August
“It’s busy here, can’t you see? I’m here with my friend. Go find someplace else to picnic”
The young lady holding a paintbrush spoke with a straight face, yet there was a hostile undertone to her words. The stranger in front of her stared back at her, unsure of how to react before retreating out of the hollow bushes and into the sunlight.
“Jeez, Mel, you’re so rude...”
Mel glared up at the young man perched on a tree trunk behind her.
“I wasn’t rude. That’s how I normally speak”
The man took a long drag and rolled his eyes at Mel. She did indeed always talk in a way that made her seem either pissed off or disgusted. Still rude all the same, but that was who Mel was.
“So… you gonna make that guy disappear too now?”
“Shut up, Jade. I’m not brainless. He was ugly anyways”
“Just like her b-”
Jade stopped mid-sentence. Mel would definitely push him out of the tree he was sitting in and murder him had he finished his sentence.
“Just like who?”
Jade was snapped out of his thoughts as he threw away his cigarette.
“Stomp on that for me, doll. I’ll tell you.”
Mel set down her paintbrush and drove her foot over the cigarette butt. She was really considering buying an ashtray for Jade because of how much he smoked. Hell, he could probably build a sculpture out of the amount of cigarettes this man smoked.
“Are you gonna tell me?”
Jade smirked at her. “I meant to say you were just like your boring old self when you were younger. Always such high standards, even for potential victims!”
Mel turned her back to him and picked up her paintbrush to resume painting.
“It’s not that. If he had the potential for even something then yeah. The entire point is to do my victims a good deed by turning them into something pretty. I can only do that if I have something good to work with.”
Jade silently breathed out a sigh of relief as Mel rambled on. His explanation had been convincing enough. It was probably better if he shackled away the existence of the secret he had heard through word of mouth for now.
