Novel Full Chapter 401 - The Ugly Side
Amanda's was a modest little apartment studio lot smack dab right in the middle of the beating, unsleeping heart of the city. It was the type of place where tall narrow buildings were tight-knit neighbors with other taller narrower buildings.
If quiet, quaint living was where I stand with my choice of home, then Amanda's pick for a roof under her head was the total antithesis to that belief. Much like herself, her home was much the center for all rowdy happenings all at once.
The closer we got to her place, the more skittish she became. She drove us into a row of high-rise complexes and was practically drifting across the turns in the parking lot just trying to get us there faster, then after she found her spot and killed the engine, somehow speedy breezy she was already swinging my door wide-open, dragging me out while I was still midway trying to unbuckle my seatbelt.
"What's the rush?" I asked, desperately keeping up with her pace before she accidentally dislocated my shoulder.
"Nothing, nothing," She said, swaying and frolicking. "I'm just… excited. You know, you're the first person apart from family that I've ever invited over to my place."
Before I knew it, her apartment door was staring straight at me in the face, and Amanda had her face stuffed into her purse, scouring for her keys. Come to think of it, I think this was a first for me too - being invited over to a girl's place, I mean.
Amanda's abode, Amanda's home… I never gave it much thought beforehand, and maybe that was a good thing, because the moment I let the prospect sink in, suddenly I'm nervous. Why was I nervous?
"So," I took a breather, blowing the tingling butterflies out of my gut with a breath, leaning myself up beside her door. "You got me reserved for the entire evening…"
"Got you reserved, wow," She muttered dryly, puckering up a smile. "Not a very humble hero, are you?"
"My ego inflates upwards to 32.55% whenever I'm working something out. If you want humble, then humble me with an answer… what do you have in store for us tonight?
"Oh, you know..." She said, making mumbling noises between her words. "This and that, here and there, you'll see. Why are you even asking, it's just dinner."
"Yeah, dinner with you," I pointed out. "Noticed that I emphasized the word 'you' there in that sentence? That's no accident in case you're wondering."
"Once more, I shall repeat myself, it's just dinner," with a jingle, she slotted in her key to the lock, with a soft click, she twisted the door open, and playfully she gestured her arm forward inside, glancing at me with amusement in her eyes. "What's the worst that can happen, hm?"
I knew she meant that jokingly, but considering my track record so far, I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up in an early grave by choking on a piece of broccoli or something… and knowing just how fickle fate's treatment was to me, maybe I really should chew with caution.
Keeping sights wary, I slowly took the first steps in, with Amanda following close. There wasn't much really of interest until she promptly flickered the lights on behind me, and from there… I didn't really know what I expected to see.
Something quirky? Something weird? Something so bizarrely out there that I couldn't help but question it? No, strangely enough, Amanda's apartment was as normal and mundane as an apartment could get.
Four walls and a roof, a couple of doors that lead to other rooms, there were some posters on the walls, a shelf or two with some presumably sought after pieces of memorabilia lined on top still pristine and unopened in their boxes.
All in all, it was… fine. If anything, It felt too clean, not a speck of dust to be seen. Hell, I don't think even Ash was this thorough. The thing was I've been so accustomed to the abnormal for so long, that the moment I was faced with anything that didn't involve something along those lines, I just kinda lose myself for a moment.
It just sorta slipped my mind that Amanda didn't have my life. She was a part of it, sure, but she had her own - a whole other life that didn't deal with Elves, or Magic, or pain-in-the-ass Ancient Magus. She didn't go to sleep, having to wonder if she's fed the vampire yet. Amanda was just a normal girl… and this was just a normal date.
"Take a seat first," She said, deliberately brushing past me on her way to the kitchen. "I'll get you something nice to drink."
Awkwardly, I hobbled my way over into her living room, taking the least amount of space possible on the couch, sitting on one side, trying to keep myself from moving too much and wrinkling it.
From the number of cabinets being opened, and glasses clinking atop the countertop, I surmised it was going to take some time before that drink makes it into my hands.
Now someone normal would have rightfully brought out their phone by now as a means to pass the time, but not me… I was simply too braindead to even think of that as an option, instead, I just looked around some more, like a museum… only more Amanda-ish.
She had many books, textbooks… If I remember right, she was doing a course on programming, and well, her surroundings do very much reflect that ambition. There were sticky notes on her fridge for quick tips too, her desktop monitor was glowing on with dozens upon dozens of tabs opened on standby - stack overflow was the primary one on display if I read the URL right.
Turns out also that the posters on her walls weren't just posters either, upon closer inspection, they were all her own creations. Concept designs of fantasy beings good enough to be passed off as official artwork. It was clear she took pride in her work, and yeah, if I possessed even a modicum of her skill, you bet your ass I'd be flaunting them all over the nearest public sidewalk for the whole world to see.
Slanting my gaze just a little lower across from me had me stumbling open a little leather book sitting so very inconspicuously on her coffee table, resting right next to a game controller, and a small figure of a bloodlust Eshwlyn smiling menacingly up at me.
No surprise, it was the little book I went reaching for. According to the cover, it was a journal of some sort… and flipping to the first couple of entries made it evident that it was being used more as a quick reference book than anything, and then from there, its intended purpose just sorta varied from little notes of knowledge here and there, to small doodles of random stuff intermixed… I suppose you gotta cope with boredom somehow.
It was somewhere around the middle where I supposed she found her love for drawing. Her simple doodles evolve to more elaborate sketches, each better and grander than the last. It got to the point where the left page would be brimming with notes, while the other page was completely reserved for her drawings.
I had fun rifling through page after page, seeing the scope of her imagination encapsulated in ink and lead, going from illustrations of normal everyday items to large full-scale portraits of dragons, and scenic views of prosperous kingdoms. You could actually pinpoint the exact moment she started getting into her fantasy phase.
Book was like a time capsule keeping track of her life, and as I continued flipping through the contents, and gradually coming up to present time, I noticed in the more later entries, she just sorta stopped keeping reference notes, and in the instances she does, they were written so careless, clumsy, hasty, with half of them barely even intelligible.
As for her sketches, I'd be fortunate to find one that was even half-finished, most as of late looked seemingly started on and stopped abruptly in a matter of minutes. She started skipping pages at a time too, just rows of completely blank sections in-between her entries.
I turned to another page, and for this one, I stayed my hand and my stare for the longest. Another drawing, a finish sketched, a pencil weave whose corners and curves took a shape that was all too familiar.
It was her. The only illustration of her out of countless others. It was pretty much a mirror image, the shape of her eyes, not a single strand of hair amiss… it was as if she really was staring back at me through the pages.
Only something was different. The way she drew herself, if this was supposed to reflect her, truly her… then, why does she stare like that? Why does she have that expression? I shouldn't look into it so much, it was just a sketch, a drawing… and yet it felt like so much more.. It felt like her… truly her.