Sea of Ice Cold Death [Open]

[Kara Hugg]

She hated winter. It was cold and dry and cold. Most of her friends went into a state of diapause, which is similar to hibernation, a time when growth and development stop. Their breathing, heartbeat, and temperature drops and they hide in holes in the earth, beneath the barks of trees or in plants during the winter. Her own personal pets got heating lamps and so forth, but that was mostly because they weren't from the area. Gunn's offspring Yerk, Gina, and Wilmer.

Winter was the season that she hated the most. It made her so depressed and sad because she had fewer friends to enjoy her day with. This was the season when she was closer to her human friends. She felt more dependent on them, and the idea both drew her in and disgusted her.

She really did want to be close with more people and stuff, but she didn't want to be dependent on something that could more easily betray her. After all, an insect can only tell other insects about her secrets and that may effect them, but that wouldn't change her job status, or the way she was viewed or how she would be treated. Of course, there could always be an insect rebellion, though, for the most part the bugs were happy to have someone to talk to. Someone they could ask to not ruin their homes, or use certain cleaning aids that made them sick.

Maybe she just needed to get over this fear of hers. If she didn't try and put herself out there, yeah she wouldn't get hurt. But she also wouldn't get anything else. Without trying she wouldn't accomplish anything. In any case, she pushed those thoughts from her mind as she moved down to the docks. The lake had froze over the winter months. And today was a pretty chilly Saturday afternoon. She had wandered to the lake by foot because she liked to walk and her car was currently in the shop.

Her hair was down, it's natural light wave to it, though she had tried to mend the frizz out of it. She wasn't sure if that had been a waste of time given the weather and the occasionally chillier wind that blew in with small flecks of snow. She wore jeans, boots, and a sky blue colored coat. She also wore gloves, a scarf and a knit hat that were all black in color. Her cheeks were a rosy red from the chilled air, as was her nose.

She sat down on the dock and stared out at the ice covered water. It was so beautiful, but also so cold and so sad-like. She heard nothing but the wind rustling occasionally up against her. Most of the singing birds had flown south, and all others usually didn't perch on this side of the lake. Though there were the mocking crows and the seagulls with their annoying calls both just begging to be fed or searching for worthwhile food along the white and gray horizon.

Her feet swung absently back and forth as she gazed out at the frozen lake, the white glazed landscape, and the feeling of death and despair. It was beautiful, but it just made her sad. And it was days like today, where it was hard to see those happier moments.

[Delilah Pryce]

Some things in Delilah's life had been getting better. She was gaining more and more control of her anger and her fear of men wasn't as debilitating as it once was. She still hated the opposite sex and always would, but at least now she could walk down the same stretch of sidewalk as them without flipping out in some violent manner. Her dark dreams still echoed on most nights, but with the help of a cocktail of drugs, even those demons were beginning to show up less and less. It wasn't the perfect life, but her life had never been perfect. There were happy moments, far and few between though. Delilah knew how to have fun and today happened to be one of those days. The cold weather was refreshing, kept her moving and feeling alive. The weather here in Pilot Ridge was considerably much colder than where she hailed from. The mountains of Virgina were cold in the winter, but not like anything here. The wind was bitter and the snow much more deeper and often. Delilah liked it though, it made the world look much more inviting than it really was. The somber attitude it gave everything and how the world looked so clean and sterile just put Delilah's inner monster at ease.

Today was one of the days when Delilah dressed a bit more feminine than usual. She wore a pair of thick white tights, a black tight skirt which stopped at her thighs, a white sweet shirt with a thick white winter coat with fur around the collar. She topped her attire with a black knit wool cap and small scarf underneath her coat. She had wore some black snow boots with fur around the top, but had stuffed them deep within her large duffelbag which sat beside the shore of the frozen lake. She wore a pair of ice skates now, a skill she had learned on her own when she attended Hammel years ago. Learning to skate had been fairly easy as Delilah always seemed to have a good sense of balance anyway. The spins and leaps she exhibited now were all copied of course, learned by watching the Olympics again and again. Delilah didn't have to actually physical be near someone to copy their physical movements, she just had to see them. Anything which was performed on television, without the aide of special effects and trick cameras of course, could be copied and made hers.

Planting her toe, Delilah slowed her wild tight spinning, her arms high in the air like some ballerina. She smiled like some school girl and licked her lips, her breathing a bit heavy. The cold air sort of burned her chest and throat as she breathed it in and so she tried to slow her breathing to remedy that problem. Taking a moment to rest herself, Delilah looked around the lake. There were a few others out and about, some skating and others calling their actions skating by name only. Here, right now, everything was peaceful and Delilah felt like she was just another body like everyone else. It was nice to pretend to be normal for a change instead of some mental freak show. There weren't any dark thoughts for the moment, no small voices telling her to hurt anyone and especially no monstrous thoughts of her father.

Pushing off with her right foot, Delilah began to glide across the frozen lake, still breathing a bit deeper than normal. She put her hands behind her back without thinking about it, thinking mostly about what she would do with the rest of her frozen day. This was when her eye caught someone small sitting by the lake, rather alone and depressed looking. When you suffered from depression yourself, not to mention a list of other mental problems, you could sort of pick others of your lot out of a crowd. So, with a change in the way she leaned, Delilah began to glide toward the young woman sitting by the lake all by herself. Delilah's face began to burn some from the cold winter air, but the pain wasn't anything to complain about.

The woman's face became clearer the closer Delilah got to Kara. She was quite pretty with her eyes being the first thing which drew Delilah. Eyes were the first thing which Delilah noticed and in her opinion, the best physical feature. Some people said that eyes were the window to the soul and in Delilah's opinion, there was more truth in that saying than anyone might have given thought. Your eyes would betray you before anything else. Something about the eyes made reading emotion and thoughts all that much easier. Kara had those large round eyes which were striking, as if she were holding your soul with her gaze. Delilah even slowed down as she approached Kara, sort of transfixed by Kara's eyes. Kara's face was small yet innocent looking, giving her that girl next door look and this excited Delilah even more. For a moment, Delilah pondered her chances with Kara, so much in fact that Delilah wasn't even aware she had now stopped right in front of Kara. Shaking her head and then smiling, Delilah felt her cheeks flush and hoped that the wind burn would hide her embarrassment. "Hey there," she said nervously, "I kind of noticed you were by yourself. Though maybe I'd come say high," she said, acting like love struck girl talking to the high school quarterback. This was a glimpse of the real Delilah, small and timid, a side which hardly found the light of day anymore.

[Kara Hugg]

Kara was aware there were other people along the lake and some even on it, but she didn't know any of them and other people usually weren't usually what her attention focused on. Keyword being usually. Sometimes, she would admire the openess of a person or persons. Their near inability to make friends. She often wished she could be better at that. But apparently, she spent too much time with her bugs to learn how to be welcoming towards other people.

In all manners, it was easier for her to make friends with guys who weren't as fearful of insects. But even making friends with them took quite a bit of work. She just had trusting issues. This was mostly from how she was treated before she attended Hammel. Girls and bugs apparently wasn't a norm in the viewpoints of American citizens. She didn't know about other countries opinions about such things, but she assumed it was about the same.

Such things had angered her as a child. Why was she shunned for liking bugs? And even though she had felt less like an outsider at Hammel, her trusting skills hadn't exactly gotten better. But she was also well aware, that if she didn't start making friends with people then she would be destined to be alone with her bugs forever. And suffering through these winter months alone was not something she really enjoyed or thought she could handle for long hard years in Vermont. Though, anywhere else too wouldn't really be acceptable either.

Kara's blue gray eyes were focusing out across the lake staring absently at the snow and the trees and the icy blue-ish white tint of the frozen ice. She was obviously lost in thought, and her thoughts weren't jarred until something moved in front of her. Her gaze moved away from the edge of the lake on the far side and before her where some other person was standing before her. Or maybe they were hovering or gliding.. not really standing because they were balancing on skates. She had never really liked skating.. Her balance wasn't superb and she ended up bruising her tail bone more than actually skating. Also.. she had this fear of the ice cracking, breaking open and her drowning from the coldness of the water. And her problem was easily resolved by staying on land.. and so forth.

All these thoughts of social people and wanting to be one or wanting to be like one brought her face to face with.. well, what she thought was one. Some girl who looked to be around her age, though she was really a hard judger of age considering make-up these days could really make anyone appear younger than they were. She was pretty, and Kara really wanted to make a nice impression. But she also wasn't exactly sure how to. But she started by giving a light smile back to the other. And after a small pause, greeted her with a delayed "Hi." She wasn't sure what else to say though, and would really rather the person not leave her to her unpleasant thoughts. So, she attempted to start well.. something. There was another long pause and she opened her mouth twice to say something before thinking better on it. Finally she managed, "So you skate?" Only after the words left her mouth did she regret what she said. That probably sounded stupid. Well.. of course she could skate, otherwise why would she go out there and make a fool of herself.

[Delilah Pryce]

Delilah's moods changed as quickly as one could blink their eye, possibly hinting at her being bipolar. Of course, that would be a crude diagnosis at best. Just because she flipped from one extreme to the other did not mean she had some mental affliction. Of course, Delilah was saddled with a large mental affliction which more often than not manifested in fear and anger. Her psyche had been broken and left in tiny pieces a long time ago, not to mention the broken state her body was in as well. Delilah's father had really done a number on her, but she was still alive and trying to keep herself together. Sure, suicide had crossed her mind on more than one occasion and yeah, she had even tried to take her life a few times, but each time she had been saved or recovered in some manner or another. Right now though, those facts were on the back burner as Delilah's life at the moment had been quiet and smooth.

It was usually the presence of men which triggered the other personality which lived inside of Delilah's fractured mind. It wasn't another separate part of her, just a darker and more feral state. At some point in her history, Delilah's doctors had pursued the possibility of a slit personality disorder. This theory was abandoned shortly after investigation though as it was readily apparent Delilah was always in full control of her actions and fully aware of herself when her dark mood set upon her. It was just an uncontrolled rage which drove her when fear set in and men were the trigger. Delilah was an abused animal for a lack of a better term. It was hard to say if she could ever be fully cured of her affliction, but the outcome looked doubtful at best.

In the presence of women and even younger children, Delilah was more calm and true to her real self. She was quiet for the most part, but her social fear still lingered. It would appear as if she was just nervous, but anyone who had any sort of experience with abused people would recognize the twitches and small voice. Now Delilah wasn't all soft words and a timid nature mind you, when she did come across a woman she liked and had lustful feelings for, Delilah's darker side emerged a small bit and made her more asserting. This would be the case with Kara as it was. "Well, you could say that," she said with a smile at Kara's question, "What was the first clue? The ice skates maybe?," she asked, poking a bit of fun at Kara, giving her a wink to let her know she was only playing. "I'm Delilah by the way," she added, pushing forward with the tip of one of her skates, letting herself glide a bit closer to Kara.