Story time: Flitter, flutter, butterfly, fly up high
[ACT1/14: The Moth] The protagonist get's drawn into a mystery.
A new story, set in the world of Ile Negliye, that art deco damp and spooky universe of mystery and mayhem. Yes. Happy gaming y’all.
DAY 1 The sky is riddled with moths, their wings fluttering frantically as to obscure the moon in the gray sky. They swarm everything, ubiquitous in their dry, fluttering dance.
On the beach at Kare Po [EXT, dawn]
Audrey awakens, feeling the sand beneath her feet at the harbor's edge. The sun rises, and the brine-smelling wind carries dark clouds from the open sea, suspended in the salty air like ships. Despite the morning dampness and her scant nightgown attire, Audrey shivers but finds her bag inexplicably with her.
The beach is populated with others, unclothed or in night attire, their their eyes darting around them as they take shallow breaths. Suddenly, a grotesque scream pierces the air. A woman in her seventies, sweat streaming from her frail body, stands over a young boy drenched in blood, wielding a machete.
The bloodstained woman flees, her clothes flapping in the morning breeze. Audrey approaches the dead boy. "Do you know why you’re here?" she says to an old man gazing in the direction of the fleeing woman.
"I just remember I had a strange dream about moths," he says in a heavy Kriyol accent. Audrey sits on the cold morning beach, closes her eyes, and lets her mind delve into the dream's images.
She sees a young man on a quay, holding a cup with a fish. A peculiar sun looms in the sky, casting its rays sternly, like a mother to a child or a rider to an unwilling mount.
"Are you in a trance, luv?" the old man says, "are you one of them Obeah people? I know an Asian woman into that business too. Maybe you know her? Ichita Wanatabe." Having been on the island for only a few months, Audrey is unfamiliar with the woman.
As the police arrive, the bloodstained woman is alreay far from the beach. Audrey, too, departs for home to get warmth just as the police arrives.
The foyer of Hotel the Auction House [INT, morning]
It is just after eight as Audrey enters the Auction house, and says hi to her friend her friend Dorothea Wieck, the owner of the hotel and the first friend she’s made since she is on Île Negliye. Doree reclines on a chaise longue by Jean Michel Frank, enjoying a cigarette.
Audrey wonders if Doree might have information about the Wanatabe woman as she reaches for her own cigarettes. She discovers a crumpled note slipped into her purse with a single name: Rasjel Devereu. Audrey can't recall receiving that name from anyone.
"Hi, Doree," she greets the woman, prompting a soft smile. Doree says, "Good heavens, Audrey, what are you wearing?" Rising, she drapes a blanket over Audrey's shoulders. Audrey recounts her unsettling morning, having awakened less than an hour ago. Doree looks shocked and offers Audrey a cup of ginger ale.
The two friends chat for a while and Audrey learns that Wanatabe is a businesswoman who departed from Rajiv Lapin International Airport the previous evening. Doree has never heard of a Rasje Devereu and she knows everybody who is somebody on the island.
Preston T Updike, a stout man with ginger hair in a black suit, enters the hotel saying he will attend the upcoming auction.Audrey has heard that some of the cargo brought by the Karavelya Kwa a Vre, an explorer ship that just returned in the harbor will go under the hammer to raise funds for an arctic exploration.
Suddenly, a car halts in front of the hotel, and four thugs emerge from an old Maxwell, each holding a Molotov cocktail. They shout something in Kreyol and hurl the cocktails inside. Audrey, Dorothea, and Preston escape the flames, seeking refuge in the hallway of the hotel.
Near the elevator, they hear Kreyol voices as another Jalrev anarchist emerges from the elevator. Audrey wonders how he got there. He brandishes a gun at the trio and, after a moment's hesitation, fires at Audrey.
She feels a sharp pain in her left shoulder and runs down the corridor, evading two bullets that slam into the wall beside her. Audrey turns a corner, waiting anxiously for her pursuer, who never arrives.
Suddenly, an overpowering odor envelops Audrey. It's earthy and sweet, yet rotten and entirely unfamiliar. The smell overwhelms her senses like a malevolent wave; first, the world turns black, then her hearing disappears. Just before losing consciousness, the putrid smell engulfs the entire world.
Click here for the second part of the story.