Shock.

[ANASTASIA SIDOROV]

2008 NOVEMBER 8

Vomit hit the filthy toilet bowl with a wet and unpleasant splatter, not that Anastasia noticed anyway. The music being played in the club was so loud that it even drowned out the sound of her own ragged breathing. The world alternated between horrible clarity and blurriness and the filthy cubicle she was in spun crazily. Bad trip, very bad trip. Alcohol and drugs just did not go well together. She clung to the dirty toilet with both hands and retched loudly as more bile came up from her stomach, burning her throat and leaving a horrid taste in her mouth.

Someone in the toilet laughed loudly about something. Her maybe? Did she care? No. She was beyond being able to care about her image and pride. She had no pride left, she was a creature of the night, an errant child. That was why she had escaped the vigilance of Ludmila and had fled to New York, and that was also why she'd gone to the seediest, most disreputable club in New York, where minors were let in without any kind of inspection, and where "candy" was handed out like free medication in a United Nations distribution session in Africa.

Her stomach settled slightly, and she was able to gather her wits about her. She was in one of the club's heavily graffitied and seldom cleaned toilets. A used syringe was visible on the tiled floor, and more drunken laughter could be heard over the throbbing of the music. What music was it? She knew it..."Smack my Bitch Up" by the Prodigy. However, she was unable to appreciate the tune. The music was too loud and she was too sick. The alternating blurriness and clarity quickly changed to a nasty mess of fluctuating colours and distortions in her field of vision. She stumbled upright and lurched out of the cubicle, staring wild-eyed around her and seeing nothing but nightmare.

Would Ludmila and the Bureau come looking for her? Maybe, maybe not. Ludmila seemed to be a true hard-ass, but too stuck up to come poking around such a revolting place...then again, was she? She seemed more hard-ass than stuck up. Anastasia stumbled over to one of the taps and struggled to turn the taps on. When the water finally got running, she splashed her face and looked wildly around. The colours were gone, replaced by a sickening blur, as if her vision was too fast for the world around her. She burped and felt her innards stir threateningly again.

"Hey lil' lady, want some stuff to calm down?", said someone next to her ear. She felt his or her breath on her cheek, thick and nauseous, and she suddenly felt attacked.

"-Get the fuck off me, freak!", she slurred, swiping awkwardly at the dealer. She missed, but the dealer went away. The music changed to another throbbing and aggressive electronic tune, and Anastasia again stumbled to the cubicle, her hand clamped onto her mouth. Strangely, a song got stuck in her head and kept on repeating itself, as those things often did during bad trips, stuck in an endless, feverish and insane loop of non-existent mental sound.

If you're going through Hell...if you're going through Hell...keep going...

And again, Anastasia's meagre stomach contents graced the toilet bowl, and she moaned slightly. The walls of the cubicle were crawling and pulsating.

[CETO EURYALE]

The club was lively, music booming from the speakers so loudly that Ceto had no reservations that every creature of the night had felt its reverberations. The lights circled, flashed, and spun over the crowd of night lives, the live entertainment appealing to their seedy guests. There were people everywhere. Dancing atop of tables, chairs, floors, grinding against their iron poles, eating, drinking, all the typical club activities. The gorgon even spotted a few shadier couples making out in the back corners of this nest of filth.

Blending in with the club goers proved to be easier than getting inside. If their bouncer was stone hearted before, it was more than a literal fact now. While Ceto had not wished to prey upon a stubborn human, the man had taken her sunglasses away claiming it was against the dress code. Fool. Why would a place like this need a dress code in the first place? Most of it's attendees were not even half clothed. The gorgon had business here, as much as she disliked it. It had been twenty years since she had last visited this crooked establishment, and in twenty years nothing had changed.

Approaching the club owner in a seductive manner, Ceto could not help but let the old days take their light, if only for a moment. While he was her client now, he was a client in a far different manner back then.

”Ah, Ceto, you came... Should we have one for the sake of old times?”

Came the heavy Romanian accent of her ex partner in crime, accompanied by one of his usual sadistic smirks. This, her current client, Mr. Nigel Wildes. Much could be said about Wildes, not very many good things, and Ceto hadn't the patience to deal with his short talk at the moment.

“To business.” She teased in an answer, slowly turning away from him to drop a strap to her dress. Pleased with Wilde's predictable attention being focused upon her strap, she victoriously repositioned it. His sharp intake of breath giving her the victory of his dissatisfaction. After thousands of years experience, Ceto was confident in her knowledge of what men enjoyed.

“To business.” She stated, tilting her sunglasses in a playful taunt. While the man may be a supernatural being, a vampire to be exact, he was not immune to her grim glare. “You know how much I despise these places. There's no honor in them, there's only you. Pleasure seekers like you. And your wallets.” Her sunglasses indicated that her rant was completely untrue.

They exchanged an amused smile. ”You're going to want to put this on, there is much to be done and your hair is sticking out.” Not so subtle code for 'yo gorgon, go straighten your coils!' Without a word, Wildes escorted Ceto in the direction of the womens room, leaving her at the entrance. ”I'll await you in my office.” Came the thick and familiar accent again. “Whatever you say... Dracula... Hey, make sure this place doesn't burn down when I'm occupied.” She announced with a wink, Wilde laughing as he walked away.

Pushing the dirty door forward, the hinges creaked and the gorgon entered the ladies room. Surprising further that they had two bathrooms in a shack like this, or maybe they didn't and the sign was deceiving. That would be just like Wilde...

"-Get the fuck off me, freak!"

Ceto's attention was drawn to the girl, obviously underage, taking a swat at the dealer, who then left unimpressed. Crossing to the entrance to the girls cubicle, Ceto leaned against the wall, almost maternally. “You all right?” She asked quietly, almost certain this was a hangover. Digging into her handbag, Ceto attempted to recover a small bottle of antibiotics she carried with her. “I have some Tylenol here if it helps.”

[ANASTASIA SIDOROV]

Anastasia groaned and tried to remember what drugs she'd taken and what kind of booze she'd shoved down her throat. She remembered having a few Jagermeister shots, but the drug part was hopelessly blurred. She remembered taking some speed, immediately followed by the Jagermeister shots. Yeah, that was it. The speed's stimulant effects had obviously clashed thunderously with the alcohol's depressant effects, which was why she felt so fucking horrible.

Amazed at how she'd been able to assemble such rational thoughts, Anastasia tried to struggle upright, but slipped and banged her jaw against the toilet bowl. She swore confusedly, completely unable to put a sentence together as one half of her brain rushed the words and the other one jumbled them up together in mental quicksand. She blinked as she had the strange feeling she was going blind. Terror welled up in her chest. She was going blind!

"Aw fuckfuckfuckfuckhell, I'm goingblind!", she blundered.

“-You all right?", she heard a distorted female voice ask, "I have some Tylenol here if it helps.”

"-Nuh?", said Anastasia, somehow getting upright. Her vision spun and shook crazily, and she was greeted with a horrible vision of black tar running down the toilets' stained and cracked mirror.

"Tylewhat? Nonono, not more pills!", she said, backing away from the woman. The woman's face was also distorted and its colour kept switching brutally between green and fluorescent pink. Anastasia suddenly lost her balance and slowly slumped against the cubicle wall before sliding down to the floor, closing her eyes and muttering:

"No more...pills..."

[CETO EURYALE]

Ceto stared dumbfounded. This is the weirdest hang over ever.... What is this kid on? Securing her shades before leaning in, the gorgon took note of the girls appearances. Black hair. Blue eyes. Maybe in her late teens. “You got a name, kid?” She interrogated, pulling out her cell phone. “What have you taken tonight? No more pills...?” Whatever drug this girl had downed was all ready evident in the assumption it caused detrimental effects.

The girl lost her balance and slid to the floor, eyes closed. ”No more... pills...”

Chuckling in disbelief, Ceto's fingers found the quick call button to the hospital in her cell. While she could turn the world to stone, she could not remedy such cases so easily. ”Lenox Hospital, front desk, how can I direct your call?”

“Quickly if you know what's good for you...”

”Excuse me?” The receptionist asked, a cross between annoyed and confused.

“Quickly. Look I got a girl here, looks to be in her late teens. I think she's losing consciousness, and a moment ago she said she was going blind. She said no more pills. I need you guys to come get her, she's too young to be here legal anyway.” Ceto answered coldly. “Now listen, because I don't like repeating myself, but we're at...” The sound of the cellphones charge running out was anything but musical. Glaring at the phone she muttered, “Stupid technology...”

Turning to face a mirror, Ceto took a brief moment to tuck her coils out of public view. After all, this wasn't a supernatural bar as it had been once before. Once satisfied with her 'hair' hidden from sight, the gorgon lifted the girl. “I have no choice but to take you to Wilde's until we can figure out a way to help you.” She stated, surely he would have a phone she could use. A phone that didn't have a mind of it's own. Her cellphone seemed to run out of battery whenever she actually needed to use it. “Don't suppose you have a phone do you?” She asked kicking the loose door forward to leave the lavatory, not expecting an answer.

[ANASTASIA SIDOROV]

Phone? Did she have a phone? A single memory came back to her: her handing over her old Nokia mobile in exchange of some heroin back when she was what, fifteen? Since then she'd never gotten a new phone. Anastasia blinked sluggishly and noticed something odd about the woman's hair. Wait, no. She couldn't see the woman's hair, but she could sense it. Her telepathy was starting up again. It came and went randomly depending on the situation she was in, but thankfully, the drugs and alcohol she had taken earlier stomped out the tidal wave of mental voices that assaulted her whenever her telepathic abilities manifested themselves.

"Hey miss...", she said, giggling stupidly. "Why is your hair...snakes?"

She struggled upright, mumbling:

"Don't have phone. Sold it f'hero'n" she mumbled. "Hero...herooooo...IN. And oo's Wilde? Some...aaahhh..."

She put her hands on her eyes. The drugs and alcohol had momentarily lifted the veil over her mind, and a solid wall of mental voices smashed into her psyche. Muttering, whispering, shouting, laughing, screaming...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!", she yelled. "SHUT UP! SHUT UP AND GO AWAY! GO. AWAY! LEMME ALONE!"

[LUDMILA ILYUKHIN]

Anastasia's thoughts about the B.P.R.D. and more specifically Ludmila coming to get her were in actual fact entirely justified and true. Ludmila was in New York.

And she was fucking pissed.

She had been through four bars and six night clubs already, looking for the damn brat. She cursed herself for having accepted to raise Anastasia. The damn kid had been trouble from the first day she'd arrived at the Bureau, calling Abe a "weird fucking fish guy", kicking an agent in the balls and swearing at Thomas Manning. But Ludmila couldn't just let the kid drop. It was her duty to get her back on the right track, and Ludmila was not one to shirk duty.

She arrived in a filthy back-alley that stank strongly of piss, vomit and garbage. The neon sign above the club nestled in this disgusting place proclaimed "The Sodom and Gomorrha". What a charming place. Ludmila made her way up to the door, but was intercepted by the bouncer.

"Now lil' lady, you don't look like the usual...OOF!"

Ludmila punched the bouncer in the gut so hard that his stomach would probably have come waltzing out of his mouth. The bouncer collapsed to the ground, gasping for air, and Ludmila made her way into the club's smoky interior. The music was so loud that Ludmila winced as it hit her ears. She looked desperately through the crowd for Anastasia, pushing drugged up clubbers away.

[CETO EURYALE]

"Hey miss... Why is your hair...snakes?"

Ceto flinched, she would have reached up if she had an arm free to check on the status of her 'hair', she had just tucked it beneath her hat, was it all ready fighting for fresh air again? “Don't be foolish, child. Who would have snakes for hair?” Still concerned that her little friends might have made a debut, Ceto furrowed her brow at the ill girl. “Sold your phone for heroin?” She pondered, puzzled. “I'm not your mother so I won't tell you it's wrong, but you should take better care of yourself.” She stated. “Wilde is...”

"AAAAAAAAAAAAH! SHUT UP! SHUT UP AND GO AWAY! GO. AWAY! LEMME ALONE!"

“Quit screaming in my ear!” Ceto demanded, as her snakes forced their way out of the hat and hissed at the girl. While it was true the serpents lacked an external ear drum, their skin and bones picked up on the vibrations in the environment transmitting them to an inner ear. The scream demanded the attention of the club, trumping the other sounds in the loud environment. “Those are not snakes...” Ceto tried, stepping into the corner of the club to set the girl down and tuck her hair back in before lifting the girl again. “Do you have any friends or family nearby?” She asked feebly attempting to change the subject.

Entering the main room, Ceto was immediately distracted by a blond figure pushing her way through the crowd, clearly meaning business. “Another eventful day in 'Club Hell'...” Ceto muttered, making her way through the crowd in the same direction. “Looking for someone?” She offered. “You don't happen to have a cell phone do you?” She asked, nodding at the girl in her arms. “She needs a hospital.”

[ANASTASIA SIDOROV]

"F-friends? Like hell I don't", said Anastasia in a flash of returning lucidity. She stumbled slightly, and felt her already abused stomach lurch uncomfortably. She fought to keep it under control and succeeded, avoiding coating the floor with her vomit. As she slumped to her knees, she heard the snake-haired stranger talk to someone, and she looked up. As her eyes focused on the new person, her heart sank.

It was Ludmila.

"Aw...fuck...no", she said. She struggled against Ceto's grip, trying to escape from her surrogate mother's hard stare and retribution, but the snake-haired woman's grasp was strong and held her in place. Anastasia gave up and braced for the upcoming storm. Ludmila was a hard ass, she knew that all too well, and she also had a feeling that the Rusalka was disgusted by Anastasia's current state.

[LUDMILA ILYUKHIN]

Ludmila shook her head slowly, gazing down at Anastasia with a cross of anger and ice cold disapproval. She felt sickened by the state the girl had put herself in. She had given up all dignity and was a pathetic, bumbling mess who couldn't even think straight. Ludmila fought the impulse to slap Anastasia and shout, as she had a feeling doing so would do no good whatsoever. Instead, she just grabbed the girl by the arm and wrenched her upright with a sharp pull.

"Look at you. You're a fucking mess, devotchka."

Ludmila was entirely knew to the "raising the younger generation" aspect of life. She didn't know if she could actually have children, but the idea of taking care of someone more foolish and younger than you was very alien to her, and so handling Anastasia always felt like negotiating a mine field. Ludmila turned to address the woman who had "rescued" Anastasia.

"Thank you for taking care of her. She's an annoying little brat. Sadly, I'm afraid I don't have a mobile phone. I left mine at home when I rushed out to look for Anastasia."

[CETO EURYALE]

The girl sounded appalled by the idea of having friends, which of course was unusual for a girl her age. Ceto had prepared to inquire what was wrong with having friends, when the interest was lost due to a horrible sign that the girl might throw up again. While the girl fought with her illness, the gorgon wondered how a teenagers mind actually functioned in the present time. She had always observed that most teenagers desired friends, popularity, and freedom from their parents (although it went without saying: in many cases a parental figure was needed). “Friends aren't always a bad thing.” She stated quietly.

The gorgons grip loosened only slightly as the younger human slid to her knees, undoubtedly fighting another round of regurgitation. The girl cursed and began to wriggle and pull, causing the gorgons grip to tighten once more. “Relax, kid.” She stated coolly, eyes not leaving the other womans.

Appraising the hardened features of the blonde, the expressions of frustration and discontent were the easiest to make out. Ceto released her grip on Anastasia as the severe woman forced the girl up to her feet. Leaning back casually, Ceto watched with interest. While it was clear that the two ladies knew each other, Ceto was still uncertain of the 'how'.

”Look at you. You're a fucking mess, devotchka.”

“If you ask me, that's an understatement.” With a neutral hand gesture, the gorgon could not help but sympathize with the younger generation. She didn't know what led the girl to pills and alcohol, she clearly wasn't of age. “I found her in the ladies room, not long ago.” She stated calmly. “I'm sure it's nothing too much to worry about, though she did say 'no more pills'. Is she on medication?” Ceto asked skeptically, she seriously doubted the 'pills' were of a medical background.

”Thank you for taking care of her. She's an annoying little brat.”

An understanding smile crossed the gorgons lips. “We were all once annoying little brats.” It was a fair statement. If intelligent lifeforms were born intelligent, there would be no way to progress. “Are you sisters?” She wondered aloud, as the blonde woman proceeded to inform Ceto that her cell was left at home. “I suppose if I had a sibling and she went missing I'd be a bit careless too.” Reaching into her jacket, Ceto retrieved a business card, with the address to her sculptor shop and her cell number. “If either of you needs anything, please do not hesitate to call.” Ceto extended the card casually. “I'd be more than happy to assist.”

[LUDMILA ILYUKHIN]

"We're not sisters", said Ludmila, her lips pinching in irritation as she tried to drag the uncooperative Anastasia along. "In fact, we aren't even related. She's my..."

Ludmila stopped trying to drag Anastasia as she paused, trying to find the appropriate term for Anastasia. Ludmila was Anastasia's surrogate mother in a way, even though the latter would soon be old enough to take care of herself and there was no maternal bond between them. Again something alien to Ludmila, maternal instincts. She wasn't sure she could even feel such things for anyone.

"She's my adoptive daughter in a way", said Ludmila with a sigh. "I'm her legal guardian. Now come on, Anastasia. We have to go."

Anastasia seemed to have zoned out. Conscious, but not aware of what was going on around her. Ludmila was tired and annoyed. Despite the fact that her first few days spent with Anastasia had made her almost detest the young woman, she still felt compelled to look after her. It was probably her sense of duty that made her behave that way. With a tired, exasperate sigh, the Rusalka turned to the woman who'd helped Anastasia.

"I'm sorry to bother you again, but this young woman simply isn't cooperating. Could you help me carry her out of here?"

[CETO EURYALE]

"Sure thing." The gorgon agreed, reflexively hoisting the girl over her shoulder like a bag of potatoes. Still deeply confused by their appearances. The adoptive mother hardly looked older than the girl. Though, it would seem the woman had no reason to lie about this, except for perhaps embarrassment. Heaven knew everyone had been in those shoes, the embarrassed ones at any rate. "There's really no reason to apologize to me, I'm more concerned about her. Have you gotten her in any rehabilitation centers or anything like that?"

Ceto cast a sideways glance prepared to follow the woman wherever she might lead. Adventure was no stranger to the gorgon, and nothing much surprised her anymore. Life was nothing but a game to her, and it was a game with what most would consider high stakes, though the gorgon was completely indifferent. However, she wasn't indifferent to noticing something off about the newcomer. She seemed a bit... No, it had to be her imagination. With all the mythical folk she had run into lately, the odds were simply against any more 'out-of-the-ordinary' encounters.

"Let me guess..." She stated, unable to hide the slight intonation of sarcasm that came naturally to her voice. "She doesn't want to go, and would likely find her own way out of the facility if left there?" Jolting her shoulder slightly to jolt the girl enough to capture her attention, Ceto smirked. "You should listen to your ... mother. Ignoring such wisdom will prove... consequential in time."

OOC:: Catching up, god how horrible of me D=

[ANASTASIA SIDOROV]

A jolt. Discomfort. Anastasia grumbled, and her head lolled about on her neck and shoulders like that of a string-less puppet.

"She's not my m...mother...", she slurred. "Just some...freak my dad decided would make...a good godmother..."

She didn't care if she offended Ludmila by saying that. In fact, a part of her took sadistic pleasure in annoying and paining the Rusalka, whom she did not consider as a parent, but rather as an excessively authoritarian figure who had no right to tell her what to do with her life.

As for rehab, well, Anastasia had been to rehab once, before being sent to her new home at the Bureau for Parabnormal Defence and Whatsit. She'd managed to hide some heroin in the lining of her jacket, and had forced herself not to take any during her stay at rehab. Once she'd got out, she'd gone off the rails again, even spending her small allowance on other illegal substances.

"A freak...", she muttered, and she felt Ludmila's already strong grip on her tighten.