Chapter Text
It got worse. Anne stood in the shower, terrified. Across from her, inside the stall, was an orangutan staring creepily at her. Dazed and confused, she asked herself, How the hell did I get here?
---
For normal people working at ‘The Tunic,’ it would have been a tough day at work but, for Meri, every day was a tough day. October 17 was not an exception. Annoying customers complaining about the store’s clothing, coworkers pestering her about her private life, and gossip. No one could escape the gossip. The rumor in the limelight this week was about ‘The Big Three’ being cannibalistic, eating the bodies of people unlucky enough to be on their hit list. The cherry on top of this aggravating monotony was that her manager had also put her on the night shift, meaning she had to work, and stay awake, all the way to ten o’clock in the evening. Resting on her arms, waiting for a customer to arrive, she cursed under her breath.
Suddenly, a loud bang echoed throughout the building, snapping the lady out of her boredom-induced daze. A pair of people had just burst into the building, but despite the rather dramatic entrance, they were just there to shop. That wasn’t to say that the duo looked rather unusual, however. The man was covered in bloodstains and bruises, and rips and tears were scattered throughout his clothing. He was taller than any customer the cashier had seen before, and he was certainly ripped. If it wasn’t for the grumpy mood her boss had put her in, she would have fallen head over heels for that bloody man. As for the child guiding him through the shop, she didn’t look like a relative of his but judging from their interactions, they might as well be, for they were bantering like close friends. After searching around the shop for a good fifteen minutes, they walked up to the cashier counter and checked their new clothes out. In an instant, they stormed out of the shop, as if they had somewhere important to get to. Stunned by their crazy looks and quick entrance and exit, Meri decided she had seen everything.
---
After their brief stop at the clothing shop, Vanilla Ice and Anne were on the move again. Anne had kept her clothes, aside from the slight chance of anyone recognizing her, there was no need to change outfits. As for her ally, he got black sneakers, new jeans, a very long leather belt, a purple t-shirt, and a sleek black leather jacket. Anne commented, “You look like a punk.”
“You’re the one who picked out the clothes,” Vanilla responded.
“I know! I made you look cool and badass! Our enemies will look upon you with fear, for your menacing vibes will make them piss-” Her rant was cut off short by her partner nudging her, flustered and embarrassed. “Our train’s here. Pay attention.”
It was 10:15. They had bought tickets for a train heading to Tunisia, which took around a day and a half to get there, and once they arrived there they’d sneak onto a ferry straight to Rome to find the Green Scarves. At least that was if everything went to plan, but considering they had encountered an entity of the undead, all bets were off. Supplied with food, they were set for their adventure. Both of them boarded the train without issue, the pair of security officers there didn’t think they were suspicious, and they could easily be excused as friends or really distant relatives. Considering how late it was, the two went straight to the sleeper cars, ready to catch up on a few hours of rest. Settling for a bed above Anne, Vanilla Ice observed the area. Other than the two beds he and Anne occupied, there were four other beds in the room. One above him, and the rest across from them. Three people had claimed the beds across from them. On the bed directly across from him was a blond, strange-looking, cowboy. Above the man appeared to be a child, with a long mound of hair being held together by a cap. On the lowest bed across from Vanilla and Anne was another man, with his rather bright and rather wacky clothing catching Vanilla’s eyes. They all appeared to be sleeping, and they looked harmless. Nodding his head, Vanilla finally closed his eyes.
The sounds of the train beginning to move drifted him to sleep, and the nudge of Anne’s arm woke him up. Shifting away from her, he knew he was fatigued by the events of the day before. “It is a miracle for you to be awake and bubbly after yesterday. Don’t you want to stay asleep?”
“Nope,” Anne said, “it’s too boring for me. I have instant coffee if you need it.” Eventually, she managed to pull the groggy man out of bed, out of the sleeper car, and into the passenger car, allowing them to see the scenery as it rolled past. Vanilla noticed that her watch read 10:17. They had slept for around twelve hours, which meant they had about a day until they arrived at their destination. Opening her bag, she had brought out two sandwiches, bottled water, a jar of instant coffee, and a plain notebook and pencil. As Vanilla reached for the jar, a waitress passed them by and he ordered his drink. “One cup of hot milk and a spoon, please.”
As the waitress nodded, Anne gaped at him as if he were a lunatic. “Who the hell puts instant coffee in hot milk?!”
“It’s for convenience. There is no creamer here, my Lady, so might as well use milk. May I have a sandwich?”
“La-Lady!? I’m only an eleven-year-old child! Stop making me feel old. Besides, I was planning to give the other sandwich anyways, no need to ask.” She lightly tossed the sandwich towards the man, who caught it easily with his right hand.
The waitress arrived with Vanilla’s cup of hot milk a minute later. After thanking the woman, Vanilla proceeded to open the lid off of the jar, dump two spoonfuls of instant coffee into the milk, and stirred. Tasting the drink, he slightly burned his tongue, for it was too hot for him. He would have to save it for later. The two unwrapped their sandwiches and dug in. Whether this would be their breakfast or lunch could be pondered about later. All that mattered was that they were hungry, and that food was in their reach.
Anne had comically finished her food under a minute and was now chugging her water at a worrying pace. Now it was Vanilla’s turn to stare at the other weirdly, with him only a quarter through his sandwich. He shook his head, blaming the speed on a large appetite. Letting out a sigh, the girl opened her notebook, examined it, and started to erase and write. As Vanilla finished his meal, his eyes drifted from his rather creamy coffee to the girl’s activities.
“What are you writing?”
She grinned. “This, my friend, is the grand accumulation of every piece of info I could get my hands on. As in, every rumor, fact, and record I’ve taken is in this handy-dandy book.” Anne flipped through the book’s pages for further emphasis.
The man glanced at the girl’s book. It was divided into multiple sections. Rumors were sorted under “Unlikely”, “Likely”, and “Confirmed”, the girl had large amounts of information and pictures about certain places like Iraq, India, and Giza, and there were numerous people listed, complete with snippets of knowledge about the people’s lives and the world they were living in. Surprised about how much Anne had written, he asked, “Why?”
“Simple. I want to know about the world around me, why things are what they are, why people are what they are, stuff like that?”
“Interesting…”
“What I’m saying is, you wouldn’t mind talking about your life before you joined me, right?”
Vanilla flinched. He should’ve expected the girl to probe into his personal life, but not this soon. But that didn’t matter, his past was behind him. It’s been about three years since then, he thought.
Anne stuck out her hand, seeing that he had spaced out. “Hello? Anyone there? You don’t have to tell me everything, I‘m just curious.”
“It’s fine. I’ll tell you anyway.”
Anne, now retracting her arm from the dude’s face, was now back to gripping her pencil, waiting to drag it along the pages of her notebook. Taking a sip of his drink, he knew it would take a while for his story to be told. Any way to pass the time heading to Tunisia, he’ll take it.
“I was an unwanted child since my birth,” he began, “even if the Three didn’t exist, I doubt my parents would have wanted me anyway.”
---
A dysfunctional relationship. A wedding held at a shotgun’s gunpoint. Vanilla Ice’s entire existence was doomed from the beginning. Financially, his family was stable, if not a little on the poor side of the spectrum. He just lacked capable parents. The earliest memory he held onto was when he was just four years old. His mother lied stretched out on a couch, drunk and dizzy. Empty bottles and aluminum cans of beer surrounded her, and the boy knew not to come close lest he was to be pricked with glass shards. A man bursts into the room. Proceeding to argue with his intoxicated wife, the scene stood still once she slapped him across the face. Tightening his right hand into a fist, the husband punched her. Again, and again, and again, until a wail echoed across the room. It was the boy who had been watching the entire time. Neither did his mother nor his father notice him, and he had to endure seeing his mother being beaten. He taught himself how to become stoic over the years, knowing that no one would bat an eye should he let loose his emotions.
Time passes, and it seemed like his parents were desperate to get rid of him at any moment. That moment came when he was eighteen, mature and lean. Roaming his house, he came across his parents talking, and despite all odds, they seemed to be agreeing on something. “...we should enlist that passionless excuse of a man to Italy’s army. Maybe then he’ll have an aim in life.”
“That’ll get him off our hands too, he’s just an extra mouth to feed,” the other replied, “Why did we bother having him in the first place?”
The conversation stopped the moment Vanilla revealed himself to both of them, him having eavesdropped the entire conversation.
“I don’t want to go,” he said, “Why would I want to join the people who have made our lives miserable?”
They were now staring at him like he was an intruder. Like an intruder who shouldn’t be in their house, staring at them at cold yet betrayed eyes knowing that he was worth nothing to his parents-
“Get out,” The man that should’ve been his father had said, “If you’re not even willing to be of use to your family, then you might as well fuck off.”
Of course, both of them knew that was far from the true reason why they had decided to disown him, but neither of them wanted to comment, for it would’ve escalated the situation further. With a quiet “Fine,” the unwanted had gathered all of his belongings, a wallet, food, and a comb, and headed out, knowing he would never see them again. Yet, a void had formed with his departure, a void filled with “what ifs” and “what could’ve been”. Questions that asked: what if you were wanted and adored? He knew that for him, those questions would forever remain unanswered.
---
“Sorry to interrupt but,” Anne interrupted, “if you were eighteen when they disowned you and you’re like, twenty-one now, how did you survive on the streets for three years?”
Upon that question leaving the preteen’s lips, his eyes refused to meet hers. “I had to do some… unsavory work to support myself, and I refuse to get into detail about that.”
Instead of being turned away from the subject, Vanilla’s words had only inspired Anne to dig deeper.
“So you’re an assassin!” she beamed. “No wonder why you’re so good at fighting!”
Anne ended up rambling about how cool and mysterious assassins are, while Vanilla sat across from her, confused yet relieved. He couldn't help but chuckle at the girl's antics, but he cleared his throat. “As I was saying, during those three years, I was lost, both physically and mentally.”
---
He had no direction or destination. He had only one goal, to survive to find his “raison d’être”, or as one person put it, his reason to be. And so, he wandered throughout Egypt for what seemed like an eternity. Picking off loose change, stealing wallets, doing “dirty work”, he did anything to survive, yet nothing to thrive. Years passed. The boy had no purpose, not even having a single functional connection to anyone, so he never minded dying. And thus he waltzed aimlessly through the streets.
Right into the gunfire of corrupt policemen.
An absolute stranger jumped straight at him, telling him to run, and saved his life. There was no debt to be paid off, just a random act of kindness by a child. Smiling at him, cracking jokes, and giving him a name. Things that his “parents” never bothered to do. Perhaps this was what his life had been leading up to, not to serve an army he didn’t trust, not to die on the streets alone and forgotten, but rather to feel what it was like to be treated as a human.
Not willing to let that feeling go, he ended up joining her on her quest to get to Italy.
And he regretted nothing.
---
A few seconds after Vanilla Ice had stopped speaking, Anne stopped writing and started talking. “So the reason why you swore loyalty to me, a child a literal decade younger than you, was because I was the first person to treat you like an actual person?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“That sucks. Being turned away by the people supposed to raise you, I mean.”
Vanilla had shifted his body again, leaning his head against the window, watching the world scroll past his eyes. He had already finished his cup of coffee, and he didn’t feel like eating after that. The girl was now looking through her book, checking through the pages, either just to read or to edit. Their current conversation evaporated and was replaced with awkward silence. “So,” he said, “what rumors do you have in your notebook anyway?”
The child beamed. “You won’t believe what people talk about! There’s this rumor going around that the Big Three are, like, shapeshifting vampire gods. I was going to put that under “Unlikely” but considering we’ve just encountered vampires all bets are off…”
Anne rambled about various tales, from red stones, stone masks, and time-stopping shenanigans. And Vanilla Ice listened to each one, responding to things that he thought were interesting. Perhaps this is what having family truly feels like, he thought, and decided that he wouldn’t have it any other way.