Welcome to Gaia! ::

There was movement at the back of the couch. After a few moments, a clothed hand tapped Soho's shoulder to get her attention.

In the growing dark of the Feien HQ, the new figure was startling. It was a bundle of black cloth, head to toe, wound and bound around the hands with thread and around the feet with thread and so draped at the back that it was impossible to tell whether it had wings or not underneath the material bound to its body. It seemed horribly deformed, much shorter than she was with badly-defined legs inside the sacking that were all thigh and no feet. The head was swathed in a simple black hood pulled over the face and attached to the rest of the fabric.

It offered one bulky hand to her. It *did* have hands.

The creature touched one of its fingers to its mouth in the univeral comforting sign language of shhh. It tumbled back from the couch like a small flapping crow and hovered its way over to the desk, where it beckoned to her. Then it touched its chest with both hands and offered them outward, in a friendly manner.

The Shabby Man looked her over. Then it took a stub of pencil lead out near the blotter, and wrote down on the paper in pretty clear printing:

The black hood looked at her. Then, carefully, it wrote again.

Hitomi was in a corner of the couch hidden in shadows. She sat cuddled up with herself, her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She read the letter that the Shabby Man had left her, it creeped her out more than comforted her. But she had done like he said, she had saved the cupcake, she hadn't even opened the plastic wrap at all. She smelled it, but that was it. The piece of cupcake sat an inch in front of her, her eyes locked onto it. He had told her to come back at 8:00, but she'd never left. She'd never slept. She stayed huddled with herself in the corner of the couch. No one noticed her and she noticed little else aside from the slice of cupcake.

She had noticed Ruby come in, but had said nothing to her. Hitomi laid her head across her arms after Ruby had sat there for a while by herself. Once Ruby screamed however Hitomi looked up to see what had frightned her. She had little will to get up and comfort the child. When she noticed the ragged man she tried to push herself farther back into the couch with little sucess. This wasn't the vision she had in mind of the Shabby Man. She had envisioned someone nice and caring. Not this gross anomolie that was standing before them. This HAD to be a mistake. What to do now?

"Sunil!" Soho said. "Sunil, he says he can stop the bleeding, but--but I think it might be... too dangerous." She said stupidly. The wave of confusion was threatening again. She just hoped she could fight it long enough to be healed.

"But... but when Mister Silva Demon kills something it doesn't bleed anymore." Soho said. "Even after Nick and Nack drag it off... But then Mister Silva Demon killed Nick, and Nack ran away and--" She started sniffling again. "I don't want to die..."