Angel Falls (closed)

[Maka]

A Brief History of a Strange Town

There had always been something different about Angel Falls, a small town hidden away in the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest. There was a dreamy, sleepy quality to the air, a sense of the strange things that might lurk in the shadows beneath the trees or sleep in the deep, sundappled forest pools.

The journals of the area's first European settlers, a band of Puritans seeking to flee what they saw as the vice and corruption of the East, made for interesting reading. There were early references to "fairie women" glimpsed among the trees, and scandalised references to the "libertine rites" of the local tribes. Before long, strange and fantastic visions begin to be recorded in the once grimly prosaic journals -references to fairy feasts of honey and milk under the trees, to bizzare images of monsters and apocalyptic battle that might have been drawn from some lost chapter of the Book of Revelation, to feverish, guiltridden accounts of closer and more intimate encounters with those fairy women, who would prove to have insatiable tastes for the seed of mortal men.

In time, the settlers divided into two camps. There were those who succumbed to the pleasures and mysteries of the woods, who built their homes there and pursued ther profane and mystic joys. And there were those whose resolve was only steeled by their experiences, who simply became grimmer and harsher as the years wore on, attending the church at the centre of their little town, riding back to their farms before dark and warning their children against ever venturing into the woods after sundown.

In the outside world, history would roll on, but it seemed to leave Angel Falls untouched. The American colonies declared their independence, the Napoleonic wars convulsed the world, empires rose and fell... and nothing in the sleepy, dreamy town seemed to change.

Indeed, it was only in the latter half of the twentieth century that anything seemed to change in Angel Falls. This was when a series of individuals all found themselves drawn there, following the promptings of dreams they themselves only half-understood.

The first was Einar Magnusson, a melancholy, incurably shy and eccentric young Icelandic artist. Magnusson had intended only to leave Reykjavik for a summer, to study in the galleries of New York, but he was overwhelmed by a superstitious terror of crossing the ocean a second time. Unable to make himself return to Iceland, he found himself trapped in America. An unwilling and unprepared exile, Magnusson drifted westwards. In Angel Falls, he had a vision of Ragnarok -a vision so extraordinarily detailed and complex that the rest of his career was pursued trying to capture single images from the vision.

His paintings were critically acclaimed, although Magnusson was known to personally view them all as failures. The Magnusson Institute of Fine Art formed around him something like the gravel case around a caddisfly. Magnusson, who lived a hermit-like existence on the outskirts of Angel Falls, never expressed any desire to teach anyone but somehow he gained disciples and these disciples formed a school. By the present day, the Magnusson Institute had become one of the most exclusive artistic academies in the United States. It took in only a handful of students every year, and they universally seemed to emerge with an unheard of degree of sensitivity and nuance to their work.

Other followed Magnusson's lead. In the decades that followed, twenty very different individuals would come to sleepy Angel Falls, prompted by dreams and visions. They did not know each other. They did not, in the vast majority of cases, know their own true nature. But they knew, in their different ways, that this was the town where the future would be forged.

And in the year 2014, only the last of their kind, still ignorant of her true nature and of the trials and temptations to come, still remained outside the town's orbit. And when she first set foot in Angel Falls, the war for the soul of the world would begin.

 

[Suzuha]

Weariness fogged her mind and hobbled her steps. The sun was going down when it should be coming up. Or maybe it was the other way around. She wasn't sure any more, and rapidly she was arriving at the point where she didn't care.

She'd tried to sleep on the train but the ride had been rough and the carriages much too cold for her liking. She'd tried to ask the guard if the heating wasn't working but he'd looked at her like she was talking in Swahili or something else equally obtuse. Perhaps she had. She didn't have any memory of learning Swahili, but then she barely remembered how to form a proper English sentence by this point.

Before the train, she'd tried to sleep on the plane, but she'd always suffered some airsickness and this flight had been the worst of all. Every time she'd closed her eyes the plane seemed to lurch wildly and nausea mixed with an unfounded panic that the plane was going down wrenched her eyes back open.

And before the plane, she'd slept fitfully, worrying whether she'd packed everything she needed. She checked she had her tickets thrice, passport four times, and even then she nearly forgot the bit of paper that proved she'd bought some train tickets. That had been a last minute save by her aunt as she was climbing into the taxi to go to the airport.

How long ago had that been? More than a day, she was sure. Too long. And too hard to do the maths to figure out exactly how long, or what time it was supposed to be here, or there, or anywhere for that matter.

Dishevelled, she stared blankly around the station platform, surrounded by the luggage she'd decided to carry rather than mail. The train had departed some minutes beforehand and the handful of passengers who had disembarked with her had already left. She probably should have followed them out but the battle she'd had with her trolley bag had left her cursing. She imagined that between her sleep deprived hollows-for-eyes and her very British penchant for colourful invective she'd scared into leaving quickly.

Someone made a noise nearby, speaking. Blearily, she looked around. A young man, probably in his mid twenties, was looking at her, his mouth moving in sounds of speech. It really shouldn't be so hard to make out what he was saying. She pulled an unruly lock of hair out of her face, focusing extra hard on the man's face to try to decode what he was saying, a feat made more difficult by the fact that her glasses were in her daysack somewhere and she'd ditched the gravelly sensation from her daily contacts in a bathroom at the airport. She could still see without her glasses, but it took effort, and she was running out of effort.

"Miss Winters?" the man asked politely, if a little unsure. It must be the eyes, she thought to herself. She must have zombie eyes. Madly, she considered raising her hands shakily in front of her and making some zombie sounds but, as amusing as that sounded, it also sounded like much too much work.

Dry mouthed, she managed to mumble back, "Er, yeah. That's me."

"Oh good," the man replied, seeming genuinely relieved. "I'm from the Institute. We've been expecting you."

Like that explained everything, he moved towards her purposefully.

"Woah," she blurted, "woah, hang on, er, what?"

She waved her hands unsteadily at him. Back off there, buster, she was thinking, while simultaneously wondering if those karate classes when she was twelve would do her any good in her current state.

The man looked confused, possibly even alarmed. He stopped, though, and that worked just fine.

"You're Sarah Winters, right?" he asked, clearly not anticipating this turn of events. "From England? Enrolled in the Magnusson Institute of Fine Art?"

Warily, she nodded. This random guy seemed to know a lot about her. Perhaps it was like they said, that there's spies everywhere and you can't be too sure what you say to anyone. She'd read that somewhere. Though now she came to think of it, she couldn't quite put her finger on where, so maybe that meant it had been some random conspiracy theory blog.

"Yes," she agreed eventually. "That's me. And you are...?"

"Sam," he replied. "Samuel Wilkinson. I work as a porter at the Institute. It's a bit of a way from the station to the dorms and so I was sent to meet you and drive you up there."

Clearly, this Sam wasn't expecting this duty to be so difficult.

"But how did you know I was going to be here, hmm?" Sarah was on to him. Clearly a spy. A bad one, but still a spy. She was even pleased with how sharp she was feeling on so little sleep to have caught him at his own game.

"Erm, well, you told us. The Institute I mean. You filled in an arrival details form, didn't you?"

She did? Oh, actually, yes, she did. That fact arrived lazily and late, rather like a British bus. In fact, she'd ticked the "don't know anyone in the area" box too, which is probably what brought on this little welcoming service in the first place. Or maybe the Institute was just friendly and efficient this way?

"Oh," she managed, "yes, I probably did."

She felt pretty stupid. The sensation of victorious unmasking promptly flopped back into the jet lagged stupor from whence it came.

"I can carry your bags if you like? To the car, I mean. And drive you up to the Institute? I've got the keys you need for your dorm already so we can go straight there."

Dorm meant beds, right? And beds meant sleep? And this man was taking her there now without her needing to do anything? Surely that would be something to feel victorious about? Nope, all out of victory. She settled for a vague affirmative sound, a nod, and a dazed wave of her hand at her bags. A redundant wave, as it happened, as there was no chance of her bags being mistaken on the otherwise deserted platform.

The young man gathered up her belongings and lead her out, glancing back frequently to check that she was actually managing to follow along. The car was a small brown thing with a logo she didn't recognise. Her bags went into the trunk and she automatically moved to the passenger door, the stopped confused as the passenger seat had a steering wheel installed. Was this some sort of strange car with two steering wheels? She gawped at it, bamboozled.

"Erm, Miss Winters? Other side, if you please. I don't think you're in any fit state to drive, not to mention that you probably don't have a license or insurance."

She shambled to the other side, surprised to find no steering wheel where she expected one.

"Oh, yeah, American car," she mumbled to no one in particular as she slumped into the seat.

The journey wasn't long, but it wasn't short either. There were turns and trees and she was sure at one point they were just driving into the woods to dump her body, but she was feeling too tired to care. Then there were lights from windows and quaint looking lamps atop cast iron fittings, an impression of a substantial building in the twilight, and a sound of gravel under the wheels. It took her a while to understand that the car had stopped and she was supposed to get out and by this point she was thoroughly glad that she didn't have to figure out where she was going or what she was doing any longer.

The porter, Sam, guided her into a building detached from the central one while carrying her bags. He told her something about keys and doors. She nodded even though she had no idea what he'd said. There were some stairs, upwards, a corridor -- or was it two -- and then the sound of key in lock. Sam pushed a door open to a dark room, slightly cool though not actually cold, and dropped her bags inside. He flicked a switch and a pair of fluorescent tubes flickered to life, casting the room in a dim yellow haze.

He told her something else about keys, something about fire exits, maybe something else about bathrooms and such. She nodded to everything. She'd seen her goal already. There was a bed against a wall, already made up, to one side of the window. Come to think of it, there was another bed in there too on the opposite wall, but she tried not to let that fox her.

Sam made a show of laying her key on a table under the window, "If you need anything, the phone's down the hall. Dial oh for the switchboard and they'll help you from there. Need anything else?"

Sarah shook her head. Well, yes, she did need something. Sleep. Now.

She might have thanked him. She wasn't sure. She did at least kick off her shoes and shrug her coat to the floor before climbing into bed. The sheets were cold but with her clothes still on that hardly mattered. The pillow was nice. Friendly even. She could like this pillow more than anyone had ever liked a pillow before.

Sleep hit her like a freight train and left her cold in its wake for longer than propitious.

 

[Maka]

She woke up to the familiar sound of a pencil moving against paper in a series of long, confident strokes.

A petite and slender Asian girl was perched at the edge of her bed, a sketchpad balanced on her knees, dark eyes intent on Sarah's face. Her close-cropped, spiky hair was dyed a vivid shade of blue, and it topped a pretty, snub-nosed little face like a jagged halo. Her face was calm and intent at the moment but those dancing dark eyes hinted at a normal state of impish mischief and vivacity.

She started as Sarah's eyes flickered open.

"Aye!"

She almost toppled off the bed in surprise, twisting like a cat and catching herself with one hand at the edge of the bed.

"Sorry! Sometimes I just see something and have to sketch it. Do you know what I mean? Of course you do. I've seen your artwork, you know. It's really good. Like it. Like it a lot. Think you're going to make a big difference here. I'm Kama, by the way, I'm your roommate. But a lot of the time, people call me Cat, or Kamacat -like kamikaze? Maybe that's not very tasteful but I think you've got to laugh, don't you? This is for you."

Kama had not paused once during her breathless speech, but now she ripped off the page she'd been working on and handed it proudly to Sarah. It was a portrait of her sleeping, drawn with a quiet elegance and refinement that didn't seem a match for the excitable girl who'd created it.

In the picture, Sarah was lying asleep, her long veil of hair half-covering her delicate features. She looked at peace, innocent, and vulnerable but with a hint of strength to her, even while sleeping. There was something hopeful about the picture, something that drew the eye. The only non-realist element to the picture was the star. It hung above Sarah's pillow and cast its light across her form, outlined beneath the sheets.

 

[Suzuha]

Waking to such a scene, most people's first thoughts would gravitate to wondering where they were, or who the fast-talking girl was, or perhaps even to simply worry about the time. It spoke volumes of her still jet lag addled brain that her first thoughts were to worry that she'd woken in some sort of anime-made-real. Asian girl, blue hair, energetic verbal outpouring. Clearly an anime.

Of course, Sarah's brain was already well entrenched in that form of presentation or, more particularly, its still version, manga. She drew many things, but she was drawn back to character illustration as seen in graphic novels and manga. She'd sometimes, to a particular sort of audience, describe herself as a mangaka, though she debated the accuracy of that with herself when experimenting with some new approach or concept. Whatever the case, she had sheet upon pad upon book of concepts and sketches and even a few pieces that she thought might be half way good, in the right light, and the right mood. Some of these must have spilled from one of her bags and from there piqued the Asian girl's interest as they now lined the desk under the window, each carefully treated and placed with consideration.

Even when passed the portrait of her sleeping self, Sarah had trouble focusing on anything but the other girl. Fortunately, her movements were clearly three dimensional, and she didn't appear to be about to leap into the air in a spray of magical stars shouting the name of her superpower. The sense of unexpectedly-transported-into-anime-world receded, for which she was grateful.

She reviewed what the girl had told her, searching for salient facts. The girl's name? Kama. Right, that was a good start. Oh, yeah, room mate. Should have remembered that bit. Still, fine, workable, even if the experience of being drawn while asleep might turn out to be a bit creepy. That said, it didn't actually feel creepy. Something about Kama's effervescence dismissed any sense of being stalked. Also, Sarah really did know the sensation of just having to draw something. That something had simply never turned out to be someone else sleeping as yet.

Kama was looking at her expectantly. It dawned on her that she was probably supposed to have said something by now. She tried her best to not sound like a brain dead basket case, managing something more akin to wasted-but-trying-to-make-sense.

"Er, hi, Kama."

She realised she was still dressed, which made her inclined to sit up, which she did, manoeuvring the pillow behind her back.

"Yeah, so, pleased to meet you. Guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on."

She brandished the sketch. Well, really, she more waved it limply, but she was trying for brandished.

"You, er, draw people in their sleep often?"

That felt a bit accusatory so she tacked a smile on the end, hoping that it didn't result in making her look deranged.

She must have slept exactly still on one side as somehow her straight, dark brown hair still had a little bounce on one side and was perfectly flattened against her skull on the other, a bit like hat hair on one side only. She ruffled her fingers through but that just served to make everything scruffy. Realising she wasn't going to win without at least a shower and a comb, she reluctantly abandoned her hair to being a mess. Kama was a girl. She'd understand.

"For that matter, what time is it? And where are the showers?" She paused, looking rueful, "Sorry, lots of questions. Hope you don't mind?"

Finally, it dawned on her. She'd not even introduced herself. Palm met face briefly as she rolled her eyes at herself.

"Yeah, and when I wake up... sorry, I'm Sarah."

She held out her hand to Kama. They shook hands in America, didn't they?

 

[Maka]

"You, er, draw people in their sleep often?"

"Not really!" Kama said cheerfully. She was occupied in respectfully looking over Sarah's portfolio, sometimes letting out thoughtful little noises and sometimes excited gasps. "In fact, I think it's the first time... I really like that one. I like the clean line look..."

"For that matter, what time is it? And where are the showers? Sorry, lots of questions. Hope you don't mind?"

"No. Not at all. No. It's tomorrow morning! That is, from your point of view, it's tomorrow morning. From my point of view, it's this morning. No. Wait. From your point of view, it's this morning, but from the point of view of the person you were last night, or rather today from that point of view, it's tomorrow morning. Ahh! Muddled!"

The slender Asian girl spins around on the spot, her hands going to her head and running through the fine blue hair.

"The showers are just down the corridor on the left. But listen. Term doesn't start for a few days, and Angel Falls is worth getting to know. Would you like me to show you around? I can show you the Institute, and the town, and then we could go up to the Falls themselves. They're worth seeing, they've got... well, you'll see. Then in the evening..."

Kama looks around conspiratorially.

"We could go to the Roadhouse. It's a bar in the backwoods. There's a special draw there but I won't tell you about him. It! Or it. Won't tell you about it. Shh. Nope. Shh. You'll just have to see."

 

[Suzuha]

She made a mental note. Kama: not so good on specific answers, makes up for it in enthusiasm. That said, she had a sneaking suspicion that this note was going to be buried under that aforementioned enthusiasm before too long. So, it was morning, and probably the following morning at that. Unless Kama was somehow incorrect about that... She inwardly berated herself; why would she think such a thing about a girl she'd only just met? Nope, she settled, it was morning and she'd take it as it came.

Right now, her priorities were rapidly coalescing into two things: a shower and then breakfast. Kama made it sound like the showers were unmissable, at least if you set off in the right direction, so that was under control. Her belly was demanding attention, though. Amidst the somewhat cryptic torrent, she determined that her room mate was actually pretty keen to give her the tour. If it could start with food then that was good with Sarah.

She nodded agreeably, "Please, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to be shown around. I was actually a bit worried that I'd have to figure it all out for myself so it's great that you're here."

Sarah tried combing her hair with her fingers once more. No progress. "Look, I'd really like to get a shower before heading out. Then food. I've not really eaten anything sensible except that silly aeroplane food." She made air-quotes around 'food' to express her disdain. "So breakfast, or something approximating breakfast would be great."

Relinquishing her sitting pose on the bed, she found her feet and began rummaging in her trolley bag. One bright blue towel, fluffy white dressing gown, and wash bag later she turned back to Kama.

"Look, shall we rally here in, er, thirty minutes?" She considered her hair, "Maybe make that forty five? Then I'd love the tour, breakfast, even that Roadhouse place. That work with you?"

She did wonder what she was getting herself into, but she couldn't hide in bed all the time. That'd rather defeat the object of bringing herself all the way. Nope, she'd get up and out and see the world, even if it was in some zany fashion that she got the impression Kama might be offering.

 

[Maka]

The Institute proved to be a pleasant, leafy campus hidden away in the woods outside town. Many of the buildings were built of timber themselves, and moss and ivy had been allowed to grow over them, until they look as shaggy and ancient as the trees surrounding them.

Kama pointed out one overgrown little cabin at the end of an avenue of trees, a place that looked like it had been abandoned for decades.

"Magnusson's cabin. Nobody ever sees them these days -nobody except the Director, and even then just once a year."

There was a flash of white -the twitch of a frayed lace curtain in one of the windows.


The town was a sleepy, white picket fence place. It did not seem to have changed at all since the Fifties at least, and even then, it couldn't have been far away from the little forest communities that the Puritans founded. There was a dreamy quality to the air, a pervasive fragrance that sets strange fancies stirring.

The gorgeous English girl drew her share of admiring glances as she and Kama moved about the town. Male eyes clung to her slender form, her swaying, pert ass or returned for second and third glances at the delicate beauty of her face. However, no one approached her, except for the beggar.

He was dressed in a ragged hoody and sweat pants. Despite the grim covering it, there was a strange, quiet dignity to his face. He approached Sarah with a bow.

"We are so glad you've finally come."

Without another word, he walked away.


And then there were the Falls themselves. A lovely, cool and shadowy little glen up in the forests ended in a gorgeous, white-crested waterfall that fell down from the cliffs above. It was approaching evening as the two girls arrived, after a hike through the woods, and the forest seemed to ring with whispers just on the edge of hearing.

"Do you see it?" asked Kama.

She pointed. Just visible within the water was an outline -the winged figure of an angel, white against the black rock.

"The first settlers here took it as a sign," Kama said quietly, her exuberant spirits seemingly dampened by the reverential hush of the glade. "That's why they made their homes here."