“I apologize for my rudeness, Miss.” Fidgeting with the hem of his coat, Noël continued to analyze the peculiar girl. He would have almost likened her to one of the fae folk had it not been for her…eccentricities.

Exactly what is she doing here…? And how did she find my home?

“Why, that’s simple! I merely followed the scent of blood,” the girl casually stated as she immediately jumped down from the fence. Gracefully landing onto the ground, the rosy-eyed stranger immediately walked up to Noël. She was so quick that he could only see a blur of orange, blue, and white before he found her staring intently at him. Inches away from his face.

“Personal space goes a long way, Miss.” Noël grumpily voiced as he slowly stepped away from the excitable girl. “It’s about time you practiced it.”

“Who cares about that!!? Did you even give Mister Magpie a proper greeting?” The girl exclaimed as she hastily grabbed Noël’s hands. With stars in her eyes, she brightly recited in a rehearsed tone, “Good Morning Mister Magpie, I hope your family is doing well.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ugh, it’s so simple! You may be pretty, but that doesn’t mean you can’t greet Mister Magpie,” the girl factually stated as she curiously stared at her bird’s grave. Her rosy eyes seemed to glow, but it could have been a mere trick of the light.

“Thank you…I think?” Noël hesitantly responded as he wondered on what he could do next. Would it be impolite if I threw her over the fence?

“Hey!! You can’t throw a beautiful, stunning, intelligent girl such as myself over a fence you meanie!” the girl shouted as she hopped up and down, stepping on Noël’s boots in the process. “First you don’t greet Mister Magpie, then you kill him, and now this!!?”

“Please accept my apologies again, Miss,” Noël rapidly stated, dull expression never quite wavering.

“Mister Magpie was suffering. Perhaps I should have chosen a less painful method, but…”

“No, not that! Mister Magpie dies every other week, anyway,” the girl shouted. Reaching out towards Noël, she began shaking him as she barraged the vampire with garbled words. Throughout the incoherent statements he could attain from the increasingly anxious girl, only one thought flittered through his mind.

How annoying.

“Listen to me; I’m a complete delight! How dare you call me annoying!” She angrily fumed, oversized sleeves now crossed.

Shaking his head, the ruby-eyed boy could only meekly ask in disbelief, “Can you read my mind?”

“No. I can travel into dreams, but that’s not important right now,” the girl plainly retorted.

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“That…sounds rather important to me.”

“Yes, well, not everything is about you.” Huffing impatiently, the odd girl merely shot him a look of irritation. “But, minus Mister Magpie, there doesn’t appear to be any flesh here…”

Slowly backing away from the strange girl, Noël could only ask the first thought that came to his mind. “What could you possibly want with flesh?”

“Isn’t it obvious, dummy? I need to eat too!” the girl blandly stated, as if this were the most logical conclusion in the world. “Too bad there’s no one here except Mister Magpie and you.”

“Magpies do not actually taste like pie, and you don’t seem wicked enough to eat…” she nonchalantly remarked. “You’re really rude, but beyond that…there’s not much going for you.”

Eyes widening in realization, Noël assessed the strange girl once more. “…Oh, now I understand.”

Lazily raising his arm towards the girl, he pointed and calmly regarded her. “You’re a cannibal.”

“Why you—”

“I apologize, Miss. As much as I would love for nothing more than the sweet release of death, I do not wish for my face to be ripped off.” His original plan of tossing this strange girl over the garden’s fence was starting to look a lot more desirable…

“I wouldn’t eat my own kind, you ninny! And even if I wanted to, it’s taboo to consume other demons,” the girl testily hissed.

Stealthily inching himself towards the discarded shovel by the small patch of earth, Noël merely responded, “Ah, I understand. You’re a cannibal and just plain crazy. Though, those two terms are interchangeable.”

“Quit it!! I’m neither crazy nor a cannibal,” the girl whined. Paying no heed to the gore encrusted earth, the taller of the two collapsed onto the ground. “This is hopeless! You’re so terribly dull, I don’t wanna be here anymore!”

Tilting his head back towards the forest in a thin disguise of irritation, Noël calmly drawled a solution to the increasingly distraught girl. “Then leave.”

“I can’t leave until you wake up,” the off-putting girl stated, as if this were the most logical conclusion in the world.

Quizzically, Noël responded to the girl’s bizarre statement. “I…am awake, Miss.”

“Why’re you so hopeless!!? You’re really not that good a friend.”

“What makes you think we’re friends?”

“Augh! If it wasn’t for Wyvn, I’d take your lousy soul and stuff it into a box!” The girl exclaimed, before plopping facedown onto the ground. “But then again, who would want your worthless soul…no offense.”

“That’s fair,” Noël responded in a lighthearted tone as he decided to sit down next to the girl. Company is company, even if she seemed a tad bit unhinged. “With all this talk of flesh, birds, and demons, I never did catch your name.”

Smiling sweetly, the girl turned her attention back towards Noël. “Oh, right. I’m Annabelle Vamir!”

“Nice to meet you, Annabelle. I’m—”

“Oh, I know who you are! Noël Rousseau, right?” Annabelle hummed as she mindlessly plucked at a few strands of grass. “A vampire…with a really bad imagination. This world you created is so boring! There aren’t even any bunnies!”

Casually, and somewhat worriedly, the ruby-eyed boy regarded the strange girl with disdain. “What do you mean, Miss?”

Huffing in annoyance, Annabelle slightly rolled away from Noël as the previously discarded shovel grabbed her attention. “Hey, can I have this?”

“No.”

“Killjoy,” Annabelle muttered, slightly cursing under her breath.

Shaking his head, Noël nonchalantly walked over to the shovel. “What could you possibly want with a brittle old shovel?”

Brushing off dust that accumulated on his personnel, the vampire got up as if to impose a challenge upon the eccentric girl. Glancing up at the dark horizon, the boy paid no heed to her. How he wished time could be stopped at that moment. If only it were possible for time to be frozen, and he, a spectator, to drown within the grandiose scenery with only an illusion for company. But instead, he was trapped in this endless nightmare with her……