 | ||
| Salad for breakfast! |
Blake doesn’t mention his dream the next morning. He
doubts it’s of any real importance. It was probably just the result of watching
a scary movie before bed. Besides, it was his first day of work, and he thought
he should focus on that.
Shane, meanwhile, was caught up in his own plans.
Before they left Bridgeport, he’d stumbled onto a groundbreaking scientific
idea. One that he’s convinced will change at least the field of medicine
forever.
It was slightly unorthodox,
Shane knew. Unorthodox to the point where he wasn’t mentioning to Blake. In all
truth, there was a lot that Shane didn’t mention to Blake.
Occasionally, Shane
liked to imagine them as a more ‘normal’ couple. No evil parents to hide from,
no dark secrets to keep. But they had both made their choices. Shane could only
bear his more dubious ones. There was no way he was going to let them affect
Blake.
They make an effort to
use the Setran-Simlish dialect around the house. Simlish is thankfully
grammatically similar wherever one goes, but there could be some radical vocabulary
changes that tripped some Sims up. Conversations about even simple things like
work were good practice.
It was likely this
practice, along with his excellent performance, that scored Blake a promotion
to Teacher’s Aide a few months later.
Shane’s luck was not as
good. Not one of the journals he had sent his work to had accepted it for
publication. He was becoming, as one of the rejection letters put it, “The
laughing-stock of the scientific community.”
Disheartened, he took
to searching for new stars with his telescope. More than once he ended up
looking until the early hours of the morning.
It’s one of those
nights that he hears the gunshots.
Across from them there
is a little house belonging to one Amar Utbar. He’s a private man, Shane had
only ever seen him a few times. It’s from his house that the shooter was
fleeing.
Shane’s phone typically
never got great reception at the house. That night it got none. Their landline
hadn’t been working all day. It had been the same for their next-door
neighbors. It dawned on Shane that this had been a very planned out killing.
“Attempted killing, maybe,” Shane thought as he ran to the Utbar residence. “Maybe he wasn't hurt. Or I could help him.”
The minute he saw Amar,
however, he doubted it.
He leaned down at the
old man’s side. The bullet-hole was small, but Amar was clearly fading rapidly.
“Zavier is safe,” Amar murmured,
almost more to himself than Shane.
And then he was gone.
“Zavier?” Shane
thought. “Who is—“
"Oh."
Things were about to get a lot more complicated.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Not pictured - the 'assassin' autonomously playing with Zavier while I tried to get the dying words scene.
Also, an explanation about the Simlish dialect thing. I see my sims as living in a world that's not exactly ours but has parallels to it. But some things, like the language, are obviously different. I may or may not delve more into that depending on how much background the plot seems to need/not need. I want to set myself in a different world early though, so it doesn't seem weird later.
