Vera attended classes filled with anxiety on Halloween day.  She could not shake the fear that she was being followed, and had been tempted to carry Revan with her in a bag for company.  Even in the smaller discussion-based classes, she felt the constant urge to look over her shoulder to see if she was being watched.  She garnered a few strange looks from her classmates, but she had no relationship with them beyond simply that as fellow students and did not give much thought to their opinion of her.

At lunchtime, Vera visited her favorite coffeehouse in one of the quieter, more whimsical areas of the city.  The familiar and usually comforting environment did nothing to ease her worries.  Finally, her last class finished and she prepared to go home to Revan, a warm dinner, and a long, hot bath to soothe her nerves.  As she walked, Vera remembered that the children in the apartment building might be trick-or-treating in the halls, so she stopped at little convenience store and picked up a few bags of candy.

Now on her way home for real, Vera glanced around anxiously, still unable to shake the terrifying feeling that she was being stalked.  Standing at a crosswalk, she shifted nervously as she waited for the signal to change.  The light finally changed, and Vera walked on.  Feeling a tickle in her lungs, she started to cough.  Acknowledging that she had either suddenly contracted a cold or that her anxiety had triggered the cough, she pressed on.

The coughing usually subsided within a minute, but this time it did not.  When Vera started having difficulty catching her breath, she sat down on a sidewalk bench and set her bags down, waiting for the fit to pass.

“Miss, are you alright?  Do you need water or anything?” a courteous passerby asked.  Vera shook her head as best she could while keeping her head down and covered to be polite and sanitary.  She vaguely perceived the passerby shifting uncomfortably before going into a nearby restaurant.  A few moments later, the worst of the coughing passed, and she could breathe normally again.

The passerby returned with a plastic cup filled with water.  “Here, Miss,” he said.  “I couldn’t just walk by and maintain a clean conscience.”

“Thank you,” Vera said as she took the cup he offered.  She noticed that he had Asian features, like the past two people who had approached her, and wondered if he was following her as well.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Miss?” he asked.  His voice was accented, and Vera noted that the other two from yesterday also had spoken accented English.

“Yes, thank you,” Vera said after she had taken a sip of water to be polite.  “I’m used to this.”

“Have you ever seen a doctor about it?” the man asked.  “I’m sure someone could prescribe you an inhaler or something.”

“I’m alright, really,” Vera said.  “That’s about the worst it’s ever been.”  She stood to leave.  “Thank you for your kindness.”

The man picked up her bags and handed them to her when he stood.  “Take care of yourself, Miss,” he said.

“Thank you,” Vera said again as she took her bags.  She nodded her head slightly in thanks before continuing on.

~*\_/*~

When Vera closed the door behind her, Revan lifted his head from his resting place on the couch to greet her.  “Well, Revan,” she said to him as she put her bags down, “I’m glad to tell you that there are still decent people in the world and that chivalry is not dead.”  The cat simply jumped down from the couch and slipped away to the litter box.

Vera sighed and looked around the apartment, checking to make sure everything was where she had left it that morning.  Deciding that everything was in order, she got out two bowls and dumped the candy, separated by nuts and no nuts, in for later that night.  She had some writing for her lab class the next day, so she set up her computer to do some work for the next few hours.

By six that evening Vera felt that she had prepared sufficiently for the following day’s classes and wondered what she should do that evening.  Revan rubbed against her legs, wanting to be fed, so she refilled his food and his water before filling a pot with water to boil for pasta.  Maybe she should call Sienna, she thought as she waited for the water to heat.  She decided against it, however.  Sienna was probably at her own Halloween event that evening, possibly against their parents’ wishes.  She ought not to bother her.

When she finished her small dinner of pasta with marinara sauce, Vera the television and flipped to a channel which played family-friendly Halloween movies through the night.  She was not planning to really watch, however – she just wanted the background noise.  What she really wanted to do was write her stories.  Because she was such a socially-inept person, Vera had taken to creating stories during the times when most other young girls would make friends and chat.  Now, at age twenty-two, Vera was still better at creating stories about people than actually interacting with them.

The doorbell rang.  Vera, startled from her thoughts, for a brief second feared that stalkers had found her home.  Then she remembered that it was only Halloween and that the children of the apartment building were probably out trick-or-treating already.  She opened the door to a chorus of childish voices saying “Trick or treat!”  After she had appropriately flattered them on the appearance of their costumes, she prompted the children to each pick three candies from either the nutty and/or nut-free candy before saying goodnight and closing the door.

“You know, Revan, maybe this wasn’t the best night to decide to write,” Vera remarked as she was interrupted for the eleventh time that night by trick-or-treating children.  The cat just blinked his pale grey eyes at her and leaned back to have his belly rubbed.  Vera willingly obliged as she mulled over the current version of the ever-changing plot of her story.  Then the doorbell rang for the twelfth time that evening.

Vera put down her laptop and got up to answer the door.  As she opened it, she reached over for the two bowls of candy.  “Trick or treat!” two very different and not at all childish male voices exclaimed cheerily.  Vera forced away a frown as she turned to her visitors with the candy.

Her two visitors looked to be about college-age.  Both wore sunglasses and were dressed in urban fashion.  The taller of the two had dark hair which he had covered with a beanie, while the shorter had bleach-blonde hair which he had covered with a skewed baseball hat.  The shorter seemed to be about seven or so inches taller than her, and the taller appeared about two inches taller than his friend.  Vera blinked away her surprise and said to their grinning faces, “You can each take three pieces of candy.  Nut-free candy is in my left hand.”

“Thanks, princess!” the shorter one said cheerfully as he dug around in the both bowls.

“Don’t be so greedy,” the taller one chastised as he took two nut-free candies and one nutty candy without a thought.

“But I haven’t had time to go trick-or-treating in ages,” the shorter one complained in accented English as he finally made up his mind and picked out his three candies.

“Thanks, Miss,” the tall one said, bowing his head slightly.  “Have a good night.”

“Yeah, thank you, princess!” the shorter one said, also bowing, before the two turned and walked away.  “Goodnight!” he called over his shoulder.

Vera shook her head as she closed the door and put down the candy bowls.  She settled back in on the couch in front of the television, pushing aside Revan, who had curled up on her warm spot while she had been up.  Thankfully, the two boys ended up being her last visitors of the night, and she kept a steady train of thought until ten-thirty that night, when she started to get sleepy.  Saving her work and putting her computer into hibernate mode before plugging it in to charge in its usual place for the night, she prepared herself for bed.

As she fell asleep, Revan’s silky black fur, it occurred to her that five of the people whom she had encountered in the last two days all were Asian males with similar accented English.  She hoped and prayed that it was just a coincidence, that maybe they were all a part of the same foreign tour group or something, rather than part of an Asian gang who had decided to stalk her of all the college-age girls in Anaheim, let alone California and the entire West Coast.  “What do you think, Revan?” she asked the sleeping cat.  “Do you think I’m worrying too much?”

She imagined the cat answering, “I think you need to see a psychologist so that you can get checked for schizophrenia or some other disorder which involves paranoia in its early stages,” and decided that maybe she was being a little silly.  Maybe she was only this worried because she was alone, and if Sienna and their parents were home, maybe she would not be so worked up.  The more Vera convinced herself that this was the case, the more at ease she felt, and she slipped into a comfortable sleep.

~*\_/*~

“Did you do it, did you do it?” Seungri asked the moment Jiyong and Seunghyun returned from their little mission.

“How many apartments did you have to visit before you found her?” asked Youngbae.

“Did you bring us back a lot of candy?” asked Daesung.

“Yes, lots, and yes,” said Jiyong.  “Man, she looks as pretty as always!”

“But she’s so quiet this time around,” Seunghyun said.

“And a little standoffish, if you ask me,” Seungri said.  “I wonder if her life has been a happy one so far this time around.”

“I hope so,” said Youngbae.  “Like I told you guys when I got back this afternoon, I think she’s already pretty sick.  We’re going to have to act quickly if we want to save her from illness this time around.”

“Well, the medicine in this universe this time around seems pretty sufficient,” Daesung said.  “Hopefully she’s been to a doctor.”

“That’s not the message I got from her this afternoon,” Youngbae said uncertainly.  “It seemed like she’s accepted her condition as normal.”

“That’s not good,” Seungri said.  “Do you think her parents treat her right?”

“She’s adopted this time around,” Jiyong said.  “They wouldn’t adopt her if they weren’t going to treat her right.  Right?”

Seunghyun decided to lighten the mood.  “Have some candy,” he said as he dumped the two heavy bags which he had been carrying onto one of the hotel beds.

After the boys had divvied up the candy and had eaten their fills, they relaxed.  “So, the shows start the day after tomorrow,” Youngbae remarked.  “Who’s ready?”

“We know we’re ready.  The question is, is America ready for this much awesome?” Seungri quipped.

“BIG BANG will rock the house as always,” Seunghyun said with confidence.

“Do you think Jeonghye will come?” Jiyong asked as he played with a candy wrapper.

“Of course she will,” Daesung said.  “And if she doesn’t, it’s Seungri’s fault.  He’s the one who cast the luck on that piece of paper.”

“Yeah, yeah, blame it on the poor baby,” Seungri whined.

“You gave up the baby image when you became the Strong Baby,” Seunghyun pointed out.

Seungri threw a piece of chocolate at him in response and regretted it immediately.  “No, wait, that’s mine!  Give it back!”

“Mine,” said Seunghyun as he quickly opened the chocolate and popped it in his mouth.  Seungri pouted.

“Which show is she coming for, Friday or Saturday?” asked Youngbae.

“…Saturday?” Jiyong glanced at Seunghyun, who shrugged.

“I don’t know.  You’re the leader; you snagged the ticket.”

“Let’s say Saturday, but Daesung keeps a sense out for her on both shows,” Jiyong decided.

“I feel like Daesung and I do all the work around here,” Seungri said as he unwrapped a lollipop.

“That’s because you and Daesung have more applicable abilities to this situation,” Youngbae said.  “We don’t need Seunghyun’s strength, my light, or Jiyong’s fire right now.”

Seungri rolled his eyes and on his lollipop.  “Nice,” he remarked.  “Blue raspberry.”

“Lolli-lolli-lollipop, oh, you’re my lollipop,” Seunghyun started to sing.  The other boys joined in as the sugar rush began to kick in, and until they crashed, they sang and danced to a mix of their own and American music.

~*\_/*~

Vera did not have any classes before lunch that Thursday, so she allowed herself to sleep in until nine-thirty.  At that point, Revan got tired of waiting for to refill his water dish, and tried to drink from the toilet.  Vera woke to him falling into the toilet bowl, and rolled out of bed to rescue him.  After giving Revan some proper water, cleaning his litter box, and having her own breakfast, she realized that she had never put away the Halloween candy that night before going to bed.  She fetched the bowls from the door and brought them into the kitchen to combine in one big plastic bag.  When she unceremoniously dumped them into the bag, a slip of paper floated out and landed on the counter.

“What the...?”  Vera picked up the piece of paper and examined it as she stashed away the Halloween candy for her future enjoyment.  “…Big Bang Alive Galaxy Tour; Honda Center, Anaheim, California; Saturday, November 3^rd, 2012,” she read.  “A concert ticket?  How did this get in my candy?”  She thought for a moment before recalling the two strange boys who had come to her door the night before.  None of her other visitors seemed like they would leave behind such a thing, or even carry such a thing, while trick-or-treating.  Those two she had never seen around her apartment building before, and while Vera was not a social person, she was an observant one, and would have noticed two such striking characters.

Waking up her computer, Vera Googled “Big Bang Honda Center” and found that they were a popular Korean boy band that was playing Friday and Saturday in her home city, Anaheim.  Nothing seemed too off about the situation except for the fact that one of two foreign boys had dropped a ticket to a boy band into her Halloween candy.  A sudden wave of paranoia descended over her.  What if they came back looking for their ticket?  What if this was a ploy to get her to come out so that they could kidnap her?  After all, who carried a ticket to a concert which has not already happened around while trick-or-treating?  Recognizing that her thoughts might be taking an irrational turn, she bit her lip and resolved to call Sienna later to ask for her advice.

This update was uncharacteristically quick due to vacation.  This is not the norm, so please bear with me.  I have already done about five more chapters worth of planning, if that makes you feel any better, but definitely not five more chapters worth of writing.

By the way, if your (Vera’s) personality bothers you, do not worry.  Highlight for my slightly spoiler-ish comment:  You will eventually become more open once you start regaining your memories of your past lives, after you get over the initial confusion.

Please leave any comments, constructive criticism, pointing out of typos and grammatical errors, etc.  I would love to have other readers and writers advice in order to improve my writing – I’ll take everything with elegance, except for flames.