A New Beginning

Chapter 7- New York City

Noelle told her family she was spending time touring New York City for her vacation time– which was technically true.

However, what she didn't tell them was what she was really doing there and the actual reason she was going.

Her dream.

Ever since that night, she had had a gut bad feeling. She couldn't get the vision of the burning city out of her mind. It could be nothing, but she needed to be certain.

Also getting her mind off her job for a little while was helpful so that way she wouldn't just be staring at the walls at home all day.

So Noelle packed her things, booked a hotel, and got on the bus for New York City. She hadn't been here since she had originally come home to Earth several months prior. Back then she had had nothing– just the charity of a kind man.

She thought of the guy Jason who had given her money and bought her pizza. She wondered where he was right now and wished she had the opportunity to thank him. He had given her a phone number, but she had never called it. Noelle wasn't the type of person who liked to talk on the phone, especially to strangers.

She wasn't sure how she would begin investigating a potential "war." Maybe the easiest thing to do was to watch and wait like she always did, and let the Force be her guide.

New York definitely had more than enough action and crime to go around, so she certainly wouldn't be bored.

Slipping quietly out of her hotel without looking suspicious every night was harder than at home. Noelle wore a long coat to disguise her "suit."

When she stepped out into the alleyway, she shed her beige coat and left it in a spot on high to pick up later. She liked that coat. No one would reach it from a lamppost.

After that she did the same as she did in her hometown: got a good view from a high building and waited.

Her first night she stopped one armed robbery and a group of kidnappers targeting a poor young woman.

And immediately on the news the next morning was a headline "Rumors of 'The Ghost' Being Spotted in NYC Circulate."

Noelle had sighed at that. It certainly hadn't taken them long to find her. Maybe being presumed dead did have its advantages.

But she still found no sign of a "war." Nothing she overheard from people's conversations when she eavesdropped in bars or restaurants indicated that there was a war coming.

As the days went by with no success, Noelle began to grow more and more paranoid. She wondered if she was just being led on some wild goose chase as she hadn't had any more dreams since before she had left for New York.

Until one night she did. She decided to sleep for a couple of hours before she went out in the middle of the night to stop criminals, but this time the dream was different.

It was much more real.

Noelle couldn't explain it, but her awareness was more heightened and she was more conscious of everything than she normally was in a dream. She was wandering in the streets late at night like she always did, but this time she felt the Force luring her in a different direction than where she usually staked out for crooks. Noelle's dreams weren't normally this vivid, especially in direct manners.

She went down a specific alleyway and sensed that there was someone here– someone she was apparently supposed to meet. But she saw no one.

Noelle sat up in her bed with a start. Tiredly, she sighed unsure of whether she ought to pursue this dream or not or whether that's just what it was: a dream.