Seeing Green Episode IV: Close Encounters

Chapter One

 It was late at night, and low hanging clouds hung ominously in the sky as the moon shot through feeble rays of light. The manor was quiet and dark itself, all the inhabitants long since gone to bed.

But someone was watching. Or rather, something.

An owl, its feathers light and speckled with tawny, sat outside the Master Bedroom on the branch of a tree. And it stared in the window at the sleeping inhabitant.

Stared with dead eyes that reflected no light, only took it in and devoured it. Like endless twin black holes embedded in its face.

While its body remained completely motionless and still, suddenly its head swiveled 360. Turned all the way around until it was back to staring at its quarry.

Staring with eyes as black as its soul.

Bruce screamed and launched herself upright in her bed. Gasping, she glanced around her still darkened room, thanking god that it was just a dream. And then she looked out her window.

And there was the owl. Watching, waiting.

Waiting to eat her soul.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" Bruce screamed and sat bolt upright in her bed. To her relief, it was morning now, and light, not creepy owls, was outside her window.

"Snakes or Leeches?!" Alfred cried as she busted in, her hair everywhere.

Bruce collapsed back onto her bed. "Neither." She gasped as she wiped her forehead. "The owl from 'The 4th Kind'."

Alfred put her hands on her hips. "What have I told you about watching scary movies?"

"Pffft. You watch scary movies all the time!"

"Yes, Master Wayne, I do. But I can handle it." Alfred replied as she came in and pulled her curtains fully back. "It's ten past eight, are you going to get up and come down for breakfast?"

Bruce groaned as she got up and scratched her head, her brown hair mussed and sticking out all around her head. "Yeah okay."

***

"Dammit Alfred, why are these mini wheats not frosted? They taste like shit!" Bruce proclaimed from the kitchen counter.

Alfred turned narrowed eyes to Bruce. "Well excuse me for buying something healthy. I'm trying to lose weight. I may be married now, but I'm still trying to keep a slim figure." Alfred ran her hands down her sides. "Do you have any idea how hard that is when you have this house filled with junk food?" She demanded.

Bruce blinked in shock.

Alfred was shaking her head. "I refuse to keep buying unhealthy food. Christ, we are trying to raise a child in this house!"

"Whut?"

"Waylon!" Alfred said incredulously. "Do you want him to be another integer in the child obesity statistics?"

"He's not fat."

"But he will be if you keep feeding him junk. My mind is made up. No more junk food." Alfred looked at her testily. "Do we have an understanding?"

Bruce just squinted back and shoved a spoon-full of the bland-ass mini wheats into her mouth. "Yum." She said like she was dead inside.

"Good." Alfred left the room.

Bruce swallowed and looked to Waylon, who was seated beside her in his booster seat. She shook her head. "That's a lotta sass. Considering she's my butler." She shoved her cereal over to Waylon and he began eating it for her. "Like, the nerve..." Bruce continued. "She lives here, livin' off my prodigious amounts of cash, has the honor of knowing me..."

Waylon just munched along contentedly, mostly ignoring Bruce.

Bruce snorted to herself. "I'll be damned if I'm going to give up my daily pleasures. No way, no how. Bruce Wayne does not do diets."