Radio Silence
Cheryl hasn't been around.
It's easy enough to find out what's happened to her, if someone were to go looking. Harry Mason's death turned him from an obscure crime writer to a minor celebrity of sorts, all the moreso because of the bizarre circumstances surrounding his death. It took very little effort for a reporter for the Los Angeles Times to turn up records of Harry's altercations with the cult, which in turn drew more attention to his later, darker books. One of them, a supernatural horror novel written under a pseudonym, even got optioned, but nothing was done with it.
When Cheryl elected to reappear, she was handed a large amount of paperwork and her fifteen minutes of fame. She ignored it as best she could, sorting through the aftermath of Harry's death with the help of a cadre of attentive lawyers (perhaps some gods had their uses, she thought).
She found herself, if not rich, at least comfortable. Cheryl returned to San Francisco with, unusually, money in her pocket, and was able to put a payment down on a small apartment. She got her job back at the soup kitchen.
Then one morning, she wakes up with knives in her eyes and a sense memory of burning not quite to death and a vague sensation like someone has taken the world and given it a sharp wrenching turn.
Something has changed.
It's easy enough to find out what's happened to her, if someone were to go looking. Harry Mason's death turned him from an obscure crime writer to a minor celebrity of sorts, all the moreso because of the bizarre circumstances surrounding his death. It took very little effort for a reporter for the Los Angeles Times to turn up records of Harry's altercations with the cult, which in turn drew more attention to his later, darker books. One of them, a supernatural horror novel written under a pseudonym, even got optioned, but nothing was done with it.
When Cheryl elected to reappear, she was handed a large amount of paperwork and her fifteen minutes of fame. She ignored it as best she could, sorting through the aftermath of Harry's death with the help of a cadre of attentive lawyers (perhaps some gods had their uses, she thought).
She found herself, if not rich, at least comfortable. Cheryl returned to San Francisco with, unusually, money in her pocket, and was able to put a payment down on a small apartment. She got her job back at the soup kitchen.
Then one morning, she wakes up with knives in her eyes and a sense memory of burning not quite to death and a vague sensation like someone has taken the world and given it a sharp wrenching turn.
Something has changed.