Alarms blared- the periodic flashes of cherry-red light were all that Carmen had to make any sense of her surroundings. The walls and floors were steel, the metallic clang of her hurried footsteps ringing in her ears made that much clear. But between the cacophonous noise and adrenaline pumping through her body, her senses were so flooded that the only other things she could make out was the suffocating feeling of dread that drove her forward into the inky black darkness and the measly few feet of distance the blinking lights would let her see. Suddenly-a heavy crash drowned out every other bit of noise and her vision went white, her head swimming for several precious seconds as if she had been hit by a flash bang. What brought her back was the feeling of her feet losing their grip on the floor as underneath became behind and behind became above. She clawed desperately at what used to be the floor with her feet- trying to find some kind of purchase to right herself on. She found none, and, praying it would slow her descent, slammed her hand to the wall behind and-

Carmen's eyes shot open and her body reacted just as fast-jolting up and back and slamming her head into the backboard of her bed, kick starting a splitting headache that would last her the rest of the morning. She felt her heart beating relentlessly in her chest as her vision returned- albeit blurry- back to normal. She swiped up her phone and after a few groggy mis-entries, she shut-off the alarm. With that, she slumped down back underneath her covers, accompanied by the relative silence of her apartment with the never-ending noise of the city muffled by it's walls. She did her best to recall what happened in her dream, but the more she tried to grasp onto concrete details the further it slipped from her mind, inevitably leaving her with nothing but the vague memory of fear and desperation. Oh, and the splitting headache, of course.

She almost instinctively started to drag herself out of bed to prepare for work. With how fucked up her sleep schedule was, she never afforded herself much of a daily routine, but the very least she could do was try to tame the short and sheer white mess of hair on her head. She'd say it was impossible to keep tidy, but in reality she just couldn't be bothered to brush it more than once a day. Today would be no different, though she highly doubted she'd even manage the one today. She had no job to obligate her to anymore, nor did she plan on going anywhere today that pajamas wouldn't be considered standard attire and jeans a step below formal wear. Her hair was barely a consideration in that case.

Still, though, she wasn't exactly super excited to walk around in the sweat soaked clothes she slept in and there was the matter of the splitting fucking headache to attend to. So, unfortunately, some morning prep would be necessary. It still took her a good several minutes to drag herself out of bed and patch together something resembling a cohesive outfit after popping an aspirin... Or three. Though no longer a literal set of pajamas, the clothes she chose were just as loose-fitting. Comfort was the primary motivator, but having the silhouette of a pastel-colored blob was a plus. It helped alleviate the pervasive feeling of being watched that she experienced every time she'd gone out as of recent. The cops were one thing, but even among crowded places where she wouldn't stand out even a little bit among the throngs of people she couldn't help but feel like someone was singling her out. Whoever those people had been hadn't yet been brave enough to confront her, though. So all she could really do was speculate.

After she was finally dressed and her headache had alleviated just enough that she could walk around without constantly clutching onto her head in pain, she turned the knob of her door, barely cracked it open and stuck her head out to survey the cramped hallway outside. A handful of doors lined the hallway, none anymore distinct than hers save for numbered plaques bolted onto them. Being a bit more insulated from the outside buzz of the city, it was a fair bit quieter, too. It was almost eerie, but she wrote that feeling off as nothing more than an echo from her heightened state of emotions after she woke up. Nothing abnormal was going on- for all intents and purposes this was yet another day in the life of impromptu unemployment.

The elevators were broken down, of course. Being on the fourth floor in a building with no convenient means of upward ingress or egress meant that her room was largely undesirable and rent was comparatively low. This did come with the downside of having to trudge up and down four flights of stairs whenever she wanted to go somewhere, but she probably needed the exercise, or she would tell herself. In truth it was just kind of a constant pain in the ass. She might've said hey or something like that to seem neighborly should she have met anyone on her way out, but before long she found herself at the doorstep of her apartment building having seen nobody. Now she was in the city, a residential area, mind, but still a place that no passerby would have any reason to care who she was. Nor would she have any reason to care who they were.

It was a dreary day by most anyone else's account, but Carmen wasn't really a fan of bright, sunny days. She much preferred when the weather was like this- cloudy and gray. The sun hurt her eyes and she couldn't really stand the overbearing warmth. So cool, dimly light days like this were something of a blessing to her. Her eyes kept darting back and forth from the street to the sky, wondering if it was going to rain. She wondered if it was going to storm, seeing as how the streets were much emptier than they'd usually be on a comfortable Wednesday morning. She saw a few people who caught her eye- it was hard to figure out what made them so captivating compared to the average person strolling the streets- but they had an air of importance around them. The kind of feeling that you'd get when you were around a person of high status. Like a professional sports player or the CEO of a high-profile company. Someone who, by their very stature begged to be noticed.

She didn't pay them much mind, but she couldn't help but notice how their eyes seemed to follow her whenever she passed them. She'd try to convince herself that she was making it up, but their stares were accompanied by that same, dreadful feeling of being watched that she'd felt all week. She'd think that maybe they were plainclothes police or something, but tried to ignore that thought seeing as how she wasn't very keen on the idea of developing crippling paranoia at the ripe old age of nineteen. Her eyes met briefly with a girl across the street, leaning against the side of a building. Carmen jerked her head down when she saw she'd been noticed, and didn't dare look back to see how she'd reacted. She quickly turned a corner into an alleyway, keeping her head down until she was sure she'd be out of the girl's line of sight and cursing herself for being such a consummate coward. It sucked feeling so helpless and terrified basically all of the time.

If she thought the place looked like a ghost town earlier, it was an entirely different story now that she wasn't on any of the most walked streets. She found her way to a familiar, dingy corner-store that called itself the "Canary in the Carmine". It's scant few patrons usually just called it the "Canary" owing to the long-windedness of it's title that referenced the street it happened to be on. She pushed open the glass door, cringing at the shrill bell that it sounded off each time anyone entered, immediately drawing everyone in the store's attention to her. This time, there was nobody's attention to draw. At first glance, the building was completely empty.

She looked back and double-checked the opening times printed on the door. 10:00 to 20:00. She didn't have a watch, but she knew it was well past ten and nowhere near eight- plus the door wasn't locked. So... Maybe they were just out for lunch or something?

She stepped inside cautiously, chancing a "H-Hello?" into the dimly lit store. When nobody responded, she moved inside and let the door close behind her. Despite the empty store's eerie atmosphere, she still felt a hair safer here than she had when she was wandering around alone in the open. So rather than leave and try to find some other hole-in-the-wall place to buy her weekly stockpile of junk food she opted instead to just gather the snacks she wanted and wait for whoever was on their shift to return. It's not like she had anywhere else to be after all. After collecting a frankly unhealthy amount of whatever passed for Mountain Dew in off brand hell in addition to a few bags of chips and whatever candy caught her eye she returned to the register and dumped all of it on the counter nearby.

For a while, she just leaned against the counter, keeping an eye out for any returning employees and jumping at every noise that came from the old building. It didn't take long for her to get bored, though. She considered briefly just outright taking the stuff. There couldn't be more than- what, thirty bucks worth of stuff? She doubted it would really be noticed. But if wandering outside made her anxious, then wandering outside with a bunch of stolen merchandise was probably out of the question. Instead, she decided to go searching a bit. The store wasn't big, necessarily. But maybe someone fell asleep somewhere? It was definitely a reach, but she was pretty tired of standing around.

She stood up on the tips of her toes and reached her head over the counter, peering behind it to see if there was any evidence of someone even having been there. The store was dim though, and the floor and inside of the counter were invisible from this vantage point. She nearly climbed over it entirely, but as she lifted up her leg she felt someone grab the back of her head and shove down- hard. Immediately her vision went dark, and when she regained consciousness seconds later the pain of the concussion and the resulting headache nearly caused her to go under again. The only thing that kept her eyes open was the feeling of something sharp pressed against the back of her neck. Something sharp that didn't feel like it was cutting so much as it was searing. She tried to scream, or beg, or call for help, but the only vocalizations she could manage were pained groans. Pain worse than she'd ever felt before made it impossible to think much less talk.

"Jeeze, Rin. Putting up a lot less of a fight than I, and everyone else, apparently, thought you would." The voice she heard was clearly male. But it wasn't any that she recognized. Were she not fighting just to keep her eyes open, she might have described it as "smooth". But right now she could only barely make out what he was saying. "What? Nothing to say for yourself?" She felt his fingers grip her by the hair and lift her head up. The knife burned into the flesh of her neck barely an inch as she screamed out in pain with what little air was left in her lungs. She felt his grip loosen, but she couldn't bring herself to do so much as jerk her head away. He turned her head enough to see her face- "Fuck." He let go of her and her head fell- banging against the countertop and robbing her of what little consciousness she'd held onto for the past few seconds.

When her eyes opened again, she was slumped on the floor against the counter. Her vision was blurred and she was nearly blinded by the blood trickling down her face, but she could still make out the cloudy outline of someone's face leaning over her. Reflexively, she jerked backwards- but only succeded in smacking her head against the back of the counter and causing her to cry out in pain. "Fuck!" She registered the voice- recognizing it as the same one belonging to her attacker. She saw him raise his hand towards her face, and instinctively brought up hers in defense. "Hey- Look." He lowered his hand- "Plenty of people are willing to kill someone to clean up a stupid mistake. I'm not one of them."

"It looks like you're still practically human, anyways. It wouldn't even be fair." He carefully moved her arms out of the way, and when he was sure she wasn't going to jerk away and hurt herself again, tilted her head up a bit and wiped the blood from her eyes. With her vision cleared, she could finally get a decent look at his face. His eyes were sullen, framed by short, platinum-blonde hair, his expression showing a quiet concentration in piercing red eyes that seemed to stare straight through her. "Looks like your eyes still work fine." He commented, lifting her hair out of the way and wrapping a strip of gauze tightly several times around her head. "Unlucky day for you, huh?"

"Well, more than an unlucky day. He moved back, looking her over. "Not much more I can do. You'll be fine, but it'll hurt a while." He stood back up and pulled his coat on. "Painkillers in the first-aid kit if you want them. Rin's probably going to stumble on you sooner or later. She's in the area, or she was supposed to be." He grimaced. "I'd stay, but I don't want to be around when she does. You can look forward to a much warmer welcome from her."

Carmen looked up in time to see the man leaving, heavy footfalls punctuated by the familiar shrill bell marked his departure. Once again she was left alone, head killing her and without a single clue as to what, or why it had happened to her. She turned her head to see, as promised, a thoroughly scavenged first-aid kit laying open next to her. There was only one bottle inside, but she couldn't focus her vision long enough to read the label. It was only now, as she fumbled with the medicine that she realized just how badly she was shaking. Nearly her entire body was trembling like a leaf. Eventually she gave up and just downed a couple of the pills, praying it'd soothe the pain enough that she could concentrate enough to make her way back home in a few hours. Exhaustion was beginning to set in as the adrenaline that had been pumping through her body for the longest minutes of her life wore off, it wasn't long before she couldn't even work up the energy to pick herself off the ground. Resigned to whatever fate may await her when she woke up again, she shifted into as comfortable a position as she could get propped up against a convenience store counter and closed her eyes, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

KyuP

proofreading is a spook, so is planning ahead. we're all on this ride together, and it's more fun that way.