Many people find a normal life to be boring, the same sort of drudgery day in day out; wake up, work, likely at a job you hate, working with people that you don’t… exactly hate but get along with just because you have to see each other every day and making enemies takes way more energy than you have. Then come home to cap it all off with some meaningless activity if you're lucky and don’t have to pass out right away or get up and do it all over again. It was a day like this that Charlotte was wandering home from work at the local supermarket, a recent bout of corporate cutbacks had led to longer hours and somehow more nitpicky oversight from management that was normally too busy having ’smoke breaks’ to actually do any sort of managing.

Charlotte herself was twenty five but might take a few seconds to count in her head if asked, and lived in the fog of what she assumed to be just mild dissatisfaction with life. The sort that made her only put minimal effort into herself, her mid back length  brunette hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, it kept it both out of the way and helped to hide that her hair had merely heard rumors of a fabled hairbrush. Her face was by some accounts, namely the few friends she still kept in contact with, cute but she would dispute them, her eyes had the telltale black bags of sleep deprivation but that only highlighted the piercing blue of her gaze, there was an intensity to her gaze that only helped to accent the dry tone she took when speaking normally giving almost everything she said a sarcastic twist.

Her parents were distant at best after the divorce when she was nine her mom had turned around and left the country with her new boyfriend leaving her to hear from her around holidays, maybe a card or a text and not much else, and her dad? He was always a distant sort that saw ‘providing’ as the way he should show love so he worked himself to an early grave, she didn’t hate him for it, not truly he’d done what he could and he was grieving too, but she still wished that he’d been there a bit more. Truly the money he’d made had helped her to afford her apartment and what was left was still sitting in her bank account she was just... Loathe to touch it lest it disappear like her parents had. She’d never really excelled in school being one of those ‘gifted’ kids in grade school that burnt out hard in late highschool and the slew of issues that arose led to her just barely passing and seeing no prospects for post secondary education.

Her job wasn’t the best, of course. Who would be happy working for minimum wage at a grocery store for a living? And to her mind that led to a cascade of dissatisfaction across the rest of her life; a bad job meant poor wages, and poor wages meant a shitty apartment, not much in the way of food and what food she did have wasn’t great in terms of quality. No to her mind it all made perfect sense as to why her life was a grey fog of ho hum boredom, the issue was always what to do about it? She didn’t exactly have a ton of free time for looking for more work and this area of town wasn’t exactly buzzing with jobs for twenty-somethings that only had minimum wage low skilled labor on their resume and especially those that didn’t have a degree of some kind. 

All of that was a sorta constant background noise in her mind whenever she found herself frowning at her bank account or staring at the posted hours for next week her mind would run through the circuit of ‘is any of this even worth it?’ but she would push those thoughts aside because what other choice did she have? Letting them run rampant led nowhere, indulging them led to sitting on her couch for days on end shoveling whatever fast food she could find into her mouth and staring blankly at the tv barely processing what was going on. No she didn’t think about it because that’s what you were supposed to do, just keep grinding, pay down debts, save up, do that whole living thing.

She was lost in her own thoughts wandering down the street towards her apartment, the sun was starting to set which wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary for when she got off work so she payed it little mind as she plodded along eyeing her phone and idly scrolling through her social media feed when she heard, something. Something that stood out in a way that normal city noises didn’t. Something like a cross between a strangled gasp and a moan immediately bringing to mind salacious thoughts, followed shortly after by something altogether less shameful. Immediately cutting through the fog that had settled over her life with the sheer absurdity of it. Her head snapped towards the alley she had been just about to pass without a sideways glance, it was an unassuming place dingy with the sort of trash those places tended to accumulate her view was partly blocked by a dumpster pushed against the wall of the shop and also helped to obscure whatever had made that noise.

Eyes narrowed she started down the narrow pathway between buildings, ears straining, maybe she had just imagined it? And even if she hadn’t then someone was probably... Going back there and did she -really- want to see that? But what if it hadn’t been… that but instead someone was hurt? Sure it was always a good policy to keep to ‘I saw nothing it's not my problem’ but that was a callous way to look at the world. Charlotte swallowed and slowly let out a breath overthinking it would get her nowhere of course. Still there was a reason she was hesitating beyond just the fear that she’d get an eyeful of something gross, there was something else, a creeping sense of dread that slowly started to raise the hairs on the back of her neck the longer she stood there the longer she felt something was very wrong.

Her palms were starting to sweat, hands balled into fists, one squeezing her phone perhaps a little too tight and she swallowed. If someone was hurt badly then what if someone had hurt them? A mugger? Serial killer? She should just turn and walk away just go home back to her nice safe normal... boring life. As she was debating with herself internally grappling with these thoughts though she was already stepping into the mouth of the alley already peeking around the edge of the dumpster and she saw…. Nothing at all. Nothing the alley was empty, she blinked and felt that knot of tension that had been building in her chest unwind completely her own imagination. She chastised herself for working herself up so foolishly. Shaking her head she turned to leave to continue her walk when she heard it again.

That same strangled sort of gasp like someone was struggling for breath, and worst of all it was closer than before not much father in the alley she could see it an alcove, of course that sent her right back into the tension high of ‘holy shit somethings happening whatamIdoingturnaroundgohomewhatthehell!’ But she was already creeping forwards drawn forwards even as if by an invisible string edging closer at first she could see nothing then she saw a boot, a boot that twitched. Another step and she could see a pair of people embracing one pinned against a wall the other.. Yep yep it was exactly what she thought it was okay that’s enough time to get out of here she didn’t want to see this.

Turning to bolt back to the street she made her first mistake, if you of course discounted every single step that brought her this far, she kicked a wayward can, sending it skittering and clacking across the asphalt. She just closed her eyes and let out a slow, shaky breath deflating a bit.

“Shit.” was all she could manage before she heard movement, a wet thump that was very much not the noise she expected to hear behind her prompting her to slowly turn her head back towards the pair, or now that she could see what was actually happening it made her blood run cold.

The woman she could see clearly now, was a tall raven haired with a single word? Bombshell the issue was of course that her ‘partner’ was pale.. Lifeless and crumpled on the ground like a ragdoll and she had blood running down her chin smoldering crimson eyes now boring into Charlotte the little intruder. Charlotte’s mind froze up as did her legs, short circuited by trying to process what she had seen what she thought she was seeing and then she was running, scrambling towards the street towards what remained of the sunlight and her nice safe boring life that she wanted nothing more than to crawl back to apologize endlessly that she ever doubted it. Unfortunately for her she never made it, she didn’t even make it back to the dumpster before she was yanked back, dragged off her feet by a sudden grip on the collar of her shirt. The only thing she heard before everything went black?

“How unfortunate… little mouse~”