The lights were off, but someone was home at number 4, Cherry Street...
who: svetlana and open
where: cherry street
when: late
Well.
Something had obviously gone monumentaly wrong.
One minute she's signing release forms, next she's lying awake in a dimly lit room with a feeling of intense forebodeing. The first thing that flashed into her mind with a deep, chest compressing panic, was that she'd hallucinated being in hospital. She was still in that fucking cell. She was... oh fuck fuck.
Then she realised that uh, this wasn't The Room. For one thing it was eerie quiet. Her Princess Room hadn't been truely silent for weeks. Secondly, it looked, felt, and smelled completely different. The bed felt...oh FUCK the bed. She leapt out of it in a movement which would not have been out of place in a slapstick comedy, and, landing next to it, she crouched, peering at the thing with such an intense gaze it looked like she was DARING it to shock her. She quickly pulled at the sheets, blankets and pillows and wrapped them into a huge bundle in her tiny arms. Swamped by bedding she backed away from the simple double bed as if it was a wild animal and recomposed her thoughts a little.
Where the hell was she? She examined the room. Dark, but not pitch black. Window (which she'd tackle um, later). Bed. Two doors - one of which she was next to. She nudged it open with her foot (which she realised was still clad in a heavy leather boot. She was in fact fully dressed.) and peeped into the dimly lit en suite - no bath. Then there was a walk-in cupboard (filled with her meagre collection of clothing - she was also pleased to notice her battered pointe shoes hanging from a hook. She snatched them into her bundle, along with her large itchy green shawl) and the second door. A ...fucking... living room? A computer, sofas, televison. More doors. Fuck.
She dropped her bundle of precious cargo in the bath she discovered in the next room (along with the case of her manicure products that was lying in the sink) and went to explore further.
It took her a good couple of hours of exploring the house and the contents of her computer to find everything she needed to know. There were other "survivors" who were arranging meetings and all sounded completely batshit. Didn't care, other than that they might try and make her go to a meeting. If they were even real people. There was no food in her house. The town was, not as promised, a safe-haven, but completely abandoned. There was no fucking FOOD in her fucking HOUSE. Apparantly, some people had guns. Apparantly, the scientists were still royally screwing with her. Clearly no-one in the town (if there really WAS anyone) knew of her existence - good. She'd keep the curtains drawn, keep quiet, move around only at night. There. Was. No. Food. In. Her House.
She added the bedding from the back bedroom to her pile in the bath, and burrowed herself into it. The size of this place was intimidating. How was she meant to fill it? She hadn't had this much space to herself since before the experiment - the hospital was different. It was one small white room and a bunch of narrow corriders. She had been drugged for most of it anyway. She was rocking, holding her head in her hands and trying desperately to think. This bathroom was safe, at least. Small enough. Only one entrance. People would not find her in here. But she didn't have any FOOD. She would have to do something. It was so dark outside - she had earlier glimpsed quickly through one of the curtains before panicking and rushing away from it to huddle next to the sofa - that she doubted any of the other people in this stupid "Town" would be around. She had to find food. She had to have some fucking food.
She leapt to her feet, swathing her head and body with her thick green shawl, ran back into the kitchen for the longest, sharpest carving knife she could find, grabbed the set of keys on the table, and set her jaw to the task at hand.
Somewhere out there was some motherfucking food, and Svetlana was going to find it. She braced herself - ballerina posture, wide crazy person eyes, swallowing that choked feeling of terror deep down into her belly - she gripped the knife so hard that her shiny pink nails cut moon shapes into her right palm. The fingers of her other hand were working over time, tapping against her thumb in a speedy nervous rhythm. She stepped outside for the first time in 10 months.
Oh godohgodohgodoh
Suck. It. Up.
ohgodohfuckidon'tlikeitthere'stoomuchspaceandi
You. Have. No. Food.
She coughed back the tiniest of sobs, locked her front door (Number 4, she noticed) and resigned herself to the great outdoors. This was awful. Pick a direction and stop thinking about it - this is awful? This is nothing. Right. I'll go right.
Hiiii-fucking-ho, it's off to loot we go.
All the while praying that none of the people she didn't quite believe in discovered her, she began to walk with a glass-eyed determination in her chosen direction. She ignored the other houses. Ignored the feeling of dread. She had to get as much food as she could possibly carry and she had to hide it somewhere. That was everything.
- login to post comments
Adam had contemplated going to the church all day and, in the end, resolutely stayed away. He did not approve of the route that was being taken, arming the town's populace. It was unnecessary and wrong - violence only begat violence, after all. Nobody should carry a gun. There was never any need for death and if they were to be put through tests again, if the scientists saw fit to ensure they were endangered, then so be it, such was His will and they should not rile against it. It would be pointless and only lead to further suffering. Adam would not give his name to any such endeavour, even if he could have helped with fixing up the church today.
Instead, he'd spent the morning and early afternoon on the farm, taking in the harvest as best he could with what help was available, and tending to the animals. After his chores there were done, he'd taken a long walk around the town, to see whether anything had changed. It was dark by the time he started back, heading up the road which would take him past the grocery store and to the farmhouse which was his home. He walked at a steady, relaxed pace, the ground moving swiftly all the same under his long legs as he covered the ground. He walked with no air of fear of the darkness, of his surroundings, or of the town itself, empty though it was. He saw the female figure up ahead of him as he gained on her out of the darkness.
It wasn't too bad, being in all this space, if she didn't think about it. That much was true. Forcing her thoughts to run across other topics helped. Listed the places in her new-found home she might be able to hide things. 7 by first count but later probing may bring about different results. Floorboards should be raised - bathroom was best. Ran her fingers repeatedly over the hilt of her knife - that felt good. Felt strong. The feeling of heavy fabric around her face was a slight comfort, too. Svetlana the pony, all blinkered up and ready to bolt. Pony on a misson. Clip-clop. She was glad of the climate. Cool and fresh and dark. Her lungs thanked her for the clear outside-oxygen, even if her mind didn't.
She moved quickly and with purpose, although she had no real way of knowing where she was going. It was all just a matter of confidence. There would be food somewhere, this was supposed to be habitation after all. She would not meet any of the phantom-experiement-survivors. She would cope. Perhaps it was because of this mindset, this space-cadet shifting of her thoughts away from the matter at hand, that she did not sense the shadows moving near her. The presense of the tall dark stranger went unnoticed. She was too busy mentally rearranging the chairs in her kitchen so that they blocked the entrance to her inner-sanctum of the bathroom. At this rate, she would probably walk right into him.
"Good evening," Adam said, simply, politely, as he passed the stranger in the street. He wasn't the type simply to ignore another human being, and there weren't enough people in this town anyway. That said, he was aware that he far from knew them all, but he had gotten used to that in the experiment, when everyone had seemed compelled to hide in their rooms and rarely interact with others. But, all that said, he would be friendly, no matter what.
Svetlana bristled. Shock. Her reflexes were instantaneous. Body taught, shivering. Knife swung upwards and held itself but inches from his face. Teeth bared. Heart pumping. Blood pounding in her ears.
She faced the man with her huge blue eyes, wild, unsure. Furious. He was tall. He wasn't wearing a lab coat. He looked... calm. No. That's not RIGHT. He was sneaking around after dark, only crazy people did that.
How dare he sneak up on her? Who did he think he was?
Still, it was proof that the journals hadn't been lying about the fact that there really were people in this place. Living, breathing people. Just another thing to add to her building internal list of "possible dangers"
Every inch of her oozed "get-the-fuck-away-from-me" and she slowly began to back away from the man, refusing to pull her eyes away from his face. Sheer will power keeping her from blinking. Blink and you'll miss it.
Adam didn't even flinch as suddenly he was faced with a knife. If it was His will that he be injured, then so be it. Adam knew his place, and he would not try to avoid his fate, whatever that may be. He stopped, waiting to see what would happen, his expression calm, equinimitable. He watched as she started to back away. "I'm not going to harm you," he reassured her, calmly, in case she may be worried about that. No, weapons never did anyone ever good.
Stop talking. No time for it. She couldn't bear it. Hurt me? I'd like to see you try.
She pulled her finger to her lips, well-manicured hands shaking. She was holding a knife to his face and he didn't even seem to care. Was it a joke? Was he some sort of plant - another test?
She suddenly felt very aware of her surroundings. What had she been doing, going outside like that. She should have waited. They probably would've delivered her food - just like in The Princess Room. Sometimes she drove herself nuts. Always too headstrong.
And this man was the cause of her fear reaffirming itself. What was he? Real? She stopped backing away. Stopped moving - just held the knife there, kept the finger pressed to her lips. She was proving that she was in charge of this fucking situation, and if he didn't back down... she was going to cut him. No qualms, no questions. She was going to cut him.
"My name's Adam," he told her, calmly, not even looking at the knife more than in passing. "I was in one of the experiments. A, I think they called it. A large house, they tested us, of course. What's your name?" he asked her. He wasn't concerned about injury, about pain - that was his lot in life. To suffer until he died, to pay for the sins of his fathers. To try and avoid it would be a sin in and of itself.
His name was Adam. He wasn't Russian. She thought they had told her this town was in Russia? Everything was just a big lie. How nice for him to have been in a big house for 9 months while she slowly went loonytunes in torture-chamber isolation. Why was he still talking to her? What was the matter with him?
Svetlana sprang. Made two wild, poorly aimed slashes at his chest. She probably looked ridiculous. A tiny blonde wraith of a girl in a headscarf, freaking out getting all Zorro with a cheap carving knife. It was, however, a ridiculous situation. She wanted to see what he would do next. She wasn't even sure if she'd cut him or not - perhaps her heart wasn't really in it.
Maybe he was one of those with a gun. Nice one, brain. Nice to remember that tiny fact just after I've attempted to maim someone.
Adam didn't try to avoid the blade as it came at him, as it cut through his clothes and grazed his skin beneath. Neither swipe cut very deep - in fact, only the second one hit skin at all. He was wearing a fairly thick jacket, work shirt and t-shirt against the cold and they gave him a certain amount of protection. Still, he felt the bite of pain as the second swipe cut a shallow wound into his chest and he held back a hiss of pain. One shouldn't complain about His will, afterall.
She noticed the repression of a flinch, however small it was. That settled her, slightly. As did the tiny scratchings of skin and blood on the tip of her knife. He wasn't a robot, then. He'd stopped talking at her. Her point was proved - she wouldn't hesitate to hurt him. And, he didn't seem to be shooting her in the face, which was uh, nice. She held the knife more gently now, still pointing at him but with less blatent agression. Her eyes, however, did not soften. Curiosty added itself to the hardness, but she did not back down. She who stares wins.
She was conflicted as to what to do next. Return to the house, or continue her expedition for food? Either way there was the definite new problem of what Adam would do. He had asked her name. He probably wouldn't be willing just to let her vanish into the night without discovering who she was. There were other people around who had been in the same experiment as her - she'd read it. Had they seen her on the feeds? Would he talk to them about her? Perhaps going unnoticed wasn't going to be as easy as she'd anticipated. They'd have a challenge though, if anyone expected her to co-operate or (worse) socialize. She was still pretty positive that this was more scientist fuckery at her expense. She was not comfortable - the itching to get back into her bathtub was somewhat overwhelming. But she did not turn her gaze away from Adam's face. She would not be weak.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Adam told her, his tone making this sound like fact, rather than reassurance. He wouldn't seek to reassure her. Pain was a part of life, living was easier once that fact had been accepted. Pain happened, though one should never seek to harm another living thing. You did not add to a person's suffering, that was not the way. If everyone could just see that...
Svetlana nodded curtly. Damn right he wasn't going to hurt her. She lowered the knife, but still kept her hold on it firm and ready to strike if he tried anything. Couldn't be too careful. She bounced on her heels a little. Edgy.
She wondered about food again. Clasped her free hand into a fist and pressed it hard against her lips. Thought about bolting for her house - it was only a few yards away. Could she make it inside and lock the door quickly enough for him not to follow her? If he did that she'd stab him - she knew that for sure - but if she killed him more would come. Like wasps. Everything was so strange. She could feel herself slipping. She needed to be indoors. She needed food. The two things were mutually exclusive. She felt a wayward tear slide down her cheek and could of throttled herself. She wasn't meant to be doing that anymore. She was meant to be strong.
Adam saw the tear, watched it track down her cheek. "Are you okay?" he asked her, though he knew it was a ridiculous question. Still, it was an acceptable one and not one he could simply not ask. There were levels of 'okay', after all, and he assumed from what he saw here that this girl had also been a participant of one of the experiments. It explained a lot - so many people did not cope well with what they had been through, after all.
Svetlana ignored his question. How banal could a person be? Of course she wasn't okay. Who was? He was bleeding from the chest, for goodness' sake. She hissed softly to herself and decided she was going to bolt for the house. She would wait for another hour or so. Get it together. Then she'd try again. Maybe she could find a map or something on that stupid computer. She'd be better prepared this time.
Glared at Adam. She didn't want him to follow. Her grip tightenened on the knife again, and before she really knew what she was doing she lashed out with a cold fury - aiming to strike him hard in the shoulder. Released the handle, leaving the knife behind (hopefully buried in his shoulder, but it was quite possible she'd simply dropped it), and ran like hell back to her front door. Number 4. Fumbled for keys. Had to get inside. Had to.
Again, as she attacked him, Adam made no attempt to avoid it, or to defend himself, simply letting to blow come. The knife hit home, the tip burying itself into his shoulder, but not going very deep, maybe an inch at best as the girl ran off. The pain lanced through Adam as gravity pulled the knife back out and it clattered to the floor. He left it there, on the street sa he looked to where the girl had gone and then, biting his lip against the pain, his hand clasped to his shoulder to stop the bleeding, he turned to head home again, leaving a small, occasional, trail of blood spots behind him as he pitied those in the world who could only turn to violence. Did they not see that it solved nothing, that it only made things worse? Maybe one day they would find enlightenment. Until then, he would pray for them.
Glancing quickly over her shoulder as she let herself into the house, saw he was retreating. Clutching the wound. Good. She'd got one thing achieved anyway - and if he brought more people to her door, so be it. She had more knives. If they were all as weird and pathetic as him it shouldn't be a problem. She slammed the door loudly behind her and locked it, chest pounding. Rushed into her bathroom, jammed a chair underneath the handle, curled up with fingers clasped tightly over her face.
Breathe.
She'd try again later. It would be better later.
She'd have to get the bloody knife, anyway. So there was one more motivating factor.
Idiot.