Thinking time
Who: Indira and open
When: Around 6-ish
Where: Park Road, heading towards the park
Indira had finally gotten around to opening the box left for her by the scientists. To her surprise (though she supposed she should just stop being surprised by now), it was a set of dance bells and costumes. She hadn't danced in a while - there hadn't exactly been anything to dance about since coming to the experiment, but the temptation was strong now that they seemed to be in a somewhat stable house (for now.) She'd always found dance able to help her relax or at very least find some sort of grounding. It helped her think. She didn't trust the gifts not to be booby-trapped, however, and so she left them where they were.
As the day passed and she grew more restless, she decided instead to go for a walk. She had to get away from the clueless roommates, the walls that were closing in on her. She bundled up as well as she could, adjusted the scarves she'd fashioned into niqab to cover her scars, and set out walking. She had no specific destination, though she'd chosen a direction that would lead eventually to the park. It was as good a choice as any.
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Saj was out walking again. Headphones in, bopping to music, blaring De La Soul in order to drown out his own guilt. He was making excuses to himself about everything these days. Scott had been tied to a fucking Christmas tree, naked, and he hadn't been around to help. Jesse's entire family was fucked, and all he could do was harp on about how he'd managed to get Carly shot and lost her somewhere. Stupid twat, wasn't he?
He'd been walking aimlessly for about an hour, scoping the town - although it seemed like everyone was indoors because of the cold. The boarded up houses and lack of human life was creeping him out slightly, and he figured it was time to head back to the ranch. Didn't know if he could handle the others quite yet, though. He wasn't used to feeling like this. Feeling so...fucking....sad. Saj's life up until now had pretty much been cakewalk. He couldn't deal with all the bashit. He just wanted his mum. He spotted the woman walking just ahead of him as he thought of his mum and freaked himself out slightly, she was about the right height and the headscarves didn't do much to reduce the illusion. Clearly though, she was not his mother. Saj felt a jolt of more characteristic excitement at the prospect of meeting another Muslim.
"Evening love. How's it going?" he called out to the woman, removing his headphones and giving her a salute.
Indira's first instinct was to ignore the shout as though she couldn't hear or didn't realize it was for her (though really, how could one think otherwise? They were the only two on the street.) Unfortunately, the greeting came from the boy in front of her, rather than someone behind she could more easily ignore. Not that Indira found it hard to ignore anyone, at any time.
Still, her face was her biggest asset when it came to deterring others. She wasn't about to unveil from the get-go, but she did affix him with a glare from her one good eye, the other milky grey and useless in her scarred, drooping face. "How do you expect it's going?" she retorted, snorting. Despite her years in Vancouver, her voice still carried a strong New Delhi accent. "We're stuck in this farce of a town and likely left to die slowly. And I am not 'love.'"
Saj blinked. It was pretty fucking weird, hearing her talk. He could see that something wasn't quite right about the woman's face, and yeah, she was a lot more acidic that Saj's mother...but that accent. No mistaking it. "Blimey. You sound exactly like my Mum. Apart from the whole death and destruction bit. She's normally more along the 'pick up your dirty socks, jah?' line, but still. Fucking hell. You're one of the paranoia posse then, innit? I'm Saj. Hello."
He was trying to sound chipper rather than bewildered and lost, but it probably wasn't working. Even when he did an impression of his Mother, switching his cockney sparra' for a more ethnic lilt, the usual humour and exaggeration he put behind the voice wasn't really there.
"Indira. And it's not paranoia if it's true," Indira said sharply, then sighed. "Was there something you wanted, or were you just being generally annoying and insulting? Because if it's the latter, I have other things I'd much rather be doing. Like talking a walk in a meat grinder."
Saj's eyed widened slightly, the picture of boyish innocence, and he blinked as if Indira had slapped him.
"I, uh, didn't think I was being rude? I didn't mean anything by the accent or nothing, it's just my family's Indian, innit? Nice to have that reminder of home, yeah? I didn't want anything. Just a chat. 'Hello, how're you, still not dead or cracking up, wicked.' That sort of thing. Sorry if I offended you, honest."
His gabbled words came out a little too quickly and he sounded genuinely upset. He hated making a bad impression.
Indira sighed. God, he was like a kicked puppy. Not that she gave a damn. "First you compare me to your mother, then call me paranoid. As if we don't have enough reason to be in here." She shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers and resisted the urge to sigh again. "Forget it," she muttered.
"Well, my Mum is a wicked lady. It's not a bad comparison," said Saj, still taking the please-don't-bite-me defensive tone,
"And yeah, okay, there's reason to be paranoid. I know. Everyone knows. Just not so much of each other I reckon. More of the Eyes in the Sky, if you like. Fuck it though. I am sorry."
He smiled at the woman weakly, and held out a gawky brown hand.
"Start over, then, Indira was it? Where you off to? Fancy some company? I promise to try not to insult the shit out of you again."
ALthough he couldn't help thinking that it would be hard 'cause this chick seemed all kinds of snappy.
"I was looking for a walk," Indira said. "A quiet walk." She ignored his hand, though not out of any intentional rudeness - her own hands were scarred, so she didn't shake with anyone. It was hard to decipher her look behind the concealing black scarf, but it held more than a touch of disdain. "Lucky for you that you've got no cause to mistrust the others here. I wouldn't be quite so naive, were I you. There are interns here who watched the experiments, and you never know what secrets your neighbors are hiding. I wouldn't be surprised to find a few supposed experiment participants are really scientist plants."
Saj got the picture when she didn't shake his hand, and awkwardly removed it, brushing it through his hair in the worst attempt at nonchalance possible. He still wanted this woman to like him, though. Like a puppy with a bone, Saj was, when it came to trying to be everyone's best mate. He tried sticking to the topic of not trusting people - it was one she seemed to like, after all.
"I dunno. There's people I wouldn't trust as far as I could heave a couple bricks at 'em, but they ain't around as far as I can tell. I was in the cakewalk experiment, yeah? So perhaps I just need a bit of....vigilance training? You look like you've got the ninja skills pretty much down, after all."
Saj grinned wryly, before realising that a really bad headscarf joke probably wouldn't win him massive amounts of points with this chick.
It was quite possible that he'd just touched on the one thing that would make having a civil conversation nearly impossible. Indira fought the urge to reach out and rake her nails down this kid's face - she still wasn't sure if he was just a moron or being deliberately insulting. "You think I'm wearing this for my health?" she snapped. "I'm wearing it so people like you won't run screaming. Want to see what happens in this experiment if you forget to pay attention for one little second? Fine." Her voice dropped to a hiss. "Take a good look." With that (because no one had ever said she didn't have an instinctive flair for the dramatic), she pulled the niqab off to expose the ruin of her face, with its mass of burns, scars, drooping skin and useless, dead grey eye.
Saj's heart caught in his mouth. He immediately looked away from the woman's face, blushing a furious shade of red. He felt like she'd flashed him - worse, he felt like he was violating her, being able to see all that horrible scarred flesh. So beyond anything human. She was a monster.
"Fuck...don't...I just thought you were a Muslim, like me. I didn't know. I...do you want me to...does it...what happened?"
A stupid mumbling list of questions started and failed. But Saj didn't know what to say. He had the emotional sensitivity of a 10 year old and she was scary.
Familiar pain at the look on his face mixed with almost vindictive self-justification; she'd known that was the reaction she'd get. She was a monster now. Why shouldn't people freak out and run? "I want you to stop thinking this is a big game that we're all going to get out of," she said harshly. "We're not going anywhere. We're the unlucky ones. The lucky ones? They're already dead."
She straightened, repinning the niqab with the ease of familiarity until all but her eyes was once again covered.