➥ WHERE IS MY MIND | reunited meme drabble

( ... )

She's been taking her coffee the same way for as long as she can remember: black, with one cream on the side and two sugars. It's sitting in the same position, on the same table, as it has for the past five years. The little cafe is homely and something she found by accident. Steam rises from the cup as she mindlessly spins a spoon, mixing portions perfectly.

 

Normally.

 

Martel remembers dying and everything leading up to it. The banging on a hollow plate of armor, her begging cries echoing back in a coppery-shrill. Then nothing. Nothing at all; no fiery pit to burn away her transgressions, no pearly gates to forgive her. She turns her eyes to the rain sliding down the window, the condensation making the lights in the city so much brighter.

 

She panicked when she woke up in a hospital bed, nearly putting two orderlies flat-out on their backs before staff came in to restrain her. The sounds had been so alien and foreign, but the smell of sterile needles and alcoholic sting brought back glimmers of memory. The scientists and their leering grins, the cages and their dank, slippery bars. Like an exorcised spirit, she thrashed and fought in her clean-white sheets. Yelling at the top of her lungs until something numb slid across her brain.

 

Then, once again, blissful nothingness.

 

That had been five years ago and while some things still didn't make sense, she had grown accustomed to this strange world. Where telegraphs could be sent in seconds instead of days, where people smiled from the streets and others just shoved her out of the way during the busy morning commute. No one afraid of her, no one to know her secrets. During the first two years, she had searched for the rest of them. On the back pages of newspaper articles, on what the people here called the "World Wide Web."

 

Nothing. Her consistent in all of the changes.

 

Martel taps her spoon against the thick brim of her coffee, turning towards its comforting spiral of creamy-white and caramel-brown. Gray clouds loom over the skyscrapers outside the window, giving the afternoon a darkening pitch. She circles the handle of her cup, bringing it to her lips as she watches the weekly-activity pass through the rain.

 

And she nearly drops the searing-hot contents right in her lap.

 

She can't miss it. How could she? It's so simple, yet so completely stark in its contrast. Black like oil and just as slick. Fur peels across leather and under the late-summer storm, the fluffy strands flatten and sag. Martel's so still, she almost thinks her humanity is running away from her again. Her heart skips a beat, trembling to find a steady rhythm.

 

"There's no such thing as no such thing - "

 

Before she even knows what she's doing, the handle to the door is in her hand. The coffee is forgotten, everything is forgotten. The doctors, her friends here, her new life - it all washes down like the very rain running into the drainage pits at the edge of the sidewalk. The door throws violently behind her and the bell slaps against the frame. In the back of her head, she hears the cashier yelling at her.

 

But she doesn't care. She can't afford to care.

 

She's running before her lungs have a chance to catch up. Water snaps under her feet, splashing into gutters in rainbows of traffic-light. With break time in full effect, the streets are a sea of people. But she has training, muscle-memory - and it's easy to slither between them. Still, there seems to be a weight attached to her ankle; she's falling behind. Falling back. Falling, falling, falling.

 

No - no. Nothing can't win this time.

 

Martel knows she's yelling, though she can't make out her own words. Thunder cracks up above, spilling heavy rain in thickening sheets. She collides with a businessman from uptown, his crinkled face aghast with her sheer audacity. Fuck it; she doesn't have time apologize and she won't give him one. Instead, the former Chimera uses his slippery raincoat to her advantage; she glides across him, popping out into a gap between the crowd.

 

People walking by, people passing. She doesn't see it and her body puts the brake on her pursuit. Martel shoves her hands on her knees, her head bowing to the weather. The small strand of blond clings to her cheek, smearing it with her hard, quick breathes.

 

She knows she didn't imagine it. No one could. No one could dress like that and be so god-damn sure of themselves; not in this world, not in any world. Martel chokes on her own exhale, her lips twisting with a grimace. Both of her eyes screw shut under the relentless weather and again, that emptiness creeps on her like death.

 

God no, she didn't fucking imagine it! Fuck, fuck, fuck -

 

"Fuck-!"

 

She swipes her hand over her face, pushing her short-cropped hair back. The chill is already settling over her skin in humid, sticky goosebumps. And she's too out of focus to notice the alleyway at her side; all dark and foreboding. A place the pedestrians around her are avoiding like an eyesore. But she does smell the smoke.

 

"Looks like you finally caught up, lovely."

 

OOC Note | ♬