The walk towards home was swift for ruby, it was her job to walk after all. Her heeled boots hit the pavement hard and rough sending shivers of pain up her skeletal frame. She felt angry, blinding red hot rage. That boy had made her feel human again, he helped her feel whole. Her senses were clouded, she didn't care what was in front of her. After so many years of self isolation she had grown numb to her desolation. So when he had finally made an effort to know and understand, she latched on like fire on dry grass. She may not have been very good at showing it but she cared for that boy, he was her friend. She had been separated from her old life for a few weeks, and she'd never felt more whole. The glitz and glam of her old life was suffocating, the means to prop up that crumbling facade was crushing. But out here she was just ruby, the goto seamstress for any repair. She'd enjoyed that feeling of being needed, she craved it. That attention was better than any paparazzi. And now they had taken part of her new life, she needed to stick with them. She was told to! but by who?
"Ruby."
Barry's monotone voice screeches in her skull like nails on a chalkboard. She grips the vanity with white knuckles, her fingernails digging into the wood.
"Can you not see I am busy?!"
Ruby screams back at Barry, her voice older, and raspy. Her eyes still glued to the mirror, her skin thin and translucent. The veins showed through like roots burrowing into her skull. Her hair no longer the vivid bright purple but a lifeless grey. Her knuckles crack against the wood, blood pooling on the floor, but she couldn't see the floor. All she could see was an abomination, it looked like it had once been a man, so twisted by rot itself it looked like it should be dust. Her thought cowered away from it, she tried to retreat, but her now fingerless hands were fused to its arms. The old skin fused to its disgusting form with almost no discernible seam. She lets out a scream but all she hears are the cracking of embers. she feels flames tickle her legs, the flesh sloughing off in simmering piles. That thing was no longer present, but she could still see it in her mind's eye. She hears it speak, it sounds unnatural, like it's very voice was an assault on nature. She cannot understand it but its message is loud and clear.
get him out.
Ruby wakes up to the sound of grunting, the morning crowd had gathered around her, and small hands pull under her arms. She hears snarling from above her, she cranes her long neck upwards to see Salem, furiously trying to pull ruby back to the small apartment. Her snarling loud and viscous like a rabid creature. She quickly composes herself standing up peering downwards at Salem. She stood a full head above the tallest person in the crowd.
"Did you reopen your cut?"
She speaks walking away from the crowd, her pale sickly skin flushing red. She was embarrassed that she was seen like that. Salem briefly sprints to catch up with her, craning her neck upwards to look at her.
"You know I was scared you were dead!"
Salem cried at ruby, ruby looks down seeing Salem's choppy curls, and her eyes. Good god her eyes were creepy, her face wet with tears.
"What idiot does not check for breathing before assuming death?"
Ruby laughs looking downwards, her pale olive skin just slightly more lively.
"Shut up!"
Salem reaches her hand upward to punch Ruby's arm. She missed and hit her sharp narrow hip instead. Salem grunts in pain holding her hand.
"You need some padding thinso!"
Salem cries out holding her hand, glaring at ruby with her bright eyes, the pink of the slightly oversized iris seemingly shifting the rest of the eyes a light shade of that magenta.
"I believe that you could donate some!"
Ruby laughs ryely, her deep husky alto filling the surrounding street. A little too loud for salems comfort. The sound of her light heeled boots hitting the pavement sharply. Salem looks up at ruby, her mouth agape. She prods her soft stomach as they walk.
They both reach the apartment, almost forgetting Horace wasn't waiting for them. When they swing open the door they both smell the stale air of an empty place. Ruby walks inside dragging the short non-moving girl inside.
"Well we need a plan to get him out. I am assuming the authorities will not care and might actually make him stay."
Ruby says picking up the corset she was making, Salem can't tell if it's hers or Rubys. Salem couldn't understand why she was so calm now when a few days ago she had burst into tears by just being robbed. Salem watches The threads weave in and out of the fabric as Rubys swift fingers go around around the seam over and over in a feverish pace.
"I dont know, maybe we climb in and out of the fucked up schoolhouse?"
Salem says falling into the makeshift bed in the corner of the living room, ruby had been the one to sleep on it mostly but it doubled for their sitting area for now.
"Schoolhouse? You are saying those fools chose a schoolhouse?"
Ruby giggles to herself slowing the fast paced sewing, Salem wondered if there was a sport for that.
"Pray tell why the fuck it being in a schoolhouse matters?"
Salem asks, staring at the ceiling. Her legs hanging off the edge of the bed.
"If the building was meant for children there is a law that there needs to be exits only the teacher and the top of the class knew about. It is a small set of loose bricks, typically marked inside and out with a small drawing at the base. It was required that it was in every room and the existence was only for teachers to know."
Ruby goes on a long rant about how the law came to be but Salem toned it out in favor of thinking of nothing.
"Well lets hope horaces room faces outwards."
Salem drags her hands along her face.
"Do you happen to know where this building is?"
Ruby asks, putting her sewing aside and staring at the short girl.
"Yeah i used to entertain the fuckers."
Ruby knew what that meant, and she didnt feel it wise to mention.
Ruby stands to heat up a small pot of food, it was the same flavorless slop as the past few weeks but Salem couldn't complain, everything tasted sweet to her.