The ceiling fan dragged the cold air around in lazy, taunting circles.
Kira stared at one specific blade, warped as it sliced through the gloom of her bedroom.
"Maybe I don't really deserve an air conditioner. I've pretty much already gotten more than I deserve anyways."
The room had glamor, but it was all that it had.
Chirp.
The sound was sharp, electronic and painful to the ears. The smoke detector was low on battery. The room had the bare minimum to make it seem like a top tier 5 star room.
[Forty five seconds between each chirp]
Her legs couldn't move an inch as if they were filled with lead shot.
[Two hundred and forty times]
She laid entombed under a beautiful adorned weighted blanket, which today felt less like comfort and more like dirt piled on top of a grave. Depression sat on her chest, it was like a physical entity this morning, a damp creature exhaling apathy into her lungs.
[I can't even move, I don't want to move]
Chirp
[Get up. No. Stay. Hide. Burrow. Disappear. Like Hoshimi can. He can just... vanish. If only I could vanish. If only I had never been born.]
The sound scraped against her brain like steel wool on bone. It wasn't just background noise, it was an assault. Every chirp reset her nervous system to zero, she couldn't even stand up to turn it off.
[What if what happens to Audrey happens to me? I'll die one day from all of this won't I? I'll be used until I can't provide anymore and I'll just get killed off]
Her mind was a runaway carousel of anxieties, spinning so fast that the colors blurred into nausea.
[I need batteries, and for that I need to leave the apartment]
Her hand reached out towards the bathroom door.
[Shower no, too many steps, too much sensory. I wish I was a Miller, then I would have telekinesis]
Kira crawled out of bed, dropping onto the floor with a thud, the movement feeling seismic, the floorboards groaned under her feet.
[Clothes…I want clothes, my clothes not good]
She crawled towards the closet and forced herself upright, the shift in gravity a disorienting lurch. The worn fabric of her clothes felt rough against her skin, she looked through the pile of clothes that she left piled up at the bottom.
[Leaving. The outside. The outside is not safe. The outside is loud. The outside is... eyes. So many eyes. Always looking. Always judging. Always seeing the monster. The killer]
The fabric had to be soft, old and familiar. Seams had to be perfectly aligned so they won't feel like barbed wire. She chose a black hoodie, three sizes too big. She got up and onto her knees, pulling up her hood, creating tunnel vision, narrowing the overlyl sensitive world into a manageable size.
She crawled towards the door on all fours, her hand reaching out towards the knob, the brass felt cold, infected.
"Did you lock the windows?"
[Yes I checked them four times]
"You sure?"
[Stop it, just open the door]
"Just make sure and turn around."
[Why?]
"What if locking the windows was just a dream?"
She opened the door, the hallway air smelled of cabbage and someone else's life. She stepped out, reaching into her pockets, preparing to lock the door.
"I forgot my keys."
Kira sighed, slouching as she leaned against the wall, stumbling as she walked back into the room, quickly grabbing her keys and walking back outside.
[I remember, I remember taking my keys? Was that really just a vision? Am I hallucinating?]
She leaned against her door, staring at the door knob and at the key in her hand, her hands shook violently.
[I'm tired, I do-don't want to lock my door, I don't want to move]
She reluctantly inserted the key into the door and twisted.
The hallway outside her door was a tunnel of muted, buzzing fluorescent lights, their low, irritating hum vibrating directly into the fragile architecture of her skull. Each step she took felt magnified, echoing in the unnatural, heavy quiet of the early morning, reverberating deep within her bones. She stared at the doors beside her room.
[Neila's, Lucy's, Dominic's, Edward's, Sarah's and Hoshimi's]
She pressed the elevator door and stepped out of the apartment building.
The contrast between the cold air of the room and the scorching heat of the sun burnt her skin. Each beam felt like a thorn digging into her, the back of her neck opened up like a flesh wound, talking in the rays of the sun. She covered her mouth, as not to accidentally exhale.
[It's too bright out here, someone turn down the brightness]
A thousand frantic voices all screaming for her attention, yet saying nothing intelligible.
[I need to focus. Batteries, that's what I'm going outside for in the first place.]
One foot. Then the other.
The sidewalk was a minefield of textures. Cracks in the concrete had to be stepped over in specific patterns right foot over, left foot joins, otherwise, a terrible, unnamed calamity would befall the universe. Each step had to be the same distance, each step had to be within the same time frame.
[London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down, London bridge is falling down.]
The world was loud. Annoyingly so. A car horn bleated, and Kira flinched. Her shoulders almost hitting her ears.
Then there were the people.
[I don't like people, I don't like their faces, their mouths and the way they talk. Especially the people I don't know]
She hid her face further inside her hood.
They were blurs of color and motion, emitters of chaotic energy. Kira felt their gazes snagging on her bulky silhouette like fishhooks.
Her hand wandered towards her shoulder, trying to cover the badge of her hoodie.
After they had completed the first mission, all of them had a badge of the school's logo attached to their clothes, an obvious sign of shame.
A cacophony of horns, distant shouts, the relentless, grinding drone of early morning traffic. Too much. Everything was too much. The exhaust fumes clawed at her throat, an acrid, suffocating reminder, too vivid.
A group of people littered around the alleyway, she ignored their faces, quickly walking past. Her stomach dropped, as if she was swallowing a cold hard stone. She avoided them like the plague as she held her head down.
[Don't look at me, just pretend that I don't exist]
Then she heard it. Laughter. Shrill and cutting, like a shard of glass scraping against a chalkboard. They had caught a glimpse of the badge. "Look! It's a Witch running her little legs on the street."
The voice was nasal, sharp, belonging to a boy wearing too much cologne that Kira could taste from twenty feet away, a metallic, artificial citrus.
She kept her head down, studying the intricate geography of a discarded piece of chewing gum on the asphalt.
"Aww, she's ignoring us."
A girl's voice chimed in, kicking her ass as Kira dropped onto the floor, as the dirty floor stained her shirt. Her hands started shaking violently as her face met the hard concrete floor. She hit the ground hard, her knees scraping against the rough, unforgiving pavement. A sharp, stinging pain flared, hot and immediate, blossoming into an angry red that dripped down her forehead, as she tried to crawl away from him, biting her lip so as to not exhale.
"You Witch!"
The girl pressed her foot onto her head, the pressure slowly starting to cave her head in.
Her fingers, beyond her control, began to tremble, picking clawing at the floor beneath her. The world tilted, spinning violently. The distant street lights blurred into grotesque streaks of white. The relentless noise of the city swelled, transforming into a roaring, suffocating ocean in her ears.
"Leave me alone!"
Tears, hot and shameful, pricked at her eyes, blurring the already distorted world. Her breathing became frantic, shallow, her lungs burning with a desperate, futile need for clean air.
[Don't kill them, don't kill them]
"Oh, look, it speaks!" A boy scowled. "Go back to your little monster hole, witch. Nobody wants you here. Go back to your cages."
Her head snapped up, a jerky, involuntary movement. Her eyes, wide and blue like clouded lapis, darted around, searching.
But the people weren't there.
The blood that ran down her head wasn't there.
Her hair wasn't soiled by a shoe.
"I'm hallucinating again."
Kira stood up, her legs shaking.
"I hate myself, I'm pathetic."
.
She stayed there for a long time, curled against the cold ground, the pain in her knees a dull, persistent throb. The world slowly, reluctantly, returned to its oppressive normal.
She pushed herself up, her muscles screaming in protest. Her legs felt heavy, as if weighted with invisible lead. The store. It was just a few blocks away. They felt like stilts, disconnected from her body. She walked the remaining block to the corner store.
The fluorescent lights inside the convenience store were too bright, too clinical, casting harsh. It was a nightmare, the lights buzzed at a frequency that made her teeth ache. The air smelled of floor wax and stale popcorn.
The shelves, lined with rows upon rows of identical, brightly packaged products, felt overwhelmingly vast, a dizzying, suffocating maze of choices.
The air conditioning unit whirred, a monotonous, grating drone that vibrated directly into the raw nerves of her brain. The artificial scent of plastic and overly sweet fruit permeated the air, cloying and sickening, making her stomach churn.
She navigated the aisles like a ghost trapped in a maze. The sheer volume of choices was paralyzing.
She stopped at the freezer, staring at the beer with wide eyes.
[I wonder what it feels like to become drunk, all of my problems will just disappear won't it?]
She ran a finger along the cold surface of the glass.
Her fingers linger along the freezer longer than it should've, she knew it was wrong, wrong for someone as young as her to get into alcohol.
[I heard that other witches use alcohol to cope, it must be effective right? I wonder what it would feel like to have the cold run down my throat, to choke me like a chain wrapping around my neck]
She shook her head.
She found the batteries. Nine-volt. Rectangular monoliths of power. She grabbed a two-pack, the cardboard blister pack feeling harsh and cheap against her fingertips.
As she walked past the isles, she kept repeating the same conversation in her head.
[Hello there, I would like to get some batteries]
She shook her head.
[That sounds too formal, and who the hell says 'hello there?]
[I wish to get some batteries]
She shook her head again.
[That's so cringy]
She squinted, twiddling her thumbs.
She walked up to the reception desk.
A young cashier, chewing gum loudly, looked at her with bored, indifferent eyes.
"H-h…H-h."
Kira couldn't get a single word out of her mouth, she quickly stared down at the floor, her face flushed from embarrassment.
The cashier glanced at her.
"A Witch huh? My manager told me to watch out for you lot." She stared into her eyes. "My brother turned out to be a witch, y'know? He got dragged away and I haven't seen him since."
"I-I'm s-s-ssorrie."
The cashier chuckled. "It's fine, don't."
She fled the store, the little plastic bag swinging against her leg.
Reaching her apartment building was like reaching a lifeboat. She fumbled with her keys, the metal scratching desperately at the lock.
[...almost there safe space inside no eyes no noise just the box hide in the box...]
The walk back was a blur of muted colors and indistinct sounds, a surreal, dreamlike passage. Each step was mechanical, robotic, driven by a desperate, primal need to complete the task, to not fail, to prove, just once, that she wasn't entirely useless, that she wasn't just a monster.
She reached the dorm, the oppressive quiet of the hallway a strange, unsettling relief.
She tumbled inside, slamming the door and throwing the deadbolt. The silence of the apartment was sudden and immense.
The silence stretched.
Her room. Safe. Contained. For now. Then, her legs gave out, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest. The journey had taken twenty minutes, but it felt like she had aged a decade.
[Done. It's done. I did it. A simple task. Why was it so impossibly hard? Why am I so tired? So... empty? Like a drained battery.]
The sun still shone, a relentless, judgmental yellow. The sounds of the day, muted and distant, began to pick up, a muffled hum beyond her walls. She closed her eyes, seeking refuge in the blessed darkness behind her eyelids. But even there, the images swirled, a grotesque, inescapable dance.
Chirp.
The smoke detector.
Kira squeezed her eyes shut. Tears, hot and frustrating, leaked out.
[Damn it, I already bought the batteries, why can't it just fix itself! I already got what I needed.]
She had the batteries. But the energy required to stand up, find the stepladder, climb up, pry open the plastic casing, and replace the battery felt difficult, terribly so.
The depression was back in full force, heavier now for having been briefly displaced by adrenaline.
She sat on the floor, the bag with the batteries lying next to her hand. So close.
Chirp