Solomon wakes up, out of breath. That was too different from the rest of the nights for her liking. Taking a look at her hands, the spirals, they got noticeably longer this time. At least a couple centimetres.
“That’s just great…”
Lisa wakes up not long after, surprised that Solomon is already wide awake, given the time.
“Early bird or just couldn’t sleep?” She asks with a chuckle.
“Kind of both…” Solomon sighs. “Some dreams work much better than alarm clocks.”
The two make some preparations in the morning and get ready to leave. Solomon is looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, checking if she looks at the very least somewhat presentable enough for work.
“Oi, Solomon!” Lisa shouts from the ground floor. “Mind grabbing a coat for me? They’re in the closet in my room.”
Deciding that it can’t be helped much more, Solomon walks into Lisa’s room. It is just like the rest of the house, decorated with vintage furniture, and even has a queen sized bed.
“Doesn’t she live alone?”
“She sure knows what she likes…” She says under her breath. She can’t help but notice the lack of carpets in the room. Wooden floor, old, hand-carved nightstand, and to the right of the entrance, an even older-looking closet. She wonders how many pieces of the furniture and decoration were inherited and how many were bought by Lisa.
Solomon opens the closet doors and inside are seven of the same-looking, blue trench coats on coat hangers along with six grey shirts and two stacks of three chequered pairs of trousers.
“Can’t say I’m surprised.”
Solomon frowns and considers asking which one Lisa wants, but decides against it. She takes one of them and brings it down to Lisa, hearing a shrill, metallic sound coming from the kitchen.
On the way, she notices a little card-shaped object on the living room table. It looks like a driving licence belonging to Lisa. She doesn’t want to look nosy, but her eyes are just drawn to it. She looks around, Lisa is in the kitchen, sharpening a sword. Solomon takes a quick glance at the…
“Wait what?!”
She looks back at Lisa. She saw it right the first time, the wolf is indeed sharpening a sword. The handle of it looks like the top of her cane.
“Lisa… What’s that for?” She asks in a concerned tone.
“Given what we saw in that basement…” The wolf responds, sheathing the sword into the shaft of her cane. “Thought I’d give it a little more edge.” She grins and goes to pour a cup of tea.
“And that’s always been there?! Is that even legal?”
Solomon has to admit, she feels ever so slightly safer knowing that, but she still questions what she just saw. At the very least, she can be sure that it’s not a dream.
She looks back at the driving licence on the table. It reads “UK Driving Licence” at the top, in the next line is the word “Luminescence”. Solomon squints, questioning if she read it correctly. Upon taking a closer look, it definitely reads “Luminescence”. Below that is written “Lisa”. It also has other information below her name, but Solomon isn’t too interested in that.
“That’s her full name? Lisa Luminescence?”
“You know, I never really thought about it.” Says Lisa, tapping her cane on the floor, now in the same rooms as Solomon. “Can you use yours here?”
Solomon looks over to Lisa, not being prepared for a question like that after learning that information.
“Your last name is… Luminescence?” Solomon inquires, trying not to sound too impolite. Lisa merely nods in response.
“Yeah it is. What about it?” The wolf says as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“It’s just that… It’s not exactly common.” Solomon says, incredulously.
“Well that’s because I had it changed. You’d be surprised how easy it is. Or cheap, rather. Beats “Smith” if you ask me.” She winks at the feline.
Solomon decides it’s best not to question any of that, the sword or the name. “She sure finds ways to spend her money…”
The two leave Lisa’s house and go get Solomon another pair of gloves. It goes without incident, although they feel a little too big on her hands, despite these being the smallest ones she could find. They leave for the station right after.
“So this is it then.” Solomon mutters. “We’ll find out… Something, I hope.” She thinks back to her old life, briefly. All that dealing with medicine and chemicals and the habits that formed as a result… She is ultimately glad to have taken this job. The money’s good, she found Lisa and just maybe, she will find some answers regarding her markings.
The two enter the station, Yaroslav and Durazo waiting for them as agreed.
“What is it then?” Asks the bear, looking quite concerned for the two.
“Listen.” Solomon speaks up. “We found out quite the bizarre coincidence.”
Lisa shakes her head.
“Just show them your hand.” Says her wolf, rolling her eyes.
The cat pauses and relents, taking off her gloves, revealing the spirals on the back of her hands.
“Do you have any strange markings on your body like this?” She nudges Lisa to show them hers, their eyes already wide open in surprise.
“So you say that this is a coincidence?” Yaroslav asks and seemingly peels off the fur from his hands. As it turns out, he was wearing furred gloves the whole time. “That would explain the big hands.” Beneath it, pale blue patterns are visible, going from his fingertips to his wrists.
The three then look at Durazo.
“You know… My fur used to be completely brown.” He states. “It started turning white all over my body. I thought it was just age, but that seems highly unlikely now.”
Lisa’s suspicions have been confirmed. All four of them must have been hired because of their markings.
“…But how did Adelar know? What caused them to appear in the first place?”
They further discuss their experiences with the markings, they all say that they seem to be growing.
“Adelar must know something.” Lisa furrows her brows. “I say we question him on it.”
“You sure that’s a good idea? Who knows what kind of connections he has.” Says Yaroslav, looking concerned. “He must have plans for us. One way or another.”
“He’s right.” Solomon chimes in. “We will have to figure it out ourselves. Who’s in?” She sticks her hand out, expecting the others to put theirs on hers in a sort of a “pact”.
“I’m in.” Yaroslav puts his hand over Solomon’s.
“Count me in as well, mates.” Lisa puts her hand on top.
Solomon feels a strange sensation in her hand all of a sudden, like a tiny little vibration. The three glance at Durazo once again. He simply nods and puts his hand on top.
“Let’s find some answers.” Solomon says with a look of sheer determination. “And now… I have a team of marked people. We will find answers, I know we will!”
The four of them look at the person opposite to them and smile.
But something feels wrong. Very, very wrong, as Solomon feels her hand tingle intensely for a couple seconds.
Durazo’s face starts glowing where it’s white, growing brighter and brighter.
“The hell?” Lisa mutters, stepping back.
They all pull their hands away. It isn’t just Durazo, the markings on all of them are glowing in their respective colours. Lisa rolls up her sleeve, only to discover that the lines on her arms have grown past her elbows, and are rapidly advancing toward her hands. At the halfway point of the forearms, they split in two, now continuing as two lines.
Yaroslav’s markings are now past his wrists, going all the way up to his elbow.
Solomon leans her back against a wall, one hand pressed against it. She is looking at her other hand in horror, gasping as her spiral slowly, but visibly makes another round on the back of her hand. But it doesn't stop there, the glowing green line creeps up her wrist and goes around it, finally ending in a curve, resembling a bracelet. The same must have happened to her other hands as well. The movement may be stopped, but the markings are still glowing.
“Why is this happening?” She cries out and all of a sudden, she hears crackling, akin to that of a rogue electrical wire.
“What in the…?” Blue arcs of electricity surround Lisa’s body all over, but it doesn’t seem to hurt her in any way.
Solomon looks over at Yaroslav, who touches a wall. Wherever he touches, a layer of ice remains after he pulls his hand away.
“Now I’ve seen everything…” He says as he inspects his hands, small ice crystals forming on them.
Durazo isn’t just glowing anymore, he’s shining a blinding light wherever his markings are. He tries to shield the others by covering the markings more, which have spread to his hands by now. Solomon hears him say what she guesses is a prayer in Spanish.
And that’s when she hears new sounds coming from very close to her. Drip. Sizzle. Drip. Sizzle. She looks down at her hand, which seems to secrete a dark green, odourless liquid. Her gaze is drawn down at the floor, where the liquid touched it, black spots remain. The sound of more sizzling can be heard from where her other hand is touching the wall. She quickly turns to look over, pulling her hand away. On the wall, a black handprint is seen where she touched it. Upon closer inspection, the wall seems to have melted where it was touched. No, not just melted, it seems to have dissolved. Looking at her dripping hands, she collapses onto her knees.
“Why… Why?” She says, softly.
Suddenly, the front door opens, Adelar walks into the station. He doesn’t make it far before spotting his employees in various states of confusion, sorrow, and anger.
“ADELAR!” Lisa shouts thunderously, electricity arcing from her body as she walks towards the eagle.
“B-back off! Whatever you do, DO NOT touch me!” He recoils and reflexively holds his arm in front of him in defence.
“Then you better have a real good explanation for all this…” The wolf doesn’t stop.
Solomon watches the scene unfold, sobbing and scared. “Would all that electricity go through his body if she did?” She looks back down at her hands and the increasingly worse-looking floor “Better than if I were to touch him…”
“I said back off!” Says Adelar, holding out his hand and producing a flame from it.
Lisa stops in her tracks.
“Now would ya look at that?” She crosses her arms and tilts her head.
“I need everyone to calm down, right now!” Says Adelar, carefully going around Lisa.
Solomon feels as if she can never be calm again. Her hands are dripping with what seems like acid, how could she ever have peace after this? Is this her fate? Cursed to dissolve whatever she touches?
“It wasn’t supposed to happen yet…” Adelar mutters, pacing back and forth, seeing that the situation isn’t getting any better.
“I’m givin’ ya about ten seconds to explain before we find out what happens if I do touch you.” Lisa says with an unamused look.
“I seriously need you to be patient here, I can explain!” Adelar exclaims and turns to face her.
To everyone’s surprise, Durazo stops shining.
“Look!” Adelar points at him. “I told you, it’ll be fine! Just listen to me!”
Yaroslav touches the wall again. It still gets frozen.
“You two!” The eagle points at Lisa and Yaroslav. “I need you to concentrate. Doesn’t it feel like something has changed inside you?”
Solomon certainly feels like it, she has been feeling that way ever since the markings appeared. Something inside her is definitely wrong, changed. For just a second, she feels a sense of burning hatred for Adelar, but it doesn’t linger.
“Find what’s wrong, focus on it, take control of it! You should be able to feel it, it’s a part of you now! Listen to your instincts!”
Lisa scoffs and closes her eyes. It takes a good few seconds, but the arcs around her disappear, her markings stop glowing, looking rather surprised at how simple it was when she opens her eyes.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“I need you to spill whatever secrets you have. Right. Now.” The markings have spread all the way to her wrists. They sort of do look like electricity.
“Yaroslav!” Adelar looks towards the bear. By the time he does, his markings have stopped glowing as well.
“I see you have that under control, that’s good.” Adelar states, relieved. He then turns towards the sizzling sound and looks at Solomon. The floor around her has black spots all over.
“That’s a new one…” The cat looks up at him as a result of his remark, bewildered, what he just said hitting her like a ton of bricks.
“...what do you mean new one?” She asks, deeply concerned.
Adelar asks her to hold out her hands, which she does.
“I have never seen anything like this before…” He observes from a safe distance.
“What is this, Adelar?! Why is this happening to us?” Solomon demands, looking distraught. Then she looks at her colleagues. None of their markings are glowing anymore. Surely, hers will stop as well, or so she hopes. Lisa gives her a reassuring look, having gone through the same along with the others.
“At least you described that feeling inside accurately.” Yaroslav remarks. “That something has changed… I thought it was bad advice at first, but it worked.”
Solomon’s colleagues instruct her on what to do exactly as best as they can. This something that has changed inside her… She’s having a hard time finding it, like a sixth sense. It takes her a while, much longer than it took the rest, in fact, but eventually her spirals stop glowing. They don’t just look like spirals anymore either, more like spirals connected to bracelets on her hands. Solomon isn’t sure how she’ll deal with this, if she can at all. She has so many questions… But at least there is someone who can answer her.
“There. Better?” Adelar asks, sympathetic.
Solomon nods, but isn’t comfortable with anything she just learned.
“Why… Why did that happen?” She questions, her voice shaking.
“I’m trying to figure that out myself.” The eagle shakes his head. “Other than Durazo’s, none of yours seemed to be too developed at the time.”
Lisa suddenly grabs the eagle by his tie.
“What. Are. They?” She demands, looking irritated. “They’re the reason why you hired us, aren’t they?”
“Listen…” Adelar begins to say. “There’s no other way to put it… You are what I call Mystic Ones.”
Lisa blinks incredulously. Yaroslav and Durazo look at each other, the canine shrugs. Solomon only has more questions after that answer. If she can even call it an answer, as it really doesn’t tell her anything.
“What?” Lisa asks after a long pause and releases the eagle.
“In fact, I am one too. As you’ve seen. A Blazing One. There are different types…”
Solomon stands up and walks over to him.
“You know, that really doesn’t answer much…” She remarks.
“Okay, long story short, there is magic in the world!” Adelar exclaims, earning a questioning look from the others.
“I’d prefer the long story, quite frankly.” Says Lisa.
“I never was good with explanations after being threatened like that.” Adelar sighs and leads them to the meeting hall.
“Okay so…” Adelar begins. “Here’s what I have found in my research so far. For some reason that I do not know, people can take on magical properties. It manifests itself as these markings on the body. The more of your body is covered with them, the more powerful it is.”
Solomon looks at her hands. “This isn’t supposed to be that powerful?”
“So I will ask you this. How much of you are covered? What limbs do the markings extend to?” Adelar asks with a look of intrigue.
“What about you?” Durazo rebuts. “You said you were a so-called Blazing One.”
“Just my arms.” Adelar rolls up his sleeves. “I can set things aflame using it, more or less. There are techniques too…” He shakes his head. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“And what about the rest of us?” Lisa chimes in. “You better explain what you need us for right after as well.”
“In time, in time.” Adelar put out his arms, urging them, specifically Lisa, to stay calm. “But I need to know where you’re affected.”
The four briefly explain what parts of their bodies are covered with the markings.
“Yaroslav.” He glances at the bear. “You are a Frost One. Basically my opposite. Objects and surfaces freeze at your touch.”
“I think I figured that out.” He responds, seemingly just annoyed at his admittedly simple explanation.
“Our own type doesn’t affect us.” Adelar explains. “So freezing temperatures, or anything that freezes will have no effect on you, maybe other than a mild sense of discomfort. Cold? Not a problem.”
“Maybe that’ll come in handy.” Yaroslav looks at his markings and smiles, scratching at his chin, likely having ideas already.
“Durazo.” Adelar looks at the ex-priest. “You’re A Bright One. Light is a little more… Special, shall we say. Shining your light on others will heal their wounds, albeit slowly. A lot of your body is covered in light markings, that should make it that much stronger.”
Durazo’s eyes light up with excitement.
“I can heal people with light?” He smiles. “That is some welcome news at least.”
Solomon wonders what these powers might be related to. She knows Durazo as a good person who wants to help people. That could explain his light. “But then why are my hands acidic?”
“Lisa.” Adelar looks at the rather impatient-looking wolf.
“Let me guess. Electric One?” She asks with a tired look.
“That is correct. Your arms, legs and back all have that blue line connecting it. That means your whole body is affected. Based on what I have learned, you should be mastering your powers the fastest. That being electricity.”
“So I basically have a built-in taser?” Lisa raises an eyebrow.
“It’s so much more than that.” Adelar says excitedly. “You’ll see once you develop your own technique. But before that, I will teach you how to take control of it to the best of my ability.” He then looks at Solomon.
“And you, Solomon…” He inspects the cat’s hands again. “I have never seen anything like this… Green with a spiral pattern?”
Solomon looks down at her hands, the spirals remind her of some kind of parasitic plant wrapping itself around a tree, sapping its vitality.
“It just makes my hands produce acid.” She says in a low voice. “Why? I can see some benefit to all the others, what’s the upside here?”
“Yours might be entirely new.” Adelar looks at her patterns, puzzled. “We’ll call it… Acid One!”
Solomon shudders at the mere thought of that. “Acid One? Really?”
“Where did you even learn all this?” Solomon asks, in desperate need of answers.
“I cannot tell you that.” Adelar sits back, deep in thought. “Not right now. I need to know if I can trust you. I need to know that you won’t run to the first authority figure and tell well-kept secrets. I need to know if you will continue working with me after this.”
“Really?” Lisa laughs. “What makes you think we would do that?”
“I’ll double your pay.” He states, causing Lisa to pause.
“You know, I might just consider it…” Lisa responds eventually with a wicked smile.
“I need not a raise.” Durazo smiles at the eagle. “God must have wanted me to do this. I have found my place.” He holds his hands together in a praying gesture.
“That’s a lot of money…” Says Yaroslav, rubbing his hands together. “Much better than the old job. I’m in.”
Solomon looks at her colleagues dumbfounded. “That’s it? That’s all it took to convince them?”
“So?” Adelar gives her a hopeful look.
Solomon thinks for a long moment. Sure, this would mean even more money… But then again, she has no idea what she might need to use her newfound and unwanted powers on. Her best guess is that it isn’t going to be simple chemistry. Whatever her power can be used for… It can’t be good.
She makes up her mind.
“No.” She says, holding back tears. “No. I won’t be your “Acid One”, Adelar.”
The eagle recoils in surprise.
“Solomon, we could explore your potential!” He leans forward, holding his hands apart. “There could be so much more to-”
“I said no!” She cuts him off, a tear rolling down her cheek. “Why do you need us so much? What are you planning?”
“I guess it can’t be helped.” Adelar sighs. “I founded this organisation to keep Mystic Ones and their magic a secret, and to fight against another, opposing organisation.”
Solomon stands up, Adelar gestures to her to stay.
“You will need to fight eventually, which I will train you for.” He continues. “However, you are not the first ones and there’s no guarantee that you’ll survive.”
That statement seems to cause concern for all the others.
“They are dangerous and could be anywhere. Your targets for eavesdropping are suspected to be members of the org. That’s all we know so far.”
Solomon’s ears droop so far down, they feel as if they’ll just fall off. She stares the eagle down, in a way, feeling betrayed. “He wants me to be a part of some shady organisation so it can fight another shady organisation?”
“Kinda just sounds like magic MI6.” Lisa jokes, causing the eagle to sigh.
“Call it what you want, all I ask of you is whether or not you join. And if you do, to keep it a secret.” Adelar practically pleads.
“For that much money?” Lisa smirks. “Who do you want me to zap?”
Solomon can feel her left eye twitch.
“And why did… That, happen? Why did these powers manifest so suddenly when we all touched hands?” She asks, feeling upset, still.
“My best guess is that the presence of other Mystic Ones with dormant powers in such direct contact helped accelerate the awakening of the magic.” Adelar looks around one more time. “So, who is willing to stay, knowing the risks?”
Once again, Yaroslav, Durazo, and Lisa all respond affirmatively after a few moments of deliberation.
Solomon can hardly believe what she’s seeing. All three of them are willing to stay, and maybe even die, for this?
“Still no.” She finally states. “I never asked for any of this! I never wanted to have “magic inside me”, and I definitely never wanted to have hands that can melt whatever I touch!” She sobs, her voice breaking slightly.
“And I won’t hold that against you.” Adelar says with a calm, understanding look. “You can leave. If you’re sure, I will not ask you again. Just please never tell anyone.”
“Then I will leave.” Solomon says on an impulse, putting on her gloves. She turns around to exit the building, her colleagues look at her with empathy.
“Roxanne Solomon, you are dismissed.” Adelar nods. “Do not return unless you have changed your mind. Goodbye.”
His words cut deep. She either quits and starts a new life yet again or stays and possibly hurts people at his command. She could not bear the guilt of doing that, especially not with her acidic hands. Without saying a word, she walks out of the room.
“Solomon?” She hears Lisa’s voice, but doesn’t look back.
She walks out the front door and begins walking straight to her home. Preposterous! She never wanted to hurt anyone and now… Now she has magical acid. To her, it sounds like cosmic irony, something she never thought she of all people would experience to such a degree. None of this makes sense to her. Not at all.
Walking up the stairs leading to her apartment, she stumbles and lightly punches the wall in anger. She fiddles with the key before her door, but eventually unlocks it. Sobbing, she walks in, closes the door, and collapses in her bed.
“Why… Why me?” She says to no one, thinking about ways to possibly fix this somehow. She wants to know the reason, the meaning, why does it have to be her?
But that’s a matter that can wait. She will need to find another job sooner or later. And her hands… These magical, green spirals need to be taken care of as well. After a few minutes of lying in bed, she gets up and takes off her gloves, hoping that by some miracle, the markings would no longer be there. Of course, they still are, looking to her like her very hands are being choked.
She remembers how they would store types of acid in glass containers at the pharmacy she used to work at. Maybe, just maybe… She gets to her desk and tries to replicate the incident. After countless failed attempts, she gets into the right headspace and figures out the proper way to make it work. Her marking lights up, her right hand secretes the green liquid once more. A drop falls into the glass. It goes from dark green to completely black, becoming a seemingly harmless substance after.
Solomon is elated to have figured something out about her unwanted power, but then hears the sizzling… She looks at her left hand, which lit up as well, evidenced by the black discolourations on the floor below where her hand is. She panics, then remembers the earlier events. She closes her eyes, her mind goes blank, she is calm… When she opens her eyes, the markings are no longer glowing. “Well, that’s progress…”
She spends the rest of her day trying to figure out how to really control it so she doesn’t accidentally dissolve something she really shouldn’t. After all, it wasn’t supposed to be all that powerful, right? “Two states: glowing or not glowing. It can’t be that hard.”
It takes her hours and glasses full of the harmless, black liquid, but by the end of the day, she can switch between the two states pretty freely.
She then has a realisation. “Why am I doing this?” Looking at the window, she can see that the sun has already set, she had the lights on. How long did she just spend doing that? She wanted to get away from this power, yet she just spent the rest of her day looking into it, experimenting… Which concerns her greatly. She could hardly even tell the passage of time.
To try and ease her mind, she goes to the kitchen for a meal and a drink. This whole situation is only making her feel worse, all of a sudden, but as long as she doesn’t get involved, it should all be fine.
Solomon spends the rest of the evening taking a shower and thinking. She will need to talk to her colleagues, she did storm off pretty suddenly…
Later, Solomon hears a knock at her door. She hopes that it’s just one of them coming to check up on her, but puts on her gloves just in case it isn’t.
She opens the door, behind it are three people she doesn’t recognise. A jackal standing in the middle, a ferret on his right, and a lizard on his left, all in streetwear.
“Good evening?” Solomon says reluctantly.
“This the one?” The jackal asks in a deep voice.
The lizard looks at a piece of paper, then Solomon, then nods.
The jackal suddenly grabs Solomon, puts a hand over her mouth and a knife to her throat. They bring her back into her apartment.
“Sorry to say, but you know too much.” Says the ferret and shrugs.
Terror rushes through Solomon’s heart and mind. She has no time to think… No time to think about anything at all, except one thing. Even just the thought makes her feel sick, but she has to… She has to survive.
In one quick motion, she removes her gloves, her “spiral bracelet” already glowing.
“She’s one of them!” Shouts the lizard with a look of horror, but it’s too late. She firmly grabs onto the jackal’s wrist. A bone-chilling howl follows as the jackal lets go of Solomon and takes a look at his hand, only to find out that it is no longer there. He looks down, his hand having fallen to the floor, still holding the knife. Solomon is surprised by the sheer potency of the acid, dissolving not just the flesh, but the bone too.
“Nobody told us about this!” Says the ferret. He and the lizard run out of the room, leaving the jackal to his fate.
The jackal whimpers, kneeling on the floor, holding onto his destroyed wrist. Solomon looks down at him with utter, burning disdain. How dare he attack her?
With that thought, she grabs onto his throat, and her marking lights up once again.
She then realises what she just did and quickly lets go, taking a step backwards.
“What have I done…?” Taking a quick look at the jackal, the acid has done too much damage. He’s dead, or soon will be. There is nothing she can do now.
She looks down at her hand, her palm is black from what she hopes is just the acid residue and not what used to be flesh. This hand of hers, it was in self-defence, but it still did that. The thought deeply sickens Solomon, transfixed by the sheer destruction of the body that her power can cause.
“What was that?” A voice is heard from outside, followed by hurried footsteps, snapping her out of it. It wouldn’t be a good look if someone found her like this… She steps over the body, opens the window, and climbs down to the ground.
Her heart pounding, she runs away from the scene. Even from there, she can hear the scream of whatever unfortunate soul has stumbled upon the jackal. “This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening!” is all that is on her mind for minutes. “Why did I do that? I was safe when I touched his hand. Why didn’t I stop?” She can’t get the sound of sizzling flesh and bone out of her mind, combined with the sight, the life draining from the jackal’s eyes, the pain that it must have caused him… She never before imagined taking someone’s life, let alone in a manner like that.
She runs, then jogs, and eventually slows down to a walk. Nobody’s after her, at least. But what now? Where can she go? One of her colleagues? No, she can’t put them in such danger, someone just tried to kill her after all. “She’s one of them!” The sentence echoes in her mind. What do they know that she doesn’t? They must have been with that bat she saw in that basement, there’s nothing else out of the ordinary that she saw.
She roams the streets and stops in an alleyway in the end, the full Moon and the streetlights illuminating the streets. She can’t put anyone other than herself in such danger. “But then what am I supposed to do?”
She thinks for many, long minutes. Does she go to the police after all? She just left from her own apartment, which is a crime scene now, that won’t work. Should she just go back to France? Go back to living as an apothecary? She looks down at her hands and removes her gloves. These spirals… They are the reason she got such a well-paying job, the reason why she was deceived with one anyway. But that could still be an opportunity…
She thinks. She thinks for a long time. Where else can she go if not there? There’s no one else she can trust at a time like this, as much as she wishes that it was not the case. Taking another look at her hands, she finally decides. There is only one man in the town who can help her now. And to that man is where she will go, first thing in the morning. Until then, she needs to hide…