Letting the door close itself behind her, Edea paused a moment to readjust her eyes to the bright May sun. The heat seemed to physically weigh down on her as the bright sunlight pressed itself upon her cheek. She couldn’t help but give a small frown at the unpleasantness of the outside world compared to the small air conditioned building she’d just left.

  The dead grass underneath her worn boots protested each step she took, bending only under extreme duress and the only smells that met her nose were those of the metal and rubber of the cars that lazily made their way past her.

  Mentally cursing whatever sadistic city planner had decided to place an immigration checkpoint one mile outside the entrance to the city she continued plodding along.

  Unlike a few miles back there was little chance of being attacked out of the blue now. She could afford to let her mind wander, and wander it did.

  She let herself reflect upon her interaction with the under paid immigration officer while the rhythmic crunching of the dried husks of grass under her boots lulled her into a trance-like state.

  It wasn’t like she disliked him per say, he seemed like a hard worker and empathy is always a good trait to have when you’re dealing with people. However he was the type she just couldn’t handle.

  The kind of smooth talking man who tries to worm his way around people’s guards like a slimy writhing insect. She was a firm believer that a certain professional distance should be kept at most, if not all times. All interactions had a purpose, and usually it was better to get to it as soon as you could… at least that’s what she told herself.

  The less she had to listen to some person talk about unneeded things the less chances she had of being strung along into trouble. She’d decided to champion that misanthropic view as her “No Bullshit Policy.”

  That combined with her “A wall between” and “If I don’t make eye contact they’ll fuck off” policies formed the pillars of her “Peaceful Everyday Life Construction Plan.” She made a mental note to come up with a catchier name for that last one.

  She’d been wandering this huge bizarre world for around seven years now, thinking back to when she’d first found herself on her back staring up at the brightly lit night sky she’d been overwhelmed by a profound feeling of freedom.

  That however, lasted all of two days. About when she’d made her way to a small town was when she started feeling like maybe she should just go live in the wilderness for the rest of her natural life. However given the state of things, that was easier said than done… It wasn’t like she hated people per say. Rather they were all bundles of trouble waiting to be sprung on her… like some kind of sadistic Schrodinger’s box.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud car careening by her honking its horn loudly and some ill shaven prick shouting something incomprehensible at her. She made an annoyed face that honestly took more energy than it was worth.

  “Nice to know there are still people like that.” She muttered under her breath.

  Wiping the film of sweat that had started clinging to her hair line she continued on. There was a big sign ahead of her reading: “Welcome to Sunny Rainy Ansonia.” A neat line of cars accompanied the faded sign as they awaited other, better paid, immigration inspectors to process them.

  The douche bag who had screamed at her like some kind of howler monkey was stuck near the end of the line jerking around in his car restlessly and grumbling to his radio. Wrapped up in his misfortune as he was, she easily made her way past him without being accosted again.

  “I guess there’s still some justice in the world.” She thought, a smug grin creeping it’s way onto her face. A sudden refreshing wave broke across her and a noticeable spring entered her step as she almost doubled her initial pace.

  She’d reached the Immigration checkpoint in what seemed like a matter of moments, glancing up from the minimalistic concrete structure she took in the buildings. It wasn’t a big city per say, however it was one of the bigger ones she’d ventured into.

  No sky scrapers, no buildings over five stories. It was a nice oasis of civilization in the hostile wilderness.

  The buildings right in front of her were surprisingly rustic. Cracked windows sealed with packaging tape, faded signs advertising everything from alcohol to lottery tickets, and the smell of dust hung in the air.

  The only thing that looked semi-presentable was a gas station about a block down. Then again given the trek visitors undertook to get here, it wasn’t too surprising.

  Silently she began to plan out her peaceful new life. She didn’t have much money… so getting a hotel room was out… and depending on the neighborhood slumming it at a public transport center might not be a good idea.

  But if she could make it through the first night, she could start applying for a job… even if it was waiting tables as long as it was some source of income. After that she could afford some sort of shelter and tasty non vending machine food! However then the challenge would start… but as soon as she found a nice rut to settle into it’d be the easy life.

  She could feel a stupid grin cross her face but she honestly was in such a good mood it didn’t matter. Her daydreams were popped by the sound of a voice crackling across a speaker.

  “Edea Doe, aged 20, female. Correct?”

  The man in the immigration station had turned his attention to her, an exasperated expression on his face. It looked like she’d kept him waiting.

  “Doe?” She couldn’t help but raising the question.

  “There’s no last name on file, if you’d like to-”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sounds good.”

  The less time she spent here the more time she had to find a place to sleep for the night. She wasn’t about to spend an hour or two doing the paperwork just to make up a “proper name” for herself.

  “Alright, description matches. Welcome to Ansonia.”

  “Oh, I was wondering about that. What’s the deal with the welcome sign? Rainy Sunny?”

  She asked despite herself. Well… if she was going to get a proper job people skills might be a tad necessary. Yes, that was the justification she was going with.

  “Ah, the weather’s a touch weird in this part. It’s either sunny out or it’s pouring down rain, no middle ground.”

  “Huh, sounds like a weird thing to advertise to visitors.”

  “Don’t ask me, the city council said it makes the city sound exotic. Something romantic like two sides to the same coin.”

  She made an exasperated expression mirroring the man’s own. “These are the kinds of people I’m going to live with?” She couldn’t help but think. She hadn’t even entered the city and an ominous premonition had shown itself.

  “Is there anything else Ma’am?”

  Shaking herself out of her thoughts she replied absent mindedly, “Nope, thanks for your time.”

  “Alright, have a safe visit.” The man said, not an ounce of emotion entering his voice. A loud click came as he cut the speaker and turned to the ever growing line of cars.

  “A safe visit, huh?” she muttered, mulling over their parting words as she continued from pale green grass to hard sidewalk.

  It reminded her of the murders she’d been told about. Could he have been trying to hint at that with the ‘safe’ part? She guessed he couldn’t just come out and say “try not to be murdered while you’re here.” Then again it was innocuous enough to just be a generic parting phrase.

  Either way she had no intention of getting involved with them. She’d risked her life enough, do the police a favor and they’ll always be at your doorstep like dogs. In her sparkling brand new life that was the last thing she wanted.

  With that decision made she continued on her way. A few people gave her a some looks as she passed the outskirts and made her way towards the center of town. It seemed a young lady wandering around looking like a hobo wasn’t exactly normal.

  Mentally she moved up “buy new clothes” to the top of her priority list as she continued on.

  The closer she got to the center of town the more people seemed to crawl out of their holes and block the sidewalks and streets. Not only that the buildings were looking considerably more ritzy, lots of reflective glass and shimmering metal.

  There wasn’t quite enough people to be a full on crowd but enough to make a tingling sensation creep down the back of her neck. She couldn’t help but think about turning straight back around and heading to the outskirts again.

  Out of the corner of her eyes she caught sight of her reflection. She’d known… of course she’d known she didn’t really look… presentable. But no wonder she’d been immediately pulled aside at the first immigration station she’d hit! Hell it was a miracle she wasn’t pulled aside by the second one too.

  The look of apprehension that plastered itself across her face like a damp towel mirrored the dishevelment of her own appearance.

  “Alright.”

  She said, sucking in a deep breath.

  “Alright...”

  another deep breath.

  “Now where’s the nearest clothing store?”

  She didn’t have time to pay attention to the couple that had decided to give the weird young lady who was muttering to herself a wide berth. She needed to fix herself up enough to blend in and fast.

  However all of that was not meant to be.

  Rather a more appropriate phrase would be… “life’s a bitch.”

  She heard it, the words she’d cursed and cursed. The shackles she’d been brought into this world with and the proof that her plans for a sparkling peaceful life were nothing but idle fantasy.

  Even before it reached her ears an electric shock ran through her entire body. Straightening her back and snapping her head to look in its direction. Then the scream reached her.

  It was far enough for her not to be able to make out the specifics of it. Even so, she knew. She knew exactly what it was. A cry for help.

  Her body positioned itself then took off running in the direction of the chaos. She sped across lanes and sidewalks, less a jogger and more a blur, keeping pace and even passing some cars.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  This was the easy part, her body at the moment was on an auto pilot of sorts. Within seconds she arrived at a cross walk. The moment her foot touched ground time began to slow as her senses went into overdrive.

  She’d half expected the road to be awash with crimson with some hulking monstrous Unshaped in the center waving around tentacles, or something. However what lay before her was something a little more mundane.

  In frozen time she saw a little boy in the middle of the cross walk, reaching down to pick up a tiny sandal that had once been on his right foot. The crosswalk sign was shining white with a stick figure man indicating that now was the time for crossing.

  And yet a few feet away was a car still at full speed. A familiar car in fact, one that had honked and disturbed her ruminations earlier. The radio was blaring loud cacophonous sounds as a middle-aged woman in loose fitting jeans and an ugly pink turtleneck was starting to rush back into the road leaving a stroller on the other side of the sidewalk.

  Thus the situation presented itself.

  If she had any agency at the moment she’d say “fuck it” and turn a blind eye. The world was rife with tragedies like this, big and small.

  And yet… it had met the criteria. Everything had fit too perfectly and thus the curse that had been placed upon her reared its ugly head. In this case she literally had no choice in the matter, she was physically compelled to solve this situation. Like some kind of make-shift hero.

  This was why she tried to not to associate with people. This was why she had developed her three pillar policy… all for the sake of her happy new life. Yet something stupidly ridiculous like this had to happen now of all times.

  Now was not the time for self pity, however. If she didn’t think of a better course of action quick she’d auto pilot straight into the car and things would start to get ugly.

  After taking in the situation and its surroundings two problems immediately became clear to her:

  1.) If she were to just charge into the street and grab the child with her current momentum it’d be the same as getting hit by that car. She’d probably snap the kids neck if not splatter him on the sidewalk.

  2.) If she forced herself to skid to a stop and shield the child from the oncoming vehicle, sure she’d probably be fine… but the vehicle itself had a large chance of getting totaled and the driver would more than likely sustain serious injuries. The problem here was she had no insurance… worst came to worst she’d fall into debt hell and be forced to skip out on town.

  In either case her life in this area would immediately become null and void and it’d be another long journey to a new town on what little money and supplies she had. Not to mention she had serious doubts as to whether her clothes would survive the distance to the next town.

  However, time was not on her side. She needed to make a decision fast or problems one and two would become reality.

  That’s when it hit her. If she stopped right when she got to the child and then, after grabbing him, threw herself onto the sidewalk there was a chance everything would turn out okay. She’d be cutting it close, but given time constraints it was the best she could come up with.

  So like an arrow she kicked off the sidewalk, launching herself a lane across before landing and skidding to a stop on her well worn boots. The young boy who still had yet to realize what was going on was swept off his feet by her leg.

  Everything seemed to be going well. Stopping for the briefest moment she scooped the confused kid up in her arms, turned on the balls of her feet, and launched herself forward. Everything was going smoothly, everything was going to be fine.

  Or at least, it would have been nice if that had been the case.

  As she kicked off the ground with her back leg she felt a hard impact slam into her knee. The sound of screeching tires filled the air and everyone watching gave a collective gasp.

  The impact caused her to lose control of her momentum and trajectory. Instead of safely landing in a forward roll on the other side she was sent careening through the air.

  The young boy instinctively clung to her coat, in turn she wrapped her arms around him and curled her body to shield him. She’d already come so far and she’d be damned if she was going to let the little shit go and die after all the effort she had put in.

  The world was spinning, and then there was a strong impact on her back. The feeling sent reverberations throughout her bones, and there was a sickening scraping sound and a hot burning sensation on her spine.

  From there she tumbled over her head and into the air before landing on her shoulder. There was no doubt the sleeve of her coat was gone and this time the she felt needles of ice pricking and dragging themselves down her arm.

  Then all of a sudden her skid came to a stop as something cool and metallic slammed into the nape of her neck. It felt both cold and hot at the same time and the rest of her seemed to ache and then slowly become numb for a few seconds.

  The world was hazy, and a lot of the strength had left her body, however she could still perfectly make out the woman’s shrill scream that pierced the warm spring air. Followed by the obnoxious wailing of a young child.

  There was movement under her arm and then the young boy shakily found his footing and stood up, still bawling his eyes out. The shock of it all had overwhelmed him and now all he could do was cry out for his mother and start to unsteadily wander the sidewalk.

  This outcome was less than ideal. Far from the worst but still a long shot compared to what she had hoped for.

  “Well...” Edea managed to rasp out from where she lay sprawled a streetlight. “Might as well roll with the punches.”

  She decided to start by taking stock of how her limbs were fairing. Shifting her position, to a few gasps from the rubberneckers who’d gathered, she took a look at her left leg.

  Her left boot had gotten lost somewhere, and in its stead was a crimson mass of thread and shreds of skin that gave the appearance of a woolen sock. Grunting a bit she clenched her toes and felt a sharp stinging pain, like a swarm of small insects all sinking their teeth into her flesh.

  It was pretty ugly… but not the worst thing that had happened to her.

  Next was her right leg, her boot had stayed on this one and there was an ugly whit scuff mark from contact with the pavement. Other than that it was in much better shape than its counter part. Clenching her toes she felt a tired ache resound up and down her calf and thigh.

  All things considered it was in pretty good shape.

  Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a dark shadow that had cast itself over her body.

  “Shit shit shit shit shit fuck… A-are you alright… hey? Shit this.. this can’t be… I didn’t mean-”

  Turning her eyes skywards she saw a man in his early twenties with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. His whole body was shaking and he had an expression like he was about to wet himself at any moment.

  It took a lot of self restraint to stop herself from muttering out “serves you right.” but now was not the time. Confirming her functionality was priority.

  Just as she was about to start examining her arms he spoke again.

  “H-hey answer me? You’re alright…. Right? Y-you aren’t going to die right? Hey?”

  He was disrupting what little focus she had at the moment, but just when she thought she’d have to waste energy and tell him where he could shove his concern another dark figure came slamming into him, blindsiding him.

  The screaming lady had recovered and seemed to have bolted across the street to practically tackle the trembling man before screaming at him.

  “What the hell were you thinking!?”

  “I-I was”

  “You were fucking what!? I wanna know!”

  “I’d had a long day of traveling… I almost ran out of gas...got stopped for a while at customs. I-I was mad alright?”

  All his desperate fervor had promptly reversed into shame and cowardice. It was like he’d become a child himself.

  “You almost hit MY child! Not only that but look what you did to that HEROIC young lady.”

  She seemed to be holding him by his lapels and he’d started weeping.

  “Guess now there’s two little boys sobbing.” Edea muttered under her breath at the constant noise that was mercilessly pounding on her skull.

  Luckily before things escalated the crowd of onlookers rushed in separating the two before the hysteric mother had a chance to do whatever it was she was planning on doing.

  As the shouts of “Don’t you touch me! Let me at him! Don’t let that man off so easily!” faded into the distance, a different voice met her ears. It was shaking like all the rest, but the speaker was putting an effort forward to try and comfort her.

  “We’ve called an ambulance Miss, please hang in there...”

  After getting an earful of screeching and shouting the calmer voice was very refreshing.

  “Now then,” She thought “back to business.”

  She looked at her right arm, it had taken the brunt of the skidding, as such the sleeve had been scraped away and crimson pink flesh was all that remained. Each of her fingers moved fine, however the shifting tendons caused stinging pains to shoot down her arm accompanied by an ice cold sensation like a razor blade made of ice sliding through her skin.

  Seemed to be fine, she noted.

  Next was her left arm, she could feel swelling around her thumb… must have jammed it or something. Due to the swelling it was hard to fully move it around but the rest of her fingers were more or less fine. There was however a heavy ache in several places on her arm, like weighty stones had been placed on her… mercilessly sinking into her flesh.

  “Alright, looks like everything’s better than expected.” Edea muttered under her breath.

  With that she hooked her left hand around the cool metal of the lamp post and slowly pulled herself up. Even worse than when she’d been attacked in the wilderness her body creaked and protested. But she’d been through worse, and now wasn’t the time to lay around.

  Bending her right knee and placing the brunt of her weight on her bruised and aching leg she forced herself to stand.

  “Miss! Please stop! You mustn’t stand, you’ll hurt yourself more.”

  The worried young man in front of her had his arms outreached like he wanted to stop her but was afraid to touch her. As if he was witnessing a strange crimson butterfly break free of its cocoon for the first time, and he was afraid a mere touch would kill it.

  Edea however, had other plans. She’d already regained a lot of her composure and the world was slowly coming back into focus. All eyes in the crowd were glued on her, but no one dared say a thing.

  She couldn’t help but feel irritated by their rudeness.

  The young man in front of her was in a panic, like he didn’t know what to do.

  “I’m fine, I’ll be alright.” she managed to squeeze out.

  The truth was she’d expected much worse damage. Nothing seemed broken and she had no trouble breathing. There was a cold painful feeling running down her back, but she could deal with that later.

  “You most certainly are not.”

  He said throwing both his arms out as if to block her from going anywhere.

  She’d appreciated him before, but now she couldn’t help but want to break his nose. But she didn’t have enough strength to do it yet… and if she had tried the crowd most certainly would have restrained her.

  And so she waited. It was about twenty minutes later that an ambulance finally arrived on the scene, escorted by several police cars. The young child was looked at and taken into the ambulance and she was promptly forced onto a stretcher and loaded into it as well.

  “We’ll need to cut away the fabric on her left leg to check and clean the wound.”

  “well...” she thought to herself, “not like I was going to be able to use those socks for much longer anymore anyway...”

  “How’s she doing?”

  A policeman had stepped into the ambulance as well and was talking to one of the paramedics.

  “She was lucky, with all the blood we were afraid things were going to be much worse. Looks like she got away with minimal scrapes and bruises.”

  “Think she’s going to be hospitalized?”

  “It’s hard to say without further examination, but just from what I’ve seen it looks like she’ll be bandaged up then sent on her way.”

  “I see, is she lucid?”

  Edea had a strange sinking feeling. “He’s not going to do what I think he’s going to do?” She grumbled under her breath.

  “Yea, you should be able to talk to her at least.”

  The policeman nodded before scooting closer to her.

  “May I ask you a few questions Miss?”

  “Yeah sure whatever.” Edea mumbled, trying to sit up before being gently pushed back down by the paramedic.

  “Is this yours?”

  The policeman held something small and rectangular object above her head, it took a fair bit of squinting to realize what it was, her Abhuman Translocation Permit.

  “We found it on you, Miss Edea is it?”

  “hmm? Yeah that’s mine.” She muttered reaching her hand up and grasping the bent and worn object.

  However, that was a mistake.

  In one fluid motion he grabbed her other hand, giving her just enough time to think: “ah, this kind of development again.” before a pair of handcuffs were secured around both her wrists with an audible “click.”

  “I’m going to have to take you in for questioning after you’re treated in the emergency room.”

  So Edea did the one thing she could think of in a time like this: “Do you do this to all women on your first dates?”

  The policeman’s face went from a stern business like manner to an exasperated expression that seemed to beg, “give me a break lady, I’m just doing my job.” while the paramedics in the ambulance quietly snickered to themselves.

  And so it went that after she was brought to some emergency room staff, who more or less gave her a few bandages and sent her on her way. She was immediately stuffed in a police car and then locked in a small dark room.

  It was just when she was staring to build up hope that she’d be kept here for the night and wouldn’t need to worry about shelter, the door was opened and the policeman who’d handcuffed her entered the room.

  “We’ve checked with immigration, and confirmed the date of your arrival.”

  She’d just about fallen asleep when he’d barged in, looking up with a grumpy half asleep expression on her face she muttered at him, “can’t be too careful when it comes to Unshaped right?”

  “You seem to know our policies well.”

  “Well this isn’t the first time I’ve been arrested.”

  “This city alert is currently elevated to where officers are given free judgment on the arrest of abhuman individuals.”

  “Yeah, I gotcha.”

  The officer gave an awkward cough. “Either way you’re free to go.”

  “No.”

   “Excuse me?” The officer had a look on his face like he’d just been hit in the back of the head with a bat.

  “Put me in a cell for the night.”

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Miss… you saved a child. I don’t think this is necessary.”

  “Just for one night, that trauma from the car accident… my body feels unstable… I’m afraid I might explode and take some innocent bystanders with me!”

  Her acting was less than subpar, but that wasn’t the point. If an Unshaped made any sort of assertion that they might be a danger to the people around them the officers were required to take them seriously. Regardless of how much of an obvious lie it was.

  “I-I see… one night then?”

  And so it went. Her jacket had been torn to all hell… in fact given the draft she felt on her back she had a feeling the thing was unwearable now. One of her boots was missing, and the one she still had looked like it had gone through a belt sander. However, despite her rapidly disappearing wardrobe, despite the small cuts and sickly yellow bruises, for the first night in a long time she had a roof over her head.