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Day Five: The shadows were worth avoiding before, but now it's almost impossible. Sometimes when you walk through a shadow, you feel your heart beat so loudly in your head that it's all you can think about. You may step into one shadow and step out of another completely across town. Or, at least, it feels like it. There is no way of going back or predicting which shadow you will wind up coming out of, but the news is reporting a wave of fatigue, confusion and stress as having odd effects on its citizens. No one has any recollection of the travel between one shadow and the next, and all passing of time seems warped. Travel is instantaneous regardless of the distance through Destiny City.
She had rested her forehead on the window, staring out of the train as seemingly endless streams of buildings passed by. She was more muted than normal, less inclined to express the joy she was known for and her enthusiasm left much to be desired. The shadows and their constant presence had made an impact and with no answers immediately forthcoming in regards to what it was and what it's demands might be, she was left to deal with the overwhelming sense of dread that had come to settle in the pit of her stomach.
Dread, anxiety and stress were now all constants in her life and it wasn't the most desirable of sensations. To feel this unwell, to feel this level of fear, it wasn't anyway to live and she knew it. A small consolation was that she wasn't on her own, she no longer considered herself paranoid given that much of the city had begun to display the same symptoms and more interestingly, when the gossip reached her ears they had been subject to similar 'terrors'.
Things chased them, things lashed out at them.
But these shadow hallucinations didn't seem to align with her's, not really. To date she hadn't heard of anyone indicating that there was a familiarity. Maybe she was looking into it too deeply and as a consequence she was seeing things she shouldn't, but as it stood...
Rap. Tap. Tap.
The red head closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The sound of her own beating heart had turned into something much more malevolent in her own head. What should have been a hardened 'thump' had taken on a hissed and rhythmic sound. A whisper that shouldn't have been there but it was, and it had now become ever present. The moment the shadows drew near it would start and when they entered those shadows...
She knew they were drawing near the tunnel and the tension had already begun to rise in the carriage. People were whispering, others were curling in upon themselves and then there were those much like Liliane who had simply accepted that it was inevitable. There were certain things she hadn't yet figured out how to fight and this was one of them. Controlling her own emotions was more important at this time and should an answer be forthcoming then she would grab it by both hands and hold on for dear life.
Her stomach leapt into her throat as they finally plunged into the depths of the tunnel and an eerie silence fell over the train. The expected rush of wind within the tunnel never came, that flurry of friction from the proximity of the train missing from the depths of whatever void they had entered.
It had been the exact same this morning, and at lunch... and now would be no different.
Time was not endless, if anything the sensation was a quick one, but no sooner had they entered than they had emerged with a burst of light from somewhere. She had been puzzled the first time it had happened, this morning she had taken a train that should have arrived in one station and it had arrived in an entirely different one. By now she had lulled herself into a sense of normality - all of this was inevitable, it would remain inevitable and it was only when they had a breakthrough that things would change.
Her eyes opened.
A moment or two was taken to adjust to her surroundings and then she glanced back out the window to re-orient herself.
Or rather she had intended to look out of the window, what she found was something quite different. Perched delicately on a park bench she had been seamlessly transported to a location she was all too familiar with. This was one of the parks she often patrolled, she'd met several Negaverse agents here and yet it was devoid of others now. For the time being she was alone, and until the shadows deposited someone else here it was unlikely to change.
Truth be told it wasn't entirely clear as to whether or not she had moved here of her own volition at some point and simply didn't recall it; or the shadows had indeed teleported her here.
Her gaze flicked down towards her watch as she got to her feet and she took several surprisingly steady steps towards the park gates. She knew her way home from here, shadows permitting, she might even make it back safely. Whether she was simply thrown here, there and everywhere remained to be seen...but for now she would at least try to navigate the slivers of light that denoted potential pathways.
She was running out of options, but at least for now, home was still home...right?
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