prompt pt. 2 ::Paranoia was not something that made an intelligent, self-sufficient woman feel good about herself. It was
illogical. It was
uncontrollable. But, God damn it, that bird was
following her. Unless there was suddenly a new species that had erupted into existence in Ashdown (which was possible but not
probable) this was a single bird that was always not out of sight. On the roof across from work. On the roof outside of her bedroom window. She'd gone twice into the bookstore to see Zac (and to escape those eyes) but they had all but pressed against the window.
Worse was that they were intelligent eyes. The look was expecting something, waiting for something, infinitely patient in its waiting. Being watched so constantly was making Melina feel as if something was crawling along her skin, as if she had done something, but she didn't know what it was she had done to earn this level of scrutiny.
Of course she didn't tell anyone about it. How would she have explained it? People had noticed that she was off-kilter (more than usual, at least), that something was under her skin, that she felt pressed in at all sides by a single bird with a pair of bright eyes that looked at her as if she were somehow too stupid to figure out what was going on.
The weight of that expectation grew, and grew, never slaking. Never lightening. Eventually something was bound to break and Lina was damned afraid it was going to be her sanity. It was that which had her turning and confronting the bird in the middle of the night, throwing up her bedroom window and flinging out an old take-out container at it. "Go away! Go find someone else to bother! I don't have time for this!!"
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