"Took you long enough." An eccentric woman smoking from a pipe, faux leopard fur draped around her arms under which a sparkly black dress reflected even with the fog around them.
But her dress was not the only thing about her that is sparkling. Her neck and ears are covered with diamonds, gleaming like no tomorrow.
Though, no matter how fancy she is dressed, her make-up is smudged, eyeliner running down her cheeks, lipstick everywhere but on her lips and her auburn hair looked like a bird decided to make its nest on it, diamond hair clips skewed.
"You look awful," Issac said, walking to the woman resting against the fence that leads to his clinic door, hands in his pocket.
"I feel awful." She remarked, taking another puff of the long pipe in her long, elegant fingers wrapped in sheer gloves. "Are you going to open the door or not?"
"I don't feel like it." He shrugged, standing only inches from her as she stared up at him, tired.
Rolling her eyes, she reached into her purse dangling on her free hand and pulled out a steel box about the size of a big rat.
"Here." She huffed, shoving it into his hands. "Happy?"
Issac inspected the box in his hands, an empty smile coming on his lips as he pulled out the keys from his pocket.
Holding the door open for the woman, he held his hand out to the room, "Please come in, madam."
"About time." She huffed, stomping into the room, dress trailing behind her.
Issac had to wait for a couple of seconds before it was safe to walk and not accidentally step on her long train or faux fur sweeping his floor.
Once inside, he took off his coat, hanging it in the hanger at the side of the door and walked past the woman sprawling on his couch, massaging her temples while her pipe still rested on her fingers.
She threw the faux fur on the floor dramatically laying on the couch.
Issac walked to the table with the water boiler and asked, "Tea?"
"No, darling." She sighed. "Do you have coffee?"
Issac bent down and opened the cupboard, pulling out a bag of coffee beans.
"I have the 'Smoky Charcoal' coffee beans," he said reading the label. "Would you like some?"
"Smoky?" She grinned, taking off her dress while still lying on the couch. "I didn't think you have such good tastes towards coffee, given that you only drink tea."
"This was a gift." He said, pulling out a coffee bean grinder still in its box with the plastic still wrapped around it and began grinding the coffee beans.
"That makes sense." She chuckled, throwing her dress on the floor. Legs in the air, she began taking off her shoes. "Spare clothes?"
"In that cupboard," he said, nudging to the one he took out clothes from a couple of chapters ago.
"Merci." The woman skipped to the cupboard and pulled out a button-up shirt and wore it, taking a sniff at the sandalwood smell coming from the shirt. "I need to know where you buy your detergents."
"From the convenience store." He said, straining the coffee powder and slowly pouring water over it. "I have to warn you, I do not know what I am doing."
"It's fine." She said, stretching. The shirt reached midway of her thighs while she walked around the room, barefoot.
Stopping in front of Issac, she reached past him, hands slightly brushing his shirt as she grabbed a packet of chocolate-covered cookies on the table.
Walking away from him, she stared out the window at the lights from the street lamps still giving off a warm glow even with the fog covering the city.
"Everything feels slightly surreal, don't you think so?" She asked, biting on a cookie the size of a coin. "Oh, this is good."
"I only have the best. And … surreal … I guess." Issac said, placing the steaming cup of coffee on the counter beside her while she continued to stare out the window.
Flowers and leaves from the bushes surrounding the clinic peaked into the view as the woman took a deep breath at the steam coming from the coffee before taking a sip.
"Not bad." She said, looking at him from the corner of her eyes, a smirk coming on her face. "Do you want to try?"
"No thank you." He said, pouring his tea and the absurd amount of honey into the cup. "I have my drink right here."
"Your loss." She shrugged, taking another sip of the coffee while pulling the little silver, bird-shaped pins, decorated with diamonds as well, out of her hair, letting the curls fall over her face as she pulled out the last pin. "This a big help, especially after the night I had. You would not believe it, Issac."
"Was he … aggressive?" He asked, taking another packet of the same biscuits and began eating them.
"Not aggressive enough if you ask me. Rough but like a baby lion." She said, smiling at him while about to take a sip of her cup, steam weaving in front of her deep brown eyes.
"I did not need to know that." Issac sighed. "Why are you here anyway?"
"To g-"
"Don't say to give me that." He pointed to the box he placed on his desk once he entered the room. "You would have sent one of your ..."
"Toys?" She asked, grinning at him. "You can call them that. They like being called that anyway."
"Ok." Issac suddenly said, pursing his lips. "Please answer my question and stop talking in detail about unnecessary stuff."
"This isn't unnecessary."
"Do you want me to start psychoanalyzing you?" Issac asked, raising an eyebrow at her. "Because that is exactly what I am hearing right now."
Rolling her eyes, the woman turned away from him to her cup. "Alright. Alright. I'll tell you about last night later on."
"Please don't."
Ignoring Issac, Isabell continued, "You felt that today, didn't you?"
"The earthquake? I think everyone felt that."
She shook her head, looking at the reflection ripple in the black liquid.
"I guess you didn't feel it. It was very faint and very, very quick." She turned her eyes away from the cup and looked at Issac directly in the eye. "The wave."
"That is not possible," Issac said, gulping down his tea. "If the wave happened then we would have been in that other dimension."
"I know it sounds crazy. I can't understand it myself." She insisted, not breaking eye contact with the man. "But I know what I felt and you know that I am never wrong with this feeling. No one is believing me, Issac. You do ... don't you?"
Issac stared at her for a couple of seconds, contemplating on what she just told him.
His mind suddenly flashed back to when he first met her.
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A woman with the tightest yellow dress he ever saw on anyone walked up to him, taking off her sunglasses, she smiled at the boy barely making it out of his school grounds.
"Issac Zaid?" She asked as everyone that passed them stared, especially the boys from his school.
"Who are you?" He asked, looking up at her sceptically. "My father will not pay your ransom even if you ask him for it."
The woman's eyes widened as a melodic laugh came out of her red lips. "I am not trying to kidnap you, darling."
"But you want me to go with you, don't you?" He asked, looking past her to the sleek black car parked just beside the gate.
Students gathered around the car and began taking pictures of it, also of Issac and the woman.
"Is that your car?" he asked, pointing to it.
"Yes, would you like a ride in it?" She bends to his height as the boy quickly averted his gaze from her … assets right in front of his face.
"No thank you." He said, walking away from her. "If you will excuse me, I have to get home."
He was about to walk away when the woman suddenly said, "Have you heard of Romanian chocolate?"
This was enough to stop the boy in his tracks and, before he knew it, he was in the car with her, devouring a box of assorted chocolates.
"What do you want?" He asked, chocolate staining the side of his lips which she gave him a tissue to wipe off.
"Listen very carefully to what I am about to say." She began, expression turning solemn. "When you get home tonight, there will be a hidden room, ten steps from your bed. Go in there and hide. Do not come out or even peak out until I tell you to."
"Huh?"
"Promise me?" She asked, holding a pinky out.
"What about my sister?"
"Don't take her." She said, frowning at him.
"Why?"
"I don't know." She admitted, slowing the car down. "But do what I tell you. Only come out when you hear me call. Ok?"
Issac had no idea of what this woman was talking about but he did as she said, well, most of what she told him to anyway.
He brought his sister with him and the two hid under the floorboards in the cramped room, hearing shouts and then silence.
He didn't know how long he was there but it was dark by the time he heard her call to him. A group of men in police uniforms rushed to them but he never saw the woman, that is until she visited them the next day.
They lead them out of the house, Araya fast asleep in his arms.
They told him not to look to the right but he did and saw splatters of something red all over the room before they whisked him away to his frantic father.
__________________
She became a regular visitor to him from that day on, not his family, only him.
But they have not seen each other in years, today being their first meeting since he started his job.
Issac turned to the woman, makeup still smudged on her face as he looked at her, a slight smile coming on his face as he pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away the smudged black line on her cheeks.
"Of course I believe you." He said softly. "Why don't you tell me about it and we will see what we can do."