1 year ago
"Everyday feels the same in my life. I don't get how to feel like I belong, you know?" A young woman says to herself as she stares at her reflection in the mirror, adjusting her brown bob cut that covers her right side in a messy way.
She takes a step back, only wanting to see herself for herself and not her appearance. "Come on Avis. You are going to be fine today. Nothing about you is different. Just... Don't make a fool of yourself in front of your friends."
She did finger guns to herself awkwardly before sighing and chucking on her black jacket with a yellow stripe around the torso.
After leaving her apartment for the first time in what felt like forever, she casually went to the coffee shop to go and catch up with her old friends, heading to Devour Domain, the place in the Underbelly known for food.
She stared at her reflection after she pulled up, taking deep breaths as she stared at her friends from the car. "Come on. You're a grown ass woman, just be normal, no one will hate you."
She quickly got out of her car and entered with a smile on her face, before quickly realising after about 3 minutes with them, that she had vastly changed since she last spoke to her friends.
"This city is like, not my thing."
"I mean I live in the Pandora's Melody for gods sake, why are we even here?"
"'Cause ###### is to broke to afford to even eat a meal up there."
They all started laughing, which just made her feel even worse, sinking back into her seat.
"And there are waaay to many monsters around here, like remember that one girl who always used to follow us around, thinking we liked her. She always bragged about being the Next Mollia Chordarum or whatever. What was her name?"
"Uhm... Hailey? Jamie? Ami? Ami. That was it. Wait, isn't she your sister?"
"Yeah... No... Adopted. Huh, wait? What do you guys have against Monsters?" Avis asked with a confused look.
"Well, they are a bit... Scary? I mean, we all know that it was them who tried to end the world, right?"
"That's a conspiracy theory..." Avis said with a face palm, she sighed and awkwardly waited for this whole event to be over.
After about 30 minutes, and realising how expensive food was, Avis quickly left without paying, not really having a decent living standard. She quickly drove off and pulled up in Desire Domain, mostly to street preform.
But this day felt different, this day was the marking of the founding of the city, today would be the day that Avis would finally have a change in her life.
As she was setting up her instruments and and speaker, she saw a woman with long white hair and a pair of Rat ears talking on the phone, the current leader of Desires Domain, Rat.
"I don't care Pan. I'm announcing my retirement today, just let me do this. God, you are not my mother... Well, I don't see how that relates to this... Just because she's a gang leader, doesn't mean she isn't fit to run it... Don't you dare give it to that Wannabe! Hello, Hello? Bitch hung up on me." Rat groaned, putting her phone away and spotting Avis.
"Hey you, Human. What uh... What you doing?"
"Me? Oh nothing... Just setting up for a performance." she said awkwardly, not used to being near anyone with status.
Rat walked over, sizing her up with a grin.
"Ya know, you look dirt poor. Wanna make some money?"
Avis would have normally said no, but since she was dirt poor, and Rat was, at least to the public, rich, said: "I guess... What do I gotta do?"
"Great. Just play this song during the Memorial of the lost."
Rat handed her a napkin with musical notes.
"Uhm... Okay...?" She awkwardly nodded as Rat handed her about 10000k in credits like it was nothing.
"Great. Just be loud and proud!"
Avis eagerly took the money and began doing her small performance all day, making a bit of money on the side thanks to her singing and general musical talents.
After the day was about to wrap up, the domain leaders all do a speech about what was lost in the founding of the city, 'general boring crap' as Avis would put it, but as Rat went on to make her speech, Avis began to play the song she was told. To which Rat, loudly proclaimed:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I am announcing my retirement! Today is my last day as head of Desires. And miss Vincula will have to pick up the pieces off your hearts as they are surely shattered!"
No one reacted, no one clapped, everyone just kind of collectively shrugged. To which Rat went on a 40 minute tirade about how many fucks she gives about the city, which then got peoples attention. In short, she basically told everyone to go fuck themselves.
Avis quickly left, not wanting to be associated with that. But as she left with all her things packed in her car, she realised that she had taken something that was marked as classified. Something belonging to Rat herself, something that wasn't meant to even be near her.
As she got in to her apartment, she put everything back where it should be before placing the box that contained whatever Rat owned on her coffee table.
"Hmm... I mean, it wouldn't kill me to take a look. Or it does and I die." She joked to herself before curiously opening the box to find a strange mechanical heart.
"What... The...?" As she reached out to touch it, tendril like wires shot out, jabbing into the back of her neck and knocking her out.
After waking up on her couch, surrounded by feathers, she stumbled to her bathroom in a dazed confusion as she stared her reflection, only to see... Feathers.