Ariadne Cross had always believed that life was just a string of mundane events. Waking up, getting dressed, going to work, meeting friends, nothing extraordinary, nothing to expect beyond the usual. It was safe in its predictability. No surprises, no mysteries.
She glanced at her phone, scrolling through the endless feed of social media posts, all the noise and fluff. People were talking about the weather, posting selfies, and sharing their usual complaints about work. She swiped past the notifications, dismissing them as irrelevant. The world felt… ordinary. Until it didn't.
The coffee shop she was sitting in was as busy as always...overheated, filled with murmurs of conversations, and the clink of cups. Ariadne stared into her latte, watching the steam rise as she stirred it absentmindedly. Her mind wasn't here. It never really was.
"Another busy day?" her friend, Samantha, asked from across the table, snapping her out of her thoughts. Ariadne gave a half-hearted smile. She didn't really like mornings, or coffee shops for that matter, but here she was stuck in this routine, day after day.
"Yeah. Same old," she replied, her tone flat. She wasn't unhappy, not exactly, but there was something that gnawed at her the unshakable feeling that life should be more than this. But it never seemed to be.
Samantha leaned forward, looking more concerned than she usually did. "Have you been hearing about those tremors lately? They're starting to get more frequent."
Ariadne didn't look up from her coffee. "Tremors?" She chuckled lightly. "Just some little shakes, nothing serious. People overreact. You know how it is."
"I don't know," Samantha said, glancing out the window. "It's getting weird. You heard about the whole 'special personnel' thing, right?"
Ariadne raised an eyebrow. She had heard vague mentions of it from a news broadcast, but it was so cryptic that it barely stuck with her. "What, like some emergency drill or something?" she said, brushing it off. "Why would anyone care about that?"
Samantha gave her an uncertain look, but Ariadne was already shifting her attention back to her phone, losing interest in the conversation. People talked about rumors and conspiracy theories all the time, and they never turned out to be true. Life was far more predictable than that.
The sun filtered through the windows, casting long shadows on the floor. Ariadne glanced up, watching the shadows stretch across the table. She sighed and took a sip of her coffee, feeling the warmth seep through her, but it didn't quite settle the chill gnawing at her chest.
She hadn't been in the mood to listen to Samantha's rants, but she couldn't deny the growing sense that something was… off. Even if she wasn't going to entertain talk about earthquakes or government warnings.
As the afternoon drifted by, the usual routine of chatter and noise filled the space, masking everything else. There was a fleeting moment when she thought she felt a slight tremor beneath her feet nothing major, just a little jolt but she dismissed it quickly. No one else seemed to notice. In fact, the shop continued as if nothing had happened, people still laughing, the barista still pulling shots of espresso with practiced efficiency.
Ariadne felt a pang of annoyance. Why was it that nothing ever changed? Everything seemed the same. She was tired of it. Tired of the people around her, tired of the same old conversations, tired of living in this endless cycle. She had grown accustomed to the silence she surrounded herself with, the lack of close relationships. No real friends. Just acquaintances.
The thought lingered in the back of her mind, yet she ignored it, as she always did. Life had its own rhythm, and she had long ago learned to accept it.
But the world was not so predictable anymore...