>>5378638>>5378674You turned around. “Can you two wait? She’s” —you nodded at Cass— “is in no condition to go trippin’. I could use a drink.I’ll come back once I bring my girl here home safe. ”
The one chewing the harsher stuff leaned onto you. From the sleeve, he offered you a ticket to drink, a card. Hourglass, it said on it, with an address and a sentence: ‘Snacks as usual.'
The man licked behind his yellowish teeth and spat onto the ground. “We can’t just be standing around here waiting for you, friend. Your girl might want a round with you until she lets you go, you get what I’m saying? Follow what it says on there, and you can tip a few or more at your leisure. The stuff is great there."
You moved the card from his hand and inside your pocket. You nodded at the two men. You nudged Cass to stop her waiting for the rain, it wasn’t going to, and instead to continue walking. The alleys and streets replaced one another like orphans brushed up hours before a future father arrived at the orphanage to have a look; he never picked.
You heard a rattle of rails and low-pitched thudding of rubber on the intersection withheld from you by a row of brickstone abodes. Past those two men, and away from the highway, no other person or bull outside was there to trouble you. Cass oozed past the wrecked staircases and the apartments’ crumbling facade. Even her unearthly interest showed little curiosity at those dumps.
You found the spot on the map shoved between two 12-storey high buildings, a skinny narrow house. It was more than ten feet wide. It clung to the rear wall of one of the houses but had a foot gap from the other. It was made out of brick and was painted white as if yesterday, with no cracks or blemishes. It had three storeys and an attic, with a large window in each. There was a rent-worth sight: the opposite brick wall across the road.
Before the stairs of the oak door arose a wrought iron fence and a gate half your height, with the distance between overgrown with plants with leaf tips greying. The gate had no lock and aside form from the spreading grass was easy to open. You climbed the step to the wall-mounted mailbox, shoving your hand inside for the key. Brushing your hand against the wooden slot, you searched for it for at least a minute. You couldn't find it. There was no mail either.
> Ask Cass to search through the letterbox with her alien gooey hand. Explain that you need the slime properties and not the rubber ones. (How?)> See if you can break into the house through, say, a broken window. No one is here, said Cleopatra, so it shouldn’t be a problem to stay for a day.> Search for the key around the entrance. Maybe Cleopatra was wrong and they hid it elsewhere. (Where?)> [Write In] 