>>6082510>>6082516>>6082522Result: 12 - 'Lady In Red'
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Your mind drifts through your memories of the day and surprisingly you don't find yourself lingering on the bad. Your experience in that dingy basement was still sitting like a cold stone in your brain but it wasn't the crown gem..
Your eyes blink open in confusion to the comforting warm glow of Angelo's lights illuminate a near perfect replica of the pizza shop, the only thing breaking the illusion being that the store is separated into four compact spaces. In the right corner you see your desk, files stacked high and your badge dangling from a rusted chain hanging from the edge of your chair.
The left corner is a sunny kitchen table, a bright yellow mug sits with wisps of steam above it, a small silver pendant sits looped through the handle of the mug and even from here you get whiffs of chocolate and cinnamon.
You continue shifting your eyes through the space until you look to your immediate right. Your heart seizes and your hand instinctively slips to your hip. This corner is unadorned, the floor just bare loose earth and a set of rusted storm doors reveal the chipped and weathered concrete steps leading down into a gaping black hole. Only one thing is visible in the gloom below, a floating set of out of focus tally marks that bob and tilt as you observe them.
"Charming." A woman's voice coos.
You start and spin around, hand still grasping at empty air by your hip. A familiar and unsettling face watches you without emotion like a porcelain mask with an invisible flaw. Some warp in the design that you can't see, only feel. The woman from the balcony.
"Fuck.." You groan, clutching at your chest. She regards you with a stiff curiosity, her eyebrows arching in a manner that feels highly rehearsed.
"Frightened?" She asks plainly.
"Something like that.. where the hell am I?"
She turns slowly, never moving her eyes only angling her head to observe the strange storefront. Her gaze settles on the lurking face in the cellar.
"You know him?" You ask quietly, finally regaining control of your heart.
"In a way, but this isn't for him."
She stands with an alien grace and moves to the doors, fear nips and bites at the heels of your mind as you quietly protest.
"Hey be careful.. maybe don't.."
Your words are drowned by the rattling slam of those rusty doors. With a high pitched shrieking of old metal she twists the handles, an action that begets a gentle rattling of the doors. She walks back to your small booth, a long dress of red silk and other garish accoutrement trailing and swishing behind her.
You swallow dryly.
"Thanks, I guess. Can't say it wasn't creeping me out."
"Imagine how I feel." She remarks coldly.
"Probably.. bad? Uh, no offense or anything but what's going on here?"
For the first time you see emotion creep into the stillness of her face.
"I could be asking you the same thing."
