[center] [img] https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/54a1b274-0fe1-49f5-b2b0-f0c59e128fe2.jpg  [/img] [h1] Cadian Shirai [/h1] [color=Gainsboro]
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.… [/color] 

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[i]The Bridge: Outbound Lane[/i]

The asphalt was wet.  Cadian always felt the asphalt was wet here.  When the rain stopped, which was never for long, the oppressive cold would ensure the water ran slowly from the street.  At least, that’s how it felt.  And unlike the rest of the city, this patch of road rarely saw enough traffic to pad the street dry.  People who drove this path only did so out of desperation.  No one left The Badlands.  Oh, from time to time, people tried, and every time it made the news and gossip circuits.  Another body washed up on the bank of the river, another car having crashed just short of the city limits.  A week ago it had been a friend, but already Cadian was forgetting.  That was how things went here.  If it wasn’t around, if it didn’t remain… it was forgotten.  

So for a few hours, Cadian let the world fall into this phenomena.  For the last hundred twenty minutes, he’s done nothing but lay on the asphalt, his car askew behind him, a warning to whomever may be foolish enough to travel this far down the outbound lanes of the bridge.  A bottle of whiskey in his hands, ever diminishing, while the black leather bomber’s jacket he’s pillowed his head on has grown ever more comfortable.   The  Mustang behind him purrs as it idles, and the music in his head fills the night with a melancholy slowness perhaps enhanced by the missing two thirds of the fifth at his hip.  His hands are outstretched to the clouds above, blending with the images dancing in his memory, as his thoughts roll before him in full detailed pictures – his own private movie. 

Her eyes were haunting him.  It was astonishing to him how something so innocuous as a glance into a sea of people could so destroy his sanity.  If he had the ability to go back and warn himself, to distract his attention to the other side of the room, or simply whisper into his own mind, warning him of the intoxicating effect of the eyes staring at him dead center of the room, he would take it.  They haunted him, to the  point that he drove himself out here, and has spent the last few hours alone, staring up at the dark night’s sky, drinking himself to a point where the world seemed to spin in an all new direction to that which is typical, while attempting to both erase and further detail the image of her eyes in his mind.   And to make it worse, after two full days of looking for her in the audience, he saw nothing. She was gone, without so much as a trace, leaving Cadian wondering if she had truly been there at all.  He’s asked questions, but nobody seems to know anything.  Over the past two nights, he’s been introduced to seven different ladies, all fitting some part of his description of his mystery, this obsession of his, but none were correct.  None held the same dip to her lips, the same angst clear in her gaze, the same depth of soul, shape of face.   

And his own lack of ability to put into words that which he can see so clearly in his mind.  It was as infuriating as the absence of her.  Turning phrases was his bread and butter, his livelihood. He was an artist, a writer of songs and melodies.  Yet when he attempted to describe this woman… why did everyone seem to think we was describing the most plain, unoriginal girls cut from MTV’s cloth.  They heard fake, when Cadian had attempted to describe a soul.  

Another drink of the whiskey, to drown the frustration building, as he slammed his hands, palms first, down on the asphalt.  He exhaled a disgusted moan, before sitting up.  Maybe she didn’t exist.  Maybe she was something he created.  A side effect of too much medication, too much pain from the loss of Katja, confusion over Yumi, or the stress that he never seemed to rid himself of.  It was all enough to drive his imagination into an overactive mode, seeing to distract with something truly interesting, in this world of grey scale colors and flat designs.  There was no depth to any of it, not anymore.  Not to his vision.  Why would he expect anything different to be real?  

A sobering thought.  A possibility he didn’t want to allow into being, but reluctantly, acknowledgement loomed amongst the ethereal image of her face floating before his, as ghastly and perfect as the memories within his mind.  

He tried to stand, almost stumbled back to knees a few times before he achieved the feat, and climbed back into the seat of his car.  He placed the open bottle in the seat next to him, as he pulled his legs into the car, and closed the door with a loud squeal of dry, attention starved hinges.  His head swam.  His vision blurred and faded amongst the alcohol in his system.  He could barely walk, could think of nothing but the woman, those eyes, those lips.  He vaguely wondered about her name, thought for sure she had to have one, real or no.  Thoughts had names.  Dreams had names.  The double D brunette chick who frequents his dreams even has a name… and this one, this one is no less deserving. 

An hour later found him standing in the stream of his shower, the warm water fogging up the room, washing away sweat and bile as he kneels over the shower’s drain.  His eyes are squeezed shut, his mind focused on the cramping pain in his gut, as another wave of nausea spills over him.  The clear bile circling the drain serves only as a reminder that he hasn’t eaten, but serves not that he hit the bottle too hard.  He laughed to himself, the sound a mix of self loathing and pain, as his mind drew forth the idea that he had, at least, managed to escape thoughts of his revenant.  But even that thought was acknowledgement of the memory, even that was a form of thinking about her, of noticing her absence.  It was maddening just how totally inescapable she was.  A woman whose name he didn’t know.  

“You alright,” the voice broke out of the silence, drawing attention to the shadowed form on the curtain, as Cadian looked up from the circling water of the drain, to the direction of the voice.  His eyes immediately recognized the shape, as quickly as his mind told him the voice belonged to his brother.  There was a touch of worry in the voice, but not as deep as it once had been.  Kry had seen Cadian drunk before, knew the routine for when he over did it.  Always he worried, but the regularity of the situation was taking from his brother’s concern.   “Is it Kate?”

“No…” Cadian breathed the response, as he closed his eyes, lifting his face to the warm water, letting it wash away the sweat from his brow, letting his skin drink in the warmth.  He felt cold, a deep chill far more than could be explained by the time spent lying in the street.  

“Care to share,” Kry asked, his shadowed form moving to sit beside the shower. The bathroom was small, a toilet, a single sink, and the tub with a shower. It hadn’t taken long to flood the room with the hot, damp air the shower made, and Cadian had been in the water long enough to feel the draft created by the open door, as though he were one with the heat, and he could feel himself being drawn throughout the house.  His perceptions skewed, the alcohol fogging his mind, running away with it.  

“Not really,” he exhaled, pulling himself from his delusions.  Centering himself took a great deal of will, as did standing up.  The room swung wildly around him, shifting and rotating as though  the world’s axis had been replaced by some carnie’s newest invention designed to make children laugh and adults sick up.  He steadied himself with a hand to the shower wall.  

“Well, while you were out, Devin called…”

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