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The Empress of the Underground

Alexander cursed under his breath as this woman reached for him and stumbled further to the side, avoiding her. No longer in crippling pain, he darted around the corner, moving briskly along the wall. He stopped only when he spied a metal pipe on the floor, probably part of what kept the shelving together, and turned to face the woman, gripping the 'weapon' in both hands like a batter up to plate. For a second, he hesitated. Was he really defending himself with a damn piece of metal against a woman? He had never hit a girl, and now he intended to club one like a damn pinata. This situation was entirely ridiculous.

Then he heard sirens in the distance and the sound of something plastic clattering to the ground. He glanced to his right and spied the store owner hunched over a dropped smartphone. Somehow, through his pain and his useless arm, the man had managed to pull out his smartphone and dial 9-1-1. That woman had mangled his arm and tried to do the same to Alexander. She had destroyed this place. She wasn't right in the head. Perhaps he wouldn't actually hit her, but Alexander damn sure wasn't about to face her completely unarmed, and he wasn't about to run away to leave the injured shop owner to this crazy bitch's devices. He looked at her again and gripped the pipe tightly, more confident in his decision to raise it against her. Besides, the police would be here within moments. Let them handle her with their guns and their batons and their tasers and their bullet-proof vests.

"What the fuck are you after?" Alexander barked, being sure to step back if she stepped forward, careful to maintain his distance. "I've got nothin'! I did nothing! Why are you after me?"

Rising Winds and Shifting Sands

Confusion wrapped Miria like a shroud as she 'gazed' upon this not-dead Jinni somehow in her mind, a perfect stranger that may or may not have seen some of her darkest, most intimate memories. "I-I don't understand," she stammered. The more she interacted with him, the more real the conversation felt, as though he was physically here with her and she was actually conversing with him.

Gradually, a new setting took shape around them and clarified, her own mind attempting to make this conversation feel as real as she perceived it to be. The buzz of commerce commenced around her, accompanied by the smell of fresh-baked bread, the hint of manure, and the allure of Renna's surrounding shifting sands. She could feel the packed earth at her feet and see her tapestries around her. They were at the merchant square of Renna, exactly where Miria had first met this Jinni, except this time there were no guards hunting him. This time, he was just another person standing over her wares.

Somehow, this helped Miria gather her wits and organize the many questions swarming around her head. She could deal with this mysterious, mystical person in this way, merchant to customer, in her element.

"How am I to bring you with me if you are not physically here?" she asked, and the image of the Jinni shimmered, only briefly, as if to confirm what she already knew. "I am dreaming, you are here, but your body is somewhere else. How is this possible?" Miria looked around, as though doing so would give her the answers she sought. "Is your body on the caravan, perhaps?"

No. Miria remembered that he had said that it was still in Renna. She realized that if she was to better understand this person and this situation, she needed to know who this Jinni was.

"What are you?" she asked in her best business-like tone. "Who are you? Is this your magic, getting into people's heads?"

The Empress of the Underground

The woman's voice seemed distant to Alexander, almost like an echo, but he knew she was close. He could feel her footsteps, the heat of his body intensifying as she drew near. His pain was crippling now; he could not avoid her. Despite this, he still had the mind--just barely--to fight, however futile that was.

He wished he had a gun. His recovery after the war had been so difficult that he hadn't trusted himself with carrying one. Now, all he wanted was the reassurance of being able to pump this bitch full of bullets.

Why was he so afraid of her? She hadn't done anything to him yet. He hadn't seen her destroy the store as it happened. But he could hear the screams of the store owner and knew that she had done something to the man. This woman was dangerous.

He grabbed a can of soup that had rolled beside him in the destruction and threw it as best he could at the woman's head. Such pain, however, gave him horrendous aim--the can sailed cleanly past her with inches to spare--and she was practically at point-blank range. He cursed and scooted back, but his body was so insufferably slow...

Her hand clamped around his wrist, and Alexander's world changed. Her grip was like ice, simultaneously chasing away his pain. The world around him froze in place, dribbling puddles of liquid on the shelves pausing in mid-drip, the shop owner's body and face locked into agony as he clutched a completely charred arm. The colors around Alexander had faded, too, as though the world were compelled to more closely match the pallet of this woman's appearance.

Slowly, Alexander rose to his feet. The skin where this woman gripped him glowed a bright, burning red, though all he felt was a sharp chill, like wrapping his wrist in ice, uncomfortable instead of painful. He wasn't sure if he should be frightened or intrigued.

The woman's outward appearance certainly did not make her seem approachable. She was meant to instill fear, to be menacing, this he could gather. Yet he could not overlook the beauty beyond the leather, the wings, the sharp teeth, and what she was trying to do to his arm. In typical ignorant male fashion, he wondered how someone such as her could be mixed up in...whatever menacing strangeness this all was.

The world seemed to take a breath, time resuming in a rush of color and sound, reminding Alexander that he was in danger and that he ought to be fearful above all else. He wrenched his arm free, the arm completely unharmed. Already pressed against the magazine display shelf, he stepped to the side, keeping his gaze on her while his hands blindly and frantically searched for something to defend himself with.

The Empress of the Underground

When the empress landed in front of the convenience store, the lone window at the front and the glass door shattered. Shelves knocked back like dominoes, their contents creating a mess of foodstuffs on the floor. The shop owner and Alexander were knocked back as well, the store owner stumbling against the freezer doors and Alexander staggering back against the magazine shelf.

"Jesus Christ!" the store owner barked once he was on his feet. "We need to get the fuck out of here before this whole building crashes down on us!" He motioned urgently for Alexander to follow as he abandoned his work and headed towards the door.

He stopped dead in his tracks. It was not the red-hot door frame or the shallow crater on the sidewalk in front of his store that had his attention, though such details certainly contributed to the effect. What rendered him speechless was the woman blocking his way, if one would call her that. His first impression was more circus freak--the metal-framed glass wings seemed a bit overkill for such a costume, and those fake pointed teeth weren't doing her any favors. Fucking cos-players.

"Lady, get out of the way!" he snapped, ignoring her statement. "Can't you see this whole place is falling apart?" He could not fathom that this woman was the cause of the melting door frame or the wreckage to his store, so he didn't. Somehow, the earthquake contributed to those things. The store owner glanced over his shoulder at Alexander and motioned for the young man to follow. "Hurry up, you idiot!"

But Alexander could not move. Like the store owner, the image of this strange creature at the doorway caught him off guard. Somehow, though, he knew that her appearance was not only authentic, but real, and that she had caused all of this. He couldn't explain how he knew; it was a ridiculous thought, impossible! But he did.

He gasped, cried out, and doubled over, instantly in pain. The nagging warmth he had felt throughout his body had suddenly become a nearly unbearable heat, as though someone had cranked up the core temperature of his body like an oven. His vision blurred from the pain as he dropped to his knees as he gasped from the shocking suddenness of it all. He could not explain what was happening to him or why, but somehow he knew one thing with utmost certainty: he had to get away from this woman.

The Empress of the Underground

The empress appearing a block away from Xander and failing to spot him right away made me think that he wasn't supposed to meet her in my next post. So, he didn't :p Sorry if he was supposed to!

The Empress of the Underground

The final tremor was enough to knock Alexander clear off his feet. He landed on the ground hard, scraping his chin and the heel of his hands in his poor attempt to break his fall. He would have felt embarrassed--only children scraped themselves falling like this, right?--if not for the strangeness of it all. This place did not get earthquakes of this degree.

As he returned to his feet, he glanced behind him to see water rising from the ground like a geyser, steam beginning to gather at the base, and people swarming together like ants to sugar with their smartphones at the ready. It was just a broken water pipe. People would record damn near anything these days if it'll earn them a viral video on YouTube. How many poor-resolution shaky videos of a cracked road at Las Vegas would pop up on the Internet in the next hour?

Alexander didn't have a smartphone. He couldn't afford one.

He did not stay long enough to try to figure out what was so special about a broken water main, even with the steam. He kept walking, hoping to not fall on the next tremor, if it ever happened, his vivid memories eating at the back of his mind.

As Alexander walked, he began to suspect that his bus would not show up. Deep cracks marred the roads, some of the older buildings suffered minor damage, and people hustled down the streets in a panic. So he pressed on past the bus stop, dreading the several-mile trek across town to his tiny studio apartment.

Natural disaster did not discriminate. After several blocks, pruned shrubs began to line cleaned sidewalks, more palm trees, and the newer buildings of a nicer neighborhood, but the cracks on the road were just as deep, and the people stumbling out of the surrounding buildings seemed just as startled. As with everything else, Alexander ignored them all. If he stared too long, the gunshots in his mind would get louder, and the pain he remembered from nonexistent wounds would grow more intense.

The devastation was hard to ignore.

Fearing that he would not make the walk home in this condition, Alexander ducked into the nearest business that still had open doors. It was probably a foolish move--why would he risk getting crushed by a collapsing building?--but he needed to get away from the scene outside and catch his breath.

He found himself in a little convenience store, every item imaginable somehow crammed into a few short rows of shelves. The store manager was the only other person in the store, cursing loudly as he struggled to clean up a collapsed freezer full of broken beer bottles, the smell of booze evident all the way across the room.

Alexander ignored that section, instead grabbing a magazine and opening it. The pictures and words blurred on the page; he didn't even know what type of magazine he was looking at. He closed his eyes and could see nothing but desert mountains dotted with sage, the water-parched earth stained with blood, the metallic-sweet scent of death heavy in the air. Alexander opened his eyes and forced himself to keep his breathing even, keep his eyes on the page, and focus on the words. Martha Stewart smiled presumptuously from the page, holding some sort of casserole. Letters on the page spelled out a recipe. Fuck, this wasn't working.

The Empress of the Underground

The first tremor was but a slight rumble, enough to break Alexander out of his trance, but only just. He looked around even as the long-ago sound of gunfire still echoed in his mind. Vaguely, he knew he had to get home, take some pills, try to sleep, wait out this spell in which he could not separate past from present, memory from reality.

Still, he could not shake the white-hot, darting pain of bullets tearing through his vital organs--the doctors had said his survival and complete recovery had been nothing but a miracle--or the mind-numbing agony of his recently broken arm. He must have just imagined that. It had to have been the PTSD.

Alexander began a brisk walk, shoving his hands in his pockets, bowing his head. The bus station wasn't far; he could feel a few quarters warming against his fingertips.

The next tremor nearly shook Alexander off balance--he instinctively reached for a wall to balance himself. He could hear a few screams of surprise, punctuated by the call of car alarms along the street.

Another earthquake? It wasn't uncommon for Vegas to occasionally feel the weak aftershock of an earthquake in California, but to feel something this bold so soon after the initial tremor was strange. Was this the source of an earthquake instead of the aftershock?

The third tremor dislodged a streetlamp. It crashed over the street, glass shattering over concrete. Buildings swayed but did not collapse. People began stumbling from their homes, not wanting to be inside a building that could collapse.

What was going on?

The same warming sensation that had enveloped Alexander during the car accident did so again. He cursed under his breath and pushed himself away from the wall. He began walk at a faster pace, almost a run, in an exceedingly more desperate attempt to get home as quickly as possible.

The Empress of the Underground

The suspense!

So, this tremor... how strong is it? Is it a few-second shake that would make everyone think, "Oh, it's just an aftershock from some earthquake in California. Moving on"? Or is it full-on earthquake that will make everyone go, "Holy crap, what's going on, the world is ending, RUN!!"? Or is it a series of shakes, each one stronger than the last? I don't want to over- or under-react to the tremor.

The Empress of the Underground

That sounds very, very cool!

I suppose I should have worded "smooth skin" better. As far as I know, crackheads like to pick at their skin, creating sores. The pawn shop owner saw no evidence of that on Xander, hence the 'smooth skin' comment. Bah. I fail at description sometimes :p

The Empress of the Underground

Haha!

Most RPers I know either don't have kids or they're in their very early 20s (fresh out of college or still in college...and no kids), so I typically feel quite strange and out of place, like I'm not supposed to be RPing or something. I need to get to know your people, lol.

You work with actors! Now I'm curious as to what you do for a living. What about this actor doesn't quite fit? I can post those pictures I mentioned, but my biggest issue is that the men in these pics are either "too pretty" or they look too much like meatheads. No one wants to draw/photograph a normal-looking dude, lol.

Re the underground: nice! What is inspiring you for that world?