3:02 A.M.
Aquarius Apartments,Bazar Quarter, Atlantis
Ophelia nodded to Karen, propping herself up to sit on the bathroom countertop. She leaned her back against the mirror and watched as Karen left. Funny, she probably could have figured out Karen had been talking to someone else the whole time, if she had ever at all suspected that. For some reason she’d assumed Karen had been actually interested in her. It was now apparent she was rather wrong. This whole thing had been an excuse to play detective or spy or whatever the fuck.
Ophelia wasn’t a stranger to having ulterior motives during a romantic encounter. In fact, that was probably the majority of her romantic encounters. Possibly that was her only type of romantic encounter. But she’d never been the one being used before. Or at least not the only on being used. It hurt. Maybe a little more than she’d like to admit. Was this how it felt on the other side? She had legitimately liked Karen; she was cute, and sweet, and smart.
She turned around to look at herself in the bathroom mirror, her face illuminated for split seconds at a time in the strobing lights. ”You reap what you sow, you beautiful bitch.” She said to herself. She, of course, was the beautiful bitch.
The other girl retched behind her, the sound of stomach contents hitting toilet water followed. How poetic.
”God, could you keep it down, I’m trying to have a dramatic internal monologue,” Ophelia said, throwing a glass at the door and watching it shatter.
Ophelia stared at the crack between the tile and the wood, watching the light hit the glass shards. It took her a moment to even wonder what had caused the sound. God, she was drunker than she thought. She summoned a bottle of gin, and another two glasses, pouring a healthy serving into each of them. She set the bottle down on the counter, her feet back on the floor, and the second glass into the hand of the still-retching girl.
She walked over to the bathroom door, her feet crunching on broken glass, her step more wobbly then she’d ever admit. Cracking the door barely an inch, she peaked out the door to the chaos beyond. People were yelling and beating eachother. Men in special forces uniforms were running around, some guy in a super suit was there. Looks like the real party had finally started. She closed the door, she’d seen it all before. In her line of work, the chaos outside was just another tuesday. The thing really tearing her up was the deal with Karen.
She’d never actually liked someone before. For something other than money, at least.
”Cheers.” She said to the girl, raising her glass and downing the liquid inside.
Then she vanished. She re-appeared near the wall in the main room. Then vanished again. Re-appearing this time right outside the door to the apartment. She repeated her vanishing act a few more times in the hall, the elevator, the lobby, till she was out on the street. A few other party-goers had already made it down, and she could hear panic from the doors behind her. She wasn’t planning on sticking around to see it though, and she started walking.
Walk was a strong word. Teeter would be a more accurate description of her method of movement. Destination didn’t even occur to her at this point. It was mostly just away.
From there, things started to get blurry.
8:38 A.M.
Asterion Dorms, Poseidonis University, Atlantis
Walking back to the university would have been a pain, luckily, Ophelia was a pretty girl and there were a lot of resources that came with that. Like strangers letting you into their cars. Of course, strangers letting you into their cars is a very risky endeavour, luckily, Ophelia was a dangerous girl. And a grumpy one. Nursing a hangover two days in the making. It was surprisingly easy, considering the state she was in, to hold a man at gunpoint and kick him out of his car. Driving back was the hard part. Somehow, she’d survived, although she couldn’t say the same for the car, or many road fixtures.
Ophelia stumbled back into her dorm room and headed straight to the fridge. She grabbed the carton of orange juice, her bottle of champagne, several different mystery tupperware and a container of hummus and retreated into her room, slamming the door. In less then a minute she had nested herself into her bed, poured herself a mimosa, and began eating old pasta and strange leftover casserole with her fingers. If anyone had seen her in that moment, she may have looked like she’d been there an eternity.
Karen had been jared from her morning ritual by the sound of a slamming door, her heart leaping at the implication of it. Hannah would never slam the door like that; she was a very timid and polite girl. No, the only one here that would display such inconsiderate early morning behavior was Ophelia, whom she hadn’t seen since the party.
She had certainly looked for her afterwards, of course, despite her injuries. She hadn’t been in the bathroom where the other girl was, and none of the witnesses she had spoken to had seen her fleeing the raid. When Karen realized that Ophelia had also taken some of the offered drugs earlier, her worry had tripled—the arcane stimulent they were handing out to surfacers, as it turned out, had resulted in several victims being so overwhelmed by the rush of unnatural energy in their bodies that they literally exploded.
It was quite gruesome.
The thought that her very own roommate might have suffered such a horrible fate had made Karen utterly sick to her stomach, made worse by the fact that she couldn’t seem to find her, no matter what. She wasn’t answering her cellphone, and nobody else at school had apparently seen her.
Up until she heard the door slam, she wasn’t even sure if she would feel up to confronting Mal today about what happened during the raid. She had felt so guilty for bringing Ophelia there…hopefully she was alright.
Leaving her own room, Karen wasted little time in making her way to Ophelia’s room and gently knocking on the door. ”Ophelia? That’s you, right? ...Where have you been? Hannah and I were really worried!”
Ophelia paused in the middle of scooping hummus into her mouth with her ring finger. Oh, so now she cared. She couldn’t help but be a little spiteful of Karen after her would-be lover so callously used her and ripped her heart out, only to toss her aside like last seasons ready-to-wear. Maybe she was being a little dramatic, but she’d never been dumped before. Did last night count as a dumping? Was it last night? She looked at her bedside clock.
It was not last night.
Where had she been?
”I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.” Ophelia spat back, licking the hummus off her fingers.
Karen blinked on the other side of the door, finding her sharp response a bit odd. Normally, Ophelia was very nice to her...but then, it was understandable if she was angry at having been left in the bathroom without much of an explanation.
”Listen, I’m really, really sorry for running off like that, okay?” said Karen, leaning slightly against the door. ”People’s lives were in danger, though, I had to do something!”
Ophelia rolled her eyes. People’s lives? What about her emotions. People’s lives were in danger every day. What’s news? She sighed and clawed her way out of bed, sending the pasta flying onto the floor after being catapulted off the blankets. She opened her bedroom door to look at Karen.
She was in quite a state; the curls in her long dark hair were mostly just knots, her face still had a few remains of makeup around her eyes, and her lips had a red-ish tint. At some point during her misadventures she must have changed into a loose silk slip dress that’s strap kept falling off her shoulder. The bags around her eyes felt more like full luggage at this point. Everything hurt.
”I’m not upset that you left me in the bathroom. I’m upset because the entire time you were talking to whoever the fuck over some secret shitty bluetooth headset and I had thou- Yanno what? Honestly, forget it.” Ophelia said, crossing her arms and looking away.
Karen’s shoulders sank, another mistake on her part for this motion elicited a series of painful pops and cracks. One thing that both she and Ophelia had in common was that they were both not at their best right now. Karen’s left wrist was in a brace at the moment, while the right side of her face now sported a discolored bruise from where she had been punched. Her back also popped and cracked with just about every motion she dared to take.
”...You’re right. I fucked up there—I should have been honest with you from the start,” said Karen, rubbing her uninjured arm idly. ”I somehow thought I could manage to do both; have a fun night out with you, and protect the other students. Naive, I know…”
Shaking her head, she released a long sigh. ”I didn’t mean to lead you on, though, really. I should have been more considerate of your feelings.”
Ophelia paused, seeing how beat up Karen actually looked took her out of her own self-involved world for a moment. She hadn’t even realized that Karen was taking a risk by going out there like that. Karen wasn’t like the people Ophelia was used to being around. No one she knew would risk getting beat up like that for strangers. It confused her.
Of course she knew there were those self-righteous supers out there always talking about saving the innocent and stopping evil-doers. But that wasn’t Karen either.
Karen actually… cared?
”Hey, look, it’s really no big deal. You do- Do yo- Um… Are you okay? You look a little rough. Do you wanna sit down? I can make you a mimosa.” She offered, opening her door a little more. She gestured over to the seating area she’d set up in her room, two white plush velvet armchairs and a round glass coffee table in the corner of the room.
Karen pressed her tongue to the inside of her cheek where her bruise was, wincing slightly at the stinging pain that radiated outwards. ”I’ll live…but yeah, I wouldn’t mind having something for breakfast. What about you, though? You look pretty rough too, are you sure you’re okay?”
Ophelia looked like she had a few rough nights under her belt by this point. Gone was the glamorous party girl from two days ago, now replaced with somebody who had “I’m so done” written all over her face.
Ophelia offered a coy smile, and a little twinkle came back to her eyes. ”I’ll try not to take offence to that. Come, sit. There’s pasta on my floor but ignore that.” She said with a tiny chuckle.
Ophelia grabbed another glass and poured a second mimosa for Karen. She cleaned up a tiny bit, picking up the containers of food off her bed and putting them on her table. She walked over to the chairs with a mimosa for both of them, setting them on the table as well.
”I think I stole Hannah’s hummus.”
Karen glanced down at the hummus and snickered. She doubted Hannah would actually care—she didn’t seem to be the type to get upset about something like that, given Ophelia’s current state.
Taking her seat at the table, she stared at the mimosa for only a moment before taking a sip from it. She wasn’t really one to drink, especially this early, but if it made Ophelia feel better about her shitty weekend, then she would do it. Besides, if there was one kind of alcoholic beverage she liked, it was a fruity one.
”How’s your head, by the way? Do you need me to whip you up something for a hangover after breakfast?” asked Karen.
Ophelia pulled her knees up to her chest, sitting like an egg in her chair.
”I’d already forgotten I had a head still,” Ophelia said. ”Breakfast sounds wonderful. Can I ask you a question?
Karen took another light sip of her drink, smiling over at the other girl. ”Sure! I guess you probably have a lot of them after the other night, huh?”
Ophelia paused, then pursed her lips, looking at the other girl. She really just wanted to know if Karen had any interest in her at all, after all that had happened. Karen did say she had ‘led her on’ though, which didn’t make it sound like Karen did have feelings after all. Karen had only gone out with her to investigate those drugs, after all. Had it all been so one-sided that Ophelia couldn’t even see the truth? She was so accustomed to being able to read and play people’s emotions like sheet music but it was so different with Karen. She felt foolish.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a perfume bottle falling and shattering on the other side of the room. The air suddenly grew rank with the scent of Chanel N* 5. Ophelia looked shocked. She’d known for a fact she didn’t call that out, and yet it seemingly shot out of her pocket dimension out of it’s own free will. She glanced at Karen, hoping the other girl would assume it’d fallen from a shelf or something.
Karen’s head had immediately jerked in the direction of the perfume bottle when it shattered. Partially standing from the table, her confused eyes surveyed the room. Where had that fallen from? The shelf? But it was quite a distance away from where it had landed… “What…?”
“You know, I am starving. Can you make some eggs? I’ll clean my room later, but if I have to wait another second before I get some food in me I’ll probably die.” Ophelia said dramatically, jumping out of her chair and rushing towards the door. ”I feel myself getting dizzy. Holy shit.”
Refocusing her attention on Ophelia, Karen pushed the perfume bottle to the back of her mind. ”Oh, sure! I can do that. How do you like your eggs?”
If there was one thing Karen could take pride in, it was that she was actually a pretty damn good cook. Usually when she stayed with others, she would offer to fix meals for them as a form of gratitude.
”Depends if we have toast or not.”
”Last I looked, yeah—I bought some last week,” she said, making her way out of the room.
Ophelia followed her out, closing the door behind her. Out of sight out of mind. ”Then sunny side up. I like to mash them up after and use them as spread on some buttered toast.” She said, taking Karen’s arm gently and walking them to the kitchen.
Karen smiled at her and nodded. The kitchen wasn’t looking so hot—just what had Ophelia done to it? If she had to hazard a guess, the answer would be “drunkenly looking for hummus”. Oh well, it wasn’t a big deal. She could always clean it up later.
”Sunny it is! Honestly, that’s probably the best for a hangover, short of just eating them raw,” said Karen. Clearing away any obstacles barring her from the stove, Karen placed a skillet on one of the eyes and turned the dial to ignite the flame. From the refridgerator she took four eggs, setting them to the side.
She then poured butter and bacon fat down onto it, smiling with satisfaction as it began to sizzle—that meant the pan was hot enough to add the eggs. Cracking the eggs one by one, she carefully spaced them apart so that they wouldn’t accidentally merge together. Taking a small brush from the drawer, she then lightly basted the still cooking eggs with some additional butter before covering them with a glass lid.
”...Right, shouldn’t be long,” she said, turning back to Ophelia.
Ophelia closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose. ”It already smells amazing.”
Aquarius Apartments,Bazar Quarter, Atlantis
Ophelia nodded to Karen, propping herself up to sit on the bathroom countertop. She leaned her back against the mirror and watched as Karen left. Funny, she probably could have figured out Karen had been talking to someone else the whole time, if she had ever at all suspected that. For some reason she’d assumed Karen had been actually interested in her. It was now apparent she was rather wrong. This whole thing had been an excuse to play detective or spy or whatever the fuck.
Ophelia wasn’t a stranger to having ulterior motives during a romantic encounter. In fact, that was probably the majority of her romantic encounters. Possibly that was her only type of romantic encounter. But she’d never been the one being used before. Or at least not the only on being used. It hurt. Maybe a little more than she’d like to admit. Was this how it felt on the other side? She had legitimately liked Karen; she was cute, and sweet, and smart.
She turned around to look at herself in the bathroom mirror, her face illuminated for split seconds at a time in the strobing lights. ”You reap what you sow, you beautiful bitch.” She said to herself. She, of course, was the beautiful bitch.
The other girl retched behind her, the sound of stomach contents hitting toilet water followed. How poetic.
”God, could you keep it down, I’m trying to have a dramatic internal monologue,” Ophelia said, throwing a glass at the door and watching it shatter.
Ophelia stared at the crack between the tile and the wood, watching the light hit the glass shards. It took her a moment to even wonder what had caused the sound. God, she was drunker than she thought. She summoned a bottle of gin, and another two glasses, pouring a healthy serving into each of them. She set the bottle down on the counter, her feet back on the floor, and the second glass into the hand of the still-retching girl.
She walked over to the bathroom door, her feet crunching on broken glass, her step more wobbly then she’d ever admit. Cracking the door barely an inch, she peaked out the door to the chaos beyond. People were yelling and beating eachother. Men in special forces uniforms were running around, some guy in a super suit was there. Looks like the real party had finally started. She closed the door, she’d seen it all before. In her line of work, the chaos outside was just another tuesday. The thing really tearing her up was the deal with Karen.
She’d never actually liked someone before. For something other than money, at least.
”Cheers.” She said to the girl, raising her glass and downing the liquid inside.
Then she vanished. She re-appeared near the wall in the main room. Then vanished again. Re-appearing this time right outside the door to the apartment. She repeated her vanishing act a few more times in the hall, the elevator, the lobby, till she was out on the street. A few other party-goers had already made it down, and she could hear panic from the doors behind her. She wasn’t planning on sticking around to see it though, and she started walking.
Walk was a strong word. Teeter would be a more accurate description of her method of movement. Destination didn’t even occur to her at this point. It was mostly just away.
From there, things started to get blurry.
8:38 A.M.
Asterion Dorms, Poseidonis University, Atlantis
Walking back to the university would have been a pain, luckily, Ophelia was a pretty girl and there were a lot of resources that came with that. Like strangers letting you into their cars. Of course, strangers letting you into their cars is a very risky endeavour, luckily, Ophelia was a dangerous girl. And a grumpy one. Nursing a hangover two days in the making. It was surprisingly easy, considering the state she was in, to hold a man at gunpoint and kick him out of his car. Driving back was the hard part. Somehow, she’d survived, although she couldn’t say the same for the car, or many road fixtures.
Ophelia stumbled back into her dorm room and headed straight to the fridge. She grabbed the carton of orange juice, her bottle of champagne, several different mystery tupperware and a container of hummus and retreated into her room, slamming the door. In less then a minute she had nested herself into her bed, poured herself a mimosa, and began eating old pasta and strange leftover casserole with her fingers. If anyone had seen her in that moment, she may have looked like she’d been there an eternity.
Karen had been jared from her morning ritual by the sound of a slamming door, her heart leaping at the implication of it. Hannah would never slam the door like that; she was a very timid and polite girl. No, the only one here that would display such inconsiderate early morning behavior was Ophelia, whom she hadn’t seen since the party.
She had certainly looked for her afterwards, of course, despite her injuries. She hadn’t been in the bathroom where the other girl was, and none of the witnesses she had spoken to had seen her fleeing the raid. When Karen realized that Ophelia had also taken some of the offered drugs earlier, her worry had tripled—the arcane stimulent they were handing out to surfacers, as it turned out, had resulted in several victims being so overwhelmed by the rush of unnatural energy in their bodies that they literally exploded.
It was quite gruesome.
The thought that her very own roommate might have suffered such a horrible fate had made Karen utterly sick to her stomach, made worse by the fact that she couldn’t seem to find her, no matter what. She wasn’t answering her cellphone, and nobody else at school had apparently seen her.
Up until she heard the door slam, she wasn’t even sure if she would feel up to confronting Mal today about what happened during the raid. She had felt so guilty for bringing Ophelia there…hopefully she was alright.
Leaving her own room, Karen wasted little time in making her way to Ophelia’s room and gently knocking on the door. ”Ophelia? That’s you, right? ...Where have you been? Hannah and I were really worried!”
Ophelia paused in the middle of scooping hummus into her mouth with her ring finger. Oh, so now she cared. She couldn’t help but be a little spiteful of Karen after her would-be lover so callously used her and ripped her heart out, only to toss her aside like last seasons ready-to-wear. Maybe she was being a little dramatic, but she’d never been dumped before. Did last night count as a dumping? Was it last night? She looked at her bedside clock.
It was not last night.
Where had she been?
”I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.” Ophelia spat back, licking the hummus off her fingers.
Karen blinked on the other side of the door, finding her sharp response a bit odd. Normally, Ophelia was very nice to her...but then, it was understandable if she was angry at having been left in the bathroom without much of an explanation.
”Listen, I’m really, really sorry for running off like that, okay?” said Karen, leaning slightly against the door. ”People’s lives were in danger, though, I had to do something!”
Ophelia rolled her eyes. People’s lives? What about her emotions. People’s lives were in danger every day. What’s news? She sighed and clawed her way out of bed, sending the pasta flying onto the floor after being catapulted off the blankets. She opened her bedroom door to look at Karen.
She was in quite a state; the curls in her long dark hair were mostly just knots, her face still had a few remains of makeup around her eyes, and her lips had a red-ish tint. At some point during her misadventures she must have changed into a loose silk slip dress that’s strap kept falling off her shoulder. The bags around her eyes felt more like full luggage at this point. Everything hurt.
”I’m not upset that you left me in the bathroom. I’m upset because the entire time you were talking to whoever the fuck over some secret shitty bluetooth headset and I had thou- Yanno what? Honestly, forget it.” Ophelia said, crossing her arms and looking away.
Karen’s shoulders sank, another mistake on her part for this motion elicited a series of painful pops and cracks. One thing that both she and Ophelia had in common was that they were both not at their best right now. Karen’s left wrist was in a brace at the moment, while the right side of her face now sported a discolored bruise from where she had been punched. Her back also popped and cracked with just about every motion she dared to take.
”...You’re right. I fucked up there—I should have been honest with you from the start,” said Karen, rubbing her uninjured arm idly. ”I somehow thought I could manage to do both; have a fun night out with you, and protect the other students. Naive, I know…”
Shaking her head, she released a long sigh. ”I didn’t mean to lead you on, though, really. I should have been more considerate of your feelings.”
Ophelia paused, seeing how beat up Karen actually looked took her out of her own self-involved world for a moment. She hadn’t even realized that Karen was taking a risk by going out there like that. Karen wasn’t like the people Ophelia was used to being around. No one she knew would risk getting beat up like that for strangers. It confused her.
Of course she knew there were those self-righteous supers out there always talking about saving the innocent and stopping evil-doers. But that wasn’t Karen either.
Karen actually… cared?
”Hey, look, it’s really no big deal. You do- Do yo- Um… Are you okay? You look a little rough. Do you wanna sit down? I can make you a mimosa.” She offered, opening her door a little more. She gestured over to the seating area she’d set up in her room, two white plush velvet armchairs and a round glass coffee table in the corner of the room.
Karen pressed her tongue to the inside of her cheek where her bruise was, wincing slightly at the stinging pain that radiated outwards. ”I’ll live…but yeah, I wouldn’t mind having something for breakfast. What about you, though? You look pretty rough too, are you sure you’re okay?”
Ophelia looked like she had a few rough nights under her belt by this point. Gone was the glamorous party girl from two days ago, now replaced with somebody who had “I’m so done” written all over her face.
Ophelia offered a coy smile, and a little twinkle came back to her eyes. ”I’ll try not to take offence to that. Come, sit. There’s pasta on my floor but ignore that.” She said with a tiny chuckle.
Ophelia grabbed another glass and poured a second mimosa for Karen. She cleaned up a tiny bit, picking up the containers of food off her bed and putting them on her table. She walked over to the chairs with a mimosa for both of them, setting them on the table as well.
”I think I stole Hannah’s hummus.”
Karen glanced down at the hummus and snickered. She doubted Hannah would actually care—she didn’t seem to be the type to get upset about something like that, given Ophelia’s current state.
Taking her seat at the table, she stared at the mimosa for only a moment before taking a sip from it. She wasn’t really one to drink, especially this early, but if it made Ophelia feel better about her shitty weekend, then she would do it. Besides, if there was one kind of alcoholic beverage she liked, it was a fruity one.
”How’s your head, by the way? Do you need me to whip you up something for a hangover after breakfast?” asked Karen.
Ophelia pulled her knees up to her chest, sitting like an egg in her chair.
”I’d already forgotten I had a head still,” Ophelia said. ”Breakfast sounds wonderful. Can I ask you a question?
Karen took another light sip of her drink, smiling over at the other girl. ”Sure! I guess you probably have a lot of them after the other night, huh?”
Ophelia paused, then pursed her lips, looking at the other girl. She really just wanted to know if Karen had any interest in her at all, after all that had happened. Karen did say she had ‘led her on’ though, which didn’t make it sound like Karen did have feelings after all. Karen had only gone out with her to investigate those drugs, after all. Had it all been so one-sided that Ophelia couldn’t even see the truth? She was so accustomed to being able to read and play people’s emotions like sheet music but it was so different with Karen. She felt foolish.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a perfume bottle falling and shattering on the other side of the room. The air suddenly grew rank with the scent of Chanel N* 5. Ophelia looked shocked. She’d known for a fact she didn’t call that out, and yet it seemingly shot out of her pocket dimension out of it’s own free will. She glanced at Karen, hoping the other girl would assume it’d fallen from a shelf or something.
Karen’s head had immediately jerked in the direction of the perfume bottle when it shattered. Partially standing from the table, her confused eyes surveyed the room. Where had that fallen from? The shelf? But it was quite a distance away from where it had landed… “What…?”
“You know, I am starving. Can you make some eggs? I’ll clean my room later, but if I have to wait another second before I get some food in me I’ll probably die.” Ophelia said dramatically, jumping out of her chair and rushing towards the door. ”I feel myself getting dizzy. Holy shit.”
Refocusing her attention on Ophelia, Karen pushed the perfume bottle to the back of her mind. ”Oh, sure! I can do that. How do you like your eggs?”
If there was one thing Karen could take pride in, it was that she was actually a pretty damn good cook. Usually when she stayed with others, she would offer to fix meals for them as a form of gratitude.
”Depends if we have toast or not.”
”Last I looked, yeah—I bought some last week,” she said, making her way out of the room.
Ophelia followed her out, closing the door behind her. Out of sight out of mind. ”Then sunny side up. I like to mash them up after and use them as spread on some buttered toast.” She said, taking Karen’s arm gently and walking them to the kitchen.
Karen smiled at her and nodded. The kitchen wasn’t looking so hot—just what had Ophelia done to it? If she had to hazard a guess, the answer would be “drunkenly looking for hummus”. Oh well, it wasn’t a big deal. She could always clean it up later.
”Sunny it is! Honestly, that’s probably the best for a hangover, short of just eating them raw,” said Karen. Clearing away any obstacles barring her from the stove, Karen placed a skillet on one of the eyes and turned the dial to ignite the flame. From the refridgerator she took four eggs, setting them to the side.
She then poured butter and bacon fat down onto it, smiling with satisfaction as it began to sizzle—that meant the pan was hot enough to add the eggs. Cracking the eggs one by one, she carefully spaced them apart so that they wouldn’t accidentally merge together. Taking a small brush from the drawer, she then lightly basted the still cooking eggs with some additional butter before covering them with a glass lid.
”...Right, shouldn’t be long,” she said, turning back to Ophelia.
Ophelia closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose. ”It already smells amazing.”
