Running From Lions (Evony)

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

If Lucy Serrano were to be found anywhere aside from her own room, the photo lab was adjacent to her secondary habitat. She rarely went there. In fact, she rarely saw anyone using the facility. Those that did were so invested in their own artwork that they didn't notice anyone else walking through. And she didn't exactly stop to watch them. But sometimes - and this wasn't a new revelation - it was a worthy place to sit and dwell in silence.

Things were hectic, and she didn't want to see anyone. It was bad enough that she had her own emotional shit storm going on, but now she had to contest with Rowan's newly developed ability to feel emotions. In simple terms, it was kicking his ass, and he wanted to forget. But distracting the sad boy with her company was difficult. She was always something of a loner, so a hideout was key.

Walking by the photo lab, she realised it was empty. Again. And so she thought; why the hell not?

She slipped into the small room, illuminated by a singular red light. Overhead, developed photographs hung from wires, though in the dim light their images were difficult to comprehend. And more to the point, she didn't really care. The eldest Serrano was looking for a place to catch her breath. And so, in the corner of the room, she sat back against the wall and just... Took a breath.

[Evony Vasiliev]

The void was silent. Sound did not exist in the infinite dimension, it was like a gigantic shimmering vacuum that eliminated anything remotely tied to reality. The only noise that could pierce the shapeless world was the muffled sounds whispering through the various 'windows' that adorned the Reflection World's invisible interior. The brief samples of noise sped past like traffic on a highway, there was the occasional crying child, domestic argument or barking dog but everything else was so minute that it would take several seconds to properly focus on the conversations that existed behind the 'windows'.

On a normal day Evony might have watched the events of people's private lives unfold before her. The saying 'walls have ears' was something the porcelain skinned metahuman was all too famair with and she would have relished with naughty glee at having heard secrets, confessions and drunken ramblings from the unknowing people on 'the other side'. But her curiosity had dried up like a lake in a desert and she simply sprinted across the endless horizon of her twisted dimension.

What had originally been a day devoted to girly fun with Luxanna had unfortunately been cancelled, a fact that the Blue Bird blamed on Oreo, Luxanna's faithful puppy of a boy.

However irksome it was to face the day by herself, Evony did what she did best and sought out her own adventure. The girl needed something to keep her occupied, something to keep her mind away from the pain that freely roamed her soul and tortured her conscious. Every moment of stillness brought about the memories of...

Even thinking of the name troubled her.

So after several minutes of mirror hopping in and out of the Reflection World the girl began to feel the gradual tingle of exhaustion begin to tickle the base of her skull. She wasn't going to risk getting lost in this place, no matter how safe it was.

It wasn't hard to find her exit, a well shaped and sized rectangle that glowed a curious orange. Wherever it led her to should've been in the general Hammel area, or so she desperately hoped. With little more than a feathery grunt the acrobat bounded feet first into the glowing window, feeling the cool kiss of air conditioning touch her ankles as her body crashed back into the real world.

The sudden jolt of light and the sizzling of electricity marked her entry and eventual thump of her body against the cold floor ended the mad sprint, only to be followed by a muffled "ouch". The first few seconds were always a daze, different colours and the occasional dizziness...but this time it was different. Very different. This time it was pitch black. Even when she knew her eyes had adjusted she could make nothing more than the dull hazy black shadows against an inky black background. Where the hell was she?

And before she knew it the Blue bird had scrambled to her feet, tripping over boxes and utensils just to find a wall...and a light switch.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

A vapid void of silence provided little comfort. But little was better than nothing. There, no voice could penetrate her mind and belittle her but her own - and it had done its fair share of that ever since she returned from the retreat. She stared curiously at her arm, the tattooed figures glancing up at her in the faded red light . They felt - or shared - her sentiment. Her mentality. They were exhausted too.

But the comforting silence was short lived, because in the next moment she was privy to incredibly loud crashing, coupled with a faint, muffled voice and literal flaring sparks. The room lost its glow, and was now black.

"Holy, fuck!" The Australian shouted abruptly, not for once thinking her presence was undetected. Or that her voice could be frightening. She scrambled up, her hand on the wall as a type of safety net. At least she knew she was against something; "What the hell was that?"

[Evony Vasiliev]

Although her mind was still buzzing and her legs shook from exhaustion Evony desperately scrabbled across whatever room this was, clawing desperately into the thick blackness to find something to grasp and hold onto. But her fumbling exploration was immediately cut short after the shrill cry that struck her the instance she was on both feet. The curse sent a terrified jolt down her spine and was quickly answered with a horrified and confused scream.

The thief was so taken aback by the new development that she ignored the very familiar qualities of the voice. She just scrambled for safety, whenever it may be.

Evony lurched forward, her eyes wide with nothing to see and her teeth firmly clamped on to her lower lip. The coppery taste of blood engulfed her senses after she realised she had bit her tongue in fright. Was this a morgue? Someone's bedroom?

It took only a few trembling steps to find the wall and when her hands grasped for anything resembling a switch she felt something warm. A shoulder? A breast? Whatever it was it sent the girl recoiling backwards with another shrill yelp. "What the hell?!" Evony squealed, aimlessly stumbling backwards before her heels bumped into a cupboard only several feet away.

Her arms scrambled to grab anything, a weapon or something to defend herself with. What she grabbed felt like brick and she pressed the thing tight against her chest. "WHERE THE HELL AM I?!"

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

All Lucy could hear was hardcore fumbling around. Things getting knocked over, smashing into other things. It wasn't until whoever it was touched her that things got a little more surreal, and as they shifted back, she shifted back herself - with her back flush against the wall.

Then there was that voice.

She physically felt her mood sour, her lip curl up in a type of snarl. Because the universe was absolutely fucking with her at this point.

And she was screaming. For the sake of the Australian's ear drums, she had to put a stop to that.

"Get a fucking grip, you fucking psychopath!" Lucy literally shouted at her. Jesus, she couldn't even believe she was with this miserable liar; "You're in the fucking dark room."

[Evony Vasiliev]

Ending up somewhere with no light source was bad enough but having it be so tiny was even worse. The space felt so narrow, so constricting that Evony could feel her heartbeat shudder with a lingering terror. The girl stood frozen with her back against the wall, the heavy object clenched tight in her skinny little hands. It took a whole lot of self control not to scream again.

But then there was the horrible discovery of who the other person was.

A numb sensation pulsated through the girl's core and her knees almost gave way underneath her. No! Her mind screamed at her. Not her, now now, not like this! Evony felt her mind recede back to the moment she was tossed aside, it was a painful reminder that only made her gnawing distress even worse.

The mere thought forced the tormented bitterness to seep its ugly claws back into what she hoped was now well guarded.

"No...no, not you..." Evony whispered, as if she were pleading for this all to be a hoax. Her voice was papery thin and strained, the taste of heartbreak, anger and fear mingling on the tip of her tongue as she attempted to make sense of this all.

Without thinking, her hands dropped the mystery object and the thief was once more scrambling against the wall for anything to get her out of the dark room. She needed a door knob, an air vent or a window...anything to keep the angry voice away from her.

I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here

She desperately repeated in her mind, clawing at anything that felt like a handle. She wasn't ready to face another round with this girl, not at all.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

The silence came and went with her voice, it seemed. She'd temporarily stopped the crazy from spilling out of the blue haired liar's mouth. But that was short lived. Her nervous, hushed words fumbled through the air, replaces moments later by her literal fumbling around the room again. Lucy, smart as she was, kept herself pressed against the wall. She hadn't moved. She knew where she was sitting in relation to the door. And given the direction she was wandering around in, a light or an exit was horrendously out of reach.

"Stop!" She called again. All the insistent scrambling was giving her a headache. "Just... Stop for a fucking second, you idiot."

With a lost roll of her eyes, she unfurled her arms. "Besides, you're going the wrong way." She muttered, finally leaving the sanctity of the wall she'd been clinging to. Lucy took the necessary, tentative steps towards where she knew the door was. She pressed her hand to the handle; "At least this time you know when to lea-"

And... Locked.

"...You gotta be fucking kidding me." She seethed, turning on a heel and kicking the nearby contents on the floor. The contents that Evony had knocked over in her manic, idiotic scuffle.

[Evony Vasiliev]

Panic. Yes, that was a good word for what was slowly engulfing Evony's mind. This entire situation felt like she was trapped in a cage with some bloodthirsty predator ready to tear her to pieces at any given second. The Blue Bird's heart maniacally slammed against her chest, the blood vigorously pumping into her body as her nails scraped against the cold walls. She felt things, but nothing that would provide her with an exit. Anything that could be pulled, pushed, pressed or yanked was done so but such things provided little relief and the girl was left with throbbing hands and heavy breaths.

But then the other girl spoke, well shouted, and Evony felt herself flinch.

The paranoid thief froze instantly, clenching her jaw tight as the sickly sweet voice of the Australian slashed through the air. This was all so wrong, so unbelievable that Evony actually had to reconsider whether this was just another hallucination. But this was real. She could feel other's girl's annoyance, it was too palpable to avoid.

Simply hearing the other girl's voice sent bristles of longing and discomfort through Evy's veins, the tingle of some stupid emotion crying out under the weight of her suffocation. But she stood still and listened to the sounds of the other girl's attempts at exiting the room.

There was a click and then nothing. No light, no fresh air...nothing.

Evony almost gagged at the realisation. Her legs have way and she crumpled onto the hard concrete floor, hands entwined around the once blue hair and bloodied teeth firmly clamped on her lip. Screaming would only make it worse and the angry Australian would definitely not appreciate that. But then again...why should she care what the Australian thought?

"El kell mennem innen..." Evony groaned, her voice wavering as her hands raked against the floor, hoping to avoid touching anything or anyone that might hurt her. This could not get any worse. Simply being in her was like a personal hell, one where everything good had gone sour and deserted her. "This can't be happening." The girl whispered, almost dumbfounded with the entirety of the situation.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

"Don't speak in that shit to me." Lucy retorted at the use of a foreign language; a little more angrily than she expected. People and their fucking languages. English was the standard. Why the hell couldn't they just use it?

Harbouring resentment towards languages? It'd likely have a lot to do with a certain French boy and his inability to speak clearly those months ago.

"It's not like we're actually stuck in here." She reasoned, folding her arms and glancing in the direction she thought the voice was coming from. "Go jump in a mirror."

[Evony Vasiliev]

Ignoring the other girl's unecessary outburst, Evy kept her eyes closed and her body firmly curled against what she thought was a cupboard. The floor was cold and the moody hum of the air vents above her whispered its melancholic ballad. She didn't know what she preferred; the depressing groan of the air vents or the seething Australian's vitriol.

Had the tattooed metahuman always been this...forthcoming? The thought lasted a few seconds before the thief felt her breathing catch up in her throat. Her escape was priority, not the other girl.

"No! You don't get it! I can't!" She snapped back, breathless and quivering. Evony didn't exactly want to explain herself to this person but her tongue kept moving, maybe to keep her mind off the imminent dizzy spell. "I need...I need light." She whispered, leaning her head back in defeat.

She kicked her legs out in frustration, clamouring up against the wall and reaching to where the door apparently was. Years of breaking into people's houses should've taught her something.

click, click, click, click, click, click

The door wouldn't budge, even after she slammed her hand against it several times. There would definitely be bruises if she ever escaped this place.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

"No I don't bloody well get it, do I?" Lucy shouted at her, frustrating to all hell that this girl would dare snap at her. Who did she think she was? Did she forget everything she'd done wrong? Did she forget that the place they were in was all her fault? Of course she did.

She didn't care.

Light. She needed light; "Well you broke the fucking light."

But she still wouldn't stop. It was like locking a cat in a cage with this one. Throwing caution to the wind, Lucy angrily stepped out towards. She threw her hand forward, past her former counterpart's shoulder and slammed her palm against the door, uncaring in that moment that it had been the closest they'd been in months. "I said stop!" She demanded, the faint sliver of light from around the door offering Evony at least some kind of dimension.

[Evony Vasiliev]

"Of course you haven't, you never did!" Evony shouted back, her voice reaching an octave a bit too loud for her own liking. But her anger was justified, or so it seemed to be. The terror only seemed to make the potent rage even worse. Gone was the coy smile she once held so dear, now it was just the raw fear littered with the painful memories of their last moment together.

The Blue Bird's frantic attempts of escaping the shadowy cage seemed lost on the Australian, something which shouldn't of surprised her. The other girl just threw more of her stupid insolence without doing much else.

Although, the revelation that she broke the only light source made it even worse.

The porcelain skinned thief would've continued her futile barrage against the locked door if it weren't for the woosh of air by her face and the loud crack of flesh against metal. The sound made her jump and the painful closeness forced her to take a step back into the corner. Her heart thumped even louder but her mind refused any weakness, not when she needed to get out.

"No! I won't, not until I'm as far away from this place as I can be!" Evony shot back, feeling her blood pump frantically throughout her veins. The Australian had no right to boss her around, not anymore anyways. She was barking orders at something she tossed aside and the mere suggestion only made Evony claw at the handle even harder. But it wasn't out of spite, as much as she wanted it to be, it was out of desperation to get away from the pain and the fear and everything else that hurt.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

It stung like a slap to the face, when Evony spoke. That Lucy didn't understand? What was that supposed to mean? "Not soon enough." She growled under her breath. She understood now; that everything had been compressed bullshit so the raging kleptomaniac could have someone to keep her company at night. She wasn't an idiot. Not anymore.

Lucy glanced towards the corner she'd backed herself onto. The one thing between her and the rest of the room was now the Australian. She didn't move her arm. Or her body. She was suspended.

"Oh, now you're ready to bail without a prompt? Where was that competence two months ago." Lucy shot out, in a quieter tone than her previous yelling. Pressing her hand briefly - dangerously - to Evony's shoulder, Lucy forcibly shoved her enough to get her hand off the handle. She'd rather try it for herself. "It's me who should be clawing her way outta this room. You're not locked up with a fucking pathological liar."

Of course, it didn't work. Why would it? She knew that already; "You didn't happen to steal some unsuspecting person's phone today, did you? A stolen light's better than nothing."

[Evony Vasiliev]

Lucy's quieter comment did not go ignored by the skinny swindler, although it did take an immeasurable amount of self control not to snap back at the girl. The words hurt, like a punch to the gut and the Blue Bird could do nothing more but grind her teeth and focus on the task at hand. It shouldn't matter what the Australian said, she made it very clear that nothing that happened mattered to her so Evony clung onto that, hoping it would stifle the blow.

Although her legs shook and she was gradually feeling more and more lightheaded Evony could not allow the tattooed metahuman to continue her verbal diarrhoea. This time she had to defend herself.

"I never bailed on you! You...you tossed me out like some fucking animal!" The girl seethed, feeling the searing pain of rejection lace its dirty tentacles all around her body. She still couldn't get over that, the shame of being discarded was made even worse by the fact that it was Lucy committing the act. The girl's battered hands shuddered with anger, at herself, Lucy and the situation she had found herself in. Was there any hope of returning to what once was?

Having Lucy encroach on her personal space once more set alarms screaming into Evony's mind. She wanted to scream, cry and flail around until she was set free but she held herself together. Well, as best she could with the gnawing suffocation.

But the Australian continued to bully and slander her, seemingly forgetting the genuine moments that Evony had once (and still does) held so dear. "I am not a liar." She quaked, putting as much force into her voice as necessary. How dare Lucy accuse her of such things when she too was FAR from perfect. Simply mentioning her 'thievery' only served to fuel the Blue Bird's irritation.

"No, no, no, no, no! You do not get to speak to me like that!" Evony flared, particularly annoyed that Lucy would even mention something the acrobat considered a real issue. She was trying to get better but having her honour questioned so flippantly made it all the more challenging. "Just shut up! I can't deal with this..." Evony spat, feeling her voice weaken when her lungs gave out. Breathing was becoming difficult.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

"You deserved it." Lucy said with strength. There was no way she was backing down, not when she was clearly int he right about everything that had transpired. There was no way Evony could claw her way into the good graces of the Australian again. Once bitten...

When she retorted somewhat weakly that she wasn't a liar, Lucy stifled the laugh that threatened to engorge the moment whole. "That's a lie." She pointed out. Because it was. And she was sure of that.

Letting go of the door handle, Lucy expertly turned to face Evony. Or rather, face as much of the girl as she could see in the diminished, near non existent light. She was willing to face this head on, despite how difficult it was to see. Flippant remarks were never her style. "You shut up." She shot back. "You did this. You did. So you are going to shut your mouth for a change. Don't pretend for a second that you're hurting. You did this to me."