A single tear ran down Angela's cheek as she switched off her laptop and stepped off the bus. Her amber brown eyes looked to the faded blue sky that seemed to match the colour of her broken soul. Her first serious boyfriend had left her, and in an email. He shattered the relationship like a dry twig in the dying autumn forest, and simply left her to her misery. There was no warning, no anger, no reason, and certainly no remorse. Just a simple "I think it would be best to end this here". With those few words he had taken the last two years of Angela's life; and Angela herself, and left them both at the curb to rot with yesterday's garbage.
Her feet hit the curb just as the rain began. The entire city turned to ashen shades of black and gray as the rain touched its every facet. The skyline turned to so many dead embers. Clothed in her normal black coat, she felt like only a shadow in a world devoid of light. She glided like the specter of death itself towards her apartment, her niche in this giant cave full of vermin. Once she arrived on the fifth floor, she wondered once again why she even went on. Her lightest day and darkest hour were nothing more than shades of gray. This monotony, this drudgery, was this what life was meant to be? Same routine, day in and day out. Only now that Chris was gone, the daily grind held no meaning. Her family estranged, except for her sister, Janice. But she had gone missing three years ago, disappeared without a trace. Janice was the only one who even tried to understand Angela except Chris, but now even he had let her down.
Angela turned the key in the lock, and entered her home. She needed to veg out, and keep her mind off recent events long enough to fall asleep and escape so-called reality for a while, so she flipped on the computer. The Internet provided her with the escape she needed, more real than drugs, and more permanent and than alcohol. She glanced at the headlines, and her mind jumped when she read the name Morpheus. A notion to find this man seized her mind. Some intuitive power told her this man may hold the answers. It was unexplainable, which is why Angela trusted it. All her life, there had been a nagging doubt. Did perception really equal reality? Why did wounds never hurt until you looked at them? Angela was almost sure that it was because the wound didn't become real until your mind made it so. She wished in vain for the ability to look away from her wounded heart forever.
* two years later...*
Angela, now 22 and considerably stronger, smarter, and richer, was still no closer to finding Neo and Morpheus than she was on the rainy June night when Chris had left her. Nobody called her Angela anymore, because nobody she knew now knew Angela was even her name. In her new trade, anonymity was most desirable.
Soon after Chris left, she met a man who called himself Ice, and he had supplied her with a new name; Shadow. Six letters that meant nothing more than identification to her, or so she thought. Ice had helped make her one of the greatest mercenaries alive, or so she let him believe. Shadow knew the whole damn world was a hoax, a cruel joke, and a fallacy. She owed this realization to a moment of darkest anguish induced by her ex. This knowledge allowed her to see the world as it truly was. She could remake the laws of physics and any others for that matter, as she saw fit. Stopping bullets, freezing time, nullifying barriers of any kind were all standard tricks. Ice had no idea what she was truly capable of, and Shadow had no intention of telling him.
However, for all her success, she could not find Neo, or get Chris off her mind. She thought herself pathetic for this senseless attachment to someone who had nearly destroyed her spirit, if such a thing existed. It must, for deep within her, she still loved him. A splinter in her mind, but not the only one. It was like this insane drive to find Neo, it simply would not let itself be forgotten.
Her feet hit the curb just as the rain began. The entire city turned to ashen shades of black and gray as the rain touched its every facet. The skyline turned to so many dead embers. Clothed in her normal black coat, she felt like only a shadow in a world devoid of light. She glided like the specter of death itself towards her apartment, her niche in this giant cave full of vermin. Once she arrived on the fifth floor, she wondered once again why she even went on. Her lightest day and darkest hour were nothing more than shades of gray. This monotony, this drudgery, was this what life was meant to be? Same routine, day in and day out. Only now that Chris was gone, the daily grind held no meaning. Her family estranged, except for her sister, Janice. But she had gone missing three years ago, disappeared without a trace. Janice was the only one who even tried to understand Angela except Chris, but now even he had let her down.
Angela turned the key in the lock, and entered her home. She needed to veg out, and keep her mind off recent events long enough to fall asleep and escape so-called reality for a while, so she flipped on the computer. The Internet provided her with the escape she needed, more real than drugs, and more permanent and than alcohol. She glanced at the headlines, and her mind jumped when she read the name Morpheus. A notion to find this man seized her mind. Some intuitive power told her this man may hold the answers. It was unexplainable, which is why Angela trusted it. All her life, there had been a nagging doubt. Did perception really equal reality? Why did wounds never hurt until you looked at them? Angela was almost sure that it was because the wound didn't become real until your mind made it so. She wished in vain for the ability to look away from her wounded heart forever.
* two years later...*
Angela, now 22 and considerably stronger, smarter, and richer, was still no closer to finding Neo and Morpheus than she was on the rainy June night when Chris had left her. Nobody called her Angela anymore, because nobody she knew now knew Angela was even her name. In her new trade, anonymity was most desirable.
Soon after Chris left, she met a man who called himself Ice, and he had supplied her with a new name; Shadow. Six letters that meant nothing more than identification to her, or so she thought. Ice had helped make her one of the greatest mercenaries alive, or so she let him believe. Shadow knew the whole damn world was a hoax, a cruel joke, and a fallacy. She owed this realization to a moment of darkest anguish induced by her ex. This knowledge allowed her to see the world as it truly was. She could remake the laws of physics and any others for that matter, as she saw fit. Stopping bullets, freezing time, nullifying barriers of any kind were all standard tricks. Ice had no idea what she was truly capable of, and Shadow had no intention of telling him.
However, for all her success, she could not find Neo, or get Chris off her mind. She thought herself pathetic for this senseless attachment to someone who had nearly destroyed her spirit, if such a thing existed. It must, for deep within her, she still loved him. A splinter in her mind, but not the only one. It was like this insane drive to find Neo, it simply would not let itself be forgotten.