A lone, baby blue hedgehog walked down a dimly lit street. She'd lived in this area ever since she'd moved out on her own, and it was a pretty nasty part of town. She kept telling herself she'd move. Eventually.
She was illuminated every so often in the light from a street lamp. Her short quills were tipped with a bright silver color that matched her eyes. The rare fur color had come from her mother, she'd been told. Either her father was mistaken or her mom had dyed her hair in her youth, she'd met her mother and the pole dancer turned businesswoman had a definite purple tint to her fur. Even so, it likely wasn't her father's fault. He had bad eyes and the alleyway he'd harvested Pearl's DNA in had been poorly lit.
There was no stork in her origin story, and no happy expectant mother. Just a strand of hair, a vial of blood, several untested serums. A clean, cold laboratory.
She had inherited her mother's eye color though. Her eyes had been a very pretty blue until a botched serum had stolen their color, along with most of her night vision. Oops.
Oh well. She'd regained most of the latter.
The hedgehog crossed the parking lot behind her apartment building and climbed a rickety staircase to the second floor. Her home was the corner apartment and she fiddled with the lock, facing away from the cool wind. Once inside she locked the door behind her and picked up a pile of mail from the floor where it had fallen after the mail-carrier had pushed it through the flap.
Flipping through the assortment of bills and catalogs, she came across a cream colored envelope addressed to a miss Alexandra Steel. The young lady in question sighed. Tossing her mail on the coffee table, she turned to check that a rust colored border painted around the door frame was unchipped. Then, picking up the envelope, she went to the kitchen half of the main room.
Pulling a pair of scissors out of a drawer, Alexandra stood at her counter and snipped the unopened letter into little pieces. Then she put the scissors down and opened the kitchen window.
As she tossed handfuls of paper outside a pair of golden eyes watched her from the shadows across the street. Alexandra stared back, leaning on her counter top. The specks of yellow disappeared as the hooded figure turned and left through an alleyway.
A white pick up truck drove by in the street below.
The hedgehog closed and latched her window and put a kettle of water on to boil, then padded down a short hallway to retrieve her laptop from her bedroom. She went back to the living room to curl up on the couch and open an old, familiar chat client.
silverdream6 : hey lil bro. you gonna be free in the morning?