A/N: Just a quick note to say please enjoy the story.

A rumble cracks the sky asunder, as if the stratosphere was growling. Viscous black ash clouds seem to be belched out from the corners of my vision, bringing the inevitable patter of murky raindrops, every splash a micro-blizzard.

Not only is the sun a bitch, you can count the rain a bitch.

I huddle further into my coat, shrinking into the corner of the bus-stop. Glad I decided to take the bus now, the shop's too far out from my...well, old job. Getting caught in the rain's pretty much double-death for me, first my lungs tar up with mucus and God knows what else and I go parallax for a couple of days, and second, Elektra shouts at me.

God I sound like such a child.

The bus's late.

Aren't many people taking the bus out at lunchtime, they just scurry in and out of the cafe on the corner...

I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone, bracing myself for the reaction.

The tone rings out, dull and metallic, made even more so by the reverberations of the cheap plastic walls of the shelter. I hear the other end click.

"Erm, hello? White?"

Without thinking I grind my teeth. That skittish voice, Effie must have picked up Elektra's phone.

"Effie, is Elektra there?"

"Why are you phoning in the middle of the day?"

"Can you just give the phone to Elektra?"

There's an exasperated sigh on the other end of the phone followed by a series of clunks and echoed voices.

I beat my foot against the damp tarmac.

"White? Why are you phoning at lunchtime?"

Here goes nothing, "Can I come and have lunch over at the shop?"

"Yeah sure..."

There's a pause, a bedrock heavy mantle.

"Alright, what happened?"

"I got sacked..."

"What, again?"

"I'm sorry...I promise I'll go back to the temp agency tomorrow..."

"No, no..." I hear her sigh on the other end of the phone, "i-it's fine...so, what excuse did they fob you off with this time?"

"Same as last time, something about the economic climate..."

"When in doubt sack the albino temp right?"

"Well, the firm was kinda dying on its arse, so..."

"Pft, you don't have to go justifying the whole thing, they're bastards, end of..."

The rumbling of the bus echoes up along the road, bouncing off dull concrete facades of office buildings.

"Listen, bus's coming...I-I'll see you later."

The call disconnects, the dull buzz from the phone being punctured by the tired hiss of the bus's breaks as it ground sluggishly to a halt beside the cracked, blistered, sodden pavement.

I try to go into autopilot as I enter to the dim heat haze of the bus, being buffeted by the fug created by huddled swarms of damp people.

But as I go through the motions, taking a seat, gazing out of the fugged up window, something, something...well, insidious starts to leech from some dark nook of my brain. A black gloop wrapping its tendrils around my cortex, dirtying the blood in my head.

It's probably just the cold, and being sacked...isn't switching jobs one of the most stressful things to do or something? I seem to being doing it more and more often now...so it would make sense then?

The black gloop seems to spread its tentacles down through my gullet and deep into my stomach, enraging the bile and making the walls snarl.

It's nothing, nothing surely?

But, even if I could keep telling myself that on some demented loop, it doesn't really feel like it would work. This twisted rage of paranoia lodged hard against my organs doesn't seem like it wants to leave anytime soon...in fact, these past seven years...

I wouldn't have thought that I would have lost one snare to gain another, like the world's least lucky rabbit.

My innards liquidise to black gloop as the bus moves off.


The shop's in one of those areas which I guess you could describe as being trendy, I prefer to think of it as painfully trying to be so. The word painful being the optimal word, in the sense that I would like to punch some of them, alongside anyone who says well random.

Faith says I have a shorter temper than Elektra, can't see how that's possible myself.

The persistent thrumming of the rain continues as I pelt for the black wooden shop front, specs of frigid water bouncing upon the cracked pavement and splattering up against my legs, creaking the shop door open to the characteristic dim thunk of the dented bell placed above the lintel.

The dry warmth, the dry warmth that slides between the books coils around my throat, part scarf, part anaconda. The bookshelves like struts reached tight between the half-carpeted floor and low ceiling, their rungs filled with a jumble of books both aged and new, scuffed and immaculate. I never quite understood how such a maze of shelves and rickety side-tables could actually fit in this space. I remember seeing the shop as bare bones when Elektra and Effie bought it, a white plasterboard husk.

I glance over to the desk, the creaking desk with a scuffed leather-bound top with the till and card reader sitting as an isle surrounded by yet more books. Sitting with legs hooked under her behind the desk was Effie, staring into the middle-distance, mint hued eyes partially glazed over. She had the appearance of one who had been stretched, seemingly gangly and fragile...not that I can hardly call anyone fragile. Her cheekbones were pointed by pale freckles, set against her equally pale red hair.

I think I could best describe her as skittish, this was probably the stillest I've ever seen her.

I slowly slope towards her, "Effie?"

She started, eyes becoming clear and violently tipping the office chair backwards before suddenly snapping back forwards to encourage another crazed shudder from her thin frame. I think I should probably add absent minded to that list as well.

With a deep heaving breath she calmed down, spinning the chair to look directly at me, "Er, hi White..."

"You...ok?"

"Yep! Yep, yep, yep..."

"You're babbling."

"Sorry..."

Told you, absent minded.

"Where's Elektra?"

"...and lunch?"

"Eh?"

"She's got lunch, in that, she's going to get lunch."

The muscles in my throat constrict, my voice box goes on strike. I search around for something to say...

The black gloop stirs again in my head. The blood veins start pounding in my ears.

God only hopes that Elektra turns up sooner rather than later.


It's amazing how minutes can drag into hours. A couple of minutes stretches, like infinite strips of spent chewing gum, into, what, hours? God damn hours?

Again, hopefully if you don't think about it, it won't really affect you...

Effie can talk to me, despite the fact that all I really seem capable of doing is responding with vaguely approving noises. It feels almost like she's talking to herself sometimes.

Put it this way, the tension, the cast steel hand which had been squeezing my brain like a sponge started to relax, relax and fade when Elektra's figure, tangled in a dark rain coat edged through the door, he same dim thunk of the bell announcing her presence.

"God it's horrible out there..." Elektra spluttered as she flipped the hood on her coat.

"Must've gotten worse in the last couple of minutes." responded Effie.

Elektra ruffled her hair, placing a large brown paper bag down on the desk, "Lunch is paninis by the way..."

I know the place, it's from that nice cafe with the interminable waiter who insists on calling everyone bro. Bloody idiot.

Effie starts again, "Oh! I'll, I'll go and get some drinks!"

Springing upwards to her feet, she sprinted behind a curtain at the back of the shop, into the kitchen at the back. Ever eager, I suppose that's a good thing...

I hear the legs of multiple chairs scrape against the floor, "Come on, sit down, you've been through the mill more today than either of us."

I sit down opposite to Elektra, propping my elbows on the tatty leather of the table. I feel a little less tense now...

"It wouldn't be so bad if you actually talked to her..." came Elektra's voice across the table.

A respond with a huffy silence.

"Christ White...it's been, what? Four years since you guys met?"

"You know what they say about first impressions..."

"I suppose there is that," she sniggered, "an' when it comes to screwing up the whole first impressions thing, you really won hands down."

"Please don't remind me..."

Another pause.

"So," she began again, "what's the plan then?"

"Plan?"

"About the fact that the temping agency are a bunch of fucking halfwits who keep saddling you with terrible jobs..."

"It's not all that bad..."

"Yeah, remind me, how many jobs have you been booted from this month?"

"Three..."

"None of which have been your fault..."

"Well..."

"Well nothing..."

I cut her off, "If you think you've got the answer to this then..."

"You could always work here at the shop with me and Effie."

"No, I'm fine..."

"Just consider it."

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm fine, I don't need you to give me a job..."

An uneasy quiet sets in as Effie wanders back through the curtain, carrying a clutch of mugs.

Lunch passes in the same uneasy quiet, yet another thing could've sworn I'd left behind me, but I guess so much of that I'll have to, well, put up with...

I make my excuses a quickly as possible, before heading back out into the now tearing rain, cold slashing through muscle, bone, straight into the marrow.

But as I slip through the rain, headed to the nearest patch of shelter, I can feel, feel not just the ever vicious cold prying against my body, but, but there's that thing again...that feeling running through my head and deep into the acrid pit of my stomach, like swallowing liquid metal, burning a carpet of blisters inside my veins.

When I think, I can't help but think that this blue-black tear running straight through the centre of my brain...I think it is the same...

I think the damn thing never left.