ROOMMATE WANTED FOR FEMALE GEOPHYSICS STUDENT

Must be:-

Clean, Polite, and Respectful

No pets, drugs, or excesses of alcohol (unless you're sharing! Though for real, no passing out on the sofa).

If interested, or want some more info (rent ect.), call Lorna Dane at 01712 845305

Raven's eyes scanned the small slip of card in the post office window. There was something about the nonchalant tone that the girl used that caught her eye. There were a hundred other ads in the window like it – students really had no idea how to cope with single living in London. However, Raven really didn't know how to deal with single living in London either, unless it included pick pocketing, and doing all the things she had done to get by before she met Charles.

Shuddering, she fumbled in her bag for a pen, scribbling the student's phone number onto her left forearm. Raven refused to return there, she was a big girl now, and she didn't need Charles to look after her anymore. She didn't need Erik to boss her around, either. She just needed someone to help pay the rent, because all those high-class hotels were becoming expensive.

It was days like this when Raven missed the sixties.

She had to act natural. It was easy, make the call, ask the right questions, be friendly. Be HUMAN. Raven sighed, and itched her arm. The call box she had shuffled inside with the few coins she had left from her last scrounge from Erik's bank account smelt. Not the good kind of smell either. It was never a good sign when a call box's windows were plastered up with flyers, she supposed. It normally indicated people were sleeping in there, or using the box as a temporary toilet.

She slotted the coins into the machine, holding the grotty telephone delicately in one hand as she punched in the number onto the pad. This was fine. It would be fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

Ring Ring!

Ring Ring!

Ring Ring!

Ring –

Click. "Hello, Lorna Dane. How can I help you?"

Raven took a gulp of urine-perfumed air. "Hi, I saw your ad about a roommate. I was wondering if – "

"Oh my god! I thought no-one would see it!" Interjected the bubbly girl, cutting Raven off, " I've been waiting MONTHS for a reply. Well, a reply that wasn't creepy anyway. You know how men are, am I right?

"Sure," Raven said slowly, thumbing the yellow pages chained the ledge in front of her.

"You wanna come over and see the apartment? I'm free today, if you're interested?"

That question took Raven by surprise. Wasn't she meant to be asking that? "Um, sure."

"Ace! You got a pen?" Raven scrambled to keep the phone pressed in between her shoulder and ear and she noted down the address that bubbly Lorna babbled from the other end of the phone to her. "Oh gosh, I'm such a ditz, I forgot to ask your name!"

Raven almost noted that down, then realised it was an odd-sort of question. "Oh, my name's Raven."

Raven could practically hear the Lorna-girl beaming down the other end of the telephone, "Well, Raven, I can't wait to meet you, and you gotta tell me where you got that accent, I'm hella jealous. Bye now!" The phone went off with a click before Raven could even reply.

Oh god. What had she gotten herself into? Raven wasn't even sure she was listening to where the girl lived, she just scribbled down anything on her arm and tuned out from the girls soft English voice. Glancing down at her arm, Raven squinted, trying to read the chicken scratch below the girl's number in the dying light of the telephone box. C - something? Wis...wict...wick? C- Wick? Wait, no, hang on, thought Raven as she flipped through the yellow pages in front of her, searching for the girl's landline number. Boom! Chiswick. Where was Chiswick again?

Pulling out a creased map from her bag, Raven took a suspicious look through the gaps in the newspapered windows. No-one appeared to be around, that was good. one of the main reasons she'd decided to call at night, if she was honest with herself. She was always wondering whether her facade was slipping these days; whether one day her mask of humanity would fall and she wouldn't be able to pull it back up again. If that day ever came (as Raven feared it very well would), then that would be the day that no disguise would hide her. Not from humanity, she couldn't care less about them. No, she was scared of wearing her face in case he saw her. When he did, she wouldn't be able to run anymore.

Finally unfolding the map, Raven brushed today's faces' hair out of her eyes. She had chosen a plain coloured woman today, with a gentle smackering of freckles and out of control hair. Deeming it unnecessary to wear this face any longer, Raven shook herself, and with that shake, the entire guise of the woman, the flow of scales over her body leaving her standing blue, naked and proud in the dingy phone box. She supposed if she was to actually take up this bouncy Lorna girl with the roommate thing, she'd have to choose a face. Sighing, Raven continued her search for Chiswick on her London map, trying to push that thought out of her head. She'd come to that when she found the damn place.

Suddenly, the name caught her eye. Chiswick. A good two hours walk from where she was in Westminster. Groaning out loud, Raven went to slump against the door of the call box, only to find it wasn't there. she fell backwards, arms flailing, falling on her arse in front of a perplexed looking homeless guy.

"Oh shit," She muttered.