Unexpected Chemical; Chapter 7:
Home Delivery
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The room had probably been silent for about a solid 2 ish minutes before the reality of the situation sunk into me. The entire time, I was watching the smoke curl around my nostrils and could have sworn that I was starting to see abstract shapes. Was this honestly all it took? There was something incredibly uneasy about this deal that he proposed. But meh, it was Urahara. How could I possibly say no?
The blonde's familiar grin seemed to be the only legitimate factor within sight. I tried to stifle a small gulp.
"Alright, alright. I'll do it." I sighed.
"Lovely!' Urahara clapped his hands together in delight and looked over his shoulder. "Tessai, it's time to bring that damn thing over here. She gave in." He must have sounded like something similar to a happy little boy scout swindling away money from an unbeknownst family. About a minute or so later, the heavy thud of footsteps echoed from the northern corner of the office. A door slid, and Tessai strode over, bending down, and offering his master a neatly wrapped violet package. There was also a flimsy paper ribbon holding it together that had some kanji scribbled over it. Naturally, I couldn't read it.
"Thank you, Tessai."
"Of course, sensei."
"Hey, Nakata. This is what you'll be delivering for me; you are not to open it or even so much as peek beneath the wrapping for any reason." He stressed the last grip of his words as if he'd known of my habits long before I arrived. Everyone back in the norm' knows that I have a peculiar relationship with a vixen named Curiosity.
"Okay, okay I got it. Don't worry." I rolled my eyes noticeably I'd think. Even though I actually wanted to be on pitch perfect terms with him, I couldn't help but snarl as the familiar nagging penetrated my brain. Before I could digress into a passing memory, he snapped me out of my passivity.
"You're free to pick it up, any time." He stated simply. I saw the traces of an eye creep from under his hat, staring at me dead in the face. Fear crept up my spine.
I quietly rose from the table and walked over to Urahara's side. I bent over a little and began to ease the rough package into my hands.
He suddenly grasped my arm, digging his grip deep into my skin. What…the fuck, Kisuke. What the fuck. The tone of his voice was even more menacing than his grip.
"I was being serious about the whole 'no peeking' thing," he frowned before a smile etched at his mouth. "Well, you seem like you have some traces of a brain in you, so I'll leave this in your care." He eased his hand off of me and retreated to pulling it back with the other across his chest. No mutters or expressions of apology had followed.
"The address is written somewhere on that binding."
After he nodded his head, I took that as a cue to exit his office. I slid the package between my fingers, got up, found my shoes, and walked out of the door that was still partially open.
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Once I managed to get back onto familiar grounds outside of his shoddy little shop, I immediately noticed that the day was beginning to come to a close. The old fluorescent sunshine that had cascaded through the surrounding trees had watered down into pink streaks of afternoon glaze. Instead of meeting a scattered field of younger children playing miscellaneous games on the pavement, I was only met with a field of quiet shadows.
"Jesus Christ, it's getting cold." I shuddered a bit as a thin frost of wind passed between my limbs. I held up the package closer to my face and tried to make out the address surrounded by scribbles of roughly drawn kanji symbols. It looked like a normal address like back in the states with the only differences being the elaborate sounding street and a smaller amount of numbers for the zip code.
I stared at the address a little longer and suddenly realized that I had absolutely no way of navigating around this town. I was as good as a ship sailing on a smog blanketed night with a broken light; I was basically screwed unless I had a map or someone to tell me how to get there. I turned around a few moments later, and stared into the glass doors before I gently tapped on them. No response.
About 2 ish minutes echoed by and I tapped again; nothing.
I then tried a more assertive approach and started knocking on the damn thing. Once again, no acknowledgement followed. I sighed.
"So you're just going to abandon me like that? I guess BS like that is no different here." Before I could stain up the cold, glass doors, I just walked ahead and into the one, narrow clearing for a road. Still no kids or people walking around. All I saw were a broken chain of empty parked cars, discarded trash, and felt a freezing temperature to complete the experience.
The only sounds I heard other than the rolling scratching of leaves were my footsteps. I tried to relax as the afternoon waded into a piercing dusk. The shadows lining the cars and small businesses only thickened as did my nerves. Just try imagining walking down a shady looking street around night time with hardly anyone around. Feels like the perfect freakin' set up for a horror movie, doesn't it?
I bit my bottom lip. I felt my teeth ease into my skin harder a few seconds later. A particularly large shadow looked as though it shrunk somewhere a few feet ahead. I stopped and swallowed an enormous gust of air. My eyes widened as I kneeled over and choked while still staring at the shifting darkness in front.
My choking made my breathing uneven and I almost stumbled backward. No, I actually ended up falling backwards…hard.
"SHIT." I clutched my burning throat while moaning slightly from the ache of falling on a little of my tail bone. Squinting, the shadow had apparently evaporated and left a blank patch of pavement ahead. I closed my eyes and sat back a little before I tried to get up off the ground.
Upon rising, I kept hearing mixed movements coming from various directions. If I looked ahead of me, the noise would come from behind me, if I looked to my side, it'd come from the opposite. Whatever it was kept shifting around to confuse me..and was extremely successful in scaring the shit out of me.
I gulped. "Damnit. I can't stay here."
Then, I remembered my request from Kisuke; 'If I abandon this assignment, then there'd be no way that he'd hire me, let alone see me as anyone worth trusting.' I tried to relax my nerves by taking a deep breath and continuing to walk forward once exhaled. The prickling on my back just made a home on my skin and my muscles kept clenching as I heard those familiar unsettling sounds echo around the street.
This definitely had to be one of the most awful situations I experienced thus far. Every new advance in feet only heightened the deep and strangled breathing sounds I heard come from any given direction. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. But I knew that doing so wouldn't earn me anything worthwhile.
…After some twenty minutes, I finally noticed a street sign that had a familiar name etched into its metal face that matched the name scribbled on my package..and I sprinted like a subdued pig all the way to the address.
You know that feeling you get when your gym teacher tells you to start running laps and you're about to collapse as soon as you finish? Yea, that's basically how I felt right then. I swear that someone had to be scraping butchers' knives through my insides as soon as my feet hit the pavement in front of the residence. What was "off" was the fact that it wasn't even a residence to begin with and it was actually just a small, clear lot. Old rugged gates outlined the area, and patches of newly grown weeds ate into the pavement. I frowned at it.
Who in the hell lived here? Whoever it might've been, I just shook my head, and walked forward. An even odder aspect of the vacant lot was that there was a small, rusted metal box over to the side lodged in a cradle of gates; it was a door bell. I lifted its top, and rested my package inside of it.
I pressed the door bell.
The bell must have at least woken up half of the neighborhood. As soon as my finger eased off of the button, a long, and old fashioned tune rang from it. Sweat began to drip down my forehead as I heard a crackling noise come from the other side of the field.
What was brilliant was that I couldn't move my legs. It felt as if someone had been coy and super glued my feet to the broken pavement. As you're most likely aware of by now; I started cursing the situation into oblivion.
"There's no fucking way, there's .WAY." My breathing began to cut off a bit as my fear beat through my chest. I looked over my shoulder and desperately tried to move my legs. I looked as hopeless as an abandoned marionette.
A large, and very close "thump" hit the ground from somewhere beyond my sight.
The ground shook and my vision was met with a pair of almond shaped, glowing white eyes. The rattling breath that echoed was now a warm sensation tickling my skin. It smelled of rotting flesh..
I started to make tiny little moans in frustration from trying to move my feet.
"You were stupid to come here on your own." It spoke. Its voice sounded as if it was trapped in between dimensions. It was high pitched and had an animalistic touch. Instead of responding, I tried to give it space by leaning my torso backward.
"Your spiritual pressure feels different compared to the other ones.. even though there's hardly anything there." It seemed to be getting closer with every few words. My eyes widened as I watched a silhouette manifest in the light fog that accompanied it in the area.
'DAMNIT!' I kept gulping every few seconds as the creature walked toward me. Basing from its repetition of footsteps, the thing had to have at least two pairs of legs. I wish I hadn't realized that because it made me muse that I was probably going to be eaten by an animal.
At last..it approached.
"You're such a pretty little thing. Your insides are probably sweet."
I was definitely right in predicting that it had four legs. Its body was a smooth mix of off white and silver, its front legs were large, blunt spikes outlined with coursing veins. Its back legs were a little smaller, its frame had a severely muscular build and its head looked nearly human, except that it was drenched in red stripes. Half of its face was etched with traces of a skull. It was basically a 20 foot, militant form of an arachnid.
I felt small gushes of warm liquid run down my inner thighs and slide off of my ankles. I was so scared that I was beginning to pee in my pants.
….It struck the side of my chest with one of its enormous, pointed legs. I didn't see it coming.
The pain was undeniable.
The wound was as if it was caused by the thick shell of a gunshot. I felt the blood splash onto my cheeks from the force of the impact. My legs were suddenly released, and I crashed onto the ground, barely holding myself up with my left arm.
'Why did Urahara..set me up like this?'
