Leaning up against a glass panel, Kari huffed strands of hair out of her face as the bus tussled her about. It was just coming up to six in the evening, rush-hour hitting its full swing and along with it sweaty smelling men rubbing up against her one too many times to just be coincidence. Maybe she shouldn't have worn the push-up-bra with the tank top she'd obviously bought when thinner and expecting to stay that way – there was whore level cleavage on display every time she leaned a little forward. Whatever, Paul would like it.
Reaching between the arms of a giant moustache with a grinning man attached to it, she hit the button to warn the driver she wanted off his cheap and dreary ride just as her phone began buzzing against her hip – where she'd lodged it after discovering the jeggings had no pockets. It shocked her at first then made her laugh in a peculiar manner that actually deterred the leering moustache from his come-hither looks. As she skipped off the bus, phone in hand and not paying attention, Kari narrowly missed walking into a lamppost as the message made her stop mid-step and frown.
"Fuck you too, Paul." She rolled her eyes, slamming her thumb on the reply keys in the throws of sending her would-be-date a heartless, kittenless but vowel included response.
What was she supposed to do now? Moving out the line of pedestrian traffic, she slumped against a wall and filtered through her phone without expectation. She couldn't go to the cinema on her own, that'd just be too pathetic. Shops were shutting around her like beacons of hope blinking out. Maybe Sarah was still at that museum thing, it was only a few minutes walk away and maybe she could drag her to the cinema and dinner afterwards. Could even be boys in it for them both and she sure as hell wasn't going to waste a clean shave day.
"Stupid museum." She filtered through her bag, hoping to find that brochure Sarah had left her with earlier. "Stupid men too. Ah-hah! Found you."
Weaving the sea of city-folks, Kari made her way up to the large, unmistakable, history museum and jogged up the stairs. They were still open for a couple more hours - long enough to find a waitress and convince her to stop being boring. As she ushered through the quiet entrance she was rather surprised to find there wasn't so much a price to get in but a noncommittal "donation" to enter. Did they really expect people to pay if they didn't have too? That was just weird, even so, Kari could feel the pangs of guilt as she tried to walk on past pretending not to see the sign and slipped some random change she found at the bottom of her bag into the box – also an accidental stick of gum.
Sarah would probably be around the new exhibition - according to the brochure it had something to do with Aztec's. At least it was sign-posted nicely, and with so few visitors it didn't take long for her to find it. The whole exhibition was huge, filling what felt like a stadium-sized room with strange carvings and what she assumed were replica buildings. The history buffs sure seemed to be into old stuff.
Walking around, trying not to touch anything – as it all looked expensive – Kari searched for her colleague to no avail. She supposed it was probably a long shot Sarah would even still be here, having most probably arrived three hours before hand. What was there to captivate for three hours?
Huffing with annoyance, Kari, leaned up against a weird pillar looking thing and started flicking through her phone until she found Sarah's name and sent her a quick message. A few minutes passed with no response making Kari tut at the situation and kick off the priceless antique – luckily without damaging it. She paused, placing her phone between her jeggings and hip and turned to give her leaning post a critical look. There was something embedded in the stone that caught her eye, a seed shaped dark gem about half the size of her fist sitting in the centre of a tree looking symbol.
Kari hummed, leaning in closer and closer until her nose was practically against the gem. It was swirling – or at least its insides were swirling like ink coloured oil being turned in water.
"Miss, please don't touch the exhibits." An aggravated man called from across the walk way – his fingers pointing at a sign by the pillar that read 'Please do not touch.'
"Oh, sorry." Kari grinned her too big waitress smile as she curved her head away from inspection. "I didn't mean to-" she paused as her hand just barely grazed the symbol on the pillar and the guard's eyes flew wide in shock.
She was glowing, or the pillar was glowing? No, something was glowing around her. Kari swallowed, managing to glimpse at her hand just long enough to note the way the gem was now no longer black but every colour of the rainbow, and then everything got really, really weird. Like, no sound, then every sound, then possibly flying but standing still with stuff flying at her face. It was worse than the time she went to that theme park, way, way worse but the ending was exactly the same so at least she had a point of reference for this experience.
As everything stopped, or she stopped and hit the ground there was a lot of noise and shouting echoing everywhere at once. Kari pushed herself up onto shaking knees from the uncomfortable position she'd body planked into and slapped her ears a couple of times to dislodge the ringing. Everything was gold, including the very tall armor wearing man being angry at her.
"I'm sorry what?" She slurred out as her mind tried to catch up with what was going on.
"How. Did. You. Get. Here?" Heimdall repeated slow and angry enough to hopefully get through to the pale looking creature kneeling at his feet.
"I um… I- Oh god!" Kari suddenly dived forward onto hands and knees, all the kiddie nibbles she'd been pilfering from the children's birthday party making a second appearance all over the nice man's gold boots.