Chapter Text
The carnival is filled with blank, unfamiliar faces. You walk, through the sickly green tents and their blood red stripes. The sky a candy plum. The ground a grave-like grey. You don’t really know what’s happening, or where you really are. You feel hazy, you don’t care. Everything’s waxy like an oil painting. But what you do care about is that awful ringing noise. It screeches and echoes throughout the park. No one seems to notice. Where is it coming from? The popcorn machine? Full of teeth? That emerald man in the booth. His eyes burn. The world seems to swirl and spot with black and-
You realize your eyes are closed.
Heavy lids peel to a dark room. It takes a few blinks from that whimsical park to really comprehend where you really are. It’s morning.
Five in the morning to be exact and you’ve found the source of the ringing. It’s your phone, someone’s calling you. Sluggishly, to pat around for the pesky device. The cold glass meets your hand as you finally find it. You grasp it and bring it closer to your ear. It’s your boss. You tap the lime pick up button to answer.
“Detective Crocker, I need you in at nine, can you do it?” The urgency temporarily cuts through your inertia.
“Of course, I’ll be there.”
“Good.” He hangs up.
A moment is spared to stare at the ceiling. It’s hazy and blurry, along with the rest of the room. Heavy shadows of black cover the various furniture lining the walls. You reach to your side and grope around for your glasses. The round, freezing rims settle themselves on your round nose. They don’t do a thing for your pitch black room.
Although the covers were disturbed in your search, they still hold a comforting warmth that beckons sleep. You nearly slip into the unconscious. But that can’t happen, not this morning.
It’s a gargantuan effort, your joints pop and crackle in protest. A big stretch and a crack of the neck chases away the rusty joint feeling clinging to your bones. You pull your lovely, friend-made quilt off your legs and swing them off the bed. The cold wooden floor meets your feet and a shiver runs through your body, leaving prickles of goosebumps behind. You pad through the room carefully as to not trip, you really can’t see a thing. Waving your arms around in front of you, you find your dresser and pull out some clothes for the day. After finding a suitable outfit, you mosey your way to the bathroom.
As you creep through the halls, you wonder if perhaps you should decorate your home. You haven’t lived here long, six months or so, and you’ve furnished the rooms and acquired the necessities. But this place feels… empty. The silence so absolute that you fear to break it. A few posters and doo dads would liven it up more, that’s what you think.
The bathroom isn’t any lighter than your bedroom, you squeeze your eyes shut and flick on the light. Your eyes adjust and blink to your plain bathroom. A simple vanity, toilet, and most importantly your shower-tub hybrid thingy. The cornflower tiles are even colder than the rest of the houses wooden floors. You need to invest in some carpets. Carpets that add beauty to your humble suburban home. Or maybe silly ones to make you feel giggly for the day? Hmm...
Quickly stepping over the freezing blue ground, you hop into the shower. All this cold can be handled by a boiling hot shower. As the hot water pours over your head of dark curls, your mind wanders. For breakfast you should make eggs and pancakes, bacon too. Should you drink an energy drink? No, you’re not very tired anymore, you think as you wipe a hand over your face. Cold floors do that and the morning chill make you feel sharp. You’ll have coffee. Oh, you should call Dirk, he must be awake. That man never sleeps, no matter how many times you tell him to.
Absentmindedly, you wash your licorice hair with shampoo and scrub your body with soap. The warmth of the shower pours down your shoulders and back soothingly.
Shutting off the water, you towel off and change into your daywear. Today’s outfit is a crisp white button up with cool gray dress pants. To give it some pop, you’ve decided on a tie bright, cutting red.
You step from the humid bathroom and into the icy hallway, your frozen feet hurry back to your room for socks and shoes. Once your laces are tied, you’ll make breakfast. If you still have the time of course.
You fish under the desk and pull out a shoe box. You rummage through the white tissue paper and the scent of that lovely fresh shoe smell wafts into your nose. The slick black shoes are new, and you love them to bits. As a young girl, you had worn all sorts of semi formal skirts and dresses. Not to mention heels, what a nightmare, looking good isn’t worth the broken ankles. These shoes though, they make you feel strong. The stability while still making those powerful clicks, as if you are something to pay attention to.
Shoes tied, you pick up your phone and take a quick peek at the time. It’s a little past six, and Dirk is online just as you thought. It’d be nice to chat while cooking up breakfast.
Two rings and he’s picked up.
“You should be asleep!” You remind him with faux disappointment and a theatrical sigh.
“And leave you with no conversational partner at six in the morning? No chance.” You hear him tinkering with some project. “Besides, different time zones?”
“Oh come on, this can’t possibly be healthy! Have you even slept at all?”
“Now that’s confidential information that I can’t divulge, Jane.” You roll your eyes, such a drama queen!
“Very well, are you perhaps able to divulge whether or not you’ve eaten in the last five hours?” You ask as your shoes click against the kitchen tile. He pauses.
“That’s also confidential.”
“You need to eat! If you aren’t going to sleep, you might as well do one thing to keep up your energy.”
“I’m fine.”
“Eat.”
You both bicker over his poor habits as you keep up your good ones. To push him, and maybe make him jealous, you decide to have a cup of orange juice instead of coffee.
You munch on your hearty breakfast and side eye the time. It’s a little before eight and it’s about time you head to work. The drive between you and your workplace is fairly short and takes at most about thirty minutes to traverse.
You bid your dear friend adieu and wash your dishes before opening the cream door to blue dawn.