Chapter Text
The Itty-Bitty Boutique always, always stuck out.
That was just what it did, really. It was a bit like finding a highlighter in a pack of blunt pencils. Or a gold coin at the bottom of a lint-lined handbag. Where the rest of the street melted into the frozen white-grey of winter, the boutique stood apart. It was bright, abrasive, alluring and it didn’t seem to matter how much Hattie tried to ignore it or pretend it didn’t exist, it was always on at the back of her mind, a single and infuriating constant she couldn’t ever hope to shake.
Not for lack of trying, mind you.
She just... couldn’t bring herself to hate it, no matter how much she wanted to.
Droves of awed-looking customers huddled under the emporium’s snow-dusted awning (pink and white striped like a piece of hard candy, deliciously tempting in the worst way) like emperor penguins sheltering from the cold. Laughter and music and giddy chatter rolled playfully across the snow towards her. Some of the customers, she noted with a horrid pang of envy, had little figures already clinging to their winter hoods or playing in the plump snow poffs by their feet.
She wasn’t pouting. No, really she wasn’t.
It just wasn’t fair.
“Harriet!”
Hattie jumped and whipped around, clutching her loose leaflets in front of her like a shield. (It wouldn't have been a very good one—Vivienne’s glare was sharp enough to pierce obsidian on a good day—but it did give her a nice false sense of security. Emphasis on the false.)
“Oh, Viv!” she squeaked. “Hi! I was just... uh... uh...?”
Her cheeks were burning red in a way that definitely wasn’t from the cold as she floundered for some excuse. It was too late, though. Hattie blanched as thin, piercing grey eyes latched on the far-too-thick mound of hand-outs cradled in her arms.
If she had to describe it, she'd say her co-worker’s expression was some distinct flavour of: 'annoyance'.
“Seriously?” Vivienne hissed. With a haughty flick of her snow-flecked curled hair, she leant over and bitterly yanked half of Hattie’s pile into her own empty hands. “I was gone for ten minutes! You could have at least done half of these! Would you please stop gawking? We’ve got a job to do and the quicker we get this done, the quicker we get the hell out of here. I do not need to catch hypothermia because you don't want to do your damn job.”
Hattie huffed. Very reluctantly, she tore her eyes away from the pink shop down the street, tugging a very damp pamphlet from her diminished stack and brandishing it blindly at a group of passers-by. Predictably, they gave her a wide berth. Less predictably, she caught a glimpse of a small, bone-white grin glinting at her from the depths of one woman’s hair and had to tear her eyes away before she got caught staring again.
Already, she could feel her co-worker’s gaze hard and heavy on her back even as she mumbled somewhat sheepishly, “Sorry, I just… really want one.”
Vivienne snorted.
“Yeah, literally everyone can tell within five minutes of meeting you. You stare like a creeper at literally every single one of those things that comes into the diner.”
“What? No, I don’t!" An embarrassed hiccup caught in Hattie's throat as she thrust another leaflet into a reluctant-looking woman’s hand. (It would be crumpled up later and thrown into a bin somewhere probably but that was fine. At least her pile was getting smaller.) “And it’s not every time. They’re just so cute! And they’re seriously awesome. Like, did you know that all the original models—the Sansy’s and Papy’s—were all based off of two actual monsters! I mean, how crazy cool would it be to have an actual mini version of yourself walking around?”
“So crazy cool.”
Hattie squinted. "You don’t sound like you think it would be crazy cool.”
"That’s because I was being sarcastic.”
"Oh.”
Vivienne sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward, looking half like she wanted to strangle something.
”Look, please just go and buy yourself one. It’d save me from having to watch you moon after them like you’re some eight-grader with a high school crush. And it would make our job—” She jabbed at the pile of leaflets. “—a hell of a lot easier. And quicker."
"I'm not that bad," Hattie mumbled. Vivienne, whose lips were starting to look a little too blue to be healthy, levelled her with a look and she flushed despite herself. “And I can’t have one anyways.”
Viv stared at her incredulously. “They’re literally always looking for new buyers. It’s not like they’d reject you. Besides, you’re you. You’re about as unthreatening and inoffensive as a bit of cotton candy.”
Hattie hesitated, tugging on the rim of her hat self-consciously.
“Okay, but I’m also kind of…”
She trailed off self-consciously.
See, it would’ve been nice if it were as easy as just going up and asking to adopt. But it wasn’t. There was a pile of red-stamped eviction notices piling up on her doormat. Her fridge was always at some stage of half empty and she kept finding rates drinking from the ice off the back of it. There was black mould under the kitchen sink that she couldn’t get rid of. She couldn’t even turn the heating on because it was just… too pricey. It wasn’t the kind of home environment that would be safe—or good, for that matter—for a bitty.
“You’re kind of…?” Vivienne prompted impatiently.
Cheeks frigid with ache from the cold, Hattie forced up a nonchalant smile. "
“I’m always busy, you know? I can’t have time for bitties if all my days are spent working out here. They’d freeze before the end of their first week! I think I’m literally about ten minutes away from becoming a human popsicle.”
Vivienne didn’t seem to think much of this. Hattie could see that ever-permanent glimmer of exasperation lurking behind her frosted, slush-flecked glasses.
Eventually, her colleague just sighed and rolled her eyes to the flurries in the sky. “Uh huh. Look, let’s just get rid of the rest of these and report back before your poor little fingers drop off. It’s not like we get paid to stand around and look pretty.”
Hattie tried to grin at her. Her cheeks burned.
“You think I’m pretty?”
Vivienne's blue lips tipped into a smirk. “Don't push it.”
Their shift ended about as well as they'd both expected: with about ten dozen flyers still split between them, snow piled up to their ankles and fingers slowly fading from pink to ivory-white in the chill. Evening fell slowly, ushering away wandering townsfolk and bringing in the nightlife with it and leaving Hattie and Vivienne to make a hasty retreat as the real cold started to set in.
Sullivan’s Diner shone warm and bright; a winter beacon in the dark. Hattie stood in the golden glow of the open side door, blowing clouds of mist from her lips and watching it swirl as she hopped up and down for warmth.
She loved snow. It was quiet and unassuming, pretty and never demanding. It was pure nostalgia in weather-form, memories of snowballs clenched in little fists, branches trailing lines behind her, ice in her hair and her mouth, ears turning red and cold as she swished angels into the ground. Now, in the warmth of the open diner door, it glittered lazily under her feet and she entertained herself for a few precious minutes by drawing patterns in the slush with the toe of her boot. A smiley face, a flower, a snowflake, a waving little skeleton stick-figure in a hat and scarf.
(She tried not to think about what would be waiting for her at home; an arctic apartment, ice-water leaking through the windows and freezing the locks shut. Blankets and pillows that were probably a little bit damp. Probably a cockroach or two running from the cold. Right here and now, the snow was pretty and that was more than enough for her.)
“You sure do like those lil’ monster things.”
Hattie's cheeks, numb from the cold, split into a smile as she turned to the open doorway.
It was always a surprising just how quiet Sullivan could be when he wanted. He was a physical bear of a man, tall and hunched and covered in a fine line of hair from head to toe but he moved with the gentle careful grace of an old elk. He looked a bit as if the rebellious edge of his youth was trying to reclaim him in his fifties; a tangled beard, sleeves of greying tattoos and a litany of simple silver face-piercings. Crow's feet crinkled towards grey-spattered temples and there were two steaming cups of coffee in his burly, lumberjack hands as he smiled at her.
“Monster things?” she asked cluelessly and he nodded at the scuffed image in the snow at her feet; the grinning little caricature of a skeleton playing in the snow. Hattie felt her cheeks grow hot. That was twice today that someone had started talking to her about bitties. “Oh, those. Um, maybe? Just a little bit?”
Sullivan only chuckled and scratched at his chin. “Hey, not judging. I like ‘em too. The lil’ fire ones are pretty sweet. I’ve been seeing a lot of those lately. I guess people like ‘em because of the weather. What were they called again? Lil’ Bits? Bittens?”
“Bitties,” her mouth answered almost automatically. “The fire ones were probably Grillbitties. Most of them are fire types. There is one that’s a water type but that one’s pretty rare.”
Sully nodded. He looking oddly contemplative as he sipped at his coffee. Contemplative and amused.
“That so?”
”Mhmm. They’re good at keeping people warm. They’re also meant to be great in the kitchen,” she added slyly. “They’re kind of calm and quiet so they’re great choices for people working in high-stress environments like restaurants. They could probably help out in the back with keeping the food warm, or help taking orders, or maybe even just help earn a few extra tips? They’re a bit harder to keep than a skeleton bitty but so long as you always keep them warm and give them sticks to chew on—”
Sullivan sent her an odd, bemused look. She felt herself going a bit red around the ears and trailed off sheepishly.
“Uh…” she said. “That’s how the website always described them, anyways…”
“You know a lot about those lil’ things.”
Hattie found her fingers tugging on her hat again as she looked away, embarrassment welling in her chest for the second time that day.
“I, uhh… Yeah, I guess so? They’re pretty popular right now, so...”
Sullivan looked at her thoughtfully. After a second, his gaze shifted just a little over her shoulder, glazed with contemplation. "Good in the kitchen, huh? Well, it’s always pretty warm in the bar and we got plenty of toothpicks lying around. And I guess it would be nice to have a bit o’ company sometimes. Maybe I should think about getting one myself, seeing as they’re so popular an’ all?”
“Wait, really?” Hattie beamed at him, barely restraining herself from fist-pumping when she saw the smile twitching beneath the snarl of his beard.
(She’d always had the nagging opinion her boss would be a great Grillbitty owner; both were strong, silent types with a love of food, honesty and good service. It was a travesty that he’d never considered it before, in her mind. This of course had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she was practically guaranteeing herself daily personal contact with a bitty by proxy. Absolutely not.)
“Jesus, stop it with that puppy-dog look," Sully snickered. "If it happens it happens, but don’t get your hopes up. It might not be practical havin’ one o’ them things. I said I’ll think about it.”
Hattie’s smile burned away a little, but she still felt pleased. “Well, just think about it! I think it would be good for you. Bitties are meant to be really good company. It might help you feel less lonely when me and the others aren’t around.”
Sully looked entirely too amused. “I’m an old man, darlin’, I’m always gonna be lonely. But sure if it makes you feel any better, I’ll consider it.”
They stood together in the quiet for a minute longer and watched the last stretch of snowfall drift and settle, untouched and pure. It was the calm sort of quiet, the nice sort strung up between old friends where you could just sit and think for a moment and bask in each other's company.
Eventually, Sullivan sighed. It was an old, breathy and weary sort of sound that had her glancing at him almost in concern.
“I wanted to thank you,” he said simply and it was so serious and genuine and so very unlike him that she blinked.
“Thank me?”
”For helping me with the flyers, with the diner. Hell, for everything. I know it ain’t the fanciest or best-paying job in the city and it might not come up to jack-shit anyway but...”
Hattie smiled at him kindly. “I'm just doing my job, boss. You don't need to thank me.”
”Your job's meant to be serving, jotting down orders, and dropping hot coffees when you've gotten distracted by somethin'," he snorted. "It ain’t supposed to be freezing yourself to death trying to bring back business, especially when I can’t afford to pay you for the extra hours.”
And that was technically true, but Sullivan was someone she’d call a friend. Sure, he’d gotten into a couple of… bad spots recently but overall he was a good boss and a good man (no matter how much he tried to deny it). Besides, he really needed it.
“I know," she reminded him with a warm smile and a shrug, “but I wanted to do it. Besides, it'll all be completely worth it when you've got half the city knocking down your doors next week just to get another taste of your burgers.”
“You're gonna make me sick with that optimism, girl. Go on and get yourself home. You’ve done enough preaching for today.” Sully’s eyes practically rolled into the back of his head as he shooed her away from the front steps. He was smiling though, a little bit tiredly as she ducked under the over-sized hand that tried to swat her.
“I can't! I’m still waiting for Viv. We’re meant to be walking back together. Did you see her back there? She said she’d only be a minute…”
Sully’s humorous grin abruptly faltered. She watched, curious and confused as her boss’ expression turned suddenly a little bit… sour. It wasn’t an expression she saw very often. Somehow, she already knew what he was going to say.
“Ah, uh… Sorry, darlin’, but I think you just missed her. She must’ve gone out the front.”
Again, was what he didn’t say.
Hattie wasn't exactly surprised, she tried to tell herself. More disappointed. It was the kind of feeling that spiralled into something hard and rotten that rolled around in her stomach and landed somewhere down at her feet among the ice, snow and melting sketches. It didn't matter how many smiles she tried to hide it under, it would always be there but that didn’t mean she couldn’t pretend otherwise—for Sully's sake, at least.
“Oh..." Hattie smiled. It was stiff but it was there. It didn't matter, she told herself. It wasn't important. "She probably just forgot. Besides, it’s absolutely freezing! No wonder she wanted to hoof it home as quickly as she could. Guess I should get going too before I end up turning into a snow-woman, right?"
She tried to laugh but it fell flat and felt hollow. Sully heard it as well as she did.
“You’re too kind to that woman, sweetheart,” he muttered gruffly.
Hattie frowned.
“What can I do? She’s my friend. She;s just… going through a hard time right now, you know?” As soon as she said it, Sully’s expression became pained. “What? What did I say?”
He paused, looking oddly conflicted for a reason she couldn't place, but shook his head.
“Nah, it’s nothin’ much. I don’t like the idea of you walking on your own at this time of night though, 'specially not with all this snow. You could bunk here for tonight, if you wanted.”
“And have the landlord all up on you for wasting her energy bills on me? I like you too much to do that to you,” she told him teasingly and the man grimaced, though she was surprised when even the mention of his very money-conscious ex-wife did nothing to soften his disapproval.
“Yeah, well… Which way you headed anyway?”
”Up to Mason’s, down by Crescent.”
If anything, his expression darkened further. “That’s a mean part of town, girlie. Sure you don’t want to stay?”
“I’ll be okay, I promise. I’ve gone that way tons of times and no-one’s jumped me yet.”
It was meant to be a joke, flippant and teasing, but Sully’s eyes flashed sternly. He sent her a disapproving, almost disbelieving look that had her grin dripping away into something a little sheepish.
“Just because no-one’s done it yet, doesn’t mean that they won’t,” he grumbled. “Do not go tempting fate like that. She can be a real mean bitch when she wants to be, ‘specially to softies like you.”
“‘Softies’?” Her lips quirked. “Ever heard of the phrase: ‘pot calling the kettle black’?”
Just like that, normalcy had returned. The shadows melted from his eyes, replaced instead with a very familiar look that crossed somewhere between fondness and complete exasperation.
"Why do I even try?” he grunted, but it wasn’t without a reluctant smile. “Take this on your way back, okay?” He ushered one of the two steaming cups of coffee into her hands, waving away her refusals as easily as a giant throwing stones. “Oh, hush up and just take it. And be careful on your way back. I don’t want to end up losing one of my hardest workers because she decided to tempt fate. I’d drop you off myself but…”
He gestured hopelessly to the diner and she didn’t need to glance past him to know that there was probably a pile of electricity bills and other important paperwork pieces he had to get to.
“You’re already saving my life, Sully,” she told him warmly. “See you bright and early tomorrow morning?”
“Same time as always. Now, get goin’. Time’s a-wasting.”
“Okay, okay!” she laughed as she skipped down the stone steps, cup tight in hand and boots crunching in the ice. “Goodnight! I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll have the coffee pot boiling for you, hun.”
With his eyes fixed on her back, Hattie quickly set off down the street, blowing steam from her mouth like a locomotive and leaving a trail of footprints in the slush behind her.
One thing was for sure: Sully made a darn good coffee. She sipped on it, trying not to slip on frozen puddles as she went. It was more than enough to urge the blood back into her fingers but somehow not enough to dull the chill in her stomach as she walked.
(She didn’t feel lonely, she told herself. She wasn't lonely. She liked being on her own like this. It was calming, relaxing even. Everything was fine.)
Coffee in hand burning at her fingers, Hattie started carefully on the long and lonely road back home.
It was easy to spot the point where the soft suburbs and her side of the neighbourhood collided. Shiny, squeaky-clean shop fronts melted away to ratty apartment blocks and dingy alleyways clogged with the stench of urine and smoke. Corners were littered with overflowing dumpsters and broken beer bottles and the street drains choked under moulting piles of leaves, ice and rot.
It was quieter than usual. Her own footsteps were the only thing she could hear. The lamps buzzed silently and threw shadows across the pavement that twinkled on the ice.
Another reason to love snow, she mused happily as she tripped and slid along the sidewalk, was that it smothered everything in a blanket of immovable silence, dampening every sound. It got rid of all those couples giggling drunkenly into each other’s mouths and the sleazy strangers with cigarettes balanced between fingers and drugs in their pockets. There weren’t many people hanging around, most chased indoors by the glacial chill that tailed the sun as it set over the skyline.
It also meant that, for the first time in a long time, she could just try and enjoy herself. she was on her own, yes, but there was a lot to find enjoyment in, really. Enjoy the little things in life like she was so used to doing—like the snowflakes on her tongue… or the black ice hidden beneath her feet as she nearly careened onto her backside for the second or third time that day.
Hattie snorted a little laugh and righted herself, tiptoeing her way to a safe and snow-free spot on the pavement. Her fingers were freezing and her lips were probably turning blue but her chest was warm now and her smile felt real, that little ache of loneliness pushed aside for just a moment.
It felt nice.
And then she caught a glimpse of the familiar, pink and white awning of her arch-nemesis and every good feeling fizzled and died.
Strangely, The Boutique looked no less warm and inviting than it did in the day. The windows were dark and shuttered and the main displays hidden out of sight but there were slivers of warm, gold light slipping through the bent metal slats to settle on the pavement and sparkle in the snow. She could see tiny, animated shadows slipping back and forth busily in the rays, bouncing around with no cares in the world and hear the tiny murmurs and clatters of little people moving about.
Hattie stared at the little shadows curiously.
What did happen to the bitties when the lights went out? Did the workers stay to take care of them? Were there shifts or did the workers just live above the shop for ease-of-access? Or was it like a pet store where you kind of left it as is and hoped it didn’t all fall to chaos somewhere in the middle of the night?
Hattie considered the shop curiously.
It wouldn’t hurt to have a quick peek... right?
With a quick glance up and down the eerily empty street, she crept over to the display window and tried to peer through the little gaps in the shutters. Disappointment hit first when she realised there were no bitties close enough for her to see. What she could see were several lines of little labelled products strung up in the front. Their tags dangled invitingly and she tilted her head to get a better look… and immediately regretted it.
Twenty dollars for a little blue hoodie, thirty for a polished armour set, sixty for the bathtub with a heated floor?! Woah.
“Why is that so much worse than I thought it’d be?” she whined to herself faintly.
She’d known it had to be expensive based on what she’d read but that was just pushing it to another extreme. Bitties had it way better than she did!
Hattie could feel holes burning into her empty, moneyless pockets. She tore away from the display and dug her fingers into the ratty depths of her coat, suddenly a lot more miserable than she had been a minute ago.
It hurt a little somehow.
She’d always adored the idea of having a bitty of her own; a little friend to accompany her through every trifle and tribulation; someone to talk with when she walking down the icy, dim-lit roads at unearthly hours of the night when Vivienne forgot to. Just… having someone. Her very own best friend.
Bitties didn’t hate or hurt or judge like people did. They didn’t need constant walking like dogs did or really expensive medical check-ups like cats. They wouldn’t look down on her for being human like a monster might. They were a forever companion in miniature; always with you, always kind, always ready to talk when you needed it and Hattie… really needed something like that.
It all sounded so nice. But it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Bitties needed to live in a good home. Good homes didn’t have leaks in the ceilings, or rats, or faulty wiring in the light switches or heating systems that couldn’t be switched on. Good homes didn’t come with power cuts or eviction notices. She couldn’t, in good conscious, force one to deal with all that—to deal with her.
It just… wasn’t right.
Another day, when she had a bit more money and time and an apartment that didn’t have a leak behid the fridge, she might be able to look into it.
Holly’s heart ached with jealousy and frustration as she forced herself to turn away from the window with the cute little clothing items and the itty-bitty shadows and the tiny voices lieaking from the shutters.
And it was at that exact moment, about thirty feet from the front doors of The Itty-Bitty Boutique, that something changed.
She heard him before she saw him.
Heavy, crunching footsteps sped towards her through the snow from behind. It was a startling sound that tore across the eerily silent blanket of snow and sent a sudden streak of ice and anxiety rippling down her spine—the sound of someone skidding and sprinting as fast as they possibly could across the ice.
She squeaked, whipped around and brought up her arms in preparation for some kind of attack.
“Wha—”
“Shit!”
And then something thick and heavy collided with her front.
There was a blinding flash of something as Hattie went tumbling with a ragged scream of surprise. Her coffee soared from her hands, soaking the snow beside her in a steaming mess but she barely had the chance to mourn it before her feet slipped out from under her and her hands and backside met the floor with a hard crunch.
She felt her stomach jolt the moment she dropped like a rock. A shock of hard pain rocketed up her spine and down her elbows but that was nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the full-body shudder that went through her from her blue-tinged fingers right down to her toes. Oh, her pants were soaked.
There was ice crunching between her fingers as she pushed herself up in the snow. It burned the way ice tended to—raw and piercing—and she quickly wiped her digits on her coat to get the warmth back. No luck.
Shaking her head and extracting herself from the sludge, Hattie glanced around for whatever truck had just hit her.
It took her a little bit to make him out among the white. For a second she wondered whether she’d just imagined him but no, there he was: a man strewn across the floor, face-first in the snow with an ivory overcoat draped over his shoulders. He was panting like he’d just run the hardest marathon of his life and there was something metal and shiny clutched in his hand. It glimmered with red under the low lamp light. The snow looked splattered with something dark.
Hattie shoved herself to her feet in a panic. Her coat and her jeans were both soaked through. Suddenly, iy felt like she was swimming in an ice bath. Her boots crunched miserably in the snow as she danced a little on the spot, rubbing circles into her arms for warmth.
“A-Are you okay? That was a really nasty f-fall,” she called, voice shivering. The stranger let out a moan that was muffled by the ground.
“Ngh…”
“Hold on, I’m c-coming!” Hattie flitted, a stuttering and apologetic sort of thing as she went to pick her way across the road towards him. “Don’t move, you might’ve broken something—”
Or, at least, that’s what she tried to say.
Except that the moment she took that first step in the man’s direction, the world tilted on its head.
Cold.
Everything was so cold.
It was like some secret, biological switch had just been hit. A drunken haze threw itself like a screen across her eyes, dragging down on her limbs and dulling out the chill that should have sunk straight through her shabby coat to her bones. She felt like a puppet with its strings all knotted together; her feet tried to move but gave out from under her. Her upper limbs jerked out of control. She couldn’t feel her fingers anymore.
It took her a second to move again, except it was sluggish and hindered and everything was just so cold.
She knew she was on the floor.
When had she fallen?
Why?
No, unimportant. Focus on making legs work first.
Hattie shook it from her head and pushed herself back to her feet—or she tried to. Like a bow of a ship in the middle of a storm, the world beneath her pitched and plunged. Bile, sour and acrid and burning, gathered at the back of her throat and she felt her knees go weak. She barely made it even a few feet off the ground before she was nose-down in the snow again.
What… What was happening?
Was she sick? Was it hypothermia?
A distant wave of panic took over as she tried to force herself back to her feet.
Somewhere almost distant, she heard the rustles and grunts of someone picking themselves up off the ground. Unlike her, they must’ve been successful because there was a gasp and the smushing of snow underfoot as the stranger rushed to her side.
“Oh, god!” the man gasped. He was shaking, stuttering, almost horrified.
She tried to look up but the nausea forced her back down. It was like the earth was rotating around her as she lay still.
Her head felt so heavy and her eyes kept sliding shut without her permission. Her whole body felt like it was shutting down on her; her muscles ached and refused to move, her heartbeat was slow and deafening in her ears and it was suddenly so, so hard to just… breathe.
Had she been drugged somehow? Was it just that cold out? Had he given her a concussion?
Questions died on her tongue, muffled against lips that didn’t feel like they belonged to her anymore.
“I’m so s-sorry! I wasn’t looking—I wasn’t—stars! Oh, no, no, no—”
Hands patted against her back, peeling back her hair from her face, pressing against her throat as if to check for her pulse.
Oh, okay, she thought dazedly, although she didn’t know what about. He didn’t mean to. Thats not so bad, then.
Her broken brain didn’t know what had him so freaked out for a good long second until she saw the darkness pooling beneath her, dripping from her chest to land in a puddle under her frosted fingers.
Was she bleeding?
It was wet and stark, shiny and crimson and so very fresh against the snow that the sheer smell of it stung her nose and coiled in her lungs. There wasn’t a lot of it and it might’ve been pretty at some other time; dark, dark, darker, so much so that it was more black than red, staining and running in rivulets through the ivory ice like the veins of a tree.
But it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t scary, either. It was just sort of… there. It was there and it was wrong and she found that she didn’t really care .
“O-Oh…” was all Hattie managed.
And then something small and hard pressed against the small of her back and the whole world crumpled.
It was safe to say that Hattie knew pain; she knew falling over and scraping her knee on the playground’s gravel pit, breaking her arm on a tree branch that splintered beneath her. She knew paper cuts, bruises and the aches that came from waking up day after day on an unforgiving mattress; the throb of scalding coffee as it spilt across her fingers.
Agony, though? Now that was new. New and very, very unwelcome.
It burned. Hotter than anything she’d ever felt before. It was like fire at first but then ice, blistering hot and biting cold. It wracked all the way through from her head to her toes, pain of the sharp and biting kind that had her bones rattling under her skin and her lungs spasming as she tried silently to scream, breath, shout—anything!
But her body refused to move.
She could taste salt and blood on her lips and almost gagged when another wave of nausea and fresh agony stabbed at her. Her thrashing heartbeat screamed bloody murder in her ears, loud and desperate and inescapable.
Oh, I… I’m dying, she realised in a sort of detachedl, dazed way. I’m going to die and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. Huh. I don’t even know what happened.
“Shit,” the man sobbed above her. “Oh, shit, shit, shit! I’m sorry! God, I am so sorry. I can’t—I don’t know how to—”
Clammy fingers danced across her abdomen, her head, her hands, the pulse point in her neck. She barely felt them. There was a rough, hiccupy sort of breathing in her ears and the rustle of something long and heavy like a coat. She tried to squint up at him but there was only black. It was then that she realised he’d draped something over her eyes to stop her from looking.
Oh.
The poor man clutched at her fingers, shaking and shuddering with sobbed apologies.
Vaguely, she heard herself apologising. She didn’t want him to be traumatised. He seemed nice and it was just an accident. Part of her wanted to reach up and gently pat him on the back just so she could try and tell him that it was okay but her hands didn’t move.
That was okay.
Everything was completely fine.
Darkness swam up to meet her, a fuzzy over-taking sort of darkness that wandered slowly over her like a murmur of cold breeze on a warm summer day or the swish of a curtain falling across an open stage. It was unsettling at first, but it chased away the pain and Hattie fell into it gratefully, the choked murmurs of her murderer in her ears.
And for a long time, the world was quiet.
She was warm but not the nice kind of warm. This was a sticky and unpleasant warmth that clung like a musty second skin she couldn’t shake.
There was an ache there under all the haze and the blank confusion as she came to. It lingered not in her muscles and her bones but somewhere deeper. Deep, deep down inside of her chest, clawing at an unreachable part of her. It stung at first like a primal instinct or urge but when she closed her eyes and felt for it, she could feel it slipping and waning like water trickling from the cracks in an overflowing wine glass.
It was almost impossible to describe; strange and alien.
With all the subtlety of a wound-up baseball bat to the face, it all came rushing back to her.
Hattie’s eyes flew open and she sprung up. Immediately, a by-gone rush of vertigo had her stomach churning and she bit down on the urge to be violently sick.
“What just…? How am I…?”
It hurt to speak. Her throat felt raw and torn open as if someone had raked sandpaper down it but it hurt more to move. She was trembling as she careened onto hands and knees- or was it gasping- and there were tears- or was it sweat- dripping from her cheeks to land on shivering hands.
Something felt wrong and she didn’t know how she knew. Everything felt off-kilter; plain wrong like someone had struck an off-key on the piano or chased a nail down a chalkboard.
But that didn’t matter right now. That was the very last concern on her list because somehow, despite everything, she was alive and… and…
A caress of night breeze had her shivering and for a moment, she didn’t register anything as too out of place. But the moment she glanced down at herself, a well of horror and freak bewilderment poured like ice down her spine.
She had no clothes on.
…why did she have no clothes on?!
Not dead and very naked. Yeah, it was a step above being not alive and very naked but it was a minor step at best.
With a heave that took so much more energy than it should have, Hattie pushed herself to her feet. There was something unbelievably heavy draped across her shoulders and it was dark wherever she was. Very dark and very red and very soft against her bare back like the moth-bitten shirt she’d been wearing that morning.
It was a herculean struggle to push it off. Somehow, she did it and careened to her feet, panting and swaying on calloused, icy toes.
She was still outside and it was still freezing and it smelt terrible, that much she knew. But where the hell was she? This wasn’t even the same street.
It was an alley, full of snow and dumpsters and gurgling pipes fixed to mossy brick walls. There was no sign of the man in the long white overcoat.
For some strange reason, the world looked completely out of balance. It felt like she was stood on a raised platform except that it was much too high and she felt much too small.
There was some kind of soggy cardboard beneath her which took her off guard for a second. Cardboard and… a pair of jeans? She frowned and tried to dig for the jeans but they wouldn’t budge. The material felt thicker and heavier and much larger in-hand than it should have been and after several minutes of useless tugging, she gave up and abandoned it to the mess beneath her and just threw her arms around her waist in an attempt to keep warm.
Hattie took a few cautious steps towards the edge of the platform, noting the squish of the mix-match materials beneath her as she moved.
Why did everything look so... big? Something felt horribly wrong and her brain wasn’t fixed enough to figure out what it was. The closer she got to the edge of her sanctuary, the quicker she started to realise just how wrong everything was.
Little things started to come together in the bewildered, chilled and pie-eyed mush that was her broken brain. Like the padlocked backdoor across the way that looked several hundreds of feet too tall. Or the flurries of snow that stood on either side of her so much higher than ankle-level.
She felt so far off the ground it didn’t make sense until she peered over the edge of her platform and felt her stomach drop.
“What the— How?!”
Somehow, the floor was so far away it made her tired head spin. It was a fifty-feet drop at least. Except that it didn’t make any sense!
The buildings towering over her looked like they were the right size, though maybe just a little taller than normal. The door felt bigger than normal but it was still just a door. Everything seemed like it should have been fine, except that…
Hattie turned, hunched and shivering.
Her heart almost stopped.
The platform she was standing on was littered, absolutely littered with trash. Compressed cardboard boxes, crushed metal cans with their tops pierced, candy bar wrappers split open, pieces of plastic food containers and other selective pieces of junk.
That wasn’t what had her stopping, though. She froze because it was all so wrong.
It was like her mental camera was on a close-up zoom shot and her brain didn’t know how to correct it.
The cans were bigger than she was. Bottle tops and loose buttons and empty wrappers were all about half her size and when she looked down, she found herself suddenly recognising the snow-soaked jeans beneath her, looking so much larger than they should have done. Those were her jeans and that—the crumpled red thing that she’d shoved off off herself a second before—was her shirt. And were those her boots sticking out from under that trash bag?
It was as if her clothes had suddenly up and outgrown her while she was unconscious. But that was impossible and really, it was more like…
Well, it was almost like she’d been shrunk.
Hattie stared.
Oh… Oh, no.
She scrambled to the edge of the cardboard platform, heart thudding and feet slipping. “Hello? Hello, can…. can anyone hear me?! Is there anyone out there? Hello?!”
It felt like hours of her yelling into empty snow and dark, trying desperately to pretend like she hadn’t just found herself lying in a dumpster among a pile of giant, bloodied clothes that had once been hers. Like she hadn’t just been miniaturised and left for dead on accident.
Nobody came.
Even so, she kept yelling until her throat turned hoarse and raw. She kept screaming until she felt her spirit finally start to sag, begging for whatever nightmare this was to end.
Maybe she’d finally done it; she’d finally broken herself from the stress and the lack of sleep and the overworking. It was impossible to shrink, after all. Yes, that made a lot more sense than some weird shrinking theory. She was just going crazy.
Everything was so cold and Hattie…
Hattie was just so tired.
She retreated back to the worn, bloody shirt and curled up half under it with a shivering sigh, struggling to keep her eyes open. Never in her life had she felt so desperate to return to her freezing, rickety apartment with the far-too-sleazy landlord and the rats crawling in the walls.
It was just… so cold.
And that was just about all she managed to think as, for the second time that day, she gladly let herself be taken by unconsciousness.