What is the word for sleepwalking, when you are, in fact, awake? Nerissa wasn’t sure, and it made her feel even more dazed as she pondered over that question, as she walked down the streets. Her usual, hurried pace was replaced with one that looked awkward, and as if she were dancing with her shadow, which was moving in the same way on the brick ground before her.
Nerissa stared ahead, her eyes unseeing. How much sleep had she gotten the night prior? She wasn’t sure; she had passed out when the sun had risen, that was all that she could really recall. Had she been drinking? No. A fourteen-year-old swallowing alcohol was unheard of, and was out of the question. So what was clouding her memory? The answer was obvious; lack of sleep due to the odd headaches she had been suffering from recently, and the dazed state she was currently in- but it took too much brain power for her to process this information, and so, she continued to wonder if there was actually such thing as notasleepbutfeelingverydazedwalking.
Nerissa Hatts had never dreamed of walking down the streets of Knockturn Alley; dark places came with dark stories about death and torture, and usually, being anywhere near the place would have sent violent shivers down the young female’s spine and beads of cold sweat slipping from the pores in the skin of her palms. But Nerissa wasn’t aware, exactly, of where she was headed when she walked forwards, hidden in the shadows that cloaked the Alley until she turned around a corner, leaning to the side so that her shoulder ran across the brick walls as she continued forward, stopping outside of a shop to stare at the sign for a few moments blankly.