Who Gave You a Key

It was late. After midnight. Khaat was tired, and she had lost track of how many cups of french roast she'd had. Her feet hurt. She didn't remember how long she'd had the tall, black stilettos on her feet, but they felt welded to her feet, and she was starting to think that her feet were going to be shaped that way permanently.

She yawned as she walked out of the hospital entrance and she stretched some of her aching muscles. She pushed the shoulder strap of her purse back up on her shoulder, rolled the sleeves up to 3/4 on her green silk blouse and, without thinking, brushed some wrinkles out of the black pencil skirt. She just wanted some fresh air. She was thinking of her father, sequestered in the potions lab endlessly, doing research to try to find a cure for the illness. She had made sure that he was provided with everything he needed. And she was carrying her patient load and his too, along with both their jobs to run the hospital.

There was no such thing right now as sleep. For awhile, she had slept off an on, for an hour or two at a time. Now, she had stopped that as well, becoming fearful with dozing off. Afraid if she slept, she would truly give in to the fatigue.

Her newlywed husband, Brian, had transfigured her office closet into a well appointed efficiency quarters for her, but nearly all she had used was the shower and the closet. And tonight she had sent him home to exchange the clothes in her quarters for smaller sizes.

There were a few people out tonight walking the London streets but in this derelect neighborhood full of abandoned muggle stores, it wasn't loaded with Khaat's normal choice of friends. It was empty--sort of. And she was glad. Her brain seemed full of random thoughts that pulled at her from every direction, and it was giving her a migraine. Or was that simply the lack of sleep.

She had the urge for something a bit compulsive. So she opened her purse and drew out Brian's cigarette case that she had 'borrowed' from his suitcoat pocket, along with his lighter. She perhaps smoked 2 cigarettes every five years. But it seemed to answer a craving tonight. She lit the cigarette, glad it was one of Michael's imported Italian ones. At least they seemed to have a bit of an layer of brandy to the afternotes of the tobacco. She put the lighter and the cigarette case back in her purse and inhaled slowly and deeply off the cigarette, pausing before she exhaled.

There was something to be said for a moment to take a solitary walk around the block.

The streets of London had been set alight by the future; probabilities twisted in streams constructed of vibrant hues, dancing amongst shadowy figures and street lamps. The Northern Lights had no business being in Britain - 'twas not the nature of things. These fluent waves of energy did not abide by any of mankind's accepted sciences. But Nemo had never fit snugly in any particular category crafted by man, either. If he could be slotted neatly behind one of society's titles, a limb would certainly be left dangling free, incapable of squeezing alongside the rest of him due to a lack of sufficient room. He and the future were quite alike in that manner - or, rather, his perception of the Times to Come as Nemo waltzed lethargically throughout the humid evening air, imagining before him the physical manifestation of the tingling warmth that overcame him as his precognition informed him of the small, short-term events that were to occur.

Silky silhouettes outlined the strangers he passed, and Nemo dreamt of each in different colors and consistencies, so to suite the pasts and the futures that he plucked from each as he walked. The spliff that nestled comfortingly between his first and second fingers had been quite the visual aid.

As a sluggish vehicle crawled along the cobblestone, overtaking Nemo, the exhaust did blaze a bottomless shade of black. As it spat from its churning core a cloud of smoke, as deep a red as blood, Nemo braced himself for its oncoming failure.

Beams of yellow erupted from a hooded figure to Nemo’s left, sliding from the man’s shoulders in zig-zagging lines before they crashed against the sidewalk below.

Nemo’s gaze skitted to his right, landing upon a mud-matted feline as it wove to-and-fro along a building side. The fur upon its presently-lax tail was flecked with blue sparks, which glared at Nemo relentlessly. Spikes like those along a Norwegian Ridgeback, penciled in as though London were a notebook upon which Nemo's mind was free to scribble, rose from its back and rolled with the ridges of the cat’s spine as the animal proceeded to prowl throughout the night.

And a woman in the distance (OOC: cue Khaat), her figure too vague to determine the true nature of, yet unmistakably feminine, had been speckled with small star bursts - red. They glimmered against her clothing in stark contrast – like the cosmos, tinted crimson with water paints.

The exhaust pipe,
the homeless man,
the feline,
& the woman.

The engine will fail, and the exhaust will 'explode'.
The sound will frighten the hobo - he'll jerk his shoulders out of surprise.
The cat will shriek, and will dart away from the car towards the chick.
The chick will stand in the cat’s way, and will be clawed by the cat when it springs on her.

whckckck-whckck-CRACK!
“Oh!”
“Raiew!”

Nemo returned his expertly-crafted drug to his smile, and continued on his way: wandering absently towards the woman whom he’d predicted would suffer at the hands – nay, paws – of the frightened stray. How enjoyable it was, to stroll the streets at night.

OOC Notes: The visuals of Nemo's Seer abilities were heavily inspired by some of Van Gogh's later paintings, i.e. the vibrant, glaring auras that surround the lights/stars in his artwork. 'Starry Night Over the Rhone' immediately comes to mind as an example.

Khaat had not been thinking. Hadn't been aware. She wasn't looking for any more than a chance to enjoy a rather clandestine cigarette. She didn't like thinking she had to slip into the darkness to enjoy a rare cigarette. It was that damninable reputation that people like saintly Jess Potter expected the Lupins to have. Lupins were supposed to be superhuman. It sucked. She wasn't a saint. Nor were any of the other Lupins. Potter had a bee apparently in some bodily orifice where it didn't belong when it came to his opinion of her family as of late, and she was tired of it. She took a puff off the cigarette in rebellious defiance. Some defiance. In the dark. Where no one was watching.

She heard a sudden bang--like a muggle pistol. She jumped. And the next thing she knew, there were claws sinking into her leg, like little razor blades sinking into her flesh and then hanging a weight of them. She reached down and grasped something furry by the scruff of its little neck and wrenched it off her leg, finally letting it register by its terrified howling that it was a cat. She looked around seeing nothing but a pair of taillights from a muggle car fade off into the distance. She noticed her cigarette was gone now too, and she had no idea where she lost it at. It didnt' look like the cat had it.

"Thanks a lot," she sighed, putting the cat on the sidewalk. It dashed off, with all its fur standing on end. She took a few more paces down the sidewalk when she began to feel slightly sick to her stomach. Then she figured out why. It stunk. It smelled like filthy, wet, diseased dog. It stopped her for a moment. She never had liked that smell. Wait..it was an old smell. A familiar smell.

And then she heard it. A sound that was half growl, half sinister laughter--and she had no idea what direction it was coming from. She felt her heart sink. He'd followed her even here? Crap. That was just every sort of wrong. If she could find him, maybe she had half a chance.