It's a Brand New Day

You awaken in a cold sweat, you're laying in your apartment, in a pool of your own blood... You don't really remember why this is. Everything's fuzzy, and you get a headache thinking about it too hard. You remember there being a notail and then...
and then...
...
...
They took your arm didn't they.
You look over to your arm... That's...
That's not your arm. It's rigid, there's definitely a bone in there, you can feel it. It's covered in rough black feathers, or well, they seem black, or maybe dark blue, the color seems to shift as you wave the arm around in the light. And then there's the hand, it's some sort of claw, with three fingers and a thumb, it's covered in black scales and have black talons that look sharp... very sharp.
...
"Ah!" You poke yourself in the arm with alarming ease, your blood flows down the wound and down your arm. You'd say that bothers you, but what bothers you more is how unbothered you actually are by it.
You're suddenly aware of something pressed on your thigh, it's Red and also Blehpie... they're both asleep. "What time is it..." You look over to the clock. It's 5:30 am. Well you did promise you'd come in early didn't you.

You look over at Blehpie and Red... Blehpie is just waking up and beginning to blehp happily... presumbly over the fact that you aren't dead. You chose to believe that's why they're doing it anyway. Blehpie is hovering around Red... You'd like to believe they learned their lesson and won't try to eat Red again...


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 7

Naturally your concerns are validated, as you are swiftly in the middle of pulling Red out of Blehpie. Yeah you're not fully certain Blehpie can be trusted to be alone with Red at the moment, so you're gonna have to get someone reliable.
You definitely have neighbors besides Jay who you could ask... Jay would definitely say yes, but you're not super interested in being indebted to him for anything. You walk outside the hallway, to search for a neighbor you can rely on.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 20

Thankfully for you, you find the the perfect candidate. Your next door neighbor, a kindly old crawler lady that you've heard really good things about. You used to be kinda freaked out by them because they were a rotting corpse and all, but you've pretty much gotten over that as you realized what a nice lady they were.
You carefully explain to them the particulars of taking care of your two pet/babies. Putting particular emphasis on the fact that Blehpie cannot be fully trusted to be alone with Red. You alternating used to the term "baby" and "pet" because you're not certain you're fully comfortable yet with the idea of being a mom... again.
That aside you say goodbye to your babies, and leave them in the care of the kindly old spider-lady... You're coming back but that doesn't make you feel less sad about it.
You retrieve your work-clothes... unfortunately since you were... nearly murdered... you didn't get the chance to wash them, and they still smell like garbage...


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 14

While the part of you that's [Lazy] would like to say "Fuck it" and walk into work in garbage clothes, you headlock that part of yourself and firmly decide "NO". Unfortunately this is one of those places with a communal laundromat, so you're gonna have to go downstairs... And now that you're thinking on it, your clothes are still covered in your own blood... You had to explain several times to that nice old spider lady that you were fine that she didn't need to call the hospital or anything.
You don't really want to have that conversation with dozens of other people.
So you're just gonna go down there nude. You're not above doing that. Lots of people do that. You remember you've seen them. You mean, you're obviously going to wear your underwear, you're not a savage after all.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 14

You leave your apartment again, making certain that you've locked it this time. Your journey to the elevator is uneventful, even Jay isn't there to bother you. The elvator is fairly full, some of them give you odd looks, others don't... Now that you think about lots of people in this universe don't even wear clothes do they. That's weird, you think, as the elvator goes down.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 13

You exit into the lobby, It's a fairly mundane day today. There's someone talking to the receptionist, you think they're one of those mummy people you heard about... you can't recall the name. There's some people just sort of milling about, and there's the janitor, a drakon, just napping in the corner. Being a drakon they're no less capable of doing their job while napping, as you're presented with the amusing sight of a mop-and-bucket seemingly operating all by themselves.
Some people stare at you as you make your way to the laundromat. Which is increasingly making you a little self-concious. Mostly on account of the fact that several people in this very lobby aren't wearing clothes. Why are they judging you about it!? You woudn't say you're a self-concious person, but that's really because historically you've been too plain to receive much scrutiny, positive or negative.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 6

Unfortunately when you enter the laundromat, most of the machines are in use, and the ones that aren't are out-of-order. You glance at the clock. It's 6:01. You got here at 6:01 and it's still full. Early bird your ass.
You spend a few minutes waiting, when you notice that notail child has been staring at you from across the laundromat, very intently. What is it with this week. Before the start of this week you'd only met like what, 2 notails in your entire life. And now suddenly notails are everywhere. And children. Children and notails, what's up with that.

You give a little wave to the notail, they seem a little taken aback by your sudden attention on them, and they move out of sight. You look around a bit, and some people are definitely looking at you. You take a look at "your" arm. It suddenly occurs to you that they might be staring at that specifically.
It's definitely giving you strange vibes, and as you're staring at it you think you hear something very faintly in the back of your mind.. it sounds like the words: "you hear something very faintly..."


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls an 8

"AH!" You're snapped out of your daze by a sudden sharp pain in your leg. You look to see that notail child... has stabbed you. "Uh... You... uh... C=" You feel as though they're trying to say something.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 1

You attempt to grab them, having in mind to say something to them about stabbing you in the leg but alas they're too quick, and quickly sprint out of the laundromat, to quickly for you to even consider giving chase, should such a thing have been an option for you. You sigh exasperatedly. They left the knife in your leg. Who's just giving out knives to children, children shouldn't just have knives, you think.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 5

You're left waiting for a long time. At first you don't mind the wait, after the initial hubbub of being stabbed in the leg by a weird masked child, things quickly go back to the boring monotony of waiting for an available washing machine.
Minutes drag on, and you lose whatever you'd consider patience, to keep yourself occupied your thoughts turn inward, in reflection of the past two days. "Two days" You absentmindedly mumble to yourself. Just a week ago you'd never even consider the events that've happened recently to be in the realm of realistic properties. It was the kind of stuff that happened in tv shows, the sort where two friends live mutually exclusive double lives, and there's some sort of folkloric demon just sort of hanging around doing people things.
"This isn't supposed to happen here..." You mutter to nobody in particular, as you reflect how "This" certainly did happen, it was certainly "Here" and it was to You specifically. Last week you hadn't given much thought to kids, or other dependencies, and here you are.

You're snapped out of your introspection, thankfully not by another knife to the leg, but rather by a klannec. "Hey, have you been waiting long, because I'm done." He says in a genial sort of tone. "Oh, uh... thank you." Is all you reply, acutely aware of how stilted it sounds. Nonetheless you exchange wordless goodbyes and you get to putting your clothes in the machine.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 2

After a few moments in the machine you hear a whining noise emitting from the washing machine. Acutely concerned about losing your only work uniform, you scramble to try and shut it down. All your meddling does is cause the whining noise to promote itself to a whiny-clicking noise, You look inside the machine, and its not pretty in there... well actually it kind of is, there's a positively psychedelic rainbow of colors swirling in there. It's almost hypnotic.



After about ten minutes of deeply concerning whining and clicking, the machine makes an anticlimactic ding. You open it, and all the "water" spills out, along with your... clothes?


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls an 8

You pick up the clothes from the puddle. These don't really resemble the clothes you put in there. Aside from still being a button up shirt and a skirt, these don't look much like a Galaxy Burger, "Home of the Galaxy Burger uniform much at all anymore... The shirt is a rather garish hot pink and blue, and the logo on the back is for a place called "Zeronco's" You've never heard of "Zeronco's" but the logo is something rather... vulgar... and the skirt is an inch shorter, which is about a third of an inch shorter than you're fully comfortable with.
You're not fully certain you should be wearing this to work, but... You glance over to the clock. 6:37. You don't exactly have a lot of time to be chosey... At least they smell nice now.

You put on the outfit, at which point you notice that the shirt exposes your midriff, and while you're no prude or anything you'll have some words about whatever hypothetical entity finds this appropriate business attire.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 1
Fortuna then rolls a 6 sided die, and rolls a 1

You leave the laundromat, and the apartment building, and exit onto the street, which you immediately note is more crowded than usual. At this hour, on this street, what could possibly have so many people crowding around here. You push your way through the crowd, and you find out.
It's those notails again, the ones with the wolf-masks. This time its all nine of them, including the one with the fancy black mask. They appear to sniffing around and generally harassing everyone in the area. there are a few unoncious bodies in the space around the wolf-tails. They keep shouting around about "anomalies" and "monsters" You rub your right arm around your left... You don't think it would be a good idea to encounter these people in your present state.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 14



You attempt to sidle through the crowd to get around the wolf-boys. Thankfully they don't seem to be overly attentive, though you have a scare when the... the one that attacked you seems to look in your direction.



You could swear she saw you... If she did she didn't tell the others about it because they proceed to get too busy beating up a rather tough looking noxis who tried to get them to leave. "Notails have no honor" Is shouted from somewhere in the crowd, but you didn't wait to see who it was.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die and rolls a 4

You move onto the high-street and attempt to clear your head about all that. The high street is very crowded again, so you have plenty of time to get your mind off of that... You tried so hard to be early as well.
Resigned to the notion that you'll be late again, you decide to casually saunter past the stores you usually do. It's all the usual stuff, that stuff being well above your usual pay-rate, and certainly above your current funds. You pass by a robotics shop, noting the rather... lovely looking Venus unit that is posing sultrily in the window... It's certainly a marketing strategy. You won't lie you kinda want Her.....


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 13

You then pass by that clothing store that gives you such equal parts dread and joy. To your delight the dress you liked earlier is still there in the window. The foolish hope this gives you really lifts your spirits after recent events... not enough to actually be over it, but it definitely helps you pretend that you're over it.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 7

You have a moment of deja-vu as you stand there for a moment appreciating things you can't have. When all of the sudden, a notail child bumps into you... It's that same notail child. Not from today, from the start of the week. "You again! HEY!!" They dab at you before running impishly into the crowd. You have a brief moment of confusion before you realize what happened again.
Not again, not his time.


Fortuna rolls a 20 side die, and rolls a 2

It happened again. You attempted to give chase to that insufferable little brat, but they're just too nimble for you to keep up, especially with the crowd like it is. After a short while you are forced to give up again, and resign yourself to the fact that you lost even more money. You hope the little brat chokes on it.... You're pretty sure that made sense.
You ultimately make it to Galaxy Burger, "Home of the Galaxy Burger. And you morosely look at the townhall clock.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and roll a 17

To your great surprise and relief the immense, friendly leds of the Clock-tower read 6:58. You are still technically early! It's not "bright and early" but surely when you explain yourself...
...
Yeah Dave's not gonna care about your excuses.
Well maybe the one where you nearly died, but the other ones...

You enter the establishment to find Dave waiting at the counter. He looks rather surprised when you actually arive, technically early. "You actually came in... on time, two minutes early is not enough to qualify as early.". You sigh, dejected but unsurprising by his response. He then blinks twise and looks to you, then your arm, then your exposed midriff, then your arm again, then your belly, then your face. You rub your arm a bit expecting some sort of comment on your hand. "What the heck are you wearing, Karla." You blink a few times slightly befuddled.

You stumble over your words formulating a few faltering variations of the phrase: "Oh you know I just...", followed by a noncomittal version or two of: "I just felt that it would be a fun way to..., in an attempt to defuse the situation with a joke. It's how you'd usually deal with the situation, and maybe if this wardrobe malfunction was the only thing that'd happened to you lately you would but...




"I...I'm gonna be honest Dave, the past two days haven't been the best." At first you attempt to keep stiff lip about it, but as you go on it gets increasingly [pitiful], as you go over the events of the last two days.
"First I found this aftik chick in the vending machine, and I thought "I can't eat a baby, that's terrible, and before that I was harrassed by some notails who were looking for some sort of monster..." You meander on about the part where you walking to work and got robbed by a notail kid, "Oh and would you believe that same kid robbed me again today, ha, just my luck isn't it..."
"And then after work that day..." You start, really thinking of how to parse the following events. "I was walking Alex home... you know she lives in a rough neighborhood, I thought it be a nice gesture... but then we... ..." You've started crying, you didn't even realize it, "That's w..when everything went really wrong, We were attacked by these thugs... and I...I was..." You don't really want to admit what happened, but then you suppose you're a bit past pride at this point.
"So they knocked me... and threw me in a dumpster, and I couldn't get out, until..." Dave at this point feels that just standing around in the middle of the restaurant is probably not the best place to have such an emotional conversation, and escorts you into the staff room. You are, of course, in no emotional state of mind to contest this.
Between sobbing you rattle off some other points, such as how you found Blehpie, how that Civil Sec officer had to let you out. You struggle to get through the part where you walked through the site of what you euphemistically call "murders". "You know the only time I'd seen a dead body before that was when I saw a dead felixcity on the tramline..." Dave, gives a slightly more sincere smile than usual, You get used to it. You don't really think you want to.
You then go through the rest of the day, how your home was invaded by some notails, and then you finally got a moment of peace when...



When...



"D...Dave." You struggle with what you're about to say. "I... think I died." Dave stares at you for a while afterward, like He's considering something. "I'm pretty sure that's... normal... for uh, what you've gone through... lots of people think they die, and that just means... you... Dave trails off, evidently unsure of what He should say next. "Well... whatever the case, I woke up, in a pool of my own blood.. with this." You show him your weird feathery arm which shimmers peculiarly in the light.
Afterward you rattle off the rest of the day up until now, including the bit where your clothes were transmogrified by a washing machine... In retrospect it was so absurd that that happened, you can't help but laugh about it, Dave looks rather concerned.
After all that you sob and sniffle for a few more minutes afterward. You finally look at Dave... you can't believe you vented all that... Dave makes a deep inhale, and exhale. "It sounds like you're going through a lot of... things... and If you need to take another day... You immediately make some gestures to the contrary for that plan. As much as you'd like to, you feel like you can't, not so much because you think you'd be fired, but...
If you don't get in enough work hours you won't be able to pay your rent. You admittedly pay the smaller portion of the rent between you and your absent roommate, but you still need to get in enough hours to cover it, since your hourly pay is just about enough to cover it for the month. "Well if you're insistent about it, then I guess you should get to work... You just start whenever you're ready, but don't take too long, time is money."

The Work-Day Begins


Fortuna rolls two 100 sided dice, and rolls a 70 and a 94
Fortuna then rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 19

You spend about an hour emotionally preparing yourself to get to work, venting all that definitely made you feel better, not so much "good" but better. You don't want to experience what you were feeling before ever again...
While you getting your emotions sorted out, C.B and Rico walk in, Rico's looking a little... duller than usual, not that he was ever the smartest looking person, but He looks a little out of sorts, and C.B is... green, more accurately the parts of her that were yellow are now a yellowish-green color. You give them a concerned wave with your tentacle, Rico responds in a gruff, yet vague manner, and C.B Giggles as the two of them enter the Stock-room.



A few minutes after them, Alex comes in... she's wearing something completely different than you remember, aside from your hat, She's wearing a different look mask, like an animal shaped mask... you're not good with animals so you couldn't say what it is of. "Uh... Mr. Dave said I should talk to you... are you... okay? Xv(X)" After she says this, you are once again aware of how you look, having spent the better part of half-an-hour crying, you're probably.
"I...am.. well I will be, It's been a bad few days." You let out an involuntary sniffle, and she suddenly decides to sit beside you. "You want to... talk about it. Xv(X)" You're a bit perplexed, from your interactions previously you didn't think she was the sort to... "Nah... I'm good, I practically cried Dave's ear off earlier, I just need to take some time to... get readjusted." She tilts her head to the right... you're uncertain what that gesture is supposed to signify, but she doesn't leave.
The two of you just sit there for a few minutes, you consider asking her if she shouldn't be doing her job, but honestly you appreciate the company... you're not staring at her... you're not.

And then you remember something important.



Oh, uhm... Alex. You say, unsure if you really want to say it. She just hmms, and looks in your direction. Do you... have a sister? After you ask the question Alex tilts her head to the left, that one definitely indicates confusion. "No. Notails... don't have siblings, generally. Xv(X)
You mull that over, and realize that, yeah, you think you read somewhere about that, every quelan has at least one sister (or some other sort of sibling), and so its a subject of frequent interest when the family dynamics of other species are somewhat odd. "What made you ask that? Xv(X)" It's hard to tell, but you think there was tone of worry in there. You spend a moment to parse your thoughts on the matter... it's not a pleasant memory, such that you can remember it, but what she said...
"Last night... there was notail that attacked me... they said they wanted me to tell someone that their sister was looking for them... and the way they said it, I think they thought you were their sister." After you say that, there's a period of weighty silence between the two of you. You're concerned you said something wrong, when suddenly "Did this notail... do that to you... Xv(X)" [/color] She said very distincly as a nonquestion, while looking at your weird arm. You just give nod. "Alright then." She says rather coldly, without doing her sign-off.
You spend the next few minutes in comfortable silence, at first its slightly tensious with how she ended that conversation, but it quickly warms into the kind of silence where nobody really wants to say anything and ruin it... You glance at the clock after abit, 8:00. Yeah that's long enough.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls an 8.

You and Alex return to your respective workstations... on the way there, you notice a spider-web, with a spider present within... it's a really big spider, big and blue, and it makes you irrationally upset.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls an 8

Suddenly the spider leaps onto your face, causing you to have an extremely negative reaction, you flail about trying to get the thing off your face when you suddenly feel the sharp pain of it biting you right in the face. You let out a shreik of pain before you finally swat the thing off your face. Unfortunately you're too occupied by the spiderbite to pay attention to where it ended up, and thus it almost certainly remains in the building.


Fortuna rolls three 20 sided dice, and rolls an 8, a 6, and a 16

You slouch over to your cashier post, you've never been more relieved to experience the stability and repetition of retail work.
This feeling rapidly fades quickly as you re-experience the reality of it. Over the next few hours, you get some annoying customers, many of whom don't fully understand that this is a burger restaurant. Then you get some rather curious customers.
A pair of those bat-people... you think they're vampwelf, enter the restaurant, conversing in their language. One's dressed in white suit, like you'd see in an old movie about gangsters in coast cities. It has shoulder-pads... who still wears shoulder-pads, this guy apparently. His friend is dressed in a dark, even older style suit, he looks grim. The flamboyant one though is way too energetic, He's laughing at jokes you don't understand because he tells them in a language you don't understand.
They finally get to you and the flamboyant one gives you a curious look. He stares at you for a solid thirty seconds before you ask him about his order, "Oh, apologies, I was just lost in yours... how you say..." His friend interrupts him, and he apologizes and just makes an order. He leaves saying something in his langauge, the tone reminded you of something... you were trying to not pay attention. Along with the pay he left you a large stack of foreign money as a tip... you're gonna have to get this converted later.

The next few rounds of customers are decidedly worse. Many of them give you the impression they came in here just to complain, and more than a few you really want to let out some emotion on You manage to restrain yourself though. Some of them are members of that gang that knocked you out the other day... including that weird looking arma. They look like they're about to start something when they glance behind you, all of them turn several shades paler, and quickly skidaddle out. You wonder what that was about.

The last few hours of your shift, go rather well. Among other things, that well-to-do klannec comes back. He seems rather pleased to see you, which is more than you can say for most people. He makes the same order as before and once again leaves you a generous tip, of 600p... Is he making up for when you weren't here before that's... conspicuously generous. But yannow Gifthorzzes and mouths or whatever, you're pocketing this money.


Fortuna Rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 14

Another day ends and Dave makes another possibly not empty threat to any loiterers. You're helping with cleaning up the place, when you notice someone left a whole 150p on a table. You honestly should return it, but... you know... you don't actually know who left it, it's not like they actually left their wallet or anything. You silently rationalize that you really need the money, and if you explained it to them, they'd understand, as you quickly pocket the cash.


Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 4
Fortuna then rolls four 20 sided dice, and rolls a 15, a 20, a 13, and a 5
Fortuna finally rolls a 20 sided die, and rolls a 20

As you walk out of the Galaxy Burger, "Home of the Galaxy Burger" You feel a slight tinge of illness set upon you... you hope's it not something serious because that would just be the best way to proceed with this week.
You shake off these thoughts as you contemplate what to do, you didn't really get to do your usual activities the past two days, and you're really feeling like you need a good time, to re-cap:
-There's that club you really like, the one with no entry fee.
-There's the somewhat dangerous woods.
-And there's the Arcade.
As you're thinking of what you'll hopefully be able to actually accomplish tonight, you're suddenly aware of Alex striding toward you at a somewhat alarming clip.
"Hi. I'd like to walk you home. Xv(X)" She says this in such a sharp, un-characteristically forthright way, you're just left completely flummoxed.

敗者のための物語
You find yourself walking down the street on way to your home "Huh that's odd" You think to yourself, weren't you walking down with Alex? Or something, honestly it feels like nearly a year has passed since you last walked home without incident. "nnnnnnnnnnn" you grumble as you cannot shake the strange feeling, is it deja vu? or is it deja vu's tremendously less popular brother, what was their name again.

At some point you reach the elevator, the path through the lobby presumbly happening at some point between you trying to remember the term for the other thing that isn't deja vu and reaching this point, but gods if you can be bothered to have concious awareness of it. This whole situation feels strangely foreign, divorced from the convention of your life as it has progressed thus far. You aimlessly mouth somthing vaguely french as you approach your unsullied door, briefly thinking "What the hell is french?" as you fumble about the lock.

"I'm home." You say to noone in particular as you step over the verge. You have pets right? Or are they kids? You're knocked out of this line of query by the queerest sight you've ever beheld.