A New Look

When it comes back to time to wake up again, I can't see anything except blackness, and it terrifies me. I can't help but feel like I'm stuck back in the darkness, clutching Ranger's dead body. I scrabble around, feeling the cushy armchair beneath me and then light floods in as I bump the blanket off my head, where someone had placed it to help me sleep. Blinking in the sudden light that stuns my eyes, after they adjust I can see a couple of people asleep in the room. Personal and Rectified are both still asleep, I think. I think Rectified fell asleep on the floor, midway through patting Lolita. They have a blanket pulled over them and a couch cushion under their head, so someone has been wandering around making everyone comfortable. It makes me feel happy inside, to have friends that care about me so much.

Yawning widely and stretching my arms, I try to stand up and can't, collapsing back into the armchair with a muffled squeak. I stay as silent as I possibly can for a second, and then realise nobody was woken up, thankfully. Grabbing my crutches from where they are balanced against the chair, I get up and move as slowly and silently as I can to the door, wincing at every click of metal on metal from the crutches. Thankfully, I do make it out of the room without waking anyone up. Well, I think so at least. It's hard to tell forsure but I assume so, given nobody seemed pissed off at being woken up. I'm not sure exactly what I want to do next, but some part of it should involve getting changed and finding breakfast. And- I wrinkle my nose- a shower. Gross.

Shower first, before I make myself nauseous with the smell, some of which is old sweat and blood, and other smells I can't identify… and don't want to put any more thought into.

Heading down the corridor, I pass a huge wall mounted mirror on the stairwell. Looking at myself in the reflection is like looking at a horror film- My hair is messy, dirty, and I think there's actually a chunk of bubblegum in the back of it. Turning slightly, I can see that there is. Ew. Looking down, not looking a lot better, staring at the rest of my body. My hands are grazed and gritty, probably infected judging from the pinkening around the edges. Well, shit. That's all I got. Time for a bath, I think. At least my room has a bath, so I can soak for a while. Upstairs I go, slowly progressing up the ridiculous amount of steps in this house. I understand that they had all kinds of servants and such here, but does it really require five floors of stairs? Absolutely not. Finally making it to my room I have a bath and upon quickly realising the gum in my hair isn't going to come out easily, I'm probably going to give myself a haircut.

Scrubbed clean, I sit in front of the mirror and hack away at my hair, cutting it carelessly on purpose, and when it's done I don't hate the look, but I don't love it either. My hair always looks messy either way, so might as well embrace it. I feel like it could be improved upon if I changed the colour though… maybe black. Or even purple would be cool, but then I would have to bleach it and I can't be bothered with that just yet. But I don't have any hair dye. Maybe someone else does though? I can ask after I get dressed. So what to wear? Looking through my wardrobe yields a couple of good options- a pink overshirt that sparkles, a shredded blue crop top that I've had for far too long and as such is a tight fit, or an old oversized black shirt with gold paint thrown across it. Definitely the big shirt. Black skinny jeans to match, spiked hoop earrings, a little bit of eyeliner and a safety-pin bracelet makes my look complete. But it's missing something… it's all a bit emo, looking in the mirror. Goodbye to the safety pins, and in its place I put a pair of gold chains. Perfect, barring the hair. To the supermarket, I think. I can get myself breakfast and hair dye at the same time. But walking… and the bus isn't a great choice either. I guess the bus is the better of two bad options. Wallet, replacement burner phone, keys (which are now useless because all the locks are broken) and book stuffed in a bag, I'm ready to set off on my quest. Back down the stairs and almost to the door, I realise that I forgot my water bottle. Shit. Ah well. I'm definitely not going up and down five floors again just to go and get it.

At the bus stop, I get onto the old bus, lights flickering slightly. I don't think this old thing's had a remodel for quite a few years, and it shows. Four stops later, I'm as close to the supermarket as the bus can possibly get me, and walking for a bit more I'm finally there. Although it does quite hurt my grazed hands, pushing down on the crutches with every step. I get myself a pain au chocolat and find some basic ingredients to make pancakes when I get back, and then I have to decide on what colour dye to buy. My hair is still reasonably long and shaggy, so I'm not one hundred percent sure one box of dye will be enough. I think I'll get one more, just in case. But what colour? Looking at the options only makes me more indecisive- there's no red, but I wasn't really going to dye my hair red anyway. There's all the natural colours, but that's boring and I think I'm going to pass on those. So that leaves orange, yellow, purple, blue, green, pink, white and black. How am I supposed to choose that? And then it strikes me that I don't really have to pick one, I can have two or more if I want. I think black and yellow is a good mix, not too busy and if I only dye one streak yellow then I can hide it under a hat in a pinch. Perfect. Grinning, I make my way to the self-checkouts and pay for my groceries, and walk through the autumn leaves back to the bus stop.