February 3, 2021: Mokita

Once the elevator doors had closed, Syn heaved a sigh of relief. She didn't want to linger in that hallway for too long lest earning the attention of the strange woman.

She leaned on the metallic wall of the lift, feeling its coldness on her cheek. Somehow, somnolence had caught up with her unbothered consciousness as she travelled from the 53rd floor down to the 20th.

'I forgot to take my medicines again. I better do it the instant that I get home. I haven't eaten, so I need to cook. I can't really drink my medicines with an empty stomach.'

With another sough, but an enervated one this time, Syn kept her eyes on the digital screen that displayed the floor numbers. During which, she pondered over some things that she ought to have done.

'I need to do the laundry, but I'm too tired. I'll just do it after I get at least a few hours sleep. Oh, think I forgot to give my uncle a reply concerning the change of shift later. I better do it now.'

That being said, she unlocked her phone and sent a message to her uncle, agreeing to sub-in for the employee that would be taking absence for the morning shift in the cafe. Not a moment too soon of tapping on the send icon, the elevator doors opened.

Syn gave one last look on the LED panel, ascertaining that the lift had dropped her on the 20th floor, prior to stepping out. Sans a second thought, she sauntered in the direction of her unit.

Thereupon turning at two corners, walking down one lengthy corridor, she landed in front of the door to her condo unit. The lady put her thumb on the little circle drawn on the door lock. Once it recognized her fingerprint, the access showed a numeric keypad on its facade. Syn inputted her password, and shortly, the door was unlatched.

Pushing the passageway as slowly as she could, Syn surveyed every inch of the entrance. Perchance, it was her trauma that was doing the work, but she acquired the habit of discerning any sliver of change in her own room every time she gets home.

'I don't know if I'm simply unlucky with the people that I meet or someone wants me dead. Either way, I have no choice but to persist. It's the only thing that I can do properly after all. They can kill me however they want once I pay that debt in full.' She said to herself as she inched her path inside the unit. Syn was reasonably apprehensive, by virtue of her fretful and pessimistic imagination's monopoly on the void that she previously harnessed.

In the wake of a few tensed minutes, she finally regained her composure.

'Everything is in place, thank the heavens. Right, medicine, I need to drink my medicine now.'

Having organized her thoughts upon confirming that her place wasn't raided, Syn promptly made her way to the kitchen. Upon arriving, she proceeded to pull up a chair, dropping her bag on it and the phone on the table.

'What should I eat? I want to rest as soon as possible, so I don't want to cook.' Syn contemplated regarding her trivial problem as she opened the right door of the refrigerator. She went on to pick up a box of low-fat milk ahead of moving towards the pantry cabinet beside the table. From there, she procured the glass vessel containing her preferred snack of whole-grain corn flakes with slices of almonds.

'I'll just settle with a bowl of cereal. I can't really complain, can I?'

Thereafter preparing her late 'meal', she sat down on the seat opposite where she placed her bag. All the while eating, she reached for her phone and began to look at the notifications that piled up in her device.

"Hmm? Who's this?" Syn couldn't help but bring up a query when she saw a text message from an unknown number.

The lady tapped on the message to look at it, becoming bewildered the instant that she read it.

"Watch... out?" She uttered prior to leaning back on the seat, groaning out of the frustration that started to breed at the back of her mind. "Oh f*ck me, am I in trouble again? Seriously, these people don't stop. I'm just a prostitute for damn's sake. Why are they going after me as if I owe them a large amount of mon- Wait. Owe?"

Syn tilted her head until her gaze confronted the ceiling. In due course, she covered her face with her hands and suspired, deep enough to last a few seconds, in an attempt to expel the exhilaration that was consuming her body.

'Don't tell me, they're the ones behind all of the sh*t happening in my life. Why can't they take a break? It's not like I'm running away. Hell is too peaceful for those bastards. If they want to change the deadline, then they could've talked to me directly. What's this childish and roundabout way of threatening me?'

For the second time around, the urge to scream in the balcony came to her. Though, when all is said and done, screaming wouldn't help her in paying her family debt. Thus, she hampered her desire and just resumed in filling her stomach up.

Latterly of finishing her agenda with food, Syn stood up to get her medicine box that was placed on top of the mini-cabinet, adjoining one of the couches in the living room. She brought it with her back to the kitchen, lowering it on the table before taking out a bottle of water from the fridge.

For her delayed session, she was required to intake eight prescriptions, one being an Alkalyting agent, and self-administer two injectable medicines. With much agony, she went ahead and arranged six blister packs, two syringes, and two medical vials on the surface, in order to have a more organized and less stressing time in consuming a third of her daily dose.

Immediately upon getting over her dreaded moment of the day, she cut out the empty parts of the blister packs and returned them inside the box along with the vials.

In the midst of taking a stand to discard the trash, she noticed her phone's screen that lit up. Curious of the message that she received at five in the morning, she quickly gave it a glance. Seeing that it was a message from Tristan, she freed her hands from the garbage within her clutches. She proceeded to unlock the device with her fingerprint, poring over the man's communication the instant it was opened.

[[[ "We need to have a talk. I'll be visiting you again, Syn." ]]]

Syn was flustered, very much so, when the word 'again' came into her sight, thinking, 'Did he come here earlier? If that is the case, how do I explain why I was not home?'