The whirring of an alarm stirred Seraphina as she gradually came back to herself, faded morning sunlight supplanting the wintry star squalls as distant dreams and improbabilities submitted to strict reality.  

— But she could still vaguely sense the perceptible warmth of crushing hands enveloped in her own with the willpower of a thousand men; her skin atingle, like the aftershocks of an electric touch, as she blearily raised her arm to scrutinize her uninjured palm through shards of hazy white light, searching for something that might have not even been there in the first place. It was only when the incessant ringing became a little too much to bear mentally when she abandoned her quest for the truth, letting the limb fall limp, smacking softly against the twisted sheets while she took a second to— adjust, eyes tightly scrunched and her vacuous insides churning violently like she was hungover, albeit she has remarkably never touched a bottle of alcohol in her life. Blindly, she patted around for the smartphone and quieted it, momentarily restoring harmony while she loafed, not entirely willing to face the day yet.  

Minutes passed. The alarm reignited. She silenced it and curtained her eyes with her forearm in a petty effort to obstruct the sunglow like a vampire exposed to a brutal summer afternoon. More time passed. The alarm continued to resound until she finally mustered the energy to bash in her passcode and manually disengage it. Seraphina considered wrenching her blankets over her face and sleeping well into the evening for the third day in a row, but she bravely decided against it and slowly disentangled herself from comforting bedsheets. Aching joints groaned defiantly— as did every other notable instinct like rolling out of bed was the very equivalent of sticking your hand in a hot oven, and that the instant she left her confined quarters, she would surely evaporate on the spot.  

The stink and sweat accumulated after rotting for the better half of the last week nestled itself underneath every pore and follicle and doused her unwashed shirtfront, and she recoiled dramatically when she decided to catch a whiff. She canvassed her space, adorned by colorful decor and collectibles like shelves of bizarre, unorthodox knickknacks she purchased from the antique store downtown juxtapositioned to a miniature altar with an unlit candelabra and the skull of the previous homeowner— no, she just bought it online for decoration. Hanging globes of unconsidered plants that had already succumbed, she was thankful that the complex did not allow pets or else she would have probably inadvertently killed it within the first three days.  

Fake cobwebs and rows of intricate picture frames foregrounding morbid and abstract pieces, crows and bats and spiders and haunting sceneries— some of which she had painted with her own hand, back when she had the motivation to pursue creative hobbies. The doubtless cursed clown doll she impulsively fetched from that shady garage sale. A decorative spirit board. And a small bookcase that was tightly packed with myriads of macabre works. There was an almost claustrophobic sense of clutter since she had developed a bad habit of hoarding, occurring when she was originally unleashed into the world of adulthood, and God knows that she lacked the mental restraint necessary to forestall her intrusive spending habits. But Seraphina navigated it with ease, nonetheless, as she wanly maneuvered over to her wardrobe. Though after tucking away a plain dark dress she had bought on a complete whim, she decided that she had overestimated her enthusiasm and merely opted for a comfortable albeit holey black sweater and a pair of shorts, thereafter embarking for the bathroom.  

She stayed under the scalding water until her skin pruned, absentmindedly watching the water sluicing down her chest dribble onto the damp tile like she was borderline possessed. Emptiness snagged at her core like a barb hooking underneath her skin, peeling and rippling until the facade would at last give and the unstopped poison would claw its way out to consume the world, leaving her gasping for air when she has already been made a hapless victim of her own hate. It wasn’t until she was crimson and aching when she finally shut the faucet off and sluggishly crawled out to reembrace the chill of her apartment. The heater had yet to be replaced, and winter was charging in with the ferocity of a stampede. She found herself battling the itch to hide away under the covers despite how overtired she was— and oftentimes lamented about how inherently easier it would be to simply sleep forever. 

She clumsily slid the patchy sweater overtop and examined her reflection— and she hated what she saw. She hated it like it was the cold-blooded manslayer who had broken in, slaughtered her entire family, and left her sprawled in a pool of her own innards. 

The hair she had meticulously taken care to outgrow— she had been forced to abruptly chop off after it was demanded by her previous employer and it was coarse work, taking a random set of scissors and hacking off the correct length until it was mismatched and misarranged. The dark-colored dye she had previously experimented with had already been squeezed out, restoring it to its natural shade of light brown, the choppy skeins of her unbrushed bangs accentuating the sunken contours of an exhausted expression. The corners of the mirror were strangled black as her brain stuttered over itself and a groundswell of anxiety and frustration punched through her lungs— and she would never see herself as anything but the stranger who happened to inhabit her home, mocking and belittling, shapeless clothes cinched around her gut like a vice, a maw— an inescapability.  

Seraphina sighed warily, eyeing the toothbrush but evidently, she was not as chivalrous as she had given herself credit for, and opted to exit the bathroom before her thoughts could spiral beyond the brink without any makeup or extra fanfare— only briskly shaving off her scratchy stubble to offer herself some mote of reprieve. She equipped her smartphone while she was en route to her very underutilized kitchen to whip up a pot of coffee, hardly willing to exert herself further. She squinted when an uncovered window assaulted her with a cruel beam of light and ducked her head as she slipped around to the machine, and once she got it up and running, she rechecked her notifications and continued to reload them like she was desperately scrabbling for a miracle, leaning lazily against the countertop.  

She had been let go from her previous place of employment a month ago and the deadline for her rent was gradually approaching while she scarcely had enough to scavenge together for basic necessities. She had tried auctioning off some of her old art pieces to turn a quick buck, as well as promoted commissions online, albeit to no avail— ultimately her style was too disjointed to appeal to modern audiences, she concluded. And given the odd materialistic attachment she has fostered for her outlandish curios, she could not settle on whether she was resolved to part with them in order to essentially survive— at least until one of these potential employers reached out to her, but as it stood, it seemed... inconclusive at best. In the end, anything was better than facing possible homelessness... again— but finding the courage to put herself out there nowadays was proving to be quite the unforeseen hurdle. If she had her druthers, she would find a nice, cozy rock to sequester herself under until the inescapable heat death of the universe reared its ugly head. 

The machine beeped and Seraphina collected her spoils to satisfy her impending starvation— well, for the time being at least— sipping languidly as she flip-flopped between inadvisably scrolling social media and popping by her email for the umpteenth time just in case the gods decided to pity her— but that spark of hope was slowly starting to dwindle out. Seraphina was a high school dropout, and her… existence, in general, was heavily frowned on by society, so struggling to find work was not exactly a brand-new dilemma for her— but she wondered if she was even interested in keeping a roof over her head or if she was merely doing what was expected of her. It was not as if she was keen about dying young nor had she any intention of prematurely goading that possibility on; but she was passively unafraid, she supposed.

If she knew that a car was about to crash through her front door, she might not have the urge to evade. And actually holding down a stable, lucrative career without chickening out after a few months when one too many sour experiences with general mismanagement and harassment from her coworkers have almost completely desensitized her seemed— unlikely. And demanding decency and protection was, of course, inherently unconstitutional.  

But she had more pressing concerns as opposed to, say— her diminishing sanity. She was not particularly worried about whether the world will ever humble itself and learn to understand, but as she was unfortunately too stubborn to roll over and let herself molder in the back of her closet, it was either that or merciful apathy, and the years have, for better or worse, benumbed her one day at a time. Needless to say, she had already stopped trying to belong— that is, fruitlessly trying to convince others of her nonexistent worth when it was becoming increasingly apparent that no one— including her own turned ears— was going to listen. But struggling to find reason was ultimately harder than simply accepting that there was none. 

... Seraphina banished her emptied mug to the sink and slid her phone into the coffin-shaped bag she had left on the dining table, lassoing it around her shoulder before grabbing her house keys. Growing mushrooms in a dark corner or making a practical effort: although she was hardly leaping for joy at the prospect of facing the outside world when her rundown apartment at least offered some measure of tranquility— minus her horny neighbors and their equally obnoxious lovemaking directly next door— she finally decided that it was not, in fact, very rewarding to luxuriate in the detrimental light of a screen, festering on the carpet reading cliche fanfiction for hours on end. And she certainly was not suicidal enough to test if she could go another moon cycle without properly eating. 

Enough to get herself a biscuit, maybe— Seraphina concluded as she stashed away her extremely light wallet, readjusted the straps of her miniature backpack, and embarked from her apartment, shivering when she was assaulted by a whip of gelid autumn air. Uneven stairs creaked precariously as she swiveled around the tarnished railing, noncommittally drinking in the expansive cityscape. 

Although she had been born and raised here— it has always felt unexplainably unreal. A town with no name, contrived by faceless denizens whose expressions she could never quite picture like a bustling tableau of plastic figurines. Skyscrapers boasting impeccable structures and resplendent spires that could caress the heavens, but she felt like she could never enter nor leave if she ever tried— like they were merely designed to embellish the background, tall featureless blocks with no beginning nor end. The sky was an almost blinding white and she could not remember the last time there had been sunshine or rainfall, or what hour actually distinguished day from night— a hopeless awning that stretched on for miles like a blank canvas— and a nebulous ring of fog that devoured everything it touched. 

It was not as if this world simply disinterested her. Rather, it felt… incomplete. 

She could barely even remember the names of her parents.