Black Eyes and Leather Jackets

hear me

Ω vivienne Ω

The last thing I remembered was a bright light, laughter and colour. Now everything was shades of grey, black, and white. When everything had first changed, it was just me and a few friends. But they'd all gone, and I was left at that arcade. I spent my days staring at the air hockey table, deep down wishing there was someone to play with. I tried to get these two twins to play, but they always ignored me. Weeks passed and nobody appeared. I slowly became a shell of a shell.

Everybody that was still a normal had taken to calling us who had black eyes and a so called 'shell' of distrust and extreme judgement 'shells'. I mean, the name fit, so it wasn't all that ridiculous. As I waited longer and longer at that arcade, I began to feel worse. The day before I'd planned on leaving and maybe trying to do something, a guy appeared in front of me. He seemed to have just run into the twins (who were super creepy if you asked me, but nobody ever does), and stood gawking at me. After a while, he seemed to stop gawking and looked as if his feelings were battling. It was a good two minutes until he snapped out of it and grasped my arm lightly. I followed confusedly and we burst through the exit to the maintenance room. The guy threw open a box that had all of the workers' keys in it, fumbled with them and grabbed a set. We flew out to the car park and passed another shell who blew smoke at us. I just looked at him, because I was incapable of showing feelings, since I was so far gone. The guy tried every car inside, but none of the keys seemed to fit. We got outside and he tried them on this crappy car. It was just our luck that they fit. He sighed in relief and jogged to the opposite side of the car. He opened the door and lightly pushed me in. He shut the door and went to the other side. For some reason, small things were coming back to me. Like what you did in a car. I buckled my seatbelt and the guy punched the gas pedal.

It wasn't until we reached the edge of the city that I felt comfortable using my voice.
"So. What's your name and why did you grab me?" The guy glanced at me for a second before returning his focus to the road. I'd expected my voice to be scratchy and rough, but it was surprisingly smooth and maybe a little deep for a woman.
"Oh. Um, I'm Dan. And that second question is a little difficult to answer. Can we postpone it?" I sighed and frowned slightly.
"Hm, I guess. Just as long as you answer me eventually." Dan nodded.
"Yeah. Eventually." I cleared my throat and looked out at the landscape.
"So, Dan. Where are we headed?" He shrugged.
"Not sure. Just anywhere but that city." I nodded. It made sense. The city was filled with fellow shells and there was a slim possibility that other cities were filled with normals like Dan.
We rode along in silence for a while until the car began to sputter a bit. We slowed down and Dan steered the car to the side of the road. He began to slam his hands against the steering wheel and I looked over at him.
"What're you doing?" He looked over at me.
"We're out of gas." I sighed. Even though I barely had a concept of good and bad, I knew that was bad.