Soul Bonds

2. Alone

In the depth of the night, while she was alone in her little attic haven, the world changed.

Sang woke up alone in the darkness. The loss of the soft glow from the camp light was her only indication she had slept longer than she intended.

She vaguely remembered North leaving, but why hadn't anyone replaced him? Had they been caught coming in? Did something happen?

Worried, she cast around for Victor's cell phone. She found it buried at the foot of the sleeping bag, and sure enough, as she had been warned, the battery was dead.

Sang carefully disentangled herself from the sleeping bag and slid off the cot onto the carpeted floor and felt around for Kota's tablet. She used the light from the screen to find the cable to charge her phone.

Once the phone had charged enough to turn on, Sang was more than surprised to find how late in the morning it was. Even worse, there were no new messages waiting for her. Her finger drifted up to her lip. She should stick to the plan for the day, right? Get dressed for a shift at the diner and then head to Nathan's. Sean should be waiting for her there, he promised her that last night. Her waking alone in this house she thought she would never spend more than a few minutes at a time, didn't mean anything, right?

Sang shivered then a ghost of musk flit past her nose, almost too quick to recognize, if she hadn't spent a good portion of the night wrapped around North. She stilled suddenly, reaching out with all her senses, but she didn't find any other hint of his presence.

Sighing, Sang quickly checked the camera in her bedroom to see if Jimmy was in the room. Seeing him absent, she hid her plugged in phone as much as possible, while leaving it on the charger, and gathered up what she needed to get ready for the day. 

It wasn't until Sang had come downstairs, freshly bathed and dressed that she learned how much her world had changed overnight.

As she came down the stairs, she heard a TV that she hadn't even noticed the night before. She also heard Carol's voice coming from the master bedroom, and was somewhat surprised at the sharpness of the tone, although she couldn't make out any of the words.

As she drifted closer to the location of the TV, Jimmy looked up and called her over.

"Sang, come see. You'll never believe what's happened."

Her breathing hitched at she slowly came forward, afraid of what he could be talking about. Desperately, she wanted to be out the door. Away from the raised voices in the bedroom, away from this house that had seen so much of her pain. She wanted to be down the street, where Nathan and Sean waited for her. She rubbed at her temple as a lightning bolt of pain shot through her head before disappearing as quickly as it came. She thought she smelled citrus, but that wasn't surprising with Carol's obsession with cleanliness. Rolling her suddenly tight shoulders, she turned her attention to the TV, and everything else fell away.

"If you are just joining us, well, I know I'm probably not supposed to say it like this, but.. overnight, the world has gone MAD. Around the world, there are reports of... of... no matter how many times I've said this this morning, I still can't believe it, and I saw it with my own eyes!" The wide-eyed young woman, dressed more as what Sang would expect the news station production crew to wear, rather than a new anchor, paled significantly before shaking herself and trying again. "There are reports of people..... turning into..... an... an... animals and creatures from story books! I can NOT believe I'm saying this! I can't believe I saw it! I saw my boyfriend turn into a SNAKE right in front of me! Rather appropriate choice of creature, I have to say, but still!

"There..." She cleared her throat and tried to get her emotions back under control, but Sang could see the white of the woman's knuckles where she was gripping the edge of the desk. "There has not been any word from any level of government, domestic or foreign. I, and everyone still here at WCIV, urge you to PLEASE, PLEASE stay in your homes. There have been reports of fatalities from.. from.. Okay, you know what, I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't have training to stay professional right now. THERE ARE DRAGONS out there, okay? Dragons and like werewolves, and huge foxes with a lot of tails, and.. and... I don't even know what else! I don't WANT to know what else! No one knows what's going on, no one knows how to stay safe!"

There was muffled yelling from off camera, and the young woman turned and yelled over her shoulder, "Cut it, Dan! I'm doing the best I can! You get up here and see if you can do any better!"

"Um.. Those of us still here at WCIV also ask viewers to please try not hurt or kill any animal they may come across, unless in life threatening situations. That animal may have been a human a couple hours ago. Oh, but if you see a neon yellow and green snake near Riverwood Apartments in Avian Park, please, go ahead. STOP YELLING AT ME, DAN!"

Sang's breath was coming in short, quick bursts. Her skin was crawling and her entire body ached. Without a conscious thought, she whirled around and dashed for the front door. After struggling to get her shaking hands to obey her long enough to throw the locks, she moved to run out the door, but was pulled up short by a hand gripping her arm.

"Sang! You heard her! It's not safe to be outside! What are you trying to do?"

"Please, Jimmy, you have to let me go! I... I..."

"It's not safe! You need to stay here!"

Sang struggled in his grip, but Jimmy pulled her fully into the house and shut and re-locked the door. Pulling herself away, Sang flung herself up the stairs and through the little attic door. Once she was safely hidden away in the room given to her by her boys, she clawed the phone out of her bra. STILL NO MESSAGES. How could there still be NO MESSAGES?

She jabbed the violin icon, then the red. Her breath came faster as she waited. She wiped off some drops of water that had fell onto the screen, and moved to Kota, redlining him. She wiped more drops of water off the screen before realizing she was crying. She redlined everyone before she could admit it to herself.

She was alone.