Clever Reflections

SIX- Cinna

In movies, when characters find themselves in strange places, they always ask themselves two questions: "Where am I?" and "Who am I?", respectively, then panic. When I shuddered awake, clasped in a ball and shaking with nerves and cold, I did not follow the stereotype. I immediately fixated on the who of my predicament. I was too used to not being sure of the scenery around me, to always expecting a flamboyant, unpredictable setting. In my world, the only thing I could ever be sure of was myself.

I am Cinna Blanc. All of my molecules are unanimously in want for warmth. I do not know where the hell I am. I do not care. I stabbed a person.

At the last I jerked my eyes open, suddenly standing and causing my head to spin dangerously. The ground tipped in a delayed sort of offset, like an unanticipated wake to a ship' deck.

I fell. I fell on my face. I fell on my face and broke my glasses.

"Shit..." I muttered to no one in particular, thinking myself alone.

"Indeed." I jumped. Or, I would have jumped if I had been standing. As it was I propelled myself slightly into the air like an inching seal. Tensed, I shifted onto my elbows and turned toward the voice. A shape that appeared to be some sort of very large bird crouched to my right. I squinted and strained and my vision cleared a bit.

It was not a bird. It was a human. At least, it looked like a human. I shut my eyes again. The light was excruciating, burning a red film onto the back of my eyelids. Though numbed, the sensations from my journey still remained, burning mint and tingling pain. I felt like my blood flow had been entirely cut off and was now returning incrementally, methodically, steadily, like a drumbeat to my every vein.

Journey to where? Journey from where; through where?

I patted the floor, hands under my shoulders like I was about to be forced into push-ups. I felt cold tile. The bathroom? My hair tickled the sides of my face, a comforting commodity. My hand struck canvas and I pulled on it a bit, sighing as I felt the yank echoed along my shoulder where the strap of my bag rested steadfastly.

Biting my lip, I shuffled into a sitting position, pulling my one leg under the other.

"Be careful," the voice came more softly this time, less panicked and I thought I recognized it, "There's a sink directly above you, you could... potentially... y'know, hit it... with your head..."

"S-Salem?" I stammered, not caring how illogical his presence would be.

"Yeah, I'm here." In alternate circumstances I might have laughed at the irony of his avoidance of naming 'here'. As it was, I was content to be thankful for his presence at all. Unless I was mad and my mind had apparated the last person I'd been thinking about as a companion for my ailing spirit...

"I can't see anything," I informed him, attempting again to slit my eyes and again being forced to seal them against the oversaturated brightness.

"Oh! Uh, your glasses, I see them, one sec..."

"I don't think that'll he-" I started to say, but he began speaking at the same time, unintentionally cutting me off.

"I'm going to touch you, okay?" I cringed, and I could almost feel the heat radiating from Salem as he took a moment to  think about what he'd just said, "That was not meant to sound as sexual as it did," he was rushing his words together, "can you just ignore, like, everything I've said since glasses b'cause I'm freaking the hell out and I need a person with a brain to help me comprehend and-"

"Okay, Salem," I quickly ended his misery, shaking the jumbled words off with a small toss of my head. A second later icy, trembling fingers touched my arm softly. Definitely real. It was all I could do not to sink myself into the human contact which I would usually be so adverse to. But in another moment it was gone and my glasses were being slowly, carefully placed on my face.