Suffocating

Illusion; VI

"No way..."

Roxanne couldn't believe what she was seeing. Or rather, what she wasn't seeing.

She felt a hand on her shoulder instantly, its finger drawing a circular pattern meant to calm her. She barely noticed Claire sitting next to her, not with what was being presented on the screen in front of her.

"This can't be happening."

She didn't want this to be real. She rewound the video, paused, play, and watched, wide-eyed, sweat beginning to make its way into her skin.

"Rox..."

The quality of the cameras weren't great, but she could still see everything clearly. She could see the alleyway. The three victims, lounging and drinking like they owned the place, still unharmed and clueless as to what was about to happen to them.

She waited, holding her breath without realizing it, wiping away the strand of hair that disrupted her vision.

They were there, tinted in a black and blue hue, layered with glitches every once in a while. A normal quality for a normal security camera. Everything looked normal.

Then there was a static, and when that static was over, there was only one man in the peripheral vision of the camera, and he was already down on the ground, beaten, unable to get up.

First time seeing it, Roxanne thought she'd missed something.

Second time seeing it, Roxanne wasn't sure if Claire had done everything right, but Claire knew what she needed to do and swore she'd done everything right, so whatever this was, it didn't have to do with transfering the data to the USB.

Seeing it now, for the third, maybe tenth time, Roxanne had caught on to whatever this was.

"No fucking way."

She felt like growling, or maybe punching this damn, annoying screen to get this sight off of her. But no. No, no, no. There was still other security cameras. So she pressed on another recording from another camera of the same time, same date, and same place.

The same static, starting as the same second as the previous recording, lasting the exact same way, filled the screen.

When it ended, it wasn't the same man as before, rather, the two other ones, hurt and coughing and taking in gulps of air as though they were taking in gulps of shards.

She took off her glasses and slammed it onto the table in front of her. The cup of hot chocolate on it rattled, the drink Claire had brought for her. A small droplet of its content flew from the cup, staining the brown table an even darker shade of brown.

Claire didn't so much as wince from her outburst, merely hardening the grip on her shoulder, saying, "Roxanne, it's okay."

"No, it's not! You can't tell me this is just a coincidence, they deleted the footage! They deleted fucking everything!"

She glared murderous daggers at Claire, who didn't have anything to do with this and should be angrier than Roxanne was but wasn't, because one of them had to be calm right now, and Roxanne couldn't be that person.

Claire's eyes darted around, prompting Roxanne to do the same. No one seemed to mind her shouting and slamming and possibly breaking properties. This was a public library, a place for gamers to game and rage quit, for workers to finish on whatever they were working on and rage quit, and for students to try to study and rage quit as well.

Rage quitting was a common theme here, so much so that the librarian had given up with his shushing.

"Roxanne, calm down," Claire said, each word spoken out slowly.

Roxanne looked at the slightly blurred face of her friend. She didn't need glasses to know Claire was angry. It was in the way she spoke.

Her words weren't a request, they were a command Roxanne knew she needed to obey, no matter how dearly she wanted to shout out all the curse words she knew and the ones she didn't know she knew.

"Sorry..."

But Roxanne didn't want to do that to Claire. She wasn't a dick.

She took a deep, unsatisfying gulp of air and repeated her apology, to which Claire responded with, "Just try to calm yourself down."

Roxanne closed her eyes, putting her elbow on the table and resting her forehead on her hands, letting them support it. Claire sat besides her, taking a sip of Roxanne's hot chocolate - the bastard - not saying a word, knowing that doing so would anger her further.

"Do... do you think that Rick... that Connor deleted them?" she said, once she'd successfully suppressed most of her anger.

Claire took another sip of her hot - well, now lukewarm - chocolate, only glancing sideways to give the question more thought. "He... doesn't strike me as the kind to be good with electronics."

Connor, or Rick, as Roxanne liked to call him, was... someone she didn't particularly like. It wasn't as though he was a bad person - she never felt that way about him, and he never had this dark vibe in him - he was just... After he got a job, he completely abandoned Roxanne. And Claire disliked it, as it saddened Roxanne for a long time. Roxanne and Rick were close like siblings. So their eventual and very abrupt detachment from one another was a surprise to everyone, especially Roxanne.

Claire wanted to dislike him more for hiding things from Roxanne, but that would make her a hypocrite.

The more she dwelled on it, the more Claire realized that she and Rick may not be that different...

"Yeah, well, he didn't strike me as someone who's involved in this conspiracy bullshit," she grinned ruefully, "but I guess I was wrong." Claire's eyes widened, the cup slowly distancing from her lips, revealing that they were opened. Roxanne looked down. "Sorry."

She looked up to find Claire shrugging, then opening and closing her mouth a few times, and finding no words coming out of it.

Claire was upset. She didn't have the urge to break things like Roxanne had, but she was still upset.

"I am so over this." She laughed a laugh that sounded like a hiccup, her whole body slumping. "I mean, you have to go through all that shit for nothing, and you don't even care the slightest bit about this!"

Claire winced, brushing a strand of black hair. "I mean, I do care a little bit..." The hesitation made Roxanne chuckle, then let out a sigh that drained her energy. Witheringly, she grabbed her glasses and shoved it onto her face, not caring that its right side was tilted down and that the lens were covered in a light layer of mist.

Her head drooped down, showing as much exhaustion as her mental state.

From her right side, she heard Claire shifting, slowly standing up. "Okay, I think... I think we need to go somewhere, to unwind."

That wasn't a bad idea, but Roxanne couldn't help but ask, "Where?"

The pause was long. Longer than necessary.

Whatever idea Claire had, it must be a good one.

"The, umm... err..."

...

"The arcade?!"

This... was a bad idea.

...

Beta Reader and Editor: FeugoFox42 (From FF.net)

...

Originally, this chapter was supposed to entail the wackiness that comes with Claire and Rox being in the Arcadia. Buuuuut, I decided to split it since I know most of the readers here don't like long chapters.

Already, this chapter shows how Roxanne deals with anger, and how Claire deals with Roxanne's anger. Not to mention, you know, the missing videos and stuff. But yeah. This is a nice chappy, if I do say so myself.