Automaton

Au Clair de la Lune

Des opened her eyes. The soft but urgent twinkle of her phone pried sleep away from her.

"No."
The phone didn't respond to her command. She groaned and threw a hand out to the phone, bringing it in towards her face. She squinted at the bright screen, a reminder from past Des to present Des that said without saying "wake the fuck up, dude."
The song coming from the phone was a cute beeping rendition of the old French folk song Au Clair de la Lune.

She had four missed calls from a strange number in her notifications.
She swiped the alarm off and the notifications away and sat up in her bed. Her face was drenched in sweat, her skin damp.

"Jesus, what happened last night?"

The room didn't respond to her question, and she stood up, walking to a mirror on her dresser. She was surprised that she was fully dressed, sans shoes.
Des placed her hands on her face, inspecting herself for acne and various perceived imperfections. Her dark skin reflected the tiny lights of the electronic mirror and her pupils almost seemed to shine. She smiled.

"No I think today, Desdemona loves herself."
She laughed and walked over to a pair of slippers lazily dropped against a wall near her bedroom door.
She tried to put them on, sticking her foot in one and pushed it against the wall, slipping it on. The second one gave her less trouble.
She walked out into her hallway, towards the kitchen.

Once in the kitchen, she grabbed a mug out of the sink and set it down under the nozzle of her coffee maker. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a pile of mail, presumably from the day before.

"When did I grab the mail?"

She shuffled through through the various bills and ads for shitty products she'd never use or buy. She came across a hastily written, stained note.

"YOU'RE NOT WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE"
She wondered how it got in with her mail and why she hadn't seen it before.
It scared her. She felt a chill and rubbed at her arms, hugging herself and closing her eyes. She seemed to get a devastating headache until the small ding from the coffee maker snapped her out of it. She grabbed the mug and took a sip. It woke her up instantly and she set it back down.

She walked around to her living room, grabbing the remote. With eyes on her phone she flipped on the television. Before she could sit, she heard a tumbling noise coming from her bedroom followed by a rippling WHOOSH. A makeup pencil rolled out of the room into the hall.

"Hello?"
She made her way down the hallway, into the room.
The makeup products on her dressers lay on the floor scattered. Her makeup mirror was facedown on the dresser. She bent down to pick up the various pencils and creams, and set them back down on the dresser. She lifted the mirror, opening it. Inside was another cryptic message, scrawled on the glass with eye pencil.

"TV ROTS YOUR BRAIN"
She looked around frantically, and craned her neck into the hallway, making sure she was alone.
"Yeah, is anyone in my fucking house right now? I'm gonna call the fucking- no wait- I've got a gun under my bed, y'all better get the fuck out of my goddamn house!"
She listened but only heard silence.
She walked back down the hallway, angry. As she walked, she glanced at the pictures on the wall of her house. She stopped at a photo of a family. A white family. She wracked her brain trying to remember where that picture was taken. Her eyes scanned the picture, settling on a corner of the image that had a small line of text on it.

Harper Twins Photography 199-
Her eyes widened, and seems to be working something out, but the obnoxiously, almost purposefully loud doorbell distracted her, pulling her attention away.

She ran to the door, ripping it open. A short, dark clothed figure wearing a mask ran away, giggling.

"Fucking kids! God!"

She slammed the door and locked it shut. She sighed and walked back over to the living room, plopping down on the couch. She grabbed the remote and switched through the channels and static, eventually settling on a Blu Commercial. Suddenly, the picture changed, to a colored dot on a cream background. The dot changed color from red to green with a soft beep.
Des' eye twitched with the change.
"What?"
Beep
Her arm dropped limply down to the couch, the control tumbled to the ground.
Beep.
Her world went black.