𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 ━ 𝐬. 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞

━━ . PROLOGUE

Katherine Grier found herself unable to sleep again.

Many nights were spent like this—lying awake in bed; attempting to drown herself in the ambiance of shadows made by passing cars that binded themselves to the walls of one's bedroom. There was something soothing and peaceful about the aching loneliness that she felt, and she had come to resent herself for it.

No one should waltz to a soundless, empty world, but Katherine held her hand out eagerly to be swept away into a performance that she hoped last forever.

It was the quiet that made things normal; the quiet that made things real.

Her eyes began to sting, and she delicately released the grip on her thoughts; they bid her a quick farewell and gyrated their liveliness with the penumbras. A sigh parted her rose-colored lips, and the sound of rain tip-toed down her ears, combining with the roaring engines and life of Greenwich Village.

The corners of her mouth faintly curled upwards, and she turned to face the window, wanting to see the private performance the trickling raindrops offered her. She saw figurines of oud form in the faint stream that swayed down the glass. Any normal person would've bounced at the first occurrence of peculiarity, but not Katherine

She had begun to appreciate the company of such abnormalities that presented themselves before her so willingly. Perhaps, that's what attracted her to Greenwich in the first place; it was filled with strange things, and she swore that whenever the stars came into view, they were witch lights that beckoned her to some place far beyond what normal eyes could see. 

The brown-haired woman let out a soft chuckle as the silly thought tip-toed across her mind and vanished all the same. Katherine's eyes grew heavy and her mind led itself astray once again. Water-born silhouettes silently took the stool of her bedroom window as their stage, dancing and performing scenes from she knew not where. She smiled once more and finally, but surely, allowed herself to succumb to slumber.

As the waking world left her sordid, the dreaming one welcomed her warmly and she saw herself gallivanting in the spirals of a very distant memory; she drifted off to Snoqualime, to a lurking beast of guilt and grievances that she had tried tucking away in the far corners of her mind.

※

And here she was.

Again.

Back to this day—to a time where she had enjoyed the throes of saving lives. Katherine closed her eyes and breathed in the scents of bleach and disinfectants. It all seemed so real, but she knew it wasn't. You could get lost in dreams if you allowed yourself too, and maybe she wanted that this time around.

She was at the check-in desk of the hospital. 

Yes, she remembered now. The desk clerk had gone on her lunch break for the evening, so Katherine offered to sit in for her until she returned. She hadn't mind since the clerk was an elderly lady, and this was a rather slow day. People came in maybe once or twice every five minutes with the common cold, stomach aches, asking if an obvious sign of sunburn was a deadly rash or sign of some underlying disease—the usual, really.

Around the thirty-minute mark things took a drastic turn.

A young boy who could not have been more than thirteen rushed into the emergency room. He had nearly knocked over someone that was walking in before him—they cursed at him, but he ignored it as he approached the desk where gathering was with wide eyes and baited breath. His entire appearance was disheveled; he had smears of dirt across his face, his lips were so dry that they had begun to crack, and there were dark circles under his eyes.