Who: Bela Talbot What: Out of Hell, into LA When: Sunday Morning Where: Somewhere outside downtown LA Status/Rating: Finished/PG
People did not just wander out of Hell. This was Bela's first thought.
The air smelled like stale urine, sweat, and grime. They weren't the most pleasant of smells, but they were real and when Bela picked her head up from the ground she was assaulted by it. Having spent what felt like the last hundred years smelling sulfur, she nearly gagged on the scents in the air and she had to physically fight the reflex as her palms pushed against the concrete. Her eyes were shot almost immediately when she realised that the light in the school was coming from what seemed to be an actual sun and thus it damned well hurt.
The smells, the sun, the pain in her hands from pushing down against he concrete, the feeling of wanting to throw up… it was all well and good, but it made no sense. Bela stumbled up to her feet and knew she looked like an absolute fool as she fell over her feet and shielded her eyes against the sun. A sun that was mostly covered by clouds at that, she realised when she looked again. Covered with clouds or not, she'd not seen the sun in years. At least she thought so.
Lowering her hand, Bela stared cautiously upwards once more, not at the sun this time, but the muted cityscape around her. The tiny Spanish style buildings that she could see if she peered out of the alley and the taller skyscrapers that dotted the skyline in the distance. It was only then that she realised that what she saw in the sky weren't clouds. It was smog.
Los Angeles? It was either that or Beijing and Bela decided that she still recognized a palm tree when she saw one, even from a distance. LA was, one could argue, certainly another kind of Hell.
But it wasn't the Hell and as she very carefully looked herself over, Bela realised that other than the fact that she was wearing jeans and a top that she would have never willingly donned, she was perfectly alright. She felt across her wrists where they should have been marks from the ropes and hooks she'd been suspended from for years, and pressed spots on her chest and thighs that should have been tender, if not all but stripped of flesh from torture. She certainly remembered it. She remembered all of it in great detail and of all the illusions foisted upon her Underneath, the Los Angeles cityscape had never been one of them. And no illusion had been complete without the image of her father appearing out of the shadows, hands grabbing towards her…
Bela stopped, shaking her head. This was not Hell, but that didn't mean this was the real Los Angeles either. Either way, standing here and tempting fate was hardly the smartest of ideas concerning her survival. However she'd gotten out, she didn't want to stand around and wait for something else to figure it out as well and come after her.
The smells of the alleyway no longer seemed so strong, nor was the smell of sulfur so noticeably absent. Just standing still there for a few moments seemed to have neutralized them. Her steps were still somewhat unsure as she started towards the open sidewalk, but her mind was racing.
Guns, money, clothes, Devil's Shoestring, she thought to herself. And not necessarily in that order.