Who: Zinnia and Gabe What: A near miss. Where: The Bathos, 5th floor stairs. When: 8/19, evening. Warnings: It's Gabe. And Zinnia. Even if they're not interacting, they're still crazy.
There weren't many things in life that Zinnia absolutely required. Plenty of paper, a radio, and black licorice, and she was happy. She'd stocked up on paper, and her radio worked even if it kept getting static, but the licorice had run out, and that meant it had been time to walk to the nearest place that would possibly sell it.
The nearest place turned out to be a gas station, and she'd grabbed a Pepsi along with the bag of sweets and escaped as quickly as possible. There was blood between the tiles, and a disembodied hand had tried to grab her wrist as she reached for the Pepsi. It had backed off when she glared, but being in public always made her feel vulnerable enough for the nightmares to come after her, too. She crossed to the register, tiles cracking and crumbling beneath her feet, and gave her money to the cashier and tried not to stare at the eye falling out of his head. No one understood why she stared, and when she tried to explain it to them her tongue froze up.
The streets were busy, but the people turned to monsters as she looked at them. The plants growing from the cracks in the sidewalk tried to wrap around her ankles, and the monsters looked at her strangely when she jerked away from them hard. Finally, clutching her Pepsi and her licorice against her chest, she took off in a run as soon as the apartment complex came in sight, with its crumbling architecture and the cracking doors. She flung the door open, breathing more easily in the lobby where the paint flecked off the wall in strange patterns. The stairs were a better bet than the elevator, so she took them, hand wrapped around the rusting bannister as she went up two steps at a time until she reached her floor.
She heard someone else on the stairs above her as she reached her own landing, but she didn't pause long enough for them to come into sight. Instead, she darted through the door and let it slam behind her, leaning against it for a moment before starting down the hall. Briefly, feeling as though she'd just missed something familiar, she turned back and looked over her shoulder. Nothing revealed itself, so she shrugged and went back into her room. There was work to be done, and she had licorice to keep her going. Too bad her Pepsi was too shaken up to drink. She'd have to wait for it, but good things were worth it.