queen of wasteland, baby!

It’s been six weeks.

Outside the apartment, there is silence.

She is not used to it, silent nights don’t happen in New York. It’s something she was used to.

She hasn’t been in New York in six weeks, before the wedding she had been staying with him at his family’s penthouse, not that he mentioned it was the family that owned the building at the time. 

With all the chaos that had spread, she now knew they owned the whole city, really, every state, every country, every war and every cabinet. You’d think that after the family that owned the world died, the world would soon follow.

From the studio Grace had been living in for the last five weeks, here in a small town in northern Arizona, the world hasn’t seemed to end yet.

Though, that could just be because she hasn’t been watching the news.

While the world may or may not be ending, Grace watched a pot of water on a stove that worked about as well as her last marriage did.

The thought is almost funny.

Grace glared at the non-boiling pot of water.

It’s two in the morning, six weeks after the wedding, and Grace has found herself in a studio apartment in Arizona, alive against all odds.

“I can survive a satan cult for 48 hours, but I can’t make a proper bowl of raman on a shitty stove, I might as well finish the job.” She thought, sourly, and sighed. Of course, in moving her head her shoulder jolted a complaint from its sling, and when she winced she clenched her hand, which sent another strike of pain through her barely healed body.

At two in the morning, Grace got up from her sad kitchen stool to turn off her sad stove, limping less than she had two weeks ago, but not walking as well as she did seven weeks ago, and gave up on her raman.

While she poured the water down the drain of her one rusted sink, she heard her phone buzz from the bedside table, only a few feet away. It takes several minutes of wrestling with barely functional hands to pour cereal and milk into a bowl, proceed to spill said milk on the counter, and then proceed to give up on cleaning it for Grace to make her way back onto her bed. 

Raisenless Raisen Brand is about as good as you could guess, and most of it is still in the bowl when the cult-killer shoved it in between the mess of pill bottles that litter the small bedside table.

The sheets were itchy, but lying back provided relief when the blond gingerly retrieved the phone from the counter. It had buzzed twice more while Grace moved at a snails pace to get this far, and the time glared back its disapproval in the form of now showing 2:42 AM over the missed messages alerts.

Faith

11:25

i packed ur stuff 

place is packed still, dont think any1 even came over yet

12:50

do u want me 2 grab some rich ppl stuff from here?

1:12

IK ur ass isn’t asleep yet

1:32

graaaaaaaaace

1:33

im taking his fancy watches and shit 

and all the stuff in the freezer 

if u want i can try to take the microwave 4 u

Grace snorted, it hurt a bit, but most everything did these days. Her thumb hesitated over the keyboard on the screen.

You

2:45

I dont need the microwave

Faith

2:45

BS

this ones gucci or smt wdym u dont want that???

You

2:46

Im gonna grab one tomorrow

Landlady said she’d help move it from the room they’re redoing

Faith

yeah ok

what happened to ur apartment anyway

Grace let the phone fall with a dull thud on the bed, her arm was sore from holding it.

Sure, that was why.

It was hard to think about life “Before” vs “After” the wedding. Before now felt a million years away, before her felt like a different person altogether, a version of herself not covered in her own blood, in the blood of others. 

There was a hole through her hand, a hole through her shoulder, and they both burned.

And it was too quiet outside.

You

2:57

Gave it up before the wedding

Grace typed one letter at a time with her pointer finger this time, phone still laying on the bed, now face-up.

It was pretty crap anyway

Faith

color me surprised

i found some jewelry in his room while i was poking around, i think it was supposed 2 go 2 u?

2:58

OK i say that but it was in a box with ur name on it so

u could get some nice cash with it

A wedding present. Grace knew what it was. She could see it clear as day in her mind, the jeweler in Broadway, the giddy feeling in her chest, the warmth of a hand in hers, a dream for a future that was doomed from the very start and now felt as sour as the old blood that tasted like iron on her tongue.

Grace shoved her head in itchy pillows as she screamed from bruised lungs.

It was an unexpected jolt of adrenaline that evaporated any drowsiness that still hung onto her system, though sleep hadn’t really been expected in the first place, her schedule's been flipped for weeks since being discharged from the hospital again, though this time hadn’t been in cuffs.

Grace winced when a thud from her upstairs neighbor sent another jolt through her system. 

She took a deep breath, and another, but what really calmed her heart rate was the cold metal of the gun under her pillow securely locked in the grip of her “unholely” hand.

Maybe it was cliche, or just plain unsafe gun ownership, but having it in hand made her feel better. It couldn’t be that overdramatic, considering the circumstances.

The adrenaline didn’t last long, and left her feeling more tired, but not sleepy. 

Stretched thin, a too-tight canvas, ready to tear.

Grace rolled back over on her back, that, at least, had started becoming less of a hazard. 

Her phone buzzed again, it ended up on the floor at some point during that, and her eyes burned at the message shining back up at her.

Faith

3:00

Just try to get some sleep, I’ll call u in the morning

Grace dug teeth into her cheek. Guilt had been particularly recurring as of late.

Knock

Knock-Knock

Knock-Knock

Knock

And at the sound, all Grace can think of is blood.

The blood that rushed in her ears, that spilled across her tongue as her teeth clenched down along with the hand that gripped the cold metal of the gun. Blood that she could feel flood the inside of bandages as stitches split with the force of her movement. 

Grace was somewhere in north Arizona, in a shitty studio apartment. A studio apartment that she had spent the last four weeks in being nursed back to health by her sister, while also nursing her sister back to health, after spending 48 hours in a death game with a Satan Cult, and winning.

In between Grace, the gun, and the door, there was silence.

“Hello?” She called out, after a moment passed and no one bashed the door down to try and sacrifice her to a cult. Grace was met with silence, which didn’t help the internal dialogue that helpfully supplied her with the fact that she did, in fact, have neighbors now, and that she killed everyone in the Satan Cult, and that she probably should not be pointing a loaded weapon at what could be her 65-year-old landlady.

This line of thinking was quickly shut down when her question was met with silence for a long moment.

Knock

Knock-Knock

Knock-Knock

Knock

Back on her feet, Grace inched towards the door, aches and pains and Raman forgotten as she stepped carefully over to the door. She avoided the spot that always creaked like a son of a bitch if you weren’t careful, and came to a stop at the door.

There was no more knocking from the other side as she approached, and Grace held her breath as she inched up on her toes to peak through the peephole.

Nothing.

Grace squinted as she could make out the lit hall outside the apartment, empty but for the white painted doors of her neighbors. 

She didn’t like it.

Taking another breath, Grace raised the gun, ignoring how much her hand trembled.

In what she hoped was a swift movement, the pajama’d woman swung open the door, leading, gun-first and a scream ready to burst out when-

In front of the door was a man.

Impossibly so, a man stood where there was none moments before when she looked through the peephole. He did not seem short, or tall, he wore a grey suit, and an old hat. Grace couldn’t tell if he was young or old, and his features were lost behind the stark shadow from the light behind him.

She knew this man.

The devil smiled at her, a smirk. She knew that it should feel cruel, but in that moment, felt incredibly kind to Grace.

The man in the grey suit lifted a bag in his hand, a suitcase she hadn’t noticed before, and offered it with that smile in response to the gun in his face.

SUNCAT

Sunfur:

1 is no sunfur - 6 is full sunfur

(So 3 is half sunfurred)

(If you want to, roll the dice again: 1. is gray/super dull fur, 6 is super saturated)

Fur length:

1 is nakey, 6 is super long

Fur texture (ignore if nakey)

1. Average

2. Curly

3. Spikey

4. Matted/messy

5. Silky

6. Patchy/thin

Patterns (not counting white/lighter markings):

1. No patterns

2. Tabby/stripe(s) of some kind

3. Spotted

4. Patches

5. Ticked

6. mask of some kind

Eyecolor:

(First roll the dice. If you get 6 your cat has heterochromia)

1. Green

2. Blue

3. Yellow

4. Amber

5. Hazel

6. Brown

How do they feel about being a suncat?

1: they love it - 6: they HATE it

How do they feel about their guard?

(Feel free to roll the dice more than once to get more messy relationship)

1. apathetic

2. Friends

3. Is in love with them

4. Hates them/jelaous

5. Scared of them

6. Trusts them

(Stuff like sexuality, gender and being intersex is not very suitable for just rolling a dice so feel free to not do these/use creative freedom! But wanted to add these still)

Gender

(Feel free to skip or roll more than once):

1. (Binary?) trans

2. Cis

3. Nonbinary / agender

4. Neogender

5. Genderfluid

6. Unlabeled / other

Sexuality

(Feel free to skip or to roll more than once):

1. Gay/lesbian

2. Aro spectrum

3. Multisexual (bi, pan, omni ect. Attracted to more than one gender)

4. Straight

5. Ace spectrum

6. Unlabeled / other

Intersex/endosex

(Feel free to skip or change the odds)

1-4: endosex (non intersex)

5-6: intersex

GUARD

Main color:

1. Black

2. White

3. Brown

4. Sunfur (golden, yellow, ginger, red)

5. Tortie (roll the dice again few times to get the colors)

6. Gray

Fur length:

1 is nakey, 6 is super long

Fur texture (ignore if nakey)

1. Average

2. Curly

3. Spikey

4. Matted/messy

5. Silky

6. Patchy/thin

Patterns (not counting white/lighter markings):

1. No patterns

2. Tabby/stripe(s) of some kind

3. Spotted

4. Patches

5. Ticked

6. mask of some kind

Eyecolor:

(First roll the dice. If you get 6 your cat has heterochromia)

1. Green

2. Blue

3. Yellow

4. Amber

5. Hazel

6. Brown

How do they feel about being a guard?

1: they love it - 6: they HATE it

How do they feel about their suncat?

(Feel free to roll the dice more than once to get more messy relationship)

1. apathetic

2. Friends

3. Is in love with them

4. Hates them/jelaous

5. Scared of them

6. Trusts them

(Stuff like sexuality, gender and being intersex is not very suitable for just rolling a dice so feel free to not do these/use creative freedom! But wanted to add these still)

Gender

(Feel free to skip or roll more than once):

1. (Binary) trans

2. Cis

3. Nonbinary / agender

4. Neogender

5. Genderfluid

6. Unlabeled / other

Sexuality

(Feel free to skip or to roll more than once):

1. Gay/lesbian

2. Aro spectrum

3. Multisexual (bi, pan, omni ect. Attracted to more than one gender)

4. Straight

5. Ace spectrum

6. Unlabeled / other

Intersex/endosex

(Feel free to skip or change the odds)

1-4: endosex (non intersex)