the power outage is one thing, and the backup generators going down another. jaein can handle herself. these streets are hers and she’ll tell you that, the neon glow a second skin. and in it’s absence she is the velvet night, slipping soft between the margins of the city, through cracks and crevices. the whole thing doesn’t sit right with her, the strangely systematic one, two punch of the shut down. the city holds it’s breath, and jaein does too. her senses are, as ever, on high alert. she’s used to it now- the way adrenaline keeps her tense and taut, wound tightly and buzzing with frantic nerves. she’s used to the lack of sleep, from that, and the grim dark exhaustion that lurks just at the edges of her consciousness. what she doesn’t expect in any of this is for it all to snap off, like a lightswitch. one moment the world is in an array around her of sensory decadence. every barest whisper of a breath a potential thread, every slight flicker of movement an early warning sign. every sense on high alert, endlessly. and now what? nothing. for a single, horrifying second the world is as it must have been once, long ago. muffled and slow, her heart rate drops precipitously. it leaves her dizzy as her blood pressure plummets and every inch of her is exhausted. the world is dull and dark around her, as if someone has wrapped her in some kind of veil.
she stumbles, staggering to the edge of a building and pressing her hand against the smooth shining stone surface, panted breaths between her lips. her head is foggy and clouded and she feels as if she’s pushing through viscous air to try and progress forward. had she been going home? she can’t remember. she pulls herself upright with some struggle and there is a very palpable fear that grows inside her at the earnest fear of her position, the horror of facing the world as just a girl, something that had been proven in the past to be fragile and breakable. perhaps it’s just her luck, then, that she quite literally stumbles, vision graying out at the sides, into the figure in front of her, who catches her in shaking arms with a tone of surprise. she uses him as leverage to pull herself upright, unbothered by a wince as she grasps at his arm. “noeul?” she mumbles, clearing her throat. “what the fuck?”
