#hunsr

@hunsr; 11:37pm, in remi's boss's car, east iri residential area

remi has always had a goal in mind.

it starts when she's young, finds comfort in books while her mother promises fortunes, expels sickness, exorcises angry ancestors. she distracts herself with fictional worlds, where she can learn the rules, understand the universe laid out with utmost certainty. then comes her love of history, delving into the wonders of the past, civilizations expunged from the face of the earth, leaving only trace remnants in their art, their words, their stories. she reads voraciously, studies furiously, painstaking efforts to recreate the lives of the long-dead, to understand the hows and the whys and the wheres and the whats. when she sees the program listed in a pamphlet at the school guidance counselors office her freshman year, she knows its her future. a program to obtain a dual masters in library sciences and anthropology, with a focus in special collections and curation. she could hold history in her hands, preserve it for the future. it was perfect. she works toward that goal insatiably, unstoppably.

until he dies.

it tilts her world on its axis. she'd met him at sixteen. she'd loved him at seventeen. they lived together, breathed together. at twenty two she'd spent more of her adult life with him than anyone else. five years in without a hiccup or hitch, he should have been it. it should have been the end, a team, the two of them, against the world, forever. and then he was gone. the apartment felt huge and echoing. she could barely remember who she was without him. her entire brain had developed and matured to completion in the duration of her relationship. she'd gone from wide-eyed high schooler to graduating college, was in the process of applying for graduate school when it happened. she felt like her arm had been cut off, set adrift.

she ends up an apprentice to a local private investigator. you have to be, to get a license. but she has to know. there's so much in this town that goes undiscussed. people die, go missing, go mad, and everyone writes it off as the strangenesses of iri. why delve into the past when the present is so ignored, in their strange town? she can't let herself rest. can't think to focus on books and classes when her whole world has been upended. she gives herself a break to pursue this path instead - and its not that different, not really.