Drenched by heavy pouring rain, the road ahead had been shifted, like weaving blur, where everything doesn't make sense. It seems heavy — was it the tips of her breathing, or was it merely because of the blood spitting through her guts was to blame…?
A little further...
Further towards the city, but her body refused to comply, it didn't want to move, like an open route of nothing but her veins and her very footsteps echoing along with the sound of the rain, teasing, and crying above the heavens.
It was taunting her, like a siren — leaving her at its delicate mercy, filling her with drops of water, unable to let her go. In the end, her body gives in, the heavy huffing from her breath ragged, forming a white mist. Plumping her with discontent, as she kneeled down.
Dropping lower to the ground, till her toes reached the surface. Her body irked — shivering at that, but also it was starting to feel the cold bites from the atmosphere, which had entered her skin, like a venom dripping through vessels, trying to poison her sense of numbness.
Foolish...
How careless of her to get entangled...? That was not a battle she should be part of. Has she stayed the same, has she stayed coping with her problem and issue. Would things have a different outcome?
Why has she accepted this job? She knew full well, it was set up, a damn loose odd job that something most clients do to hunters, but she did so violated her own rule.
At the slight hope of achieving a dream, she never or could never have. For some, godforsaken make-believe memory.
Her dazzling blue eyes, mesmerizing as the neon signs above her, she blinked in silence, as she glinted down to the ground. The rain poured over her repeatedly like a broken record, reminding her of her own failure.
Of her mistakes, her damn mistakes…
However, her gaze was dropped — it was focused at the clouded color down her, nudging at the water, like a painting, flowing through the sewer beside her. It was a beautiful dark red, the color of blood... Her blood...
She heavily smirked, her expression turning sarcastic, filling the pain on her abdomen. Even with this situation in hand, she still couldn't help but laugh off the scene in front of her, or within her.
A knife on the stomach...
Sounds like the type of scene from today's modern action movie. A shaded gray of a story, but in reality. It's not the same as the protagonist surviving a stab at the back. It's not the same, all of it, because this is reality and once a person gets stabbed, her life will fall to a ten percent chance. A chance not many barely survives.
But...
How did she come to this situation? Right... It was Rebecca...
Feeling the rain as it continues, her eyes shifted, falling or worse losing its senses. Her breathing now — all she could do was weave a breathing pattern to decrease the chance of losing her mind.
Yet, she had been doing that for five minutes, can she still push through?
One thing she knew for sure. Everything had lost its senses, her smell, her touch, and hell — even her ability to hear. She hovered her fingers on the tips of the blade, it was in fact deep, it was risky to pull it out, and she had already used her energy to get away, leaving her tired and exhausted.
She couldn't even see anymore, it was starting to get blurry, the essence of having clear vision to the world — now had fallen, all she could see was, it wasn't nothing but everything look so disoriented or lack of clarity therefore the neon light she was glaze above had nuzzled it's color all around it.
And she knew.
This is bad...
Heavy wind from the background was spitting heavily, the weather was much more, it was tough and brutal. A biting frost-like bite, shivering at the atmosphere, cold and winter-like, wind before the storm approaches.
The city blackened, turning their signs in a matter of seconds — all bright, gleaming at what seems to be clear, the everlasting glow that had blinded her. Mingling at the sight she couldn't see, her tiredness took a toll and so.
She took her final breath, the last mist from her lips, leaving her body, just as her body heavily dropped slowly on the ground. Thudding on the paddle of water, her face slamming on the floor.
With her eyes closed gently. Everything turned dark, leaving not even the shed of emotions behind. The warmth of her body slowly dissolved as coldness covered her completely.
Goddammit, she thought.
"Rubi!"
♚
It was raining that day, like the usual, it was cold and freezing, yet it could not be different. But today's rain was evening gentle, it wasn't like the usual storm, but it was raining gently like everything has its own melody and rhythm. Beating in a gentle sound, thudding at its wake.
Singing in a drumming sound, with tears and just as everything was silent — shameful, it made her eyes slick wide open. Her hair gently falling at the stride of her face, her movements leaning up, as the glimpse of her eyes opening wide.
The plum of her jewel blue eyes fell at the side, where she could feel a light movement. Her hands rested ever so tenderly, at the counterpart in front of her. Her back slanted as she looked up, feeling the weeping sound of the rain outside the windows.
Her grasp of air was piercing, and had been so flabbergasted that it had been so obscure. She could feel her body twitching, her lips leaving the sweet bitter feeling of numbness.
Had she fallen asleep?
There seems to have been a bit of a sense of loss. Like something, cowering, like a shiver deep into her body and mind. The feeling of images she couldn't remember. It didn't click right, nor did she feel it being an illusion of a swiftness dream.
Where... Where was she?
Only did she think of her surroundings when she noticed the drumming of rain, pouring like lucrative intensities and the sound of whales — no more, like words from people, their voice echoing ever so lightly and roughly.
Taking her time to recognize where she currently rested. "Rubi," someone called. The tone was gentle of worry, yet it was rough and low. "You okay? Are you having any nightmares?" He inquired about her.
His gentle expression took the woman by slight surprise, as she began to lean back, straightening her seat on the chair. She raised one of her palms, laying it at the top of her forehead, her lips opening, bringing out a huge heavy breath. "Yeah," she responded as she looked down. "Something like that..."
It's not exactly her first time to doze off on a bar, what's more concerning is her daydreams, or those of images she couldn't remember after but feels that aching sensation like a fair share of warning. It's like a punch in the gut, she couldn't quite understand.
Was it a normal dream?
She sighed as she pressed her temples, the tips of her nails digging gently at her forehead, looking down with slight strain written on her face. "Just the usual," she murmured to herself as she looked up.
A half sipped cup of Bourbon laid beside her elbow, glimmering at the sight of bobbling ever so gently, popping out with a mist made of white.
"Nightmares often happen to most bounty hunters," the man in front muttered, his hand gently cupping the glass beside her, taking it in his big hands. "You really aren't good with whisky-like beverages," he said, as she chuckled and he slid the glass behind the counter.
It's not often Rubi drinks alcohol, or beverage even, and when she does. It was usually after a long day of getting set up, and being beaten during missions. The alcohol is meant for her to vent, but somehow recently, it's been giving her more nightmares than usual.
She ran a hand on her head, her lips purring at slight annoyance. "These recent days have been goddamn different," she swore, as she breathed in roughly. "It's already a tough week for me, and now, these things — are fucking with my head."
"Language, Rubi," he said, his voice gently turning firm as he raised a disbelief expression. "Give it some rest, maybe you're just stressed from having to deal with Weiss' nonsense."
She couldn't help but nod her head in admission. He was right, it's a tough week, with all of her jobs being set up and Weiss wasn't helping with the explanation why she either got dragged by bounty hunter wars, or someone needed to blame for a murder.
It's not part of her job to fill in someone's crime, and either, it's not her job to babysit some naive, little bratty, or even men with a superiority complex or woman needing to be right. She didn't have time for such idle problems, which was driving her to an edge.
Not only that, she's currently running out of time.
Her rent is due and her damn bills are coming left and right a bit so quickly. She needed to pay her landlord the fair share of her accommodation, or heaven knows what would happen to her if she did not pay on time or after.
She can't listen to another scolding, and much more than that, she doesn't have time to fight with her pain-in-the-ass landlord. Not only is she completely broke as hell. She also had a brutally insane landlord, which was not helping with her already busted ass status quo in life.
"Caleb, where is Weiss?"
The man blinked for a moment, before he held her gaze and sneered. His voice becomes gentle, with her eyes locked in a serious, exacting gaze.