Arriving at the chair, she grabbed one of the arms and gently lowered herself into the chair, being careful to avoid rubbing her ankle along anything or the wheel.
Master Chandu was in the back tinkering in the workshop from all the sound noise being made, probably fixing tools or curing his boredom. Some of the sounds coming out of the room left her concerned, but what concerned her more was the sound of silence, only to be relieved when more sounds were made.
Looking around the room she saw a stack of papers on his desk, probably requests or commissions for him to make for the different hunters that worked in the building.
Seeing the stack, roused her curiosity and pushing off of the wall with her hands she scouted over to the desk to get a better look at the paperwork.
Finding the paperwork interesting, Azalea grabbed another stack after another to read. She remembered that her job was to organize and coordinate the work for Repairer Chandu.
She took a deeper look at the different jobs, noting which ones were for repairs and which ones were commissions. She separated them into two different piles on the desk. The repairs should be done first as they should be quicker to finish.
It was a quiet night, up until Repairer Chandu stepped foot out of his workshop, and he stretched his arms up to the ceiling from a long day's work. Noticing that she was here, Chandu walked over with heavy footsteps, "Lil' Art your back. Is it that time already?"
It was only then that she really noticed that with the almost non-existent lighting, that no one would ever be able tell what time of day it was. It was like a cave, with the entrance blocked only allowing air to leave.
She nodded in response to him, "How you likin' the mask? I dare say it be one of my best masks I have made."
Azalea reached to take the mask off, only for hands to be swatted away.
"Don't you remember what I told you, do not take it off inside this building."
"Uh, right! I forgot…my bad. How are the orders going? I was organizing the paperwork for you to do the easier ones first, to knock them out quickly".
"I already finished all of them."
She gapped at him shell shocked, he had finished that ginormous stack already.
"Did you need anything from me? I can tell them that their requests are completed."
"Why not, I actually came out here to do that. Watch closely I will show you how to contact their owners."
He reached across the desk and grabbed a stamp that she had overlooked, and stamped the order that was on top of the pile for repairs.
"So, I just need to stamp them?"
"Yup. This lets the contract owners know that the contract has finished."
She studied the stamp as it was handed over to her, to be used on the rest of the contracts.
"You want me to stamp the rest of these?"
"Yeah, their owners will probably start coming over today or tomorrow. Sometimes they don't even come for a couple day and collects dust sitting in the display case. There was even a time where I thought that they had died, I took it apart for spare parts for another piece. It was a nightmare to deal with when they showed up the next day."
She thought about that scene, and decided it would be better for her to not think about the damage it had caused.
The rest of the night was boring, no one had bothered to show so she just sat there in the room on her phone till her time was up.
Feeling like her ankle was in a better state than earlier as she had been elevating it for hours, she gave her respects to Repairer Chandu.
She wished the repairer a good night and left the Hunter's Association building. It was quiet and uneventfully, as if the whole world was sleeping. Azalea hobbled as the longer she walked down the path the more her ankle hurt to move and stand on.
Walking past the park gave her a sense of peace as the trees and flowers were expertly cared for as maintained. She kept on walking forgetting that se was heading towards the same place as the day previously.
Azalea had a creeping feeling along her spine and goose bumps ran down her arms, as she approached the alleyway.
She walked passed that alley again, the same one from the day previous, where the body was found and labeled a murder scene. She passed mid-step and to look down the dark tapped off area, and hears an odd noise like a cat screeching. Scared she stumbles into the wall along a fence line of the street. Holding back her breath to not scream, she covered her moth with both hands and breathed out shaky breaths in a controlled manner.
The feeling that someone was there came back, she could feel the same eyes, from back then, scanning looking for someone as if they could not see her, but felt her presence all the same. Feeling slightly safer, due to the property of the mask being not seen unless she was talking, she kept silent. In the quite dead of the night, she stood off against the dark unknown figure, quietly moving out of sight of that cursed alley.
Too scared to get close or to continue on to her dorm, Azalea limped back to the Hunter's Association. Shewould rather sleep on the floor in the office than bring whatever was stalking her in the alleyway.
Whether it was reality or her imagination, she felt that if she had continued on to her dorm, she would not have woken up in the morning. Even with the mask on hiding her identity, she felt no comfort an forced herself to keep walking in the opposite direction of her soft and comfortable bed.
She kept up the quiet pace even after leaving the alley, even after it was out of her sight in case the being had followed her.
Refusing to turn around and see if anything was actually following her, she continued limping to the tall building off in the distance.
After arriving at the Hunter's Association for the second time, in what felt like a never-ending day, she pushed open the doors to see the building still teeming with life inside, while life outside had stilled till dawn.
Hunters ran around as if the world was ending, injured were being lined up along a hallway she had not gone down yet. She hesitated for just a second before moving away from the entrance as a loud woman from behind her shouted for the path to be cleared. She and a couple other stragglers stepped aside to make way for the group, who all headed to the line along the wall.
She navigated around a small group to get to the door of the room where she worked, only to grab the knob at the same time as a young man did.
She felt his hand touch hers and jumped away like a startled cat. The young man stared at her wide eyed as if she had appeared out of thin air.