@transl0cating LIKED FOR A STARTER
finally arriving at his supposed place of rest was, for a lack of a better word, disappointing. of course, he hadn’t expected luxury. he wasn’t a fool, despite how some might have wished to have him seen. he was a stranger, a nobody amongst a sea of others. it was an unusual place to be, rooted at the bottom of a large food-chain, without COMMAND nor ORDER, but he was hardly a stranger to feeling powerless. it had been many years since the strain of the unknown and the unjust had flashed within his chest as an anxious infection, draining him of energy as he finally approached the apartment complex, but he was hardly able to do much about it, with a mere gun at his side which felt more akin to a child’s toy than something deadly & suitable for his needs.
despite having no true power in the form of a rank, something harshly reminded by the tag of NOBODY scrawled across his paperwork, he found that people still recognised a leader when they saw one, often darting aside as he strode, coat billowing black like a shadow behind him, their feet leaving the pavement so that he may walk by. it was always a rather natural trait, wasn’t it? to fear something on mere instinct alone. regardless, he stepped up to the complex with narrowing, cold eyes and a contempt within his gaze which would undoubtedly remain for a while, if the innards of the building were very much like the exterior.
riding the elevator, he marvelled at how simplistic the components were; a handful of buttons with lax security really. anybody could walk in and go wherever they wished, with no need for a pass to be swiped or a code to be input. how exposed, how reckless. was privacy no longer a right? why, even the lowest ranks of officers often had their own coded secrets, locked behind fingerprint-protected rooms. but this was without it all, so open & so incredibly vulnerable. the doors opened, but hux didn’t exit. wrong floor, currently. instead a stranger boarded, input their choice of floor and the doors swished closed once more.
perhaps only a second or two later, the elevator shuddered. the sound of draining power clunked from above before the light flickered the pair of occupants into on and off darkness. rubbing his temple between two gloved fingers, it was evident in more ways than one, that the general was perhaps only two more mishaps away from a full-blown meltdown at least.
