@bythieves sent: 34 — sender is found by receiver somewhere they shouldn’t be .
𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐘𝐓𝐇 𝐆𝐎 ? ariadne spins a thread and finds her way out. she, instead, weaves a web to trap her further deep into this maze: the old warehouse coils around and on itself over and over, and as she walks along its hallways, badly lit and moldy, freddie thinks it must look less warehouse and more monster, a horror for the books: a thousand-eyes beast with a million snakes for a body, and it all rotting, it all decaying, maggot people seeping out of its scales. acid shoots up her stomach when the thought occurs, revolting and perverse: she is turning half-maggot too. and yet momentum will not allow her steps to slow down —— they chase after each other, purposeful, because this really is not a maze, but a straight line, and POINT A is a life choking inside a noose, and POINT B is breathing, and freedom, and so she can’t slow down. can’t stop to think of which parts of her are being digested, what will be left by the time she makes her way outside —— there is going on, or cutting the thread altogether. nevermind the bile rising inside. the script, either way, is easy to follow — it’s killing every ounce of herself, temporarily, for something else to take place. a different self: eyes sharp as puncture needles, and not an ounce of doubt as she makes her way to victor’s office to carry documents she will make diligent copies of before shredding —— she the handmaid, the mule, and the cancer spreading from within.
yet freddie stops, dead in her tracks, before the last corner leading up to the office. the silhouette looks like nothing more than a smudged stain of darkness, in the faint neon light —— it takes a second for her to make out the features, recognize the stranger to be the other victor —— allegedly harmless and not a variable she’s accounting as any particular danger to her plan, as of now, but a variable nonetheless. because the thing is this —— he shouldn’t be here. in the hallway that leads to two points of interest ( victor’s office on the far end, an archive on the right ) and one single insignificant utility room. freddie tenses instantly: second nature, by now. pace slowing down significantly and crawling to a halt before she gets close enough to spot his expression, and wonder: what’s up with him ? something about him marks him as different from the usual crooks crowding these rooms —— there is perhaps a spark of something in his eyes. she caught him once, over a meeting in the main hall —— two weeks back in texas, and she’d caught herself thinking of charlie when she’d first laid eyes on victor, and had hated herself for the thought, once more had wished for time travel, to go back to before the end of all. the thought had been shoved back, swallowed back inside like an unwanted aftertaste — regret must not be felt in the belly of the beast, the monster knows how to prey on it. so, past that moment, she’d made it a point to never look at victor conley again, lest he reminds her of another kid with a spark in his eyes, and the death on his face when it had all come crumbling down. lest she cares again, really. the monster preys on that most of all.
“ what are you doing here ? ”. she keeps her voice low now, her tone is measured: her demeanor here is an experiment in apparent numbness. arms crossed, she takes two steps closer and never once takes her eyes off him. “ this is a private area. you shouldn’t be here. ” which begs the question, silent still though it rests on the tip of her tongue: what kind of game are you playing ?
NONVERBAL PROMPTS —— selectively accepting.
