📍 the police station. 🍑 rain/baby
— ft. @rainxm // EVENT #1
The world was merciful, for once. From the cosy nest Baby had made atop an otherwise wobbly and dusty cot thrown into a corner of the Deputy’s office as an afterthought, she slept soundlessly knowing she had made good on her vow to keep watch until 3AM and her shift had switched over with the Sheriff. Rare and perfect were the nights when Baby was left dreamless, allowed to peacefully asleep beneath a set of freshly washed linen sheets, a patchwork duvet, and a crocheted throw. It was safe, blissful. The station creaked and groaned more than usual, like all old buildings did eventually, but nothing went registered in her ears other than the lightest of rhythmic snores.
Without an alarm clock, she relied on either the clunky footsteps of her superiors to wake her or signs that the sun had risen. From beneath the warmth of her coccoon, Baby poked her head out to confirm if the night’s shadows and moon goons had faded. Rightfully, the amount of sleep she had been clocking up had felt especially indulgent — confirmed by the brightness of the room. It was definitely past sunrise. “Gooooood mornin’!” She crowed, awaiting the typical grunt in response her greetings usually earned. Nothing. Manners, right. Bashfully aware it may have been close to midday, she tilted her head towards the wall closest to where the Sheriff usually sat at his desk, “Thanks for the sleep in!” Silence. Fudge and fiddlesticks. If the Sheriff had already left for the day that was an even worse fate than being cold shouldered for oversleeping, for Baby had missed all indications of preparations for the day and lost valuable hours of shadowing him. “Dep, is he mad at me?” She called towards the door, open ajar, testing if any ears remained. “Hello, hello? Anyone here?”
Alas, the quiet spoke volumes: her bed had been made — literally — so what was the point in rushing now? She could already predict the eye rolls and commentary this avoidable faux pas would earn her, so what harm could a few more minutes do? Rolling over and tossing her covers sideways, Baby stretched out on her back with a wide yawn, watching her exhale manifest in a small cloud above her. Huh. That was new. Cold mornings were not unusual, but this cold was a new low. When she had fallen asleep, when forced to reflect with greater scrutiny, perhaps the air had felt slightly more brisk than usual. If it had been freezing she’d have noticed, surely.
Jolting upwards, Baby stared expectantly at the closest window. The blinds sat, deceivingly set as normal, drawn against a daylight which seemed especially bright. She tucked two fingers into one of the gaps, experimentally prying for a slivered preview of the weather outside. Immediately, doing so ignited the dimness of the office with the power of a thousand suns, nearly blinding her in the process. Baby’s hand recoiled as if her skin had made contact with the iron of a smouldering woodstove, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes in an attempt to rub away their bleariness. Several hard blinks later, she managed to reduce the blots seared across her vision, bearing the same impression as the blinding white light’s spill into the room. Despite usually being a morning person, Baby’s stomach leapt to her throat. Something was wrong with today.
Tucking her hands into her sleeves, Baby brought her legs over the side of the makeshift bed and tucked them quickly into a set of rubber boots before nudging her door open further, reluctantly sidling around the doorjamb into the eery brightness of the main room. Almost as soon as she rounded the corner, she halted. Something was very wrong. Her hands flew up to shield her eyes, then her mouth; stifling a reaction which never fully surfaced — a scream of terror? A gasp of shock? It was a sight which ran her blood cold and numbed all mobile instincts in her body had to flee the scene, mind running a mile a minute to construct scenarios in which something so horrifically unprecedented could possibly occur. Questions bubbled to the surface faster than she could consider answers. Still, like a deer caught in headlights, Baby couldn’t stop staring until the dryness of her widened eyes forced her to blink; a direly needed reprieve from the unimaginable imagery assaulting her vision, unforgettable and unshakable. One of the three south facing windows had been left open, illuminating the entire interior area of the police station, and with it revealing an unsightly impossible truth...
Even from across the length of the room, Baby could see the whiteness blanketing every surface which had been familiar — now a wasteland of formless nothing. The icy hell stole the colour from every surface, leeching all signs life from what had been so vividly green or blue. She had read about such catastrophe a handful of times, briefly described in books or poems, and seen the occasional picture of the mythic horror in action. It was a silent, beguiling killer. Before learning about how it destroyed everything in its wake, freezing all sign of life for months at a time, it had seemed like such an innocent concept. On the surface, it looked like frosting, prettily decorating trees and gutters. Smiling families would play with it, as if it was clay and not a death trap. Every snowflake homage intricately drawn with a different pattern, like the multiple facets of diamonds or leaves. If Baby hadn’t so strongly resisted the winter propaganda, would it not be here now to confront her so brutally? This was too much, validating her accumulative suspicions to an extreme degree. Nothing was frosted, all was drowned by endless sheets of smothering cotton — no fractal designs uniquely distinguished each minuscule droplet of ice; no, the blots of ice looked like chalky smears and radiated with unbearable cold. Her eyes darted around the room, desperately needing someone else to confirm she was not caught up in some sick hallucination.
Breath coming in shallow increments, in her turn about the room to collect material layers to lessen the chill seeping through the glass, her peripheral vision registered she wasn’t completely alone. On the floor, the Sheriff’s body rested. She might have mistaken his stillness for sleeping if not for the bloody gashes across his body, paired with footprints of the same hue. Her thrumming heart skipped a beat long enough to sink within her chest, professional qualms outweighing personable sentimentality. This would make an uncertain but undeniable impact on her career’s progression. “I hope you didn’t hurt too much, Sher…” A weakly whispered obituary, short and sweet. Her lifeblood was a rehearsal for these sorts of moments — picking up on the qualities of a person and summarising within hours what it is they liked, didn’t like, whether they believed in God, and how they deserved to die. Swallowing a lump in her throat, too overstimulated to even begin processing where the blame could be placed, Baby crouched next to the corpse, gingerly pressing her fingers to his neck to confirm the truth, ice cold and final: no pulse. That was a pity; he had been nice enough to deserve better.
The police station’s front door swung open, overhead bell jingling far too cheerfully, and Baby startled at the sound. Howling winds, then muffled footsteps, unmistakably announced someone or something had joined them. Knees locked fearfully in place, Baby stayed in close proximity to the ground, crawling over on her hands and knees until she could peer around the front desk.
“C-can you see all this too? Are we the only survivors?”