@diabolics
Hood pulled up with large, dark sunglasses obscuring most of her face, Allison was practically unrecognizable as she hurried down the street, eyes firmly fixed on the concrete sidewalk. She hadn’t wanted to go out but the most recent batch of herbs for Aria were ready and she didn’t want to disappoint the witch. Harvesting the dittany had been hell – the large glass windows of her greenhouse meant her reflection was everywhere and any time Allison looked up from her work, she’d caught sight of the monstrous face. Sometimes it paced back and forth, moving along the glass even as Allison stood still and sometimes, it cycled through melting her face an then screaming silently. It was awful.
She’d begun to see it in her dreams and it showed. Beneath her glasses, she wore dark bags, her eyes strained and red-rimmed. Of course, with her eyes focused on the ground, she wasn’t able to dodge around people the same way and she’d bumped shoulders so often that she wouldn’t have been surprised to see a bruise forming. Which was why she hardly paused when she once again bumped into someone. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there,” she muttered, a repetitive mantra that she’d been saying for over a week now.