It couldn’t have been more than a half an hour before she felt the imposing presence fall around her. The steps outside her door were like bellowing drums in her skull. She wanted to be left alone. She knew it was unwise to ignore the eventual calling for her, but dammit, she really couldn’t muster up the will to leave her self-imposed isolation.
Or… maybe she could? It was strange. A voice called from beyond the door. She took comfort in the way it helped her feel less alone. More put together. Less trapped. A voice in the dark to help pull her out.
A step outside the door couldn’t hurt, right? If it was with the voice, she could just ignore the other people out there. Surly a voice so welcoming wouldn’t drown her in questions and attention. With a shaky breath, Xion stood, carefully pushing the chair back into its place. She stretched slightly as joints popped from remaining still for so long. Moments after she’d shook her head clear of the suffocating dread she’d been drowning in before, making her way to the door with careful purpose. No matter how inviting the voice sounded, the rest of the world beyond it still had her heart racing.
With a light grasp of the knob, she turned it, pulling the door open part way. She was weirdly relieved to see the man opposite from her.
“Uh, hello,” she said a bit nervously. Not from him though. From the eyes she could already feel around them. Surly they were on her. Her eyes moved down, to stare at his clothed chest rather than to confirm her suspicions. Her wrist started to heat up. She subtly shook her right hand, ignoring the trapped feeling as it quickly returned.
She considered stepping out of the doorway to stand closer to the only person in the entire place that wasn’t making her skin crawl, but quickly dismissed it. She pulled the long grey sleeve of the shirt she’d been forced to wear over her fists. She wanted to stand closer to him. But she chose to wait. Maybe he was just saying hi and she could retreat back into the room. She’d be disappointed that he left, but at least the heavy sense of being watched would lessen as much as it could in a place like this.
@vanitys-vessel
