hell is empty and all the devils are here [amber moods]

[errin]

I chase your love around a figure 8,
I need you more than I can take,
You promise forever and a day,
And then you take it all away,
And then you take it all away
Ellie Goulding - Figure 8

---

Late night 2/13 - Early morning 2/14

For the second time tonight Amber is wrapped in darkness and shadow. It's not the first time. That time was the worst. There are many things he could have done to show her how little she mattered to him, how completely insignificant he found her to be (a bug, a toy, just another piece of a chess set, a piece that's lost its value and must be cleared from the board), but nothing would have driven it home so thoroughly as when he enveloped her in her deepest fear, using it against her to get her out of his sight for she doesn't even know how long. She's never been so completely terrified in all of her life. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of her lungs, like her heart was going to burst out of her chest and her bones were going to rattle free of their joints.

It feels a bit like that still. She thought he was going to break her neck. He reached for it, could have snapped it like so much kindling if she'd let him get hold of her, but she didn't. She used the strength he gave her and she got herself free but to go where? There had been that other one. The stranger woman on his arm who'd come gliding onto the roof with her wings of shadow like some dark and twisted angel. She'd blocked Amber's escape and tried to catch her the way he had. Amber can still see the way the shadows danced for her, the way the surged at her to try and catch her. She would shiver if she weren't already shaking.

She's glad for the trembling in a way. It means she's still alive, though she has no idea for how much longer. She'd managed to get to the roof access stairs, had frozen for a handful of seconds or minutes when the door slammed shut behind her and she found herself wrapped in darkness all over again. Breath catching in her chest, coming out in short, sharp gasps. Jerkily, she'd made her way the rest of the way down into what was apparently a storage room.

There's light in here, just enough for her eyes to become adjusted and make sense of the shadows. No, that isn't a lurking monster waiting to lunge for her, it's just a stack of boxes. No, that isn't a giant spider, long spindly legs a jumble in all direction, but a table stacked with chairs. That's where Amber goes, soon as she sees it's there. She dives for it, knocking her knees on the floor, bumping her head against the table's top, scraping her arm on a chair leg hard enough to draw blood from her upper arm.

And there she waits. Most fears, the answer when they rise up and overtake the senses is to run. That's because most fears? They're things that can be fled from. Scared of heights? Get away from the ledge. Scared of flying? Take the train. But Amber's fear is not something that can be escaped so easily. It's everywhere inside this room. It's everywhere downstairs in the lower floors of a newly purchased and not-yet-open independent grocers. And there are two creatures who it answers to up on the roof. Any second now they're going to come down to find Amber. They're going to find her and they're going to kill her because she's nothing. She can't run away from the darkness, and she can't run away from those who control it. All she can do is curl up with her knees to her chest and try so hard to not make a sound.

And no one will realize she's gone, or miss her, or remember her. She will disappear from this world as though she'd never existed in the first place, and she cries for that the same as she cries from fear. The tears leak free of her eyes despite being squeezed so tightly shut. They drip down her arm and soak into the fabric of her jeans.

=====

Eventually she must have fallen asleep. One minute the dark is pressing in all around her, the next light is streaming in through the high windows. Amber's eyes, the lashes glued together with dried salt water, the skin around them red and puffy, peel slowly and painfully open. She's still curled up beneath the table. Slowly, she stretches out her legs, her arms, joints creaking and popping, muscles achingly resistant.

There's movement downstairs. Voices. Amber makes her way down slowly to find workers moving about the main level getting stands and displays put together and set in place.

"Amber?"

She looks around for the owner of the voice and finds the middle-aged man who bought this place, and who hired her to work through the night making the outside appealing. It was his idea for the sunny daylight theme. This neighborhood is so dark and terrible, it needs a little light.

She can tell by the look on his face that she's a fucking mess. But he also looks...relieved? She turns her face away, unable yet to handle that kind of goodness.

"One of the guys found your stuff still outside. Are...you okay?" he asks, sounding hesitant. She's already gotten into one screaming match with one of the workers. That's part of the reason she's been asked to work after hours. Her answer for him is a grunt, which serves as a noncommittal wall between them for the time being. She needs to go...wherever. Somewhere. For a moment she considers calling up Laurel, but no. She doesn't know the woman well enough to ask to crash on her couch.

She finds her stuff and she gets her money for last night's work and she gets the fuck away from this place. Uses some of that money to put herself up in one of the cheapest motels she can find. It's by-the-hour but that's alright, she doesn't even need one. She doesn't let herself feel that terrible and pathetic for that long. They were supposed to have eternity but instead they only had a handful of months, so what. He lied to her, so what. She meant nothing to him at all, so--

Amber ends up staying in the motel for longer than an hour. But once she's outside and walking away she doesn't look back.

=====
Amber @ 11:34PM
Private Message to Sam-Lurk
[I need a witness! Courage!]
Roll: 4 d10 TN10 (1, 3, 4, 6) ( fail ) VALID

Sam-Lurk @ 11:35PM
Private Message to Amber
[[Witnessed!]]