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\_____ \ | / \ \/| < \_____ \ / /_\ \ | | \
/ \| \ \___| | \ / \/ | \| ` \
/_______ /|___|\______ /____|__ \ /_______ /\____|__ /_______ /
\/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/
__ __________ __________.____ ________
/ \ / \_____ \\______ \ | \______ \
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\ // | \ | \ |___ | ` \
\__/\ / \_______ /____|_ /_______ \/_______ /
\/ \/ \/ \/ \/


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ISSUE 009
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oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo
->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->

Silver In The Rain

The weather outside was terrible and the narrative was predictably parallel.
Anywhere else this would have been an unfortunate coincidence, but here in
the Endless City such synchronicity was always prophetic.

"Wrap up and hunker down kids... it's gonna get wild out there tonight...
but don't worry we're here to keep you warm... it's 23.5 Radio free NOTHING
with the sounds of the city which never dies..." an ambient beat kicked
in...

She was bored, and was going to sulk about it. "It" in this instance being;
everything. A Leviathon had rampaged its way through the city last night
destroying three of her favourite restaurants, and various entities of
indeterminate origin or purpose, and then had made some mischief down town
that barely concerned her at all. What did concern her was the upshot of
this turn of events; she'd had to skip all her client calls. This had resulted
in at least threevery sexually frustrated deviants more on the prowl tonight.
And one in her apartment. She was going to leave all of that shit for those
less apathetic than her to deal with though. Plenty of wannabe heroes
prancing around here, plenty of perverts, plenty of escorts, plenty of everyone.

Probably too many. She was in no mood.

Rain hammered down against the windows and Yolandi sighed and tried to muster
up the energy to be properly depressed. The apartment was a comfortable prison
to be sure, and for now she'd certainly had enough of the continued random
nonsense she - and everyone else for that matter - encountered out on the
Streets of the city. But a night of exile alone wasn't exactly appealing to her
frivolous and adventurous nature.

A few nights in was, however, probably what she needed. Regroup. Come up with a
plan. Sleep. Not get into any trouble. She sighed again, dramatically.
Three seconds passed. This was bullshit. She took off her shoe and threw
it at a pot plant. This didn't help. Bored of the windowsill, in particular
because no one was around to witness the romantic nature of the "sitting on
the window sill crying into the rain" trope she was quite deliberately
perpetuating, she slung herself down on the sofa hard. There she lay on her
front kicking her feet in the air until her one remaining shoe fell off and
landed with a thump on the floor. There was a smell. She sniffed to make
sure.

Yes, brilliant, a smell. Great. What was it? She couldn't place a
finger, or indeed nostril, on it - it was possibly something new and
disgusting as opposed to something old and disgusting she'd previously had
the displeasure of categorising as disgusting. She tried to locate the
source of the offending odour. There was nothing laying around, no food,
no old half done drinks, no cigarettes or ash butts or drug residue or
anything of that nature. Her feet. Was it her feet? No. It was not her
feet. Or, she leant down awkwardly toward her previously plant bound shoe,
her shoes. They were fine. Well... if not fine, then an expected and
respectable level of shoe smell. Not the smell she was dealing with here.
She noticed something else. A patch on the sofa. She raised a very carefully
crafted eyebrow. It was true she lacked one hundred percent recall of the
last few weeks but was pretty sure this patch, this stain if you will, was
new. She shuffled very gingerly toward it taking a very cautious sniff. Yes.
This was the source of the smell. She wrinkled her nose at it. This didn't
help.

She'd need to clean this up she supposed, if not now, then at some
point. Just as she was considering the tragic inevitability of domestic
necessity a small silver coloured fly emerged from the sofa cushions beyond
the stain. It was shiny, metallic even. It flew off before she could read
too much into it's sudden surprise appearance. "Gross" she said out loud,
followed by "Fuck" as she realised this probably meant she should clean up
the mystery stain sooner rather than later, just in case... which would
severely eat in to her planned sulking time. She reached out tentatively
and ran her hand over the stain, it felt colder than it did wet and she
thought that somehow that was worse. Another identical silver fly emerged
and quickly buzzed off into the depths of her apartment. She followed the
insects flight path as far as she could and her eyes eventually lost
contact and came to rest on the window once more. Rain was continuing to
hammer down outside, a green neon light emanating from some of the city's
over enthusiastic advertising was at this moment casting itself aggressively
into the apartment overriding the usual dim yellow lights. She prodded the
stain.

On second inspection, it was actually wet, as well as cold. In a
quick motion, worthy of a graceful ballerina, Mexican wrestler or
accomplished pole dancer, Yolandi, now determined to deal with this smelly
stain conundrum before her sulking mood had been fully ruined, slid to the
floor, span around upon her knees and took a deep breath before reaching
toward the sofa cushion and yanking it upwards... The tentacle snapped at
her violently, releasing a swarm of silver flies as it did so, grabbing
her around the neck tightly it violently yanked her forward toward the
unmoving furnishing and she disappeared head first in less than a second,
her bare feet having no time to even kick in protest. The cushion slowly
fell back into its usual position a few seconds later. The rain beat down
against the window. The neon lighting switched hue... It was silver this
time.

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oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo

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! Produced by I HATE IT HERE - https://www.tengushee.com/ihih !
| #FAEWAVE #ERIS
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EOF