the arrival
It's another day at work for Nice, another day in which he fights to return to a normal life after his chaotic breakup with his ex.
He gets out of bed early, turning off the alarm on his cell phone, trying not to wake his little sister in the bed below the bunk.
He gets ready for work, reluctantly combing her short ash blonde bob hair and applying a little makeup to his face to avoid the awkward questions of are they alright? It's not that he does an excellent job with his paint, but at least they hide his dark circles and mimic the appearance of the damn pimples that appear on his skin, he hates that they appear, but considering the days of the month they understand why they invade his face. After grabbing his things and after putting them in a backpack, he watches his reflection in the mirror checking his clothes, a blue jean, mid waist and a black t-shirt along with his completely black covers.
He manages to have everything he needs in his backpack while he drinks a strong and sweet coffee, his quick version of his breakfast, listening to the annoying noise of his mother's dogs barking like crazy, from the backyard. He doesn't understand his family's obsession with adopting so many dogs. They are noisy and annoying, but that's it, it's not his house anymore, it stopped when he moved in with Brad, and his return is only temporary or expected, so he can't complain about the annoying pets.
At the end of it, she walks sleepily to the bus stop that will take her to her job. He can't complain, at least he got a job as an intern at a research center. That was one of her goals since she got her biologist degree just a year ago. Well, one of her objectives, her plans in general were others, but Brad, her ex, decided to destroy them, along with her feelings.
She still aches in her chest from losing her first and only boyfriend. He was tender and considerate of her, even romantic and he was for 6 years, but since they started living together 4 months ago he turned into a complete jerk, destroying Nice's heart in the process.
That killed Nice's ability to trust anyone other than herself. She should have learned about it by now considering her childhood, but she, she was in love with her and she thought that Brad was her fate, finally giving him her reward for always turning the other cheek.
The result of her with Brad still hurts her, she expected something else, nothing big, just that she would fulfill her promises to love her and take care of her always. Brad loved to make promises of undying love, telling her how much he loved her and that even though she was financially far below him, in the future he would see that nothing was missing from her.
Those damn promises hurt Nice the most. After all, when Brad had the chance to meet them, she began to distance herself from her. Apparently her ex had no intention of respecting her own words.
Nice sighs as she turns up the volume on her wireless headphones so that the music will drown out the complaints in her mind.
She is carried away by the melodious voice of the Evanescence singer. She always liked that band, since she heard it for the first time at 14 years old. Even with her scant almost limited comprehension of English at that time, the voice and melody of her songs filled her mind creating impulses in her heart.
That relaxes her, but in her current situation it's not enough to calm the anguish in her chest. And more taking into account the dreams that have begun to harass her for a few days.
When she arrived at her workplace, she got off the bus and went to the check-in booth, showing her provisional pass to the security subject.
Outlining an awkward smile, being new no one knows her and she feels uncomfortable interacting with people who apparently don't remember her face despite having been there for a month.
The security subject suspiciously reads her card, for the fourth time this week, before enabling the barrier.
Nice sighs and shifts her backpack onto her shoulder as she begins to walk across the parking lot and then down the street toward her apartment.
The research center is a fairly large place made up of different buildings separated from each other, in this case you must go to the last department. In general, everyone there drives by car and the transfer is not uncomfortable for them, but she, being a low-income intern, cannot afford or dream of having something like that. With what she earns from luck she catches up with him for the bus pass.
The place is quite relaxing, with paradise trees on the sides of the street that perfume the cloudy landscape. Her long walk to her research department allows her to relax to start the day.
Her work is simple, as a doctoral intern in the entomology area, she is dedicated to classifying insects extracted from various sectors and cataloging them. It sounds kind of boring, but she loves insects and the hours fly by while she works behind her magnifying glass.
It's not a well-paid job, but it's what she likes and she fights for it. She really fights, people nowadays only value your title depending on how it fills your wallet, she could have been a doctor, like her mother wanted so much, but it's not what she wanted. Still I try, it was good that she decided to give up before wasting time on something she didn't like. It's one thing to like science, but she couldn't imagine healing people. And a doctor who doesn't heal people is something she would have little sense for. Even so, her decision caused chaos in her family, no one understood her choice given her ability, they believed her capable of "better" things, aka better pay. But she doesn't need the approval of people who only want to criticize, she just needs her own approval, she approves of her life, or what's left of her.
There are only a couple of meters left to reach her apartment, and Nice takes a deep breath feeling the breeze that blows from the imminent storm that is forming in her head. But the sky shows an unusually clear area where a huge full moon is still visible despite the day... For some reason, looking there unsettles Nice's heart, reminding him of confused fragments of her dream. That night she dreamed of warm arms surrounding her body, she wanted to believe that it was just her mind complaining about missing Brad, but something in her dream told her that it wasn't him who was hugging her. Neither Brad nor anyone else has caused what he mysteriously dreamed of hers because of her in her. Security. Being surrounded by muscular and warm protective arms. In frustration Nice pushes her mind away from those thoughts, there is no use regretting it.
Good thing she's almost there, just a couple of steps. When he sees the door of the place, he extends his arm to ring the bell and wait for someone to come down to open it, since his work area is on the second floor, but the bell never rang, and the place where Nice was moments ago now it is just empty, being occupied by the leaves that travel with the wind.
_ I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are saying, if you want you can call the police, I only ask you to please calm down your pets before they attack me_ clarifies with fear in Nice's voice. But that only causes the dogs to bark as they crouch in preparation to pounce. Fear invades her and she decides to take a step back away from the beasts, but in doing so she collides with something. She doesn't have time to think, if it's a tree she'd rather climb than be lunch for those mad dogs. But when she turns her body freezes. It's not a tree, it's a man and a very angry one.
The man is tall, almost two meters, with dark and messy hair, with some strands reaching his forehead. He has a straight, slightly angled nose, and a bushy, neatly trimmed beard that gives him a wild yet handsome appearance, in tandem with his large, muscular body. Although the most impressive thing about him is his eyes, one is green like grass and the other is light blue like the sea. And they are angry, very angry.
She freezes in shock, and the stranger of hers knocks her out with a heavy blow to her head, causing Nice to fall to the ground.
The stranger looks at Nice lying unconscious with fury and disgust and a voice is heard to his left
_ What do we do with that? _ asks a man.
The stranger turns and walks away from her as he commands.
_ Lock her up, if I get here, she must know something, let's make her talk._
The stranger's order provokes emotion in the man who holds it in disgust, almost as if he were touching rotten meat.
