Probing

Alexia awoke with a start. She had spent the entire evening deeply asleep on the couch. Odd that. She ordinarily had an innate sense to rouse herself when she dozed so that she may get a proper night's sleep in her own bed. Falling asleep on the couch meant a disturbed sleep, and she needed to keep her wits about her at all times. Her life depended on it.

She retrieved the crystal flute from the floor, along with the towel that had tumbled there during the night.

"Time?"

"05 hours, 37 minutes," toned the discretely installed speakers.

She lazily tiptoed over to the large dark screen that spanned one long wall.

"Decrease opaque 50 percent."

The dark screen brightened as the window opaqueness vanished and she could see the city's skyline before her. Smudges of smoke left Rorschach blotches against the streaks of dawn that would never fully illuminate the sky.

She sighed and closed her eyes, mentally running through the events of the day before and preparing for the day ahead. As she opened her eyes, she glanced down at her hands as they pressed against the window ledge.

And then she saw it. Faint, but detectable to her keen, trained eye. A small, spidery wound on the inside of her left arm. It was only the size of the head of a pin, but it was distinctive. And she knew what it meant.

Date: 2002-07-08 11:35