It wasn’t unbearably cold out, only low fifties, even if it was December. But then, hewasin Nevada. Which was not as far away from Kansas as he’d liked to be after a month on the run but…shit was complicated. His hunching, along with the hood and scarf, while overkill at this temperature, was more to keep himself hidden, and make himself feel safer—even if no place was truly safe.
Not seeing much besides a slightly empty parking lot and buildings further down the road, Seri waddled as fast as he could towards the entrance of the small diner in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Bracelin, Nevada was literally a small town. Somehow it had survived the overpopulation, and successfully avoided the upward creation of stacker houses that the cities were plagued with nowadays. He hadn’t seen a single house hovering over another while he wandered around town the last two days.
Though, he supposed, during the Cryptid-Human War five hundred years ago, a lot of towns had been laid to waste. Maybe this had been one of them? Destroyed and then rebuilt.
He eyed the levitating diner he was approaching. The building was a squashed rounded cylinder shape, with a fenced off porch around it. It kind of looked like an edged bow turned upside down.
Circular shaped buildings and random geometric shapes merged together was what was popular these days, architectural wise. Seri didn’t get it, he preferred the styles from years before he was born. At least one in particular. Over a hundred years ago, for a short period of time, they created buildings that looked as if they were grown from trees. The style hadn’t been in favor long, and soon enough, boxy, geometric, and round shapes had returned.
The restaurant had green moss growing out of the roof. Otherwise, it was beige all over, with a large, unending off-center window that ran on both sides of the door around the building, that he was going to assume went all the way around it. Luckily, the window was tinted copper so no one could see inside.
White glowing words ran vertically on repeat by the perfectly circle glass door, seemingly cut out of the glass, sayingCrazy Six Diner. From the door and off the fenced in porch, a set of steps swooped down to the ground. But there was also a copper lift box right next to the start of the steps.
Approaching the box, the oval door opened automatically. Seri stepped inside. It closed around him and drifted up, stopping on the platform at the top of the steps. He got out when the door reopened. Taking a deep breath through his mouth, feeling it flow through his gills, he pushed inside the Crazy Six Diner, flinching at the chime that sounded as he entered.
Seri eyed the people inside, but not a single person even glanced up or towards him. It was busy, but not crowded.
The inside of the Crazy Six was a bunch of curves. The walls and floor inside were stone, and through the continuing window on the outer wall you could see out perfectly. Plush brown booths lined the wall with the window, while copper tables and chairs made up the seating near the other wall.
With the diner being tube-like, to see the full restaurant you had to keep walking, following the curve because the center was blocked. In the middle there was a counter for checking out, and behind that was a doorway sayingStaff Only. There was also a sign on the center curved wall with an arrow that said restrooms this way.
Thanks to his scarf, he wasn’t forced to fake a smile when the hostess approached him.
“How many?” she asked brightly.
“Just me,” Seri murmured softly.
The woman, whose name tag saidLilika, nodded, before asking, “Booth okay?”
“Yes.”
“Follow me.” She grabbed a menu from a stand nearby, and Seri followed her around the curve, noting that there were booths along the center curve on this side. She took him to one of those.
“Your waiter will be right with you,” Lilika said as she sat the menu down and walked away.
Seri slowly lowered himself into the booth with a sigh, sagging a bit once fully seated. Removing his hood and scarf, he stared blankly ahead, not really seeing or hearing anything. With him being on the run, it was probably not a good idea to zone out, yet…he was so tired…not to mention stressed, achy, and swollen in various places. Maybe also a bit paranoid and traumatized.
Seri started to chew on his right thumbnail.
Okay, so the paranoia and trauma was more than a bit, or just a maybe. Seri, apparently, now had a new fear of shadows and darkness. A fear that hadn’t developed fully or appeared while in captivity. But now that he was on the outside, it had bloomed into full blown panic-induced paralysis, paired with him screaming in terror at things that weren’t fucking there. Not fun…not fun at all.
Honestly, it felt like he was five again, trying to hide from the monsters in the darkness. Except this time he knew his monster was very real, and out there looking for him. Frankly, at the moment, shit was not going his way.
While escaping had been almost too easy, the rest…well, not so much. Draining the cards he’d stolen to their limit…sure, that went fine. As had buying and filling the prepaid credit cards with it all. Though…it had been a pain with the amount he bought. The number of stores he had to visit…ugh.
But there had been no choice. It wasn’t as if he could keep it all in cash. They’d be able to track him once Preston realized the accounts had been drained.
The Universal Dollar, while nice because it could be used anywhere in the discovered parts of the universe…was also very easy to track. But all of that had still been easy, even if it was a pain.
The hard part, on top of his handy dandy new psychological problems, was that he currently had no way to get a fake identity. Had he latched on to every bit of information Preston had revealed, including locations of where he could get such things? Yes. Yes, he had.
But, for some reason, it hadn’t occurred to past him that Preston being connected to these places meant they were in no way safe for him to go near. Something he only realized after having visited one and finding Preston’s men waiting for him when he returned. It was pure luck that he hadn’t been spotted.
So, Seri’s current dilemma…while he had the money to live comfortably for a long-ass time, he had no way to purchase or rent any sort of home. In today’s world you can't buy or even stay at a hotel, motel, apartment, condo, or house, without having your name listed somewhere, along with forking over your ID Passbook. So currently he was living in the van he'd purchased with cash off some random ass guy he found online.
The whole ordeal had been super sketchy. Both the location where they'd met, and the way he’d just handed over money for a van and a nameless title that he wasn’t sure was real or not. Yeah, it was possibly stolen. But he did have a note from the guy he bought it from, stating that it was his, signed and dated… Lot of good that would do him if it was stolen…
