alone and surrounded by cats
Jul. 3rd, 2021 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
formicine[dated to last Monday]
She'd begun to notice that something was wrong on that first Tuesday, though at the time she hadn't known what. Running a cafe, even one like a cat cafe that doesn't necessarily encourage exactly the same traffic as an Ahab's might, there's a rhythm. There are regulars; some of whom never stay to play with the cats -- though often smile and wave at them through the window -- and some who always do. There are ebbs and flows in the day.
Something had been off. She'd been late, so at first she'd thought it was her, but it had continued throughout the day, some faces Blue expected to see not showing up.
The next day she'd arrived to a frantic barista and a completely missing shipment of supplies, and after four times trying to get someone on the phone, a very harried sounding support worker insisted it was there, that it had been labeled delivered, though they admitted no photo had been sent. They confirmed that they saw the truck's GPS at her location, though, and then, bewildered and frankly sounding extremely tired, said that they didn't see any trace of the truck going anywhere after that. Blue had thanked them, walked down the long alley that the delivery trucks usually came down to see if maybe the truck had broken down, and there it was. The back was open, her delivery was on a dolly, but no one was anywhere to be seen. Nothing was wrong with the truck, as far as she could see. It was as if the courier had simply disappeared mid-taking the supplies out of the truck.
It was a familiar, and totally unfamiliar feeling, that presence of everything except a person who was supposed to be there, and it twisted sickly in Blue's stomach. She called the vendor back to let them know the driver was MIA and wheeled the large dolly of supplies back to Un Chat Gris herself.
Blue texted Kat with a something's going on. ...be careful? and then, for good measure, sent a group text to everyone at the Archives, Nova, Aggie, and Darlington: the people closest to her that she thought would also maybe have some insight or might need to have a head's up.
Hear anything about people missing?
As it turned out, she didn't have to. By that night, reports of missing people, cars left abandoned and stoves left on, posts abandoned, were on the news.
The next few days are a blur. She comes to work every day, determined -- but fewer and fewer people -- at least, fewer Darrow natives -- come in. By the end of the week, she's almost expecting ashes falling from the sky and sirens, but this is no demonic dimension here to confront her with her fears: at least, not in that way. When others do come in, their conversations invariably turn to what's happening. Rumors that the Mayor is already gone, that most of City Hall is gone, that the few people making statements are the only ones left there. To deliveries that hadn't come at all, to shops that simply haven't reopened. To what happens if people can't get food. A slow, sort of uncomfortable dread settles, and with it, a strange resignation to something no one can define.
On Sunday, she comes in -- as she has every day -- and realizes that she's made a critical mistake. The rest of her -- quite small -- staff have come in every day when they've supposed to, and today she was scheduled for the second shift so she hadn't even thought about it. But Lilly isn't here. The store is empty, dark, locked up still. She unlocks everything, turns on the light, hurries back to the cats who all immediately yowl and cry at her for the food and attention they were supposed to get hours ago.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she exclaims, and lets them all out into the main room because why not, why bother separating food from toys and from potential clients' food when there's no one in the city? She scoops up food and water bowls, cleans and refills them as the cats run back and forth demandingly, curling around her legs, jumping up with claws pressed in just enough to say hello it's been HOURS. She shouldn't abandon the front, but -- does it matter? Blue cleans and refills litter, murmuring apologies the whole while, and sanitizes, and washes her hands and the kitchen and gets coffee started because by god if someone wants coffee and cats she's going to have coffee and cats.
And then Blue looks over at the cats, exploring, not used to this unusual quiet and this setup she's rigged so she can see everything from the counter. She tries not to think about what happened to Lilly, or the rest of the city, what might still happen to any of them, what happens when they run out of catfood here or when the produce starts going bad in the grocery stores. She walks into the playroom and looks at the cats that are all suddenly solely her job to make sure are okay, for as long as this goes on, and their curious, nonplussed faces.
It's a head bump from Emma Goldmewn (one of the fixtures of the cafe; a stocky, choosy cinnamon tabby who, in being passed over for cuter, sweeter adoptees, has become a bit of a matriarch to the Chat Gris colony, especially to the newer cats) that really undoes Blue, and she sits down on the floor, running her hands through her hair. "Oh, Emma," she says, "I don't know how to do this."
[OOC: Find Blue at any point of this! If you want to catch her earlier in the disappearance process or she texted your pup and you'd like to reply, that's fine! If responding to the end: your pup should be able to see her, sitting on the floor surrounded by cats, through the window, but you could miss the playroom window if you weren't looking or were coming from the other direction. The lights are on and the open sign's ...open.]
She'd begun to notice that something was wrong on that first Tuesday, though at the time she hadn't known what. Running a cafe, even one like a cat cafe that doesn't necessarily encourage exactly the same traffic as an Ahab's might, there's a rhythm. There are regulars; some of whom never stay to play with the cats -- though often smile and wave at them through the window -- and some who always do. There are ebbs and flows in the day.
Something had been off. She'd been late, so at first she'd thought it was her, but it had continued throughout the day, some faces Blue expected to see not showing up.
The next day she'd arrived to a frantic barista and a completely missing shipment of supplies, and after four times trying to get someone on the phone, a very harried sounding support worker insisted it was there, that it had been labeled delivered, though they admitted no photo had been sent. They confirmed that they saw the truck's GPS at her location, though, and then, bewildered and frankly sounding extremely tired, said that they didn't see any trace of the truck going anywhere after that. Blue had thanked them, walked down the long alley that the delivery trucks usually came down to see if maybe the truck had broken down, and there it was. The back was open, her delivery was on a dolly, but no one was anywhere to be seen. Nothing was wrong with the truck, as far as she could see. It was as if the courier had simply disappeared mid-taking the supplies out of the truck.
It was a familiar, and totally unfamiliar feeling, that presence of everything except a person who was supposed to be there, and it twisted sickly in Blue's stomach. She called the vendor back to let them know the driver was MIA and wheeled the large dolly of supplies back to Un Chat Gris herself.
Blue texted Kat with a something's going on. ...be careful? and then, for good measure, sent a group text to everyone at the Archives, Nova, Aggie, and Darlington: the people closest to her that she thought would also maybe have some insight or might need to have a head's up.
Hear anything about people missing?
As it turned out, she didn't have to. By that night, reports of missing people, cars left abandoned and stoves left on, posts abandoned, were on the news.
The next few days are a blur. She comes to work every day, determined -- but fewer and fewer people -- at least, fewer Darrow natives -- come in. By the end of the week, she's almost expecting ashes falling from the sky and sirens, but this is no demonic dimension here to confront her with her fears: at least, not in that way. When others do come in, their conversations invariably turn to what's happening. Rumors that the Mayor is already gone, that most of City Hall is gone, that the few people making statements are the only ones left there. To deliveries that hadn't come at all, to shops that simply haven't reopened. To what happens if people can't get food. A slow, sort of uncomfortable dread settles, and with it, a strange resignation to something no one can define.
On Sunday, she comes in -- as she has every day -- and realizes that she's made a critical mistake. The rest of her -- quite small -- staff have come in every day when they've supposed to, and today she was scheduled for the second shift so she hadn't even thought about it. But Lilly isn't here. The store is empty, dark, locked up still. She unlocks everything, turns on the light, hurries back to the cats who all immediately yowl and cry at her for the food and attention they were supposed to get hours ago.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she exclaims, and lets them all out into the main room because why not, why bother separating food from toys and from potential clients' food when there's no one in the city? She scoops up food and water bowls, cleans and refills them as the cats run back and forth demandingly, curling around her legs, jumping up with claws pressed in just enough to say hello it's been HOURS. She shouldn't abandon the front, but -- does it matter? Blue cleans and refills litter, murmuring apologies the whole while, and sanitizes, and washes her hands and the kitchen and gets coffee started because by god if someone wants coffee and cats she's going to have coffee and cats.
And then Blue looks over at the cats, exploring, not used to this unusual quiet and this setup she's rigged so she can see everything from the counter. She tries not to think about what happened to Lilly, or the rest of the city, what might still happen to any of them, what happens when they run out of catfood here or when the produce starts going bad in the grocery stores. She walks into the playroom and looks at the cats that are all suddenly solely her job to make sure are okay, for as long as this goes on, and their curious, nonplussed faces.
It's a head bump from Emma Goldmewn (one of the fixtures of the cafe; a stocky, choosy cinnamon tabby who, in being passed over for cuter, sweeter adoptees, has become a bit of a matriarch to the Chat Gris colony, especially to the newer cats) that really undoes Blue, and she sits down on the floor, running her hands through her hair. "Oh, Emma," she says, "I don't know how to do this."
[OOC: Find Blue at any point of this! If you want to catch her earlier in the disappearance process or she texted your pup and you'd like to reply, that's fine! If responding to the end: your pup should be able to see her, sitting on the floor surrounded by cats, through the window, but you could miss the playroom window if you weren't looking or were coming from the other direction. The lights are on and the open sign's ...open.]
no subject
Date: 2021-07-06 02:17 am (UTC)And surely things will go back to normal sooner or later. They always do, and she refuses to believe that—that whatever this is might be special in that regard.
But it's still unsettling. Even though it only seems to be the locals who have vanished, there were always far more of them than anyone else, and never has she felt the difference so keenly. Whole blocks look abandoned, shops either permanently shuttered or, more often, left unmanned mid-shift: the lights still on, but no one at home. But what she hates most are the littler signs of lives abruptly interrupted. A lone briefcase sitting at a bus stop; half-drunk beverages glued to their coasters by dried condensation; shopping carts left idle halfway down an aisle.
Regan is taking it especially hard, and no wonder.
The only reasons to come into town anymore are to gather supplies and check on her friends, with 'getting a sense of how bad things are' an uncomfortable, inevitable side effect. She scans the shopfronts as she passes, more interested in signs of life than what a sign on the door might say, and she pulls up short when she sees movement in the windows of a cat cafe. Her first thought is that the cats have been abandoned, and she's halfway to pulling out her phone and calling Daine when she sees the person sitting on the floor, surrounded by twining feline forms and looking... well, looking about how they all must feel.
Greta pushes the door open, slipping in quickly before any of the cats can slip out, and only then does she realize she knows the woman sat on the floor. She hadn't kept in especially close touch with Blue since Thomas left, but it's not as if she's forgot her, and she tsks quietly at the picture she makes.
"Hello, Blue," she says, taking a cautious step forward as one of the cats throws all eight pounds of its weight into rubbing against her shin. "I'd ask if you were all right, but..." she gestures around, encompassing both the shop full of loose cats and the city at large, then offers the young woman a hand up. "Here, up you get."