A Castle Of Crystal

5. Pickpocketed

I spent Wednesday sitting at my desk, attempting to focus on the extra workload I'd been given and failing miserably as I always returned to the journal. I'd stuck little shreds of sticky notes throughout the pages to find the more important events, comparing them to my new notes on the pad and letting out a heavy sigh when I realized the end of the work day had arrived a lot quicker than usual. Once I packed my things up I slowly followed the trudge of the other office-zombies to the elevator and leaned against the back wall, scrolling through what social media I had and waiting for the doors to release us onto the lobby floor.

"You sir look like you need to be getting more sleep."

"How bad is it today?"

"Well you could certainly play a background zombie on The Walking Dead," Jules teased, her heels clicking on the tiled floor as she walked with me out to the lot, "have you been having weird dreams or something?"

A certain, strange pang hit me as N's face flashed across my vision yet again and I let out a sigh, "something like that. Winter makes me super restless, ever since my accident as a kid."

"I remember the story, I'm sorry to hear that. At least you've got your birthday to look forward to this weekend, right?"

"I almost forgot all about it, thanks for the reminder."

"This is why I make a good receptionist." She winked and flashed a grin at me before waltzing further down the lot to her car, my gaze locked on as she walked away and I swore to myself when I finally got into the Mazda. The engine came on and I sat there for a few minutes in the warmth before I pulled out onto the road to idle in traffic once again. I really was getting tired of this but there was nothing I could do to get out of it right now, not unless I wanted to just up and quit.

It was dark by the time I got home and Jude was lounging on the couch, playing a fighting game that echoed in the kitchen. I'd taken my box of comics to the pawn shop on my lunch and gotten a decent payout, nothing too big but definitely nice pocket change to have this time of year. Instead on the table now was the contents of the lunchbox, plus more of my canvases, and I dropped my journal and note pad there beside it before taking a seat.

"Hey man, you doin' alright?"

"Yeah, I'm just getting really tired of sitting at that desk all day," I hummed, reaching for the necklace on the table and taking the gem in my hand. According to Jude it was rainbow obsidian, that was the closest thing he could find after a few hours of internet searching and while there really wasn't anything readily available about it having to do with teleportation across dimensions, I was about ready to give it a shot. "According to everything in this journal, this thing is supposed to be the key to get between here and Alchemilla. I need to find N, get the horn back to her, apologize for...everything."

"What's with the sudden certainty?" He asked as he paused his game, getting up to join me with a beer in his hand. Truthfully I wasn't sure, but deep down it's like a switch had been flicked, a spark ignited into a flame. I reached out to one of the canvases, running my thumb over the white spire of a castle rising above the evergreen trees. The sky was orange.

"Everyone always asked why I painted the sky orange," I said, pulling the journal toward me to read another entry. "'Ravyn brought me to the castle to meet her parents today. They were very nice to me. I asked them why the sky was orange because no one else knew. They asked me why my sky was blue, and I couldn't answer either'. I...I had a whole other life I could have been living had I not taken those meds, Jude. I could have ended up in a whole other world and things could have been...different." My shoulders dropped out of frustration and I closed the diary while my voice came out sullen and defeated. "I could actually be doing something with my life other than wasting it at a cubicle all day."