Slime-Cycle (Humble Beginnings)

4. huff and puff, the landlords here

Puffy woke with a start as her alarm clock buzzed, letting her know it was precisely 6 am. Time for her morning coffee.

She got out of bed and brushed away the large ploof of hair that sat atop her head. It had white streaks and was mostly brown, the only other detail was small rainbow streaks randomly placed in her hair.

She trudged over to her bathroom and began to brush her teeth. After that she grabbed a comically large hair brush and attempted to brush her hair. Which, took a fair bit of effort.

After brushing her hair and teeth, she took a large hair tie from a drawer and wrapped most of her hair into a small ponytail. The rest of her hair poofed out and a few stray strands of hair still sat infront of her eyes, attempting to block her view. She let out a small "eh," as she turned and left her bathroom.

She entered her kitchen and immediately walked over to the coffee maker. Taking out the proper ingredients, she placed it all into the machine and pressed start. Turning around, she grabbed her phone and scrolled through social media.

The only thing to catch her eye was a news report on a fight that happened last night. The headline stated that blink, the mechanic, and apollo had been involved in some form of vandalism. Puffy chuckled to herself, whispering something about "those trouble makers" under her breathe.

A few minutes later and she heard a click come from the coffee machine, signifying it had finished making the coffee. She grabbed a mug and filled it almost to the brim with black coffee. No milk. Coffee with milk never does it for puffy.

She walked over to her office, and took a seat at her desk. Swiveling towards her laptop, she took a sip of her coffee as a notification popped up on her screen.

"Multiple people detected at entrance" was the titled notification. Puffy sighed looking at the notification. her first thoughts were, "oh, it's just charlie. Hes always back late" but then she looked closer.

The words "Multiple people" peaked her interest. Had another one of her tenants come home late? She decided to check it out.

She took another sip of her coffee as she clicked the notification. Opening to the security cameras, she scrolled through the recording of last night. Eventually she came across something. A figure, walked into the alleyway. They looked back almost as if they were trying to be sneaky. At first she thought it was charlie, but then she realised. That's just not him.

She scooched closer in her chair and sipped her coffee again as she watched the person. They turned the corner to the door and attempted to open it to no avail. They jiggled the door nob and even kicked the door at one point, but it never opened. It looked like they were gonna give up and leave when someone else entered the alley. It was charlie.

She watched as he walked down the alley, then, as the person pulled him to the side and threatened him with a gun. She sat there dumbfounded as the whole debacle played out infront of her.

She watched as the person dumped out Charlie's bag, as charlie yelled for help, and as the person pulled the trigger on the gun.

She had no words, the only thing that went through her mind was worry, shock and horror as she watched one of her many beloved tenants get shot and mugged.

She set down her mug and skipped forward in the recording. She stopped when she saw the mugger step away from charlie, seemingly about to leave. And that's all the information she needed.

Puffy immediately pushed away from her desk, and practically ran to her front door. Grabbing a small coat she opened the door and booked it to the back entrance.

How could she have missed something like this? If charlie had been shot she would have heard the gunshot. Puffy wasnt that heavy of a sleeper, occasionally the beeping of her home appliances would wake her. And to miss something like a gunshot would be absurd.