Magnolia's Heist (ONC 2020)

Chapter 1: False neon, missing eyes and cinnamon rolls

"Did you, by any chance, happen to find my eye?" I found myself whispering in a hushed voice.

"Uh--how many did you have?"Confusion? I suppose I should've expected that.

"Two? Well, sort of. That's the extra one."

"You have an extra eye?" His eyes widened. Oh, this is not good.

"So I guess I didn't leave it here then, okay, good to know. Buh-bye!" I sneaked out of his house and started running. Admittedly, it's not something you should be doing with a clunky exterior, but ah well, desperate times, right?

It meant he'd be able to hear me but that was the least of my worries. Sound tends to get lost in the streets.

Especially now.

The streets were buzzing, as they always did. The sky was an ugly damp gray, as it always was. Nobody else noticed it. They just didn't care. They didn't notice when the world went to shit and stayed there. Everything becomes less than remarkable when Superheroes exist, I guess. Things get better without any real effort, things get worse without any real effort.

No, I think the bounty hunters played a part in making it worse, but then again, they were an anomaly too. This is how things are now and this is how they're going to be, irrespective of how neatly the history of the time before this is written. What it felt like was more of a milkshake. It felt like suddenly everyone just pretended like it was their favorite era. Some lived in the future, some lived in a revolution, and some pretended like we were at the height of society. It was like a sloppily created fantasy borrowing from everyone who had something to offer. It was like Frankenstein's monster, a zombie-esque creation that was meant to be loved but it turned into something a little uglier than that and now it was collectively despised. The descent into this odd, but somehow functional reality is however, irrelevant.

Today extra parts were a luxury. Luxuries were banned. Luxuries of that kind, at least.

The eye was one of my prized possessions, alas, shit happens.

Respectable Brian was a mistake. That's the problem with dating upstanding citizens during such times. Getting your stuff back is kind of a pain because they're more likely to snitch than someone who has their own stuff to hide. But pain and I had developed an intimate relationship over time. And stupidity and I were far too close to give each other up now.

But it smelled different. It smelled like cinnamon rolls. The smell of fresh cinnamon rolls wafted through the lifeless gray streets. 

"Do you smell that?" I asked the stranger who was walking uncomfortably close to me.

"Smells like heaven," the stranger grinned. A portly masculine figure with a baby face, wearing a gray suit.

I stopped walking, just taking in the smell.

The stranger didn't wait back. Their gray suit almost blending into the sky as they disappeared in the distance.

Good. I liked doing this part alone. Since there were no bakeries around, that smell could only mean one unfortunate thing.

I slipped into the alley that reeked of cinnamon rolls.The smell engulfed me and slowly turned a little vile. I had grown bored of this whole routine.

"I know you're here," I said, pulling out my scalpel. It wasn't necessarily the ideal weapon but I had learned to make do with what I had. And today, this is what I had.

"You can't defeat me with that," he  laughed, materializing in front of me. Sparkling eyes, and immaculate features.

"I don't want to defeat you," I said, stepping closer to him.