Zero to One (G/t)

[3] Mouse Trap, part 1

"It would've been crazy to not start saving footage on sight. Or, am I crazier for doing so in the first place?"

Lonely days weren't an oddity for Lauren. Aside from being stuck in self-imposed studies, there was a multitude of reasons why the pseudo-red head kept to herself. The current status of her living quarters said enough on its own. Papers novel and ancient. Food boxes with their stains and crumbs. Various types of hardware scattered across every surface she could traverse.

It certainly would be displeasing, perhaps even psychotic, for any visitor that came by. A home as disheveled as her current mind: it was fitting, to say the least. Fitting and comfortable for the new-wave scientist. A place of stability in her now topsy-turvy outlook on life.

During the following days after the sky screening, Lauren found herself in an entanglement of emotions.

On one hand, the sight – the atmosphere as a portrait of a stranger – was too bizarre and entrancing to not look at. On the other hand, that same sight was so bizarre and entrancing that looking away seemed like the only way to keep her head. As much as Lauren wanted to learn more about the forms that were hidden in the firmament by looking head on, she felt enough confidence in herself that there might be just enough data encrypted in her recordings for a reasonable theory. Thus, that's where she found herself today, just as she had been in the days prior.

Scanning transmission file after transmission file. Digging a crater in her desk chair from sedentariness. Burning her retinas off from laptop light in her lonesome. Stuffing leftovers from who-knows-when into her face. The new normal.

To look or not to look; that was the question. Lauren hadn't a clue which was better. Was what she had done and was doing even good? The needless calories being absorbed by her system probably weren't. She could feel increased caloric intake in her pores. No matter what the best outcome for her was, she definitely knew two things about her current situation as the glares from her side lamps sprayed across her computer screen.

"This food shouldn't be and look as good as it does," she cooed, lukewarm victuals sliding down her throat at the same time, "and neither should this... thing."

There was no way that far-reaching figure could've been a person, let alone another anthropoid like herself. It wasn't in the sky; that was for sure. Every measure, especially those topographical, showed that it was, somehow, past it. Beyond it. It itself. Literally larger than life to be so visible. Yet, it – he? – looked so much like a person she could find on the street.

Could, not would.

The formality in his wear and his perceived location was way too extravagant for anyone in her neighborhood. Then again, many qualities of her own home were the same way. Like how he was hidden to all she used to know, her bits and pieces of glamour – all gifted from friends, family-like friends, and family via friends – were burrowed away from the public, shadowed by tossed clothes, trash, and graphics.

Although, for Lauren, it was purely his general existence and all it could suggest that captivated her, she wasn't so ignorant (or scared) to not acknowledge what was probably the common view. Almost undeniably on all accounts, at least according to the society she knew, he was handsome. Yet, she didn't act on it, despite having stopped at a frame where, just for an instant, the sky-warping singleton could be perceived as looking right at her, right through to her soul.

His hazel-looking planetary orbs pierced into her mocha irises. Sharp, manicured angles on every facet of his head. The boldness to wear a denim top of all things.

Hovering above the buildings and clouds, dwarfing them all with his pores alone, he was the antithesis to her insignificance.

Confronting her self-faults with groans, food, and a spin in her chair, she couldn't deny her feelings of unfortunate, aesthetic pleasure brought about by the atmospheric individual. After all, there wasn't much else she could do. When she finished her rotation and looked back at her screen, there was literally nothing else but a transitioning message in a sea of black. The future was always grateful for it, whereas it was always hated to be seen in the present.

"Hi. We've got some updates for your computer." Her workstation had the audacity to enforce an update out of nowhere.

"What the—Are you kidding me?" No progress bar or prior schedule, online or in software, had declared the update's necessity, thus it was met with Lauren gripping her hair into a choker and griping. But, since she was only observing still images already saved in multiple drives rather than editing them, taking a break wouldn't hurt her or her progress. "Ugh, fine. Whatever."

Along with the tech being completely out of her control, Lauren had also become aware of her focus waning. In the midst of amorous intrigue, her daydreams were, in truth, making her images move outside of their print, giving unknown life to the sky-scraping scene. While some musings were soft, such as him swaying his head or giving a possible wink, she could envision her city being wrecked in some way just as easily by him, and no one option seemed more likely than any other... or better.

A look to a wall clock gave a reason for her madness. Three hours after midnight, she was still stuffing her face, and it didn't look like she was going to stop. Soon enough, Lauren was drawn to her distant mini refrigerator for a thickened stew of a smoothie. However, unlike just moments ago with food as a catalyst for thought, here it worked as a distraction from it, almost too much of one that nearly sent her face-first into her second desk of a vanity.

The hazards and probable ankle sprain from slipping on loose paper were nothing compared to making sure she didn't choke from her own, even more possible failures in downing the drink. Hence, that took hold of her attention. If the hearty blend made it to the back of the throat, then it absolutely got ingested, passed past the event horizon of her esophagus in one fell swoop. If it had.

Her golden rule of deglutition didn't hold up very long for all that hadn't, and her wall and floor got a new paint job.

A gasp and dabs on her face with her hoodie helped with clearing her airways and skin of her palates' passion, yet there was no way to give clarity to what she found waiting for her back at her computer screen. Rather than the expected message declaring how long the installation would take or heightened protection, Lauren was greeted with the complete opposite of the latter:

"You found me. It's only fair if I do the same."