ꜱʜᴇ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴡʀᴀᴛʜ[h. hook]

Chapter Two

Nylaa's nimble fingers slipped tiny trinkets off shop-keeps and carts as she shoved her way through the morning market crowds. She used her shoulder to knock the people out of the way that didn't spare her a second glance, but the ones that walked at her avoided her the moment they saw her face. Nylaa was soon clear of the crowd, walking with her hands in her pocket, every step jingling all her stolen oddities at once. The murkiness of the alley grew the further she went, and when the stingy earth met concrete, she took a sharp left turn and disappeared into a camouflaged doorway.

Her hand hooked into a subtle notch in the wall and yanked, sliding a fairly invisible door along a rickety track. It screeched angrily, but still completed its function. Nylaa slipped through the doorway and closed it behind her, sending a suspicious glare into the alley before latching it closed. In the reflection of the cleaner side of the door, Nylaa saw the reason for people clearing out of her way. A significant amount of the shop-keeps blood had spattered up her cheek like a tiger stripe. She licked her thumb and scrubbed it away, ignoring the dull sting the sensation brought. When she was content with her semi-cleanliness, she turned and made her way into her apartment.

Old LED lights flickered to life the further in she walked, lighting up the hall like a pathway. The hall ended in another screeching door, which Nylaa slid open with ease and closed behind her. The apartment was flooded with light from both overhead LED's and multicolored fairy lights. Almost every wall had been either painted or written on. Nylaa strolled over to the table placed in the center of the large room and emptied her pockets into a small dish meant for the odd trinkets.

Instead of taking a seat at the single chair under the table, she veered to the left and dropped onto her back, hitting the cushions of her bed. Well, whatever you can call three stacked mattresses smothered in a colourful variety of blankets. Nylaa shut her eyes and sighed, savoring the silence within her home. When her eyes peeled back open, she rolled onto her stomach and stared at her most recent painting project on the wall behind her bed.

A third of a chrysanthemum was outlined with a dull red, the inside still the creamy white of the primer, waiting to be filled with emotionally inspired colour. Nylaa scoffed at her own thought. All her paintings were inspired by her most powerful emotion when her hunger to create started, and everytime is was anger. Red, orange, scarlet, maroon, and all colours in between. It was a saddening, yet beautiful display; and yet, no one would ever see it, nor did she ever want anyone to see it.

Time passed faster when Nylaa was alone. This she noticed after she'd raised herself from her bed and looked at her cluttered excuse of a clock. The faintly glowing numbers read 12:31, and Nylaa precisely remembered waking up at 3:17 that morning. She'd been awake for nine hours at most, and her exhaustion still hadn't hit her yet. It was becoming uncomfortably normal to be completely energized off of four hours of sleep, but then again dreams were really what she was trying to avoid.

Deciding she didn't want to be left to her own thought for the rest of the day, she headed out the way she came, taking the same exact path up the alleyway and through the now empty market. Less people were outside, but there were still a few here and there to act as background noise. Standing in the middle of the cobblestreet, thankfully, drew no attention to her. Her hands found her pockets as she began to walk, not really knowing where she planned to go, but not caring much either.

Her eyes never moved from the path, looking forwards but not seeing anything. It wasn't until she heard the haunting rush of the ocean outside the isle that her eyes became of use again. The boat docks weren't far from where she was, and neither was the infamous Ursula's Fish and Chips. Deciding she could use some late lunch, she walked towards the sound of loud talking and the smell of poorly-made seafood.

The old-western doorway was already swinging on its hinges when she walked around the front—and was practically taken out by two brawling boys. One had actual fighting skill, that of which Nylaa half-respected, and the other...well he resembled a child fighting a sibling over a toy. She stood there for a short moment, letting the wind blow her hair into her face, as she considered whether or not this was interesting enough to watch till the end. When she saw they were just messing with one another the way every scum friend of this isle did, she decided her strange craving for bad fish and chips was more important and entered the crappily built restaurant.

Nylaa quickly ordered her food and removed herself from the front of the restaurant as quickly as possible. Many tables were empty, but she meticulously chose the table in the furthest corner from the entrance. Uma, the blue haired chick that worked the cashier, dropped her tray at the table, stayed around just a moment longer just to see if Nylaa would react, noticed she wouldn't, and returned to the cashier's counter.

Mindlessly eating her food, she realized the two boys who'd been fighting earlier walked in and sat down at the longer table that lay just a few feet from the cashier. And apparently, they'd realized she was there as well. The taller of the two leaned in towards Uma and began whispering, very clearly looking at you from the corner of his eyes. Nylaa sighed, placed a few coins in tipping on the table, and pushed her chair out, standing and making a beeline for the door.

"Hey you there!"

Sure he might've called, but she'd beaten the shit out of someone already today, and for once, she wasn't really in the mood. Her sleep deprivation had started to get to her, even though it was only mid-afternoon. Nylaa ignored the conversation starter and stormed out, hearing the padding of footsteps as he followed you out. Not intending on letting the pirate follow her home, she broke into a sprint that sprung her up the wall, allowing her to hook her hand into the building's shingles and heave herself onto the roof. She stood looking down for a short minute, just to watch the confusion on the pirate's face as he saw there was no trace of the girl he'd been pursuing. And then Nylaa was gone, off to find a nice roof to watch Auradon for the second time that day.