oct. 9, 2016 |
| when he stepped outside in the pre-dawn light, the brisk morning air chilled him and he shivered, not sure where to go now that he had come down here. it wasn't s if he could've just opened the window and grabbed the damn thing, those windows didn't open at all, so this was his next best option. but now what? it was unlikely that he was going to scale the side of the hotel just to tell some piece of flying metal to leave him alone, so he had to find another option, another way to get his point across. a pair of ratty and torn vans scuffed along the asphalt as he made his way around the corner, eyes up as he looked for where he thought his room was. he kept wandering, at one point doubling back and eventually stopping at the right place. eyes to the sky, he looked up and strained his eyes trying to find the ring, but seeing nothing. it made sense that he couldn't see from ten floors down, but he wasn't sure what else he could do from indoors. "hey!" he shouted before briefly looking around to see if anyone saw him. a jogger gave him a weird look and he returned it with spite. "i'm down here!" it dawned on rafe that he was yelling up at an inanimate object from the street in his pajamas. a little part of him hoped that if anyone else saw him, they would've assumed he was a typical lunatic yelling at the sky, maybe even assuming he was yelling towards aliens. at this point, being abducted felt preferable. for a minute, there was nothing. no ring, no tapping and just the sounds of the city waking up. he thought that maybe his exhaustion was finally getting to him and that it was probable that the ring showing up wasn't real and just a dream he had somewhere between the stages of sleeping and being barely awake. he rubbed his eyes and looked up one more time and the same thing happened. there was nothing. rafe laughed an uncomfortable laugh and scratched the back of his neck. for the first time in a long time, he felt as if he were losing it and decided that it would be best if he got another hour or two of shut-eye before heading off to another day at the convention center. a slow churning mixture of contradicting disappointment and relief spun in his gut, his shoulders slumping against his body as he slowly made his way back towards the front entrance of the hotel. his eyes were suddenly heavy and itchy, and he felt twice as tired now as he had before. the night was long, and he hoped the day would pass quickly. the heels of his hands rubbed his eyes and he sighed, long and exasperated. just as he was reaching for the door, rafe heard a buzzing sound, faint at first but not unlike a bumblebee on a mission. it sounded like it was getting closer and he turned around to see what the source was. in an instant, he was hit between the eyes, stinging pain radiating outward as the metal object seemed to attack him out of nowhere. rafe rubbed his forehead and groaned and refused to look up to see where the ring had gone. he knew it was right there in front of him, he could hear it buzzing there like a bee ready to attack. all it had done since the day before was attack him and now rafe was tired of it. one hand was balled into a fist at his side, ready to strike at the ring if it came at him again. this was a ridiculous notion, standing there in preparation of fighting a ring. whatever sick joke someone was playing on him wasn't fun or funny anymore and he was ready to make this god damned piece of scrap metal disappear. the ring hit him again, this time in a nagging manner as if it were trying to get his attention again. over and over again the ring would hit him in the shoulder, in the head, in the knee, in the chest. wherever it could hit rafe, it would and eventually he had had enough of it. eyes up and hands ready, he waited until the ring was back in front of him and clasped it between them, closing his hands on top of it like a clam shell. it was trapped, although he suspected the thing was more powerful than it appeared and would be able to fight its way out of a finger prison. he sighed, relieved and frustrated all at once, but far past exhausted. there were a couple of people that gave him funny looks as they passed, and one person coming out of the hotel lobby hit rafe in the back when he opened the door and didn't even excuse himself for it. an exasperated sigh was released and he finally turned and went inside, fist clenching the ring tightly in his hand. an unnanounced second wind washed over rafe as he arrived back at his room. it gave him time to dig through his bags and look for something to contain the ring in for now. he couldn't bring it back to the convention and risk the girl who'd bought it off of him seeing it and thinking he stiffed her, so instead he put it safely in a toiletry bag and then stuffed it deep inside his backpack for safe keeping. he wouldn't know what to do with it, but knew bringing it somewhere that public wasn't his safest or smartest bet at the time, so instead he decided to leave it alone. if the ring ran on any sort of battery power he hoped it would eventually die off and become entirely powerless. until then, it just had to let him get through the next couple of days before it nagged him for attention once more. |