Realistic or Modern Hidden In Plain Sight (w/ Syntra)

[hednisk]

“Lia Martin is missing,” the newscaster said on the morning broadcast.

She fumbled the remote as she increased the volume. “Wait, what?”

“The police urge you to call if you have any information relating to her whereabouts.” The picture they had on display came right out of a high school yearbook. Had she not remembered once being eighteen, she might have sworn it was a picture of someone else. At least they had picked a flattering photograph, if not a recent one.

The television made a crackling sound as the image faded to black, leaving only the soft shafts of sunlight coming through Lia’s living room shades. She found herself sliding down the rough upholstery of her couch as she watched the powered-down television in silence. Missing? Her knees hit the coffee table, reflexively jolting her upright. It must have been a mistake, she thought. Perhaps somebody shared her name, and the broadcaster had the wrong photo. Even so, she sometimes felt as if she knew everybody in town, and she had never met another Lia Martin.

The sunlight was in her face now and her back felt like somebody had tied her spine into a knot. How long had she been sitting like this? She got to her feet, traded in her beloved pajamas for an outfit that didn’t have any extra holes in it, and made her way across town to get on with her day.

The café she arrived at smelled of burnt coffee and cleaning chemicals. Had it not been attached to the only hotel in town, she doubted it would have survived long; new businesses rarely did, especially those staffed only by a boy who didn’t appear a day over seventeen. The constant flow of travelers from all over supplied a steady stream of people who had no other choice, however. Most of these people would disappear into the hotel lobby, never to be seen again. Lia was different in that, on this morning, she wanted nothing more than for someone to acknowledge her.

“Did you hear the news this morning?” she asked the boy behind the counter as he prepared her coffee. The fancy steam machines served only as a backdrop to her order: brewed coffee, cream, no sugar.

“It’s the only thing my parents will watch,” said the listless worker as he slid the coffee towards her. “It’s too bad about that missing woman. I hope they find her.”

“I am that missing woman. There’s been a mistake.”

“I don’t think that’s a very funny joke,” the boy said, frowning. “Your card declined. Do you have cash?”

“What? No, you don’t understand.” She pulled her hair back as it had been in her picture on the television. “Look, see? It was just an old picture. I’m Lia Martin.”

“Please, ma’am, there’s a line behind you.”

She spun around to lock eyes with somebody gesturing with their hands as if to say, “get on with it already.” Everything felt quiet, as if the entire world was waiting for her to get out of the way so it could keep turning. Leaving a few small bills in return for her coffee, she took a seat by the window overlooking the road. With every car that sped by and every pedestrian who stopped in front of the building, Lia hoped that she would see someone who recognized her. Instead, people seemed to not notice her at all.

The longer she waited, the more her want of recognition needled at her. The coffee in her cup tasted more burnt as it cooled, until she pushed the half-empty drink to the side and turned her back to the window to scan the room. Each time she thought she would get up and introduce herself to a stranger, uncertainty gripped her and pulled her further into the worn seat. She would have to go to the police to put the rumor to rest, she supposed, but what if they didn’t believe her either? She turned back to her coffee and cradled the cup in her hands, but did not drink; whatever she did next, she felt, was of dire importance.

 

[Syntra]

It wasn’t as if Isadora Adamowicz had thought that Brackenbridge would be a great holiday destination. In truth, she hadn’t really thought about anything at all; thinking required effort, you see, and after the last soul-crushing semester, she had vowed to only use her brain in self-defense. (‘Get a PhD., they said. It will be fun, they said.’ Well, it fucking wasn’t! It was so far removed from anything even remotely enjoyable that Izzy felt that, merely by the virtue of the two concepts existing in the same dimension, the universe was soon going to explode. Hell, perhaps it should have. At least that would have solved some of her deadline issues, y’know? …Yeah, that she suddenly considered the motives of B-tier comic book villains to be relatable was somewhat concerning, but it was what it was. They didn’t call it ‘imminent mental collapse’ for nothing.)

But! Back to the original point. With the ink still fresh on her last paper, she’d only had the mental capacity to grab some things, let her mom know not to expect her home for at least three months, and just… fuck off. What did ‘fucking off’ mean, in that context? A lot of things, potentially, but out of the wide palette of meanings, Izzy had gone for boarding the first bus that was heading reasonably far away. Afterwards, she’d done the same with the next bus, and the next one after that, and… yeah, surely you got the picture by now.

No, it wasn’t smart. It was the exact opposite of smart, but perhaps that was what Izzy’s chronically responsible lifestyle needed. You didn’t get a YA protagonist’s life without making a YA protagonist’s choices, did you?

And, really, that statement couldn’t be contested. It was one of those unambiguous, ‘water is wet’ things that pretty much everyone agreed on.

The issue was, someone had failed to tell her just how unfun getting lost really was when a plot point wasn’t waiting for you just behind the corner. Duh.

Out of all the stupid ideas I’ve had, this one has got to be the stupidest by far. And not for the lack of choices, either! (Alright, fine, kissing all the frogs in the local pond to see if they turned into princes had been stupider. Hard to top that one. Izzy had been seven then, though, and she kind of felt that that had excused her. What excuse did she have now, twenty years later? Reading the fucking bus schedule shouldn’t have been that hard!)

It shouldn’t have been, but apparently it was. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how Isadora Adamowicz had ended up in Brackenbridge! ‘The most boring town in the known universe’ was not its official motto, though Izzy thought it could very well apply for the title. Really, it kind of seemed as if time had stopped here; wherever she looked, things were old, sleepy, monochrome. No defining features in sight. Had someone told her it was a fake city that aliens had created, using all the usual ‘averages’ as a blueprint to avoid any suspicions, she would have believed it. And yet… well, something also told her to stay. If not for long, then at least for a few days. Maybe she yearned for some boredom? Since, you know, seeing too many new things at once also got real old real fast. That was the thing they didn’t tell you.

(It wasn’t that. Izzy didn’t know how she knew, but she just did. She also didn’t particularly care to examine that line of thought, so she dodged it with all the elegance of a Cirque du Soleil dancer.) Maybe they will at least have passable coffee? Not having that was a crime against humanity, and Izzy hadn’t been able to enjoy it for quite some time now. (No, the brown mush served in the paper cups was not coffee. The caffeine was there, but not the soul. You know how, in sci-fi books, they often served those futuristic pills instead of normal food? That did keep you alive, but it couldn’t preserve the idea.)

Lost in her thoughts about coffee and not-coffee, Izzy entered the café. The TV was on, and despite the chatter of the few patrons sitting at the tables, she could hear the news anchor quite clearly.

“Lia Thompson,” something something, crackling static, “went missing. Please, if you have any information regarding her whereabouts, contact the police station and--”

Hm. Come to think of it, Izzy had heard that name before. Had the locals been talking about her? Probably, both in whispers and raised voices. Someone going missing here, in the middle of literal nowhere, must have been the event of the year. The gossip must have been to die for! Instantly, Izzy felt a little ashamed of that thought, and said a quiet prayer to herself. Blah blah blah, let her be safe and all that.

Only… well, it turned out that it was a little more effective than she’d expected. Like, a thousand times more effective.

Like, wasn’t she staring right at her? Somehow.

Before she had the time to think better of it, her big mouth intervened on its own. “…I thought you were supposed to be missing?” she narrowed her eyes. “I mean, it is you, isn’t it? Lia Thompson.” Then, to make her point even more obvious, Izzy pointed at the TV screen where her face was currently hovering.