Neon Lights

07

Without his permission, a new day broke through the horizon and the sun coloured the city before him in its golden hue. The once neon coloured buildings seemed to fade back into greys and off whites. In between skyscraper like towers, busy advertisements printed on thin paper littered the streets and there were big screens on billboard signs with faces of people he should have known but couldn't really recognise. There were patches of blacks and navy blue square shops amongst the canvas of the city this morning, sticking out like sore thumbs.

Everything in the light looked unfitting together. Weird.

Callisto stood at the edge of the greying pavements, waiting for the pedestrian light to switch from red to green so he could get to the other side of the street. His forehead was throbbing and with each pulse right above his eyes, it sent a flair of pain running down his neck. Tilting his head back a little, he squinted his eyes at the disgustingly bright sky.

If he could hear the world speak, he was sure he was being laughed at — mocked.

Luna was still missing and staying up all night trying to figure out what to do next only left him exhausted. He had half a mind to call in sick but with being so at a loss, the last thing he should do to himself was to lock himself in the apartment. It would drive him crazy — almost more than it had already made him insane.

Forcing his feet to move when the light turned green, he tried to keep his shoulders closer to his chest and body as small as possible. But with each step, despite the attempt, someone still grazed his shoulder and others would bump into him before striding away without a single apology. By the time he made it to the other side of the road, the headache he was experiencing worsened to a troubling migraine. A soft hiss escaped his lips while he pressed his fingers at the area above his eyes.

Maybe he should've gotten himself something to ease his headache when he already felt this oncoming.

It was even difficult to move his limbs and doing so almost drained out of his already depleting energy. With another step ahead of him, a wave of dizziness had him stumbling a little in front of him. Yeah, perhaps heading to the nearest pharmacy would be a good idea. He couldn't do this without the painkillers. But where exactly would it be?

The location of the store had never been the biggest importance to him. All he needed to know was how to get to his apartment or Luna's after work, and that had stayed that way ever since he started working for years.

And now it was coming back to bite him in the ass.

If he were to make a guess, perhaps it was located next to the mechanic shop at the end of the street, or maybe it was around the block if he took a sharp left. It wasn't like he had anything that would help him make that assumption, but he was sure that at least the pharmacy wasn't located in this street he was currently in. This was one of the more used road on a normal day for him and he would've noticed if such a store was anywhere near him.

But that was as far as he could connect the dots when another wave of pain had him sighing from his gritted teeth.

"Ah, I can't think," Callisto whispered under his breath as he continued walking.

If he stopped to think any harder, he was sure he would hurl. The pain was becoming almost unbearable and his vision was slightly blurry. It didn't help that the sky didn't bring with it a single grey cloud. How the hell did the city that had been constantly at mercy of bad weather suddenly got graced with this stupidly shiny day? On the days that he needed the sun, it would rain like the universe was out to ruin his life at every chance it got.

Perhaps his theory that the world hated him might be true after all.

Shoulders hunched closer to his chest even more than before, he reached the mechanics loitering outside of their shop, a man or two with patches of oil and whatever junk cars and bikes spluttered out covered them as they moved a large vehicle into their garage. The noise level from that alone had him stopping for a bit, wincing at a particular intense pulse of discomfort that shot down his neck from his head.