ANDROMEDA ━ 𝐕𝐈𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒

iv.

The air was cold in the diner. The icy blow of the air conditioner had forced the corner of a napkin at a lone table to billow proudly like the sail of an ancient pirate ship, drifting along the deep, blue-green sea of uncertainty. A young woman by the name of Andromeda felt herself shiver, sneaking a glance at the security camera. Surely her manager or the owner couldn't be monitoring the store all the time. Its not like there was anyone present in the diner, barely ten minutes away from its closing time on a surprisingly quiet Saturday night.  Andy wandered casually to the takeaway cup hidden strategically behind the coffee machine, out of the cameras line of sight and took a sip, relishing in the barely heated, overly frothy milk of a chai.

Andy tapped her heals together, staring blankly at the door once more. How could she waste the final ten minutes of her shift? Nails bit into her skin, brittle and stained an ugly orange colour from the nail polish she didn't remove correctly. Andy bit back a sigh, she couldn't even go and hang out in the kitchen area of the diner, as the closer in the back area hated her guts for some reason entirely not her fault earlier in the night, after all, was it her fault the customer sent back their meal five times? Nope.

Her dark eyes of sweet obsidian focused on the ticking clock, eyes un-focusing until the numbers were entirely blurred and all she could see were grey fuzzies like the static of her cheap TV in a thunderstorm. The warm firelight and sound of laughter and a language she was unable to understand rumbled lowly. Andy looked over to the source, a gruff looking man with tattoos, too much leather to be funny and furs, he spoke again, draping a fur from his own shoulders over her own. It was warm, he seemed scary, what the fuck?

She blinked, the scene before her coming back into full focus. Andy's heart started. She was in the diner, the fluorescent lights all too harsh for almost eleven at night, the slow sizzle of the grill being cleaned and the smell of coffee beans and sanitiser and diluted chlorine. The red framed clock had not even passed three minutes. The young woman wanted to scream, brief delusion aside, it had been a long afternoon, and a longer night, and the clock was taunting her.

The heels of her hands pressed into her eye sockets, attempting to alleviate their stinging and paced the empty walkways from behind the counter, to on the checkered floor between the tables, she leaned against the plush pleather back of a booth by the door, fully prepared to lock the door and flip the sign a few minutes early and pray the manager and the other closer didn't notice, or if they did, not care what the policy said and shut a total of five minutes early.

Black eyes stared through the window, up into the almost cloudless sky at the waxing crescent moon. Thankfully the bulb in the streetlight was almost dead, as the glow was barely there, and the occasional flicker of a scarlet neon sign was easy enough to ignore. Andy's tanned hands crept to the door handle, one holding both doors together, whilst the other twisted the lock position into place, she gave it a test rattle, and nodded approvingly at the sturdy pause of the door and swiftly flipping the sign to say closed. No one else would be coming in anyway.

The neon sign flashed again, and across the street, in the darkness near the busted street lamp, Andy spied the reflection of the whites of someone's eyes. Her heart began to race. Burning cold adrenaline entering her bloodstream. Oh fuck, what was she meant to do in this kind of situation? Was it an axe murderer, wild animal, homeless person or just a regular drug addict? She took a breath, having elected to pretend to not to see the eyes, hopefully  it was actually just an overactive imagination lashing out at her tired boredom. Andy walked away, shoulders stiff and steps eager to retreat behind the coffee machine.