Stolen

The book has been a good read and she understands the premise of the different factions she met so far. She avoided being slaved and found these spirit people stop at their versions of towns. There are humans like her that are cursed. They are here too and use the spirit trade system as the visitors do. The market stalls of this once-busy high market Road are full of foot traffic from all realms. The buildings were gutted and protected from living world mutant monsters. In place of what was a butcher is now a crystal shop. The phone store is a lost objects trade. Smaller tables of random beings with small bottled things or bowls of stacked materials. Some stalls never change like a fruit trade, canned goods trader and equipment for outdoor hitchhiking. She gladly bought new shoes from exchanges of other stalls for her random gathering on her way here. Taking lost demon horns or lost equipment to the phone shop place. She still held this fear of standing out. Keeping her shadow minimalist and hiding her cursed ways. Just kept to herself as a human and shows herself to be armed. She avoided eye contact like everyone else does around here.

"Another outcast. This makes tenth this week appear around." A demon smoking at a ruined bus stop snarls. He has a neat suit on and wears human glamour to have a mock appearance. She can see through this. His a well-groomed sort with neat trim horns. She can't help the notice the gold stamp ring that glimmers in the light to catch the weird red cloud of the black paper cigarette. From his right horn attached to his right ear is a chain of hung charms. These sorts of things are normally necklaces on display but affording a neat chain like that is. Nobility. She moves on quickly at not wanting interaction or being a disturbance of peace here. She scans about for other sheltered areas and hopes for an off-alley or something. Shelter with the smell of coming rain. Reluctant at being in debt to anybody.

"What exactly do you think there is hope for here in the land of the living?" The second smoker is a winged angelic official. Grey wings and some feathers were already falling occasionally. The cigarette he smokes is purple hazed from a silver stick, more a smoker's pipe set up.

"I had a contact that was affected by the living realm. The only court hunter I could send off to deal trade among god slayers." The flick ash on the floor was turned into black sand, gritty when stepped on, "A bookkeeper that was human. I don't know about now." He crushed his cigarette out and puts the end away in a hard case. The angel raised a brow at such an odd thing for a noble demon to have such connections.

"You could always just send mail to the god eater's nightmare." The angel voiced calmly, "Something seems to be doing such requests. There a masked woman that sits the gallows of small courts."

"I could... but you just never met her before. She is cautious." The demon huffed and makes steps in going to follow her. He isn't the only demon around here to tail her around. Newbies to the trading post have this treatment all the time. Hoping to make her a sucker for some scheme. Yet... unlike normal. No demon has approached her correctly yet. Not a single one has stepped into her personal space or made any lengthy talk. So silence and walking. Burst when the first speck of rain hits the floor. Demons scattered in all directions and followed the rest. There is plenty of demons here with human vessel bodies, aware of weather and environment. It's the system they use to avoid radiation this far.

She sees there isn't shelter and was prepared for what if. She has an umbrella and continued walking distance of the depth of trades there can be. She was the only brave soul outside in the weather, alone among puddles. She isn't afraid of what the water reveals, unaffected by the many corpses underfoot. If anything, she would stop to stare at the objects among these corpses. All spirit people corpses. Dual fights. Charms they left behind. She had even lowered to someone wearing a mask... their mask like her own.

At a closer look over this corpse, this mask was a fake. It is not like her own. The only similar things about it were the white overall and black eyes. The carved features but the shape aren't the same. this was a male mask with a hollowed emotionless expression. Her mask changes shape with her expression. So this could be some cult follower or mimic. She has seen plenty of the mimic folks.

She stands with care, looking at reflections from water surfaces or broken windows. She stayed too long at one spot. She flares at those stepping in the rain to approach. False smiles... thin plastered business eyes. Rubbing hands made that cast of magic hard to detect. She's not a fool.

"You have a name, stranger? A title? A reason for trying to brave the rain?" Skinny guy with a demon in his eyes. He was human... now his not. He looks weak but he could bend a car roof through.

"Easy on the little girl. She might be just scavenging for anything like the rest of us. Come along, girl. Out this sodding rain. I can get you a nice warm place." They stop short a distance, they seem unable to see the little human she is. They all reach the distance. The small ring. They lose the illusion and sometimes crap themselves too. Backing off. She twirls the umbrella and they jolted away as fast as possible. Someone went far as slamming a door locked behind them. Splashing mud all ways. She brushed such muck, very unimpressed with such failed attempts. Even less are braving it, the rain smacking it harder. She worried her umbrella will be damaged if she doesn't get out of this soon. A slight breeze thundered loud above and she primed the target with this metal stick. She is afraid of entering into a building that she doesn't intend sale or purchase from. No overhang roof. She sighed at there being one last chance and she hopes they don't mind.

She gently approaches the bus shelter where the demon noble and angel are. She greets them with some soft hand gestures and they gladly returned it. She can at least get out of the rain from this. She stands at the angel's side, not breaking them apart. She sits down on the floor and has the umbrella taken down, streaming a little river out of the shelter. She stares outwards at how rain moves and bounces.

"Did you hope someone would sale food here?" The angel asked in small talk and posed showing this was just small talk. That they don't care for blessing or cursing. No miracle to offer.

"I can hunt and gather what I have to eat and drink. I just had so much stuff from gathering to sale. I haven't crossed any souls or slaves. I don't trade anything that seems not smart of a human to do so. A stranger gave me a fancy book, so I get the rules you lot have. Makes sense." She closed up small and tight on the floor. A little cold now from all this. She noticed the demon taking a new cigarette from his case, lighting it with a metal-designed lighter. He sighed frustrated in the clicking it often, "Depend on the age of your lighter like make and model. You might be out of fluid or wick."

The demon frowns at such a hassle. He didn't want to hear that from a mortal. She seems a clueless little thing. Some charm or curse that freaked them, folks before. The angel gave a cleat of his throat for a moment and then back to smoking silently. Eyes watching the puddles beyond the bus shelter, looking at raised water level.

"My favourite two folks to see." The bright yellow plastic suit seems to appear out of thin air. The monotone doesn't suit the playful gestures this guy makes in forcing both angel and demon under both arms. The breathless stranger is put up with by both demon and angel. Smoking like he doesn't exist in that bright plastic sheets. Rolling eyes and glances sharing.

"That guy again." She sighed annoyed at just being neat to him, "Seriously something wrong with you." Making all three peer down at her being scrunched up on the floor and that the attack of words seems fitting. The demon not being able to light the cigarette makes this opportunity last.

"What and you're a normal girl that sees spirits like me?" Jabs the angel to play this game with. The angel has piqued interest and considering his words carefully.

"I would be worried if I was that blind and that stupid." She tilts looking to the sky through the hard plastic bus shelter and it doesn't seem forgiving, "Normal doesn't exist. At least not to what humans use to assume the term for. I do not doubt that your dictionary may paint me up worse than that." The demon is insulted for such a smart mouth response.

"Beating a demon at his own game of intelligence is a bad idea." The angel said following this silence, "The undertaker isn't normally visible to a human, so the comment you made was fascinating for us." The undertaker isn't impressed with the angel identifying them in the such terms, "Sorry I am just old fashioned. They are called watchers."

"Watchers of what? Humanity seems only a small 20 per cent left globally from the fallout. You lot have your realm laws. What needs watching?" She huffed that they of course don't like answering these sorts of questions, "The books aren't going to change unless the realms do. They can make the boundaries. The boundaries were already there."

"That's not a human thing to understand such concepts. What exactly are you?" The demon noble asked.

"A follower of no gods." She flicked her fingers with a fast whip notion and a little spark flew. Perfect landing the tip of the cigarette bud, just barely enough. Smoke grows as it was more lit, "The bottom ends of hell are as bloody as I thought they were." She softly shrugs.

"You didn't fall far did you?" The angel asked worrying.

"How does a human travel to hell alive exactly?" The watcher in the plastic has his dandy book for notes out, "Is this relatively got to do with the black sticky creature or the small things you were shooting at?"

"The hollowed creature was drooling over which of us two was going to save it from being soulless." She hissed, "As for the living colony of shape adapters. They eat anything that moves, you might have been off the menu." She scrunched more in watching the rain. The sounds of it falling was better music than them. Those three shuffled the floor but they don't breathe air as she does. She can at least get lost in the rain and thunder while these freaks are here. She was careful to not fully ignore the case of some tricks.

"The corpses are gone." The watcher noted, "My reads are everywhere." Notepad sketching up all these things.

"They faded around her." The angel pointed causally at her, "Likely this is a veil interaction we can explain. We hardly get humans with high awareness like her." He steps at blocking the watcher from her, "She has been making a lot of folks flee from her. You don't need to be another. Not many humanoids like the acidic rain. Best leave the little miss be."

The watcher huffed in being not allowed to do his duty. He glares and the angel has to comply with demand. She stares about the rain, how the clouds don't stop. The lightening is actually striking the floor and metal bits. It is hit the roof across the ways. A triple flash hits the ground here near the bus shelter and from within it was a figure that just arrived from another realm. They stare at the watcher whom stops short of bothering her, the readings of the stranger in the lightning was a bigger threat.

"And you are not where you belong." The watcher made swift work of dismantling this being, broken body apart into crystal. The shards spray all directions as rainbow glittery sand. Everyone of the bus stop is covered and effectively cursed with whatever realm effects. The watcher pleased with himself makes those extra notes and is back to being a bother with her. Lowered to her eye level and trying to get the equipment to properly read her soul signals and energies.

"Hollow as in a soulless creature documented only at the edges." He continues that conversation but she doesn't feel she can. She stares looking at where that crystal person was, she still able to see that the dead soul had not been taken care of. How it glares at the Watcher for not having a tome or sorting the name out. It stares deeper in anger with the undertaker, the small shuffles of the sand remains began to reform shape. Went to throw a punch or some attack. The soul was soon snatched with her shadow, taken through the books directly. Not written up by these idiots. A name etched in her skin layers and the discomfort had her shivering. Tighter seated and more closed off.

"Does dying after being already dead scare you?" He trying to be nice and sits beside her with a great amount patience. The angel was done smoking and leaves. The sand bothering them, affecting their wings. The demon noble holding his Hest like he been stabbed. Shivering with being assisted by servants to go somewhere safer. To be checked over with some other watcher.

"Leave me alone." She warns.

"Everything that has happened is about to change back. But you are going to get left out from the change. You aren't going to live or die of you stay here. Trapped where half the time folks might sense your there. It be very lonely." He tilts at trying to have her look at him. But she stubborn at looking at time filtering backwards. It's as he said, time was leaving her behind. This bus stop in the crystal spray isn't allowed to change. He offers his right hand. She smacked away with a casual back hand swat. He frowns in just sighing and getting comfortable. Waiting with her. The sky got worse before it brightened and everything was moving as it did before ww4. Cars ran on electric were faded with petrol ones... Time still moving backwards more. Past the day she was born... Back further. Technology of modern age slips away. Streets turn to mud... concrete vanished. The village shrinks. Woods. But still there this bust stop. But its turned wood instead of the plastic it was.

"There nothing for you as you did before." He voiced, "Come along as a watcher like me." He offered his hand again. Persistent. She overwhelmed with the changes. She didn't shake his hand but he scooped her up from the floor. She clearly was knocked out from any memory changes or energy changes. He huffed at how pointless she struggled against this.

Through the gateway set for two. Allowing passage for her to cross as she is. He didn't mind taking her through to undertakers photo gallery, all that remained of the undertaker origins before the Silverstone Empire attacks. None of the portrait short cuts that allowed travel through the rest of the realm survived. It was a sad painting gallery of broken frame and torn cloth facings. The ground scorched up with the silhouettes of those that resisted. He walked unfazed of the environment, gotten used to it and well over any feelings attached about it. He turned corner of a new changed place, a another gate made of liquid metal. He sits her down on a medical bed set here. Moved around at removing the plastic suit. They wouldn't approve of him wearing it nor will they like how his bringing a human with. But his got no choose about her. She practically covered in anomalies energies. Humans don't change the environment around them as they walk. The environment changes around the human instead. Its never been the other way until now. Why her? what is wrong about her?

The tight fancy white shirt and black waist coat hugs him thin. The strange goggles moved up and the tablet hung on his black belt lights. A flood of news and that he typing to report in. Include this plus one. There a lot of disapproval about letting her cross into Silverstone. He typed a warning that she will turn a undertaker if they don't take her but still the disapproval. He holds his nose ridge in how stupid they are being. She didn't need to be a threat if they can just treat her right the first time. He was flashed a order to leave her behind among humans and that he has to return. Bringing about more annoying things. He dares not to state he carried her to this little remains of this undertaker realm. Equally he will just have to keep her a secret for now. He doesn't want to loose a interesting event to time. He brought objects many times to this place for the same purpose.

He straightens up at the gate a last time and walks through. Left her on the medical camp bed here. Set up for when he got himself injured by unforseen things.