She told the world she had work today. And Emlyn had enough sick days to take a year off of work on pay. So when she had asked for a day off, they gave it to her. Their hands were practically tied, and part of them thought she was actually human for playing hookie. She came into the Clinic to personally tell the Chief of Healing himself of her absence.

After a swift handshake, she was out the Employee?s entrance. As far as the world knew, besides her workplace, she was at work for a double shift. Her gait went from that composed, upright stride to one of hurriedness. Like someone running from something. But what was she running from?

The stones beneath those evergreen flats were rough, angled, and hit her foot in all the wrong ways as she darted through the city. Audrey was with Damian, or so she hoped. And for now, this was her window. Even if it was rushed, her path was steady and not filled with spontaneity.

The roads were lined with red and Dark.

She could feel the black illness flooding. Emlyn?s fortified floodgates had not buckled, but willingly unleashed all of what it was holding with urgency.

Any infallible structure was still secretly fallible. Try as she might, Emlyn Osiris was no exception to this rule.

The white coat was not worn. And she wore a simple green tailored dress. Its collar was that of a blouse with the buttons going from the top to the hem. Pearls were about her neck, pearl bracelet at her wrist. Emlyn ran and ran, until she came upon the staircase that leads to her apartment. It was desolate, nearly complete with repairs. She need only open the doorknob, and she locked it behind her. A yellow wave thundered across the walls, every single item was touched by the field.

And then, it snapped. She was trapped in a self-made box. Her hands dug into that flawless hair, stabbing through the affixed and combed structures, tearing out the unlucky few that had gotten in her way. She tore out the green hairclips, the hair ornaments and pelted them across the room.

She crumbled, collapsing violently as she made her way to the table, only taking a single chair with her. The chair fell bulkily down and was turned sideways. Emlyn lied on the ground. The chair was shoved away hatefully by her hand, as hands shakily came to that mussed mane of oil-black. The fingers curled to point to drag nails across her face. She spites her face, even if in a superficial way. White lines followed pink in a fleet of lines jaggedly down her face, as she cried. Her face contorted with the quite sobs.

Eyes were scrunched too-tight as the lashes were nearly clumped together with moisture that overflowed down her face almost immediately. Fingers were lined with wetness from her tears. She lied sprawled on her side, shoulders shaking with sobs. Her hands were covering her face in a shield, head ramming into the floor. It wasn?t meant to be too hard, but it wasn?t especially gentle of a blow. Emlyn roared in sobs against the floorboards, ramming fist after fist into the ground. One fist bloomed into clenched fingertips that clawed the carpeted floor.

Eventually, like a pitiful weakened animal, she crawled to that chair to prop herself up on the chair. Emlyn cried in sobs, mouth ajar and the pain she felt. It burned, and ached?

The ache was so clear in her eyes as the shattered rage flared in her cindered heart. Obligations smothered her for all this time, and she could only be shut away to be this piteous in her agony. Her hands clasped the legs so tight her digits became a ghost?s hue of powdery white.

A sea of black poured and spilled about the chair.

The hours were long, and the pattern was the same. Burn marks sizzled on the feet of the chair, giving off the order mahogany charred with yellow wiggles of whips.

Her knuckles were bruised, and colored. Eyes were reddened from the irritation, and puffy. And she didn?t want to hide it anymore. Not in this box, not in this place.

She hadn?t the energy to contain it anymore. Not when it rotted and grew greater and potent with the loathing and sadness so raw. All that energy was on that charred chair, and the many poundings of the carpet and her spited face.

There were only pink streaks across her face, like the ones gotten from a face pressed against a wrinkled bed sheet for too long. It would fade. Her hands were sheltered in her hands when she left. Hair was placed in a sloppy ponytail, and she looked a whole other person. She was out of sorts, hair out of place, and that dress wet with streaks and splotches from tears and smears of dampness. She was going to shower at the Shack, and sit in silence until Charlie got home.

She was finally feeling a little lighter. And clean. At her most disheveled, ironically, she felt her best in the last few days.