Chapter 1
Tuesday
February 5th, 2019
It was only five to 10 in the morning, but Aaron Holt had already decided that whatever fates ran this universe had decided that he was going to have a particularly bad day.
Aaron had complained many a time about the canyonesque pavements that dotted the town of Woodford, but with his dexterous cycling skills, he generally manages to avoid all of them. That is, until the universe throws a distraction at him.
A pomeranian that couldn’t have been much larger than a….very small object. Aaron wasn’t particularly good at observations and comparisons.
What Aaron did manage to observe however, was the small dog charging up at him from the side, yapping away, and he, obviously, got distracted by this furry alarm clock. Who wouldn’t get distracted by a dog?
Nevertheless, he didn’t notice the approaching San Andreas Fault in the road and, a few seconds later, Aaron found himself halfway stuck inside a hedge. Coincidentally, the dog had stopped barking and seemed to have just ran away, almost as if it merely existed for that split second to spite him.
Having extracted himself from the hedge, Aaron examined the state of his pathetically cheap bicycle. Of course, after a violent impact against a few branches in a hedge with speed that would make a sedated sloth proud, the rubber bit of the back tire had just, somehow, split in half. Aaron didn’t even know it was possible for something like this to happen, but it happened anyway.
Dragging his wounded ride across the sideway, not particularly caring when it jumped up at any impact with some potholes, Aaron checked through his lecture schedule for the day. He had a lecture with Professor Atkinson, which was particularly pointless because she didn’t seem particularly interested in the Earth, which is a problem when you are a hydrogeology professor.
The lectures, for Aaron at least, didn’t provide him much interest anyway, the field trips were more useful. After all, it was better to actually touch rocks than talk about a picture of rocks on a slideshow thrown together in ten minutes by a graduate student.
It was quite a walk to the centre of Woodford from Aaron’s accommodation, and he estimated that it would take him another 30 minutes to make up the rest of the walk to campus. Highly inconvenient, he would have leg cramps by the end, that was for sure. But at least it was a nice day.
That is, until the sky gave a low rumble, and then the heavens opened up. Now, Aaron wasn’t one to look at weather forecasts regularly, he often just let bygones be bygones when it came to the Earth and its regular pissing patterns. But, this morning, for some reason, he decided to have a look.
The cheerful lady at the BBC said to expect ‘lovely weather and clear skies, wear a t-shirt if you want to’. Now, standing amongst a sudden torrential monsoon (at least that’s what it felt like), Aaron decided that the weather report was a little inaccurate. He sighed, and continued to drag his broken bike along the sidewalk, now getting soaked from head to toe, including his pride and joy, 8 quid shirt with no discernable pattern to it.
Could his day get any worse? Maybe if Aaron looked up in the sky, and noticed it turning a strange purple vibrating tint, he would maybe think that it was going to get worse. But, the unluckiest man in Britain was pouting, looking at his feet, so, the apocalypse was not quite put to his mind quite yet.
As the skyline of the few skyscrapers, most occupied by banks, appeared out of the densely packed clouds, Aaron’s phone gave a little bit of a buzz. It was probably Steph. In fact, it was most definitely Steph.
Although Aaron fancied himself as having a particularly good standing with the people at his course, he only really found himself talking to Steph Riley. There were a lot of words that he could use to describe her, but fascinating was probably the most understated of the bunch. There was something about that girl. Reaching a street corner, Aaron stopped and leaned against the sign post to check what caused his phone to buzz.
He hadn’t even got the phone fully out of his pocket when something impacted his head, and before he could decide that this was in fact the worst day of his life, he was out cold on the pavement. At least the rain had stopped now. Typical.
Wednesday
February 6th, 2019
*BUZZ*
Stephanie Riley: Hey A! I was wondering where you were today, you didn’t come into university today and you didn’t answer when I called you. Text me or call me back so I know you are ok! 🙂 (15:15)
…..
*BUZZ*
Stephanie Riley: Did you leave your phone at home or something? That’s dumb of course you didn’t. Call me back Aaron! (17:15)
…….
*BUZZ*
Stephanie Riley: Call
Stephanie Riley: Me
Stephanie Riley: BACK! (17:45)
…….
Aaron Holt: I am fine Stephanie! Don’t ya worry I’m all safe and sound in my bed. Chill! (17:55)
*BUZZ*
Stephanie Riley: …..If you don’t identify yourself right now, I’m calling the police! What have you done with Aaron?! He never calls me ‘Stephanie’, makes me sound like an old woman! I am coming over this instance! Hang on Aaron, I’m COMING! (17:55)
*message failed to deliver*
Stephanie Riley: FUCK (17:56)
*message failed to deliver*
CONVERSATION CLEARED
—------------------------------------------------
The first thing that hit Aaron as he was waking up from his slumber was the distinctive smell of mustiness. That wet dog smell that came with drenched clothing that hadn’t had the chance to go into the wash just yet.
The next thing that hit Aaron was a massive headache that was more like a slap straight to his brain stem, several slaps in a row in fact. He had tried sitting up, but immediately, he lay back down onto his pillow, letting out a quiet groan.
Without opening his eyes, Aaron flailed his left arm around to look for his paracetamol that was on his bed-side table, only to feel it bounce it off his swatting hand and land somewhere out of his reach.
I already gave us two pills two hours ago, ya better not have anymore for two hours or that headache will be accompanied by a whole lotta vomitin’.
Aaron ignored his brain for a second as he tried to access the deepest recesses of his memory for what happened. He had been getting drenched, walking to university, about to check a message from what he assumed was Steph when…..well…he couldn’t remember.
I clobbered ya in the noggin’. Many apologies I didn’t stick the landin’ particularly well, so now you’ve got a nasty as fuck concussion.
Aaron was no medical student, but he was fairly sure concussions didn’t cause an extremely Brummy, female voice to start apologising to him for giving him a concussion. Or maybe he was just imagining things, it was hard to tell sometimes with how his brain worked.
I’m not your brain you fuckin’ moron. I’m Coraline, your new internal monologue, pleasure to meet ya dumbass.
Aaron shook his head, and slowly edged to a sitting up position. This promptly failed, and he ragdolled sideways onto his bed, unable to get up, feeling extremely week.
Jeez, you’re a real weaklin’ aren’t ya, well I’m done with ya you’re gonna be a real one worthy of my amazin’ presence. Now…..HIYA
At the exclamation, Aaron let out a yelp as suddenly his body was almost yanked to his feet, and, he found himself walking to the bathroom. He was not commanding his feet to do this. This concussion was truely transcending all conventions of wisdom. Well, Aaron’s wisdom at least.
He ‘walked himself’ in front of the mirror, and pulled the scruffy hair out of eyes. Maybe he shouldn’t have, because he immediately let out a little manly scream at what he saw.
His left eye’s iris had become a purple colour from its original dark brown, and the surrounding sclera was a swirling black. Similar to a storm cloud.
I hope ya like the glow up! It wasn’t intentional obviously but hey, it could be worse, ya could be some fuckin’ average Joe with some boring brown eyes. Instead, you’ve got me now, good ol’ Cora. We’ll get off that shell of ya’s and….
Pushing the annoying bratty voice to the side, Aaron didn’t have many thoughts at this point after ending his Wilhelm like scream, but he did decide to the one logical thing that anyone would in this position would clearly do. He slapped himself in the cheek.
What a terrible day indeed.
OI, fucker. Pay attention.
“Can you shut up for a second, fucking hell, why is brain so annoying these days?”
I’m not yer brain ya dense fuck. That’s not important right now, there’s someone at the door!
Aaron took a few deep breathes and listened out, and indeed, he heard a few soft raps at the door of his flat.
Walking to the door of the flat, Aaron grabbed the nearest hoodie he could find, and shoved his head through it. There was no point in looking too presentable to whoever was at the door, whoever it was was going to deal with the doomer energy emanating off of Aaron. He swung it open slightly, only enough so that he could get a sight of who it was outside without having to fully expose his sorry state to the outside.
After catching a sight of bright red, he opened the door the rest of the way, letting out a relieved sigh.
“Hello Steph…”
He had expected a warm welcome, but was rather surprised when Steph poked a manicured finger into his chest. She certainly didn’t look happy, or warm. That girl’s glare could cause severe internal bleeding if she wanted it to.
“Aaron Holt, you have a lot of explaining to do you dysfunctional asshole!”
Maybe I shouldn’t have responded to the texts, oh well, it’s yer problem now, good fuckin’ luck!
Quite fitting at the end of one of his worst days, even his brain would decide to run away. Quite typical, indeed.