Before the day began, before the wings of consciousness had unfurled from her eyes, before the moment of quicker breathing began, before the quiet disasters of seeing and believing had begun, she had been elsewhere. There was no telling where, but the instant her alarm clock blared out the newest trashy pop song she knew she was lost, had taken a sideways step into a place that didn't quite make as much sense. She rolled, tried to pull the wool from her eyes, tried to claw her way out of the between.
The floor was cold, much colder than the humid air that clung to her face as she traipsed to the bathroom. In the mirror a ghostly reflection gargled, spit, and launched a sideways grin as an opening salvo. In the kitchen, the gears of the old coffee machine ground and sputtered to life, pushing out the morning's lifeless brew. A browning banana off the counter, a long disinterested pour into a thermos, and she drummed out of the apartment, trying not to look too hard at the figure sprawled on the couch. Luckily the coffee hadn't awakened the sleeping beast, and she was out of the door before she detected movement.
She hopped on her bike, arranged the thermos into an unspillable position in the front basket next to her satchel bag, and crouched low over the handlebars, pushing at the pedals with a ferocity more akin to the thin-lipped road bikers, who often privately scoffed at her efforts as she doggedly chased them down suburban roads in the morning mist.
The five miles from her apartment to her work were always eerily quiet early in the morning, only a few sleepy drivers having the fortitude to push out to the soul-crushing corporate offices that lined either side of the not-quite-major roads. Still, the hunch of her shoulders was reminiscent of a soldier, expecting the fatal blow to come at any second, and she often whipped her head around unexpectedly to stare an approaching vehicle down, pedaling like she never meant to be overtaken. By the time she reached the kettle, as she lovingly called it, a thin film of sweat coated her forehead, and after she locked her bike securely she wiped it off with her shirtsleeve, staring meditatively at the door she was under societal agreement to enter in a matter of minutes. She would unhunch her shoulders, shrug dismissively, and scuff forward. She had work to do, not that anyone knew specifically what it was.
By the time the sun had labored across the breadth of hazy city sky, she had already exhausted her options for escape. Stepping out of the warehouse and down the clanging metal steps, she eyed her as-of-yet unstolen bike and weighed her options. To the