Current Date: June 2, 1402
Character: Angeline Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 24
Current residence: Peculiar, Erisia
Do I miss the drama from the dome? Claiming that I do would be a lie. Not that there was a lot of drama going on at the factory other than all these people—mostly women—who were only trying once, failing fairly spectacularly, and then just walking away with their heads held high as though anyone cared what they did as they left. I was nearly part of that group when I did start but I wasn’t raised as a quitter. I worked hard, I got better and by the time I’d been offered a transfer into the dye pool… well, we packed up our things and left for Peculiar.
I was probably one of the last ones to head in, not because I didn’t want to go. I was worried about going but I was more than ready to go. However, it felt as though there were others whose situation necessitated that they headed in before I did just so they could disappear all the easier. Disappearing, in my case, wasn’t exactly hard. Like most who had a job mostly out of the public eye, I sent in a sick leave notice because I wasn’t feeling great, so to speak, and I just never came back.
Even just a few days before we were due to finally leave, I was a big ball of nerves. This was a big change from all I’d ever known and while I’d never been one to pack down from a challenge—not a single one of us was—this was bigger than anything had ever been and since I’d already sent in a notice at work about not feeling great, I mostly just escaped to the underground.
Most of my things were already gone, I only had two bags worth of things left and I took those with me when I eased underground for those last few days. I was one of the few who was going on my own, from figuring things out with Jax at that point, he was set to head in with his brother and Aaron because said youngest on our side had absolutely refused to go separately from Emmett. Not that either of them needed a chaperon but it just made a bit of sense that the brothers go together.
I didn’t mind going on my own, it just made my nerves jitter a little more but, on that same note, I wasn’t truly going alone, Aria and Alisha would join me at the entrance to the tunnel leading to our new forever home. I got a room at one of the semi-hotels that were more like a motel from reading up on the history of these things and I just tried to relax for those final few days.
Just the day before, I came across another woman I had worked with at the factory and I’m not going to lie, her behaviour made my nerves worse. It was like she was on the run from something, trying to hide away from who knew what and that resonated with me in ways that made my whole body tense. Ironically, she was so strung out on the stress of whatever was happening to her that she didn’t notice my own reaction to her, especially when she came up to me and tried to convince me to act as though she didn’t know who I was and I was trying to remind her of all we’d shared.
In hindsight, her request wasn’t wholly far-fetched. I didn’t know her other than the fact that we’d both worked at the factory, we’d often had seats close to one another, but we’d never really talked. So, she didn’t know me. She knew nothing about me, my family, or what was going on in my life. On the other hand, trying to act as though I was trying to remind her of whom I was, was more difficult than it had any right to be and even now, two years later, I still remember how fake it all felt.
Not that it changed the outcome, whatever or whoever was after her moved on—I never really noticed anyone around us either way and as I spent the last few hours in my room, I wondered if what she was strung out on, was more than just stress—and she just smiled at me as though she was the most grateful person to ever be and she was on her way.
In a way, I wonder if she even ever really saw me. She just saw someone who might have looked familiar to her frazzled mind and engaged in whatever half-formulated plan was in place. I’ve never cared for people like that. People who put their own well-being in front of everyone else’s.
It’s all in the past, at this point. Living in Peculiar has its ups and downs and I think we’re all still adapting in our own way.
Works of JD Beckett 