Prologue
680 Words
“How ironic, he had eyes as clear as can be, yet she couldn’t see through.”
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“Cassidy! There’s a spot here you missed.”
Clay rolls her eyes at the unsuspecting supervisor, and mutters under her breath, “here she goes again.”
It was already late at night and an irrational lecture is not what she needs at the moment so she doesn’t argue. Even though that Janet, the janitorial supervisor, has this third eye for invisible dirt around the office that no one else sees.
“On it ma’am,” she obliges nonetheless, and clay can’t exactly decide if there really is a spot she missed out to clean or if Janet is just ordering her around for fun and a rush of superiority. She suspects the latter after inspecting the pristine side of the office, completely free of dust and dirt.
“There’s nothing here,” she mutters low her immediate response at the sight.
“There is. Map it.” Apparently, Janet heard her and as experience tells Clay, that isn’t the end of it.
Clay groans involuntarily as she just had to run her mouth.
“Tomorrow is a big event, and you know, Mr. Reid doesn’t like anything out of order or dirty for that matter,” says Janet as she walks around, “he needs everyone competent.” She then condescendingly adds as she eyes Clay, “even the lowest of us.”
As if you’re any better, words that she really wanted to say, but can’t as she needs the job.
Honestly, Clay doesn’t know what she did to receive disliking from the woman. And at this point, she doesn’t even care anymore, so she just proceeded mapping out nothing, smiling as she says, “yes ma’am.”
“Lest you forget, Mr. Reid’s son will be arriving tomorrow to be named as the new CEO. You know what that means?” Janet asks her.
Clay answers, “a party right after.”
Janet raises her voice for the others to hear, “and that means things to clean. We need to work overtime tomorrow night for everything to be in place the next day. Is that understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.” They answer in chorus, and Clay is just relieved the attention’s not on her anymore.
She hasn’t really thought much about anything that happens within the company, and doesn’t even have the chance to as works at night when everyone starts to retire for the day. All she does is focus on her own work, while her mind goes through wonders for her new painting piece. At times, she involuntarily overhears her colleagues gossip about their bosses in the locker rooms.
From that, and never been one to be interested on other people, all information she has about Mr. Reid’s son is that he runs the branches abroad. She doesn’t know anything, not even his name. Honestly, she can’t find it in herself to care.
So now in the locker room, she brushes it off her mind, takes her things off her locker, and goes home for the day.
And for now, she wouldn’t know as she hums peacefully while walking across the dark street, her life simple and repetitive, how much it life would change.
Her mind is up in the clouds as it always is, too positively-minded to be a wary while walking in this dark alley on her way home. She should have seen a man coming her way, especially that tall and fit, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she bumped into him- her first bump into fate to start.
The person has his hoodie on, darkening his face, and effectively making him unrecognizable. Light posts weren’t much of a help either. Any other person would’ve thought how suspicious the man was, but the thought hadn’t even crossed Clay’s mind.
She looked up innocently to a pair of greens, just tiny a moment.
“Oh, sorry.” She says, and then he was gone as fast as he had appeared.
Strange, she thought.
Strange.
- Writer
