Jay stared out over the open warehouse, defeated. Since he'd found his work destroyed nothing had gone right. Sasha was gone and he couldn't make sense of anything.
The tap tap tap at the base of his skull had moved into one low buzzing hum now, and he felt the room spinning so fast it was all he could do to not fall down. Standing seemed impossible. Gripping the arm rests of his chair was all he knew how to do.
He couldn't find the answered to his problems. He'd called the detective, but they had been following Lim and knew nothing. No one could get in and out. Unless...
They were not of this world.
After all this time, Jay knew how it was going to happen. Eventually, he wouldn't be able to control the spinning and he would fall. He'd fall out of a window, on to a road, off a building. But he knew, at some point he was going to fall. He took all his courage and rolled it up into a ball that he used to hold down one purples and one purples only; to grip tight to something that wasn't going to move and make sure he didn't let it go.
He ached for Sasha. He ached for the only stability he had known in the last few weeks and the only contentment he'd ever known. He asked Greg where she was but he never seemed to answer, or if he did, Jay forgot it so quickly that he needed to ask again.
He hadn't lifted a pencil or scrawled a note since he found the room destroyed. Everything was still inside him, he was sure, but he couldn't reach it anymore. Sasha was the key to that greatness, and her invisibility ricocheted through him around and around adding to his vertigo. She was his stillness, the core he could connect to while he had none of his own, and without her, he simply couldn't do what he had to do.
He didn't care about the designs. They'd long flown off; all that mattered now was survival. He had to get through the day. He recognised Greg when he heard his voice, but the blurred mass in front of him that spoke bore no resemblance to his lifelong friend.
At time Greg sounded frantic, almost desperate. Somewhere deep inside of Jay he could remember why Greg would feel like that but it was so far away and meant so little now that Jay couldn't think about it. His friend distress was his friends. Jay just had to find a way to survive. All Jay knew he could do was wait for Sasha. She was the only one who could help him, the only one who could stop the earth spinning and remind him why he was there.
***** As soon as Sasha entered the room, she called out to Jay. Immediately Greg and Jay's mother came running from the shadows.
"Sasha! Thank god your here. I need to see if you can get through to Jay. You're my last hope. If you can't reach him, I'm calling an ambulance and taking him to a hospital."
"Is he working?" Sasha started to head for her room immediately, she noticed Greg glance down to see she brought her overnight bag back with her. He hadn't hidden the relief in his eyes. "No Sasha and I've all but given up hope that he will. The best we can ask for is that you may be able to bring him back from the brink of wherever he is, but I think the full figured chic line died when the room was vandalised."
"Do you have any idea yet who could have done it?"
"None. I've called the police and there is no sign of a break-in, but there are... well... there are distinguishing marks that tell us it wasn't... well... it wasn't any of us here."
"It wasn't human is what he is trying to say to you Sasha. It was a monster. I creature has done this to Jay; A Daemon."
Sasha stared at her and wondered how she could carry on like this when her son needed her so.
Still, she ignored it and looked back at Greg who just stared at her with a blank look on his face.
"I'll go and see him immediately. Can you leave us alone?"
"Yes of course." Greg said, as he turned and pulled Jay's mother away despite her protests. Sasha crept into Jay's room. The lights were off. She could see his shadow in the light cast from outside the room, sitting in a chair by the window holding on to the arm rests of his chair.
"Jay. Jay, it's me, Sasha. I'm here. I've come back to you darling."
Jay looked up immediately and turned his head without letting his grip on the chair loose.
"Sasha? You're here? Oh my god, finally you're here."
"I'm so sorry darling, I had to go and see my friend. She is very sick Jay."
"Yes. Everyone without you gets sick Sasha."
She smiled. "That's very sweet, but it's not quite true. I want to talk about you though. Greg says the full figured chic line is finished."
"I was ruined last night Sasha. I'm simply doing my best to hold on now."
