The bank seemed… empty. That was good. No one would try and be a hero and squish her or eat her or something. No one would be here to get hurt. Tiny didn’t want to hurt anyone. She just wanted off the island. Somewhere safe that wasn’t somewhere new. Somewhere small. Confined. No big spaces with big monsters that could step on her and squish her dead without a second thought and never look back. Tiny had already asked, once. She couldn’t just sneak in, they had paperwork and people checking on things, and lots of security. They didn’t take requests to be sent to jail. She’d tried that. Tiny had asked and been given referrals to psychiatric help facilities. Everyone was telling her it was just in her head. Manta Carlos was safe. She was safe.
It might be safer than New York in theory, but Manta Carlos was the furthest from safe in the history of safe havens. The humans wanted the supernatural dead or gone. The supernatural and human alike went on killing sprees. Extremists tried to bomb a hospital. Other extremists spread a plague all over the island. The world wanted this place dead, and Tiny couldn’t handle it. She wanted to get out. Run away. Hide under a rock and never come out again. But she’d promised Matthew she would stay. They’d promised to stay until they were both old and grey. She had to wait for him. Wait for her friend to heal or come back from the dead or something. Somehow. Somehow he would come back. He promised. Matthew wasn’t allowed to leave. It was nice, living with Lucky while they’d been sick, but it wasn’t the same. She wanted the old life back. The leaky pipes and the creaky floors and the noisy neighbours and the foul customers.
Tiny hovered by the door, wanting to get this over with but still hesitant to start. The tellers were watching her, one of them helping someone else and another trying to beckon her over. She’d been there ten minutes already. Just standing there, staring at the wall. It was starting to worry the staff, one had called out to ask if she was okay a few minutes ago, but Tiny merely blinked at them in response. There was a paper in her left hand. It was crumpled and torn, marked up from being crumpled and uncrumpled multiple times. The teller called out again, and this time Tiny forced herself to shuffle over, one step at a time, to show the paper to the teller.
This is a robbery. Give me a $10 bill. Lock the doors. Set off the alarms.
The teller waited a moment, expecting this to be a joke. There was a solid minute of dead silence before they reached for the silent alarm. A solid minute of Tiny anxiously picking at a scab on her wrist and staring at the nearest security camera. How long would it take? No one was getting threatened with weapons. It wasn’t much of an emergency. Five minutes? Ten minutes? An hour?
The teller had left the money on the counter but Tiny started pacing, muttering herself and curling inwards, clearly very stressed and trying to make herself smaller. The room was too big. Too empty. It seemed ten times larger than it really was. The muttering grew louder. Steps shorter. Breathing shallower.
It was too late to turn back.
Soon, the police would arrive. They would arrest her. They would sent her to the ‘juvie island’ and she would stay there for years and years and years because it was safe there and no one would be bombing the prison. The security was a whole lot tighter. People wouldn’t accidentally squish her with their powers contained. The rooms weren't so big they dwarfed her. It was safe. That tiny island was safe and she wouldn't have to worry anymore.
@Romi
It might be safer than New York in theory, but Manta Carlos was the furthest from safe in the history of safe havens. The humans wanted the supernatural dead or gone. The supernatural and human alike went on killing sprees. Extremists tried to bomb a hospital. Other extremists spread a plague all over the island. The world wanted this place dead, and Tiny couldn’t handle it. She wanted to get out. Run away. Hide under a rock and never come out again. But she’d promised Matthew she would stay. They’d promised to stay until they were both old and grey. She had to wait for him. Wait for her friend to heal or come back from the dead or something. Somehow. Somehow he would come back. He promised. Matthew wasn’t allowed to leave. It was nice, living with Lucky while they’d been sick, but it wasn’t the same. She wanted the old life back. The leaky pipes and the creaky floors and the noisy neighbours and the foul customers.
Tiny hovered by the door, wanting to get this over with but still hesitant to start. The tellers were watching her, one of them helping someone else and another trying to beckon her over. She’d been there ten minutes already. Just standing there, staring at the wall. It was starting to worry the staff, one had called out to ask if she was okay a few minutes ago, but Tiny merely blinked at them in response. There was a paper in her left hand. It was crumpled and torn, marked up from being crumpled and uncrumpled multiple times. The teller called out again, and this time Tiny forced herself to shuffle over, one step at a time, to show the paper to the teller.
This is a robbery. Give me a $10 bill. Lock the doors. Set off the alarms.
The teller waited a moment, expecting this to be a joke. There was a solid minute of dead silence before they reached for the silent alarm. A solid minute of Tiny anxiously picking at a scab on her wrist and staring at the nearest security camera. How long would it take? No one was getting threatened with weapons. It wasn’t much of an emergency. Five minutes? Ten minutes? An hour?
The teller had left the money on the counter but Tiny started pacing, muttering herself and curling inwards, clearly very stressed and trying to make herself smaller. The room was too big. Too empty. It seemed ten times larger than it really was. The muttering grew louder. Steps shorter. Breathing shallower.
It was too late to turn back.
Soon, the police would arrive. They would arrest her. They would sent her to the ‘juvie island’ and she would stay there for years and years and years because it was safe there and no one would be bombing the prison. The security was a whole lot tighter. People wouldn’t accidentally squish her with their powers contained. The rooms weren't so big they dwarfed her. It was safe. That tiny island was safe and she wouldn't have to worry anymore.
@Romi
