02 - Ashley 01

Being a bike courier in the city was hard enough. The pay was shit and the hours were long. You never got the exercise when you needed it and there always seemed to be something last minute that no-one else can do. And this is how Ashley had found herself trying to find a dingy little "gifts and curios" shop in the middle of the slumlike Cellars district, as the sun was setting.

As she'd passed blocks of greystone building, she'd knew she was in the bad part of town, so the lack of people hadn't immediately bothered her. No-one really saw the homeless until they truly started looking for them, anyway.

She'd pulled up, and rested her bike against a drain pipe, she'd stepped into the alley looking for a numbered door.

And had found herself under attack.

Something had clawed at her leg, and then jumped on her back, and she'd screamed and flailed. Whatever it was, it was small, grey and quick. Twice, she thought she'd even seen both a Tail and *Wings*... But as soon as she'd thought she'd seen that, her helmet had hit the wall and everything had kind of rung around her.

Her world swam.

---

There was a swish of something, a brush of air across her face, and a solid *thwack* that woke her up again.

"Scat, Scat! *Metla!* Scat!"

Pandemonium and screeching, that is all she could remember. That is all she could see. Ashley tried to back up and she found herself against the wall. There was a swish of straw in front of her face, and she swore she saw a woman kick at one of the figures, which ran off screeching into the dark at the far end of the alley. By the time her eyes focused, there was indeed a woman, holding out her hand to help her up.

"Hey, come on, its all right now." She said with a light voice, as she took Ashley's weakly offered hand.

"Wh-what? Were tho-those Demons?" She shuddered looking wide eyed to the left and right as she tried to get her feet under her.

"What? No. No no no. There's no such thing as Demons." The woman said with a smile, as she brushed strands of white hair from her eyes. White hair, *but she looked so young* Ashley thought. Shaking her head again.

"Then."

"Oh? Those. Baby Gargoyles. Happens all the time... You hurt badly?"

"What Bab-"

"I asked, are you hurt badly." The woman said again, her voice a little deeper, a little stronger this time, and Ashley felt her body go rigid, and a need to answer.

"No, I just... I just hit my head, and there was scratching." She said as she put her hand to the back of her head where it went under the helmet, and felt a little blood she felt weak in the knees and fell gently back to the ground. The woman came forward with a smile, and seemed to run her finger across Ashley's cheeks. She looked up to see the smile, and the woman said a single word.

"*Dremat*".

And her eyes closed again.



---

She awoke again, this time, with the gentle sun in her eyes. She wasn't outside though, no. No she was in the bedroom of her shared apartment. Her bike was even propped up against the dresser. She was still dressed in her delivery clothes, it felt like.

She couldn't remember getting home... She could barely remember going out for that last delivery and... then everything's so fuzzy, she hit her head, did she fall off her bike? It was so hard to recall...

She sat up in the bed, and it was when she pulled her head from the pillow that she felt the bandage there, across the back of her head and gently wrapped across her forhead. She pulled it off, as it was only loosely wrapped, and could see there was... Something. Something in the mat of tangled blood and hair, but amazingly, her head didn't ache.

She stood up, and walked to her bathroom, the only benefit to paying extra rent being the little ensuite for privacy, and grabbed a hand mirror. Using that and her main mirror, she looked at the back of her head - to see it... somehow undamaged beyond a smudge of hair.

She looked back over to her bed, and caught the sight of her Helmet sitting on the end table.

Perched on top of it, was a tiny, black, Origami Cat.