Chapter Text
“Where the hell am I?”
Bae grumbled groggily and rose up from a messy, unfamiliar bed. Her long, red hair was as disheveled as the bedsheets and she wore the same clothes that she wore last night. As far as she could remember, at least.
Faint memories of live music and a copious amount of alcohol came to her, but she couldn’t quite remember half of it. The question on her mind then became how the hell she managed to make it back to wherever this place was.
That - and if this was her place to begin with.
Bae rubbed her temple and braved a dull headache to sit upright. Though the tiny studio apartment was dark, Bae saw familiar items in the unfamiliar room - untouched moving boxes stacked high around her bed, a cellphone on her nightstand begging to be charged and room keys with a unique limited edition Mr. Squeaks keychain.
Yeah. This is my place alright…
She didn’t know if she felt relieved or disappointed in that fact.
Either way, Bae found a hard-covered guitar case, her most prized possession, hiding behind her mountain of moving boxes. The case was covered with ‘FRAGILE’ stickers from Air Canada that she could see even with the scarce light.
“Air Canada…?” Bae muttered. She rubbed her eyes and racked her brains until she remembered what country she was in, “Oh right.”
Bae’s realization was accompanied by a refreshing sea breeze that blew in through the open apartment windows. The breeze rustled the two-ply curtain made of a cheap, off-white fabric shade from Walmart reinforced with an actual flag of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia flying proudly in the wind.
Relics of the previous tenant of the unit , Bae quietly thought.
She tugged at the Nova Scotia flag a little bit, wondering if it would come off. The ominous creaking of the curtain bars, however, urged her to let the flag be - lest she incur the wrath of her landlord.
Instead, she mustered up the strength to get up from bed, do a good spot of stretches and then carefully part the curtains.
Warm, summertime sunshine flooded the studio apartment and granted Bae a picturesque morning view of the storied Halifax Harbor that divided two cities: the city of Dartmouth where she now, apparently, lived and the city of Halifax where she would soon, apparently, work. She admired the scene and felt her mild headache dissipating with the sea breeze.
Nova Scotia. Canada’s Ocean Playground. At least that’s what the license plates say.
A pair of seagulls flew overhead towards Halifax Harbor and Bae watched them fondly. Her attention, however, was quickly stolen by the loud horn of the Halifax-Dartmouth Ferry. That horn jogged Bae’s memory and whipped her into a frenzy.
Oh shit! I’m starting work today, aren’t I!?
Bae retreated from the windows and snatched up her barely-charged phone.
It’s already a quarter past eight. Damn it!
Spurred by the time on her phone, she washed her face, brushed her teeth, took a set of dress shirts and corporate-friendly long, black skirts straight from her moving boxes and then slipped into them in a hurry. All the while, she hoped and prayed that her clothes wouldn’t be overly wrinkled. She didn’t have time to dive into her other boxes to look for her flat iron, after all!
Finally, she picked up a small suitcase that - thankfully - she had enough foresight to pack beforehand, and burst out of her apartment. She caught a bus to the ferry terminal, a place called ‘Alderney Landing’ and passed by a Tim Hortons coffee shop kiosk inside. The smell of brewed coffee, muffins and breakfast sandwiches made Bae’s stomach grumble, but the booming horn of the ferry silenced the opposition.
I’ll grab something at work , Bae promised her protesting stomach. At least, I hope I can.
For now, she appeased her stomach’s riots and munched on a snack stick of cheese that she got all the way from the airport in Australia more than two days ago. With that, Bae crossed through the turnstiles and boarded the Halifax-Dartmouth ferry.
…
Bae took a seat at the open-air upper deck of the ferry and watched the city of Halifax grow closer and closer. Her touristy tendencies drove her to draw her smartphone and start taking pictures and videos of the maritime cityscape - at least until her phone warned her that it had 10% of battery left.
Hmph. Killjoy.
Satisfied enough with her haul of pictures and videos, Bae kept her phone and searched the cityscape for a certain building. It didn’t take her long to find it.
Purdy’s Wharf - an office building complex partially built over the Halifax Harbor with two postmodern towers that rose about twenty stories high. That was the building where her new employer, Bread Dog Insurance Limited, had its space. She even saw the sign of Bread Dog plastered on one of the towers.
The bread-dog mascot beamed happily at Bae, so she waved back to it casually. Then, she saw the speech bubble beside the dog.
‘ Wharf! Wharf! ’ It read.
Bae chuckled.
She remembered how Bread Dog offered her the gig while she was still studying at a university in Australia. Selling insurance in Atlantic Canada wasn’t something that Bae thought she would end up doing after university, but the company offered her enough compensation to go ahead and move there. She didn’t have a lot of competing offers for her services to begin with anyways.
Not after her turbulent last year in university.
Unhappy memories crept up into the eye of Bae’s mind, but she shook her head and ate another stick of Australian airport cheese.
Maybe that was why I ended up getting black-out drunk last night, she joked.
But even she didn’t find her own joke all that funny.
That turbulent last year was one of the reasons why she chose to take the Bread Dog gig. Working for Bread Dog would take her halfway across the world - as far away from Australia as she could, after all.
Bae patted her cheeks with both hands and psyched herself up.
Alright Bae. You’re gonna go to work on time today, make a good impression with the boss and then go home and fix your freaking apartment. Got it?
Bae’s stomach answered with a weak but defiant grumble. She frowned and finished off her cheese stick.
…
A little while later, the ferry reached the Halifax Ferry Terminal eleven minutes late. So, as soon as the gangway dropped, Bae sprinted off the ferry and through the terminal with her briefcase in tow.
I didn’t know ferries got stuck in traffic too! Bae cursed in her mind while she ran. Just my freaking luck!
Bae burst through the terminal doors and ran through the boardwalk of the Halifax Waterfront towards Purdy’s Wharf. While she ran, she clipped on her Bread Dog ID badge by her hip and shot a quick text to her boss that she might be ever so slightly late.
There goes my first impression. Damn it!
In her haste, the pristine sea breeze, the placid blue waters of Halifax Harbor and the polished charm of the waterfront area were nothing more than fleeting blurs to Bae. She only came to a halt when she reached the front doors of her office.
Bae took a moment to catch her breath, but she puffed up her chest, fixed her windswept hair as best as she could and prepared to enter the building. She held her briefcase firmly and went through the spiels that she had prepared for her first day of work like a checklist in her mind.
Her concentration, however, would be shattered by the screeching noise of brakes and the rumble of a small scooter engine coming from behind her. Bae turned around, eager to give the culprit a piece of her mind, but she suddenly stopped halfway through.
“What the…!” Bae gasped.
Standing there before her, beside a cute maroon-colored Vespa scooter, was a tall Nephilim girl with long, maroon-colored hair and small, black horns jutting out of her head and pretty two-colored eyes. She was dressed just as sharply as Bae and had an ID badge of Bread Dog Insurance Limited at her hip.
The Nephilim also looked at the ID badge that Bae wore by her hip and frowned with grave displeasure - and the feeling was oh so mutual.
“What are you doing here!?” The two of them demanded angrily, speaking in unison.
A stalemate promptly ensued. Neither of them answered the question.
And so, as the salty sea breeze blew in from Halifax Harbor, Bae knew that her bad day was about to get much, much worse.
After all, the reason for her dramatically turbulent last year of university stood before her in the flesh.
…
Nowhere With You
All Aboard!
…
To Be Continued