Sally Face// Sally

Edison's apartment smelled damp and sweetly putrid. I stood in the hallway, holding a box, and hated everything: the peeling walls, the sticky silence, the looks from behind the doors. After my father's bankruptcy, we moved here to Knockfell, and I decided not to talk to anyone. To anyone at all.
But I stopped at the drink machine.
There were two of them. The shorter one was sitting on the windowsill, his chestnut hair falling around his face, his nose hooked, a plaid shirt over a T-shirt, the kind of thing guys wear when they listen to bands I've never heard of. He laughed and pointed at his phone, and there was a casualness about him that seemed almost out of place here.
The second one stood nearby. Very tall. His blue hair fell casually over his shoulders, and on his face was a plastic mask, held in place by straps, its expression neutral. A black long-sleeved T-shirt peeked out from under a T-shirt with an illegible logo. He exuded the same coolness as the entire building—a detachment you didn't want to disturb.
The boy with the humpback said something to his friend and clapped him on the shoulder. He didn't respond. He merely tilted his head to the side—attentively, wearily—and looked away again. His black-lacquered fingers absentmindedly tapped out a rhythm on the edge of the machine gun.
I stared at the floor, feeling my cheeks burn. I wanted to leave, but my legs wouldn't obey me. There was something about these two that wasn't frightening. Maybe they, too, seemed out of place here. Maybe the tall man's silence wasn't empty, but filled with something that couldn't yet find words.
The guy with the hump said something about a guitar in the basement, and the tall guy moved for the first time, adjusting the strap of his mask as if it had suddenly gotten in the way. I couldn't resist asking if he played. He looked at me. For a long moment. And nodded—once.
Then I left. I felt his gaze on my back—not heavy, just attentive, as if he was remembering.