All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 8: RAW

Music Track List:

FC Kahuna - Hayling

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Emma's POV

That night I dreamed I was at RAW, lying on the table, covered in sushi, waiting for the dinner guests to arrive when the cloaked faces of the Three Norns hovered into view. They were chanting ceremonial words in an ancient language I didn't understand. I tried to sit up but realized I was being pinned down to the table. A quick glance at my arms revealed gnarled wooden hands sprouting from the oak surface and bracing my biceps with twisted branch-like fingers.

I heard knives being sharpened above me, and when I looked up, Urðr was slicing a knife into my now cake-like flesh – the bones of me icing, the appendages red jelly. Verðandi held up a fine bone china plate for Urðr to serve the slice on before handing it to Skuld, who dug in a fork and then relished a bite. I screamed wordlessly as the three hags continued to dine over my body. The floral arrangements entwined in the locks of my hair jiggled with each of my shudders until one of the vases tipped over the edge and began to drop to the floor—

I sat bolt upright in my hotel bed, and instinctively inspected my naked torso, covered in a cold sweat. Of course, my body was intact! Did I expect anything else? Still, the nightmare had unsettled me enough to finally decide perhaps I should hand in my notice at RAW and move on. Goodbye, my City of Angels: it's been a slice. I shuddered again.

It was extremely rare for me to have nightmares... or to even remember my dreams at all. Of course, Gran always insisted I never dreamed because I was barred access to the Otherworld as penance for wandering the Earths fateless. And here I always thought of it as a privilege: what use do I have for dreaming?

On the stroll to work, I learned that not only had the hotel suffered the hour-long blackout, but all of West Hollywood had as well. Wouldn't it have been much easier for Fate to have tripped a breaker in the basement than to shut down an entire neighborhood just to ensure I couldn't have my fortune told? Sadly, I knew that such a reasonable explanation would have no effect on Gran's predetermined mind (no pun intended).

As soon as I arrived at work, I walked straight toward the showers. RAW was one of those gauche, overpriced nightclubs that tried too hard to appear authentically Japanese, yet easily fooled anyone who had never been to Japan and did not understand the nuances (or realize that their waitress was really from Laos who had practiced walking in a pair of geta while watching Youtube video tutorials).

I had to come in to work a few hours early as tonight's banquet would be a very large party for a special guest: some world-famous atheist. I never had time to pay attention to the goings on in the world. He was a scientist who didn't believe in God. Why was this news?

Since the banquet was going to a large party, there would be several nyotaimori models and one nantaimori, a very striking and tall young blond named Devin whose lean, athletic swimmer's body I had more than one occasion to enjoy. Devin greeted me, clothed in only a gleaming white bright smile as I walked into the shower room, and I winced at the thought of leaving him soon behind without saying goodbye. Thankfully, I knew he wouldn't be overly hurt. We had a silent agreement: it was just one of those things.

I stripped out of my dark blue knit wraparound frock and nude stockings to join Devin and the girls in the large communal shower room. Thankfully, none us shared that famous American puritanism, so we could shower freely beside each other, conversing with the same camaraderie of fully-clothed factory workers bitching together on an assembly line.

I grabbed a fragrance-free bar of soap and began to scrub down my body in tepid water, carefully controlling the dial to gradually get the water cooler and cooler. It was important for a naked sushi model to chill the body down so as not to affect the temperature of the sushi.