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The Corner Market was not located on a street corner. There were several visible from the parking lot, but that was about it. The store itself also wasn't located in a particularly good part of town. Not the worst, and definitely several steps up from the red light district. But it wasn't the best.

The store itself was well lit, and more importantly clean. The shelves well stocked and properly faced. Granted, the traditional way of organizing the goods wasn't employed here. Instead of organizing the merchandise by similar use or general theme, the goods were instead organized by the dominant color of the item. The few exceptions, were shelves of Hostess snack cakes, magazines, tobacco, and the reach-in fridge with beer.

The soda fountain was oddly stocked with both Pepsi and Coke products, as well as something listed as "Soylent Cola". It was not very popular. The hot bar had the basics. Chicken strips. Hot dogs. Wings. Burritos. The basic foods one comes to expect from a small gas station.

There was a layer of sandbags in front of the women's bathroom door. A single piece of paper was taped to the door: "OUT OF ORDER". The men's room sign had another sheet of paper taped over it, with a hand drawn half-man half-woman drawing to show it as Unisex.

The lone clerk sat behind the counter. She wore her usual clothes, today featuring a black baby-doll t-shirt with a psychotic smiley face, as well as a blue vest. The vest was nothing exceptional. In fact, she'd simply kept it from her last job, and used a black sharpie to line out "lode mart". Above it, two name tags. One listed her as a sales associate. The other as the Night Manager. Both showed her name: Evelyn.

It was a little before one in the morning. At present she was thumbing through a popular mechanics magazine, while eating some stew out of a wooden bowl. It looked good, and was. It also wasn't for sell. She'd brought it from home, as evident by the large tupperware container in the back room. It was designed to hold a gallon, and was about three quarters full now. She'd been eating for a while… and likely, she would kill the rest before the end of her shift.";

Ah, a Market...
the perfect place to hide for now.

A tiny bell on the main entrance jingled as he entered this Market. His footsteps were silent,as was his breath and movement. He slid behind a row of..well, a large supply of various White things. Tilting his head, the man waited until the number of footsteps-equaling about four men and three women-passed by.
This figure let out a long-awaited breath,and turned to face his surroundings.
whoever may be here...he hoped they didn't look him in the eye...

Jingle.

Spoon lowers from her mouth, its delicious stew payload deposited. She looks up, mouth full. Her attention was not on the man who entered. No…. That was the least of her concerns. She focused on the bell. Her chewing slowed as she pondered over the bell. How long had that been there? Why hadn't she ever noticed it before? And then it happened.

A piece of gristle in between the molars. The most annoying of teeth to get food lodged between. Her focus then left the door, and she seemed to zone out, now intent upon freeing the food from her teeth. She didn't notice the group run past the door. She still had not noticed the man hiding by the white items.

She wasn't aware of the man looking around… not until after she had spent several seconds using her index finger to try and free the meat strand. She looked at Skylar, then slowly lowered her gaze, as if she could see her own hand in her mouth. The fragment of meat chose that moment to loose itself. Awkward.

She pulls her hand out of her mouth, and wipes it on her pants. She swallows the offending piece of food. Then smiles pleasantly at the customer, and offers a little wave. Her focus then shifts back to her magazine. After a few moments, she resumes slowly eating her bowl of stew. If she noticed anything odd about the man, she made no sign of it.

If the customer needs something, he'll ask. It is a convenience store. Customer service doesn't extend beyond the counter here.

If Skylar had been in a lighter mood, he would have laughed. Or waved back atleast.
But his mood had been awfully ruined by the group of "haters" who had yet again chased him out of town.
what was with them,anyway? can't a guy get some peace around here?

But Skylar already knew the answer. he was a Charmer,a rare mixed species that was greatly despized among common folk.

The man shifted his weight from the rack and continued to gaze around the shop silently. Gee, whoever owned this place sure liked color-coding everything. His gaze stopped again on the woman who appeared to be the only one present.She seemed intent on reading, and that was all the better to him. Skylar didn't want more attention upon him. especually not now.

But this woman probably thought he had come to buy something...so Skylar left the white and black isle of various items, and walked quietly toward the colder half of the store.

Evelyn didn't expect much of anyone who walked in. Well, there was some expectation of buying things, as it was a store. But then again, she herself had been in that slightly odd position of entering a place of business only to politely refuse service in favor of the toilet.

Toilet. That reminded her. She needed to call animal control about the women's facilities. Maybe a plumber too. Her train of thought brought her back out of the isolationism of her magazine. Realizing the man was still in the store, she watched him for a few moments.

He didn't seem like a robber… though… he was taking a rather long time too look. Most people tended to figure out ahead of time why they were heading to a convenience store after midnight. of course, he seemed like he'd been running recently too. Most thieves wouldn't tire themselves out before committing the crime. Or would they? No. That was just paranoia. She'd have to get a music box of some kind before her next shift. The quiet alone time was resulting in some odd mental tangents.

She looked at the clock on the register. Enough time had passed. Comments on her picking her teeth would just be awkward for both parties now. Definitely not humorous. Focus back to the potential customer. There was an unpleasant silence building up. She felt so anyway. Time to break the night clerk code.

"You need help finding' anything?" She spoke with a strong Irish accent.

Next Night.

She'd been on about an hour. Working the graveyard shift, that meant it was right around Midnight. It was again one of the slow periods. The bars hadn't let out yet, so she didn't expect a large influx until about 3 AM. Didn't stop the odd crazy from coming in. Or the dope users who always wanted to buy one cigarillo. The color organization of the store had yielded some interesting results with some of them.

Tonight she was sitting on her stool behind the counter, reading Cosmopolitan Magazine. Her food of choice? Steak and kidney pie. Again a large portion size, and again not for sell. There was a bottle of water, partially drunk, by her feet. The label said Natural Spring, but it was filled with tap water. Plastic bottles don't go bad... and she wasn't afraid to fill one up from a sink.

She glanced at the bell above the door. She'd tried taking it down... but the little thing was in there something fierce. She'd stripped the screw heads holding it in, and broken a set of vice grips. And worse yet, she still had no idea how the hell it had gotten there in the first place. It didn't really unnerve her. Not much did. It was just kind of an annoyance to be bested by something so mundane.

She forced her attention back to the magazine while taking a bite of her dinner.