BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
She had to bite her tongue to keep from voicing her frustrations aloud. Every shot Mitzi had thrown at the cans had ricocheted off and fallen to the dirty carnival stall floor no matter how hard she tried to aim– at this point she was fully convinced they'd given her a faulty gun. Real ones had never had such a hard time making the bullets go where she specifically wanted them to.
"Ugh. Stacy's at it again, that bitch is a homewrecker at its finest." one of the girls by her side commented, her voice lighthearted until you took a second look– her underlying jealousy was laughably easy to pick up on.
Maybe today was just a bad day, handling guns had never really been an issue for her! But then again it could've been the annoying chirping coming from her left that was messing up her game. Mitzi had chosen to go to Lunaris' opening night out of obligation for the girls she was friends with. And while they weren't bad people at all, their habit for… backstabbing their own friends, for lack of a better term, always got on her nerves.
Mitzi tried to breathe. Inhale, exhale. In and out. Slowly tuning out the sounds of the girls beside her and solely came to focus on knocking over at least 5 cans to get that teddy bear she'd been eyeing ever since she got here.
Dusty mocha brown fur, rosy pink cheeks, eyes that looked like that of a higher quality acrylic glass, all complete with a baby blue ribbon at its neck that looked like smooth silk. It was genuinely shocking to see something so high quality at Lunaris of all places- that was a good enough reason to keep trying, wasn't it? Just imagining how at home the little guy would look with the rest of her collection back home lifted her mood just a little.
"Mitzi…? Hey, Mitzi??"
A voice shook her out of her thoughts, scaring her just enough to accidentally pull the trigger and shoot another bullet right into the dirt ground. 4 bullets down, 4 left in the barrel. Damn it…
She turned to the sound of the voice, repressing the petty irritation that bubbled in her gut after realising that the last thing these girls needed was another issue on their hands. 3 of her other friends were staring right at her like she was crazy, batting their eyelashes and pausing from admiring themselves on their phone screens just to give her that look.
"Are you seriously taking any of this to heart? Lunaris is so overrated girl, you're just embarrassing yourself at this point." One had pointed out, long brunette waves being readjusted by her manicured hands.
A couple of them laughed at that. And– yeah… this was probably why she didn't like hanging around them that much, huh? All these girls were friends, like, of course they were! But she felt like just a closer look at them revealed that these friendships were truly as fragile as a thin sheet of glass.
"Oh, yeah?" She painfully swallowed down the urge to scoff at them. Her focus going back to her task at hand, dealing with people this way was just so, so exhausting. "At least I'm doing something worthwhile here, what're you girls doing? Getting left on read again?"
Another round of laughs echoes through their little group. To be completely fair, none of that was supposed to come off as that mean! But Mitzi's patience was running thinner and thinner by the second and these girls were really testing how much they could make it bend. Their snickers and giggles cut short when a petite girl front and centre threw the ends of her golden blonde waves over her shoulder. Kristine Tremblay was always like that, a girl with an aura so domineering it made you listen to her no matter what, kind of like WIA's very own Regina George.
"Ha ha. So funny, Mitzi. You should try stand-up!" she rolled her eyes, gripping her phone so tight her knuckles turned white. God- now she started to feel bad… ugh- it didn't make sense how these people could just fling vile vulgarities at each other willy-nilly and completely ignore it– but when she did it once it constituted a cutthroat judgemental stare from Kristy herself.
"Ughh." she whined, throwing her head back in petty frustration like the pampered little princess she was. "Whatever! This is so lame. Let's go girls, if you're not up for hanging with us just don't even try– Loser."
She stood back up from her place leaning against a pole walking away while keeping her stink eye directly trained on Mitzi the entire time, and one by one, she saw each of the girls do the same. She knew what this meant, that glare could only mean one thing. She'd pissed Kristy off, and in return she'd essentially dropped Mitzi out of the group for the time being just because she struck a chord in her she couldn't stand.
She felt her heart drop and it killed her inside. God, wasn't this just embarrassing? She didn't blame the others for leaving, Kristine was just like that! When she did something you listened, especially when you were one of her subordinates– but it didn't make their footsteps any less irritating.
As soon as they were out of sight the frustration boiled through her guts and spilled out through her core in a way that made her feel like squeezing something half to death. She shook it off her mind, taking aim and focusing on channelling all of her energy into a single shot. Her finger hesitated on the trigger as she counted to 3. Stupid. They were all just stupid.
1, 2…
…BANG!
The bullet hit the bottom-most can, toppling it, and the 2 others on top of it to the ground. The innocent stall owner called out in excitement, unaware that Mitzi's friends had just ditched her
"Ohh! A 3-in-1! 2 more to go, miss!"
• •
The bear she'd been waiting to get her hands on was now cradled in her arms as she walked away from the booth. There was a little part of her that hoped that if she looked hard enough, she'd find Kristy and the others waiting for her in a clearing, but even she knew that it was false hope. It was whatever anyways… She never truly liked any of those girls- this was all more for appearances than it was for genuine connection. Ugh, she sounded like such a brat for thinking that. The streets were crowded with groups of people walking to and fro different attractions, all of them had goofy wide grins on their faces.
…Well, she couldn't stay there forever, could she? Mitzi started walking with no destination in mind, all she needed to do was make sure she didn't look like a complete loner out here wandering Lunaris by herself. She kept a mental list for anything interesting to go up to, whether that be rides, games, or stalls, just so she could at least look like she was present in the moment.
Most of the things she scanned over weren't really calling out to her though, she wasn't hungry, she wasn't in the mood to spend literal hours trying to win games, and a lot of the other activities they set up around here needed at least another person to participate with. It made sense. After all, Lunaris was a festival for a community. No one ever came here alone.
In the distance, she spotted someone familiar, that head of dyed blonde hair that fizzled out into fiery ends could have only been one person anyways, but her hopes in running up to Rubie as a friend were crushed when she spotted the flashy figure next to her– again, there was only one person in the entire world who'd wear that much jewellery to a town fair. Right… How could she forget? Rubie and YV were going together, she'd even told her that much back when they were leaving their dorm room.
She couldn't help but stare at them. Was this total creep behaviour? Definitely. But watching them laugh and smile while waiting in line for churros at a stall was inexplicably magnetic to her. Even from afar she could tell that they were goofing off and making eachother laugh with stupid jokes, finding fun even while waiting in a completely static queue, that was… kinda nice– it was admirable seeing how much they could make out of a boring situation, even more so knowing that this was probably all YV's idea, but Rubie had gone to stick the wait out with him despite it all. That was just how she remembered them, brash and optimistic, loyal to a fault…
Huh… that was funny. She was all alone wasn't she? Maybe now was a good time to… stop staring. No use standing still on a busy road anyways, the longer she stood there like a loser the more she'd just inconvenience everyone else.
Mitzi kept walking, thankful for the newfound breath of fresh air she got after leaving both Rubie and YV to their own devices, continuing her aimless walk to– well, nowhere in particular. It wasn't like she was thinking of much either, just taking in the sights and letting her mind wander after everything she'd just seen. but unfortunately for her, her lack of awareness had landed her right in the midst of a packed crowd with absolutely nowhere to go– it was like magic. One second she could walk just fine, and in the next she barely had enough space to breathe. A stampede. A stupid stampede at her own town festival nonetheless.
Honestly! Stuff like this only happens in movies right?? Where were they even going?? The more she tried to keep up with the crowd, the more she realised that they were effectively drowning her in a sea of nasty bodies. Aside from the discomfort it brought her, she quickly realised that she had no choice but to follow the crowd for the time being. Mitzi stuck her neck out as far as she could, taking her last gasps of fresh air before the tide could take her under. From the looks of it, she was sure the crowd was all pushing towards the grand stage in the centre of the fair, pushing and shoving like rabid animals– God. She could almost start crying literal tears. What was even happening??