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[colour=BC8F8F]"You can't possibly expect me to drink all this."[/colour]

Hannah had brought a fishbowl to the group's table.  It was filled with a bright red semi-translucent drink, and Makenna could smell the sugar in the concoction, something of a feat given the dizzying amount of alcohol.  

"All yours baby-girl!"  Cheered the blonde, pushing the over-sized glass directly in-front of Makenna and offering a wink.  "Got them to make it just for you, figured you should get a little reminder of home on your first night of drinking. Southern spirit and all that." Hannah's usual barely detectable accent was played up to a degree of ridiculousness by the end of her speech, the girl was already near plastered and the night had barely begun.

"C'mon," Bemoaned another voice from another sashed bridesmaid. Jenny was plucking at the cheap plastic tiara on Makenna's head.  "How else are we going to get you on stage?"

As though on cue the speakers above them gave out an ear splitting bow-out as the current karaoke participant attempted and failed to hit a note.

"God they're terrible,"  Jenny threw her head back laughing after she'd recovered enough to uncover her ears.  "Please Kenna, we beg you- end our suffering."

[colour=BC8F8F]"Please,"[/colour] She scoffed, though her face warmed from the indirect praise.  [colour=BC8F8F]"I'm certainly not going first- or alone."[/colour]

It earned her an eyeroll and another push of the drink towards her.  "As our beautiful bride commands- Shall we show her how it's done?" Hanna asked, offering a hand to Jenny and the pair worked their way to the stage.

The drink was sickeningly sweet, a hurricane, Hannah would call it later.  A Mississippi novelty, Hannah told her upon returning.  That alone might have been enough to dislike it.  Makenna joined the idle chatter of the three remaining bridesmaids while the other two began a string of duets.  They'd been feeding her drinks all night, and she'd given in more times than she'd expected.  It was a devious and dirty trick, the way her entire bridal party worked as a group to queue up her favourite songs, topping off with tacky 80's power-ballads they knew her to be unable to resist.

So it was Makenna found herself in front of a bar filled with some fifty-odd people, microphone in hand and the first notes of I Have Nothing blaring out from behind her.  She couldn't quite recall how she'd gotten there- nor was there time to think long on it before the lyrics began scrolling on the screen before her.

[colour=BC8F8F]"Share my life-"[/colour]  The rancorous cheering from her table covered the bulk of the first entire verse.  Four more straws had been added to the over sized drink, and they were making the most of it. For all the embarrassment that came with it, Makenna found confidence in the support of the others and began truly belting the chorus. A love ballad. It was a bit much, even for a bachelorette party, but it was Carson Makenna thought of as she sang, but her grandmother.  Their many evenings over an old record player, memories of happy nostalgia easy to get lost in. She chalked it up to the delusion of alcohol, but it felt as though the entire audience had gone silent to listen to her.

[colour=BC8F8F]"I have nothing, nothing- NOTHIN-"[/colour] The final loud note before the end of the song- and the speakers blew out again.  Reflexively Makenna buckled over to cover her ears, only to realize she [/i]couldn't[i] hear in the first place.  The music had stopped, and when she looked up to the rest of the bar, she saw chaos.  Half the furniture and people were blown clear across the room- and glass was everywhere.  Under all the tables and a sea of the stuff behind the bar and under where the windows should have been.  Dully, Makenna was aware of a damp warmness running down the sides of her neck before collapsing to the floor. 





[/i][/INDENT][/INDENT][hr][CENTER][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1070187379547176990/1079867956093263933/Makenna_Banner.png[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=SILVER][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [I]Pacific Royal Collegiate & University,[/I] - [I]Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean[/I][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=SILVER][b]The Homecoming Trials #1.01:[/b][/COLOR] [I]Where You Are[/I][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][sub][color=SILVER][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/COLOR] [I][/I][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=SILVER][b]Previously:[/b][/COLOR] [I]N/A[/I][/right][/SUP]
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It wasn’t as though Makenna was unfamiliar custodial labour.  Her first job had been washing out the back washrooms and kitchen of a greasy rest-stop on weekends. Except even after that experience she swore she’d never suffer through that indignity again. Now she found herself bent over the toilets of the women’s upstairs bathroom some six years later. She wasn’t even getting paid. Part of Makenna had wondered if her mother somehow interfered to ensure her daughter was assigned to nothing other than sanitation for the first entire [i]month[/i] of classes.  Of course such a feat would require the bitch to actually show an interest in Makenna’s academics, or worse still, acknowledge her existence in the first place.  At least scrubbing proved a decent outlet for frustrations. She had enough to get rid of after all.  As if the ever looming yet unseen monitoring of her mother wasn’t enough she had to worry about roommates, an entire cohort of wayward young adults, and some damned tedious sorting trial- as though the hours and hours of psych evaluations hadn’t told the board more than enough about each of them.

There wasn’t time to do much else besides shower and change before the assembly. Another pointless formality.  All of them had been debriefed of the intake process half a dozen times over. She surveyed those around her as the foreign anthem played, making out the familiar faces of the intake house and decidedly avoiding eye contact with any she found.  Most were younger, all immature as least as far as Makenna saw it.  She’d worked hard to develop a respectable social circle in her old life; three of her bridesmaids were pursuing doctorates already- only pushed backwards into a rag-tag group of rejects.

As the ceremony ended a group of them began to… congeal together at the stadium exit.  Makenna hurried past them without so much as a second glance.  She could smell Calliope’s bougie perfume as she brushed her shoulder.  Sharing a room with the brat was already testing the limit of her false politeness and cheer.

She managed to wait the entire trip back before checking her phone.  She knew better than to expect anything; not that it did anything to quell the pathetic hope in her heart rising only to be crushed each time.  Unthinkingly, her thumb pressed Carson’s name on the recently dialed screen, bracing for the too-familiar voicemail message.

Except it rang. Four full times, and just Makenna had begun to hold her breath, there was a pause in the tone.

“Hullo?” There was an awkward beat, where Makeena half expected the rest of the recording that failed to follow.  

He picked up her slack; “Ken? Sorry I’ve missed your calls- that time difference is a real bitch.”

She’d hated the nickname since the moment he’d first said it on their third date.  But it made her misty eye-ed to hear him say it after so long.

[colour=BC8F8F]“It's me,”[/colour]  She manged to confirm before needing to clear her throat, and turning up the smile until it could be heard in her voice.  [colour=BC8F8F]“Been trying to get a hold of you for a couple days now.  There’s this… Thing.”[/colour] It was always awkward bringing up anything PRCU related, it was too close to all the things they’d put so much effort into avoiding.  [colour=BC8F8F]“An excursion, a sort of boot-camp I guess.  Might get really busy-”[/colour] 

The other team blackjack members had caught up to her head-start and made their way back to the intake house. Calliope the first to trickle in, and closely followed by the pale Brit.  

“Makes sense, think you’ll-”

[colour=BC8F8F]“Sorry, I'm going to have to hang-up.”[/colour]  She said, suddenly intent to end the conversation before any of the others overhear details of her personal life. [colour=BC8F8F]“I just wanted to say bye- but I should be able to slip in a call when we get there.”[/colour]

There was another pause, this time from Carson.  “Everything okay?”

[colour=BC8F8F]“Yeah, I’ve just gotta go for now.  We’ll talk tonight. Promise?”[/colour]

“You got it.”  All the certainty of his delivery was voided by the hesitation that came before it. Not that there was anything she could do about that now.

[colour=BC8F8F]“Love you,”[/colour] She said as goodbye, her pleasant smile turned pinched but voice still jovial over the phone.

“You too.” Was his reply, and they both hung up.

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