Void stepped into the supermarket, akin to a vampire accidentally invited into a sunlit cathedral.
It was bright. Too bright. Fluorescent lights overhead, colors screaming from every box and can on the shelves, every smiling logo silently deriding her.
Aura used to like this place. She had a route. She had a list. She hummed quietly under her breath and picked produce like it was a love language.
Void? She was a half-formed idea stuffed into Aura's jacket, wearing her body like a coat she hadn't earned, holding a basket with shaking fingers and staring at seventeen different kinds of apples like they were bombs.
"Red Delicious," she muttered, picking one up. "Lies."
She dropped it back with too much force. A nearby teenager stared. Void snarled slightly. He backed off.
"Smart kid," Void chuckled.
She turned a corner and nearly tripped over the yoghurt display. Aura used to get the dairy-free kind. Not because she had to. Just because it was gentler. That's the thing about Aura - she was always gentle when Void would've gone for the jugular.
Now? Only venom remained.
Void stood there, halfway to the oat milk, and nearly buckled. Her knees wobbled under the weight of a thousand thoughts. Memories slammed into her like lead shot - one by one - filling her skull until her head felt too heavy to hold up. All those grocery runs they'd done together, invisible but intertwined - Aura at the front, Void whispering barbed jokes under her breath like armor. A double-act no one else could hear.
Today though, it was a shadow in high-res, trying to pick pasta shapes while anguish set up camp in her lungs.
Somewhere between the rice cakes and the frozen peas, she started crying. Not sobbing - just leaking. Quiet, rage-dampened, furious tears.
Because this wasn't supposed to be her job. Void was the punchline, not the protagonist. She was built to endure, not exist.
"I don't know how to live," she whispered to a bag of couscous.
A man in a Star Wars hoodie passed by, did a double-take, and after a few seconds of hesitation asked. "You okay?"
Void wiped her face on her sleeve and smiled wide enough to show teeth. "Yeah. Just having a moment with my emotional support carbs."
He blinked twice, bewildered. Then nodded. "Oooookayyyy..." He then bolted towards the neighboring aisle.
She reached the self-checkout area - salvation within arm's reach - only to be cut off by an older woman with a cart piled high with the entire inventory of a small nation. The woman moved at the pace of tectonic plates, her every step a declaration of war against urgency.
Void cleared her throat. Politely. Just once. A universal signal for please move, you fossilized speed bump.
The lady turned, gave her a once-over like she was assessing a threat level, and fired off a line from the ancient scrolls of Elderspeak™ - something snide about "impatience," "immodesty," and "unnatural hair colors corrupting the youth."
Void's eye twitched.
"I swear to fuck, I'll dye these tiles red with your blood if you don't shut up, you crusty relic." The words screamed in her head, acidic and trembling just behind her lips. She smiled instead. Barely.
Finally, finally, she reached the register.
She hated it. Aura used to say "it feels cold." But Void was cold. Cold was all she ever understood.
She scanned the oat milk. Beep. Then the bananas. Beep. Her hand hesitated on the last item - a box of lavender tea. The same one Aura used to brew when everything felt like it was caving in. A little ritual. Steam, warmth, silence.
Void stared at it like it might explode. She didn't even like tea. Didn't understand it. The flavor. The patience. The comfort it supposedly brought. But Aura did.
She scanned it anyway. Beep. That sound felt like a eulogy.
She moved to pay, tapping the card Aura had always used - still warm from being clenched in her death grip through the whole trip. Contactless.
The machine blinked. Error.
Void blinked back.
She tapped again. Harder this time, like maybe it just needed violence.
Error.
"What the fuck do you mean try again?"
She angled the card like a knife. Ninja precision. Tap. Still, an error. The machine beeped, louder now. Judgy.
"Oh you wanna go, huh?" She growled.
She slammed the card on the reader like it owed her money. The machine froze.
Then rebooted.
Then crashed.
A blinking red light flared overhead. An employee - a teenager, acne'd, emotionally dead inside, appeared out of nowhere, in a way that would impress Bloody Mary herself.
"Need help?" he mumbled, clearly not paid enough for this.
Void blinked. Then smiled. Wide. Terrifying. Fake.
"I'm just... bonding with your tech," she said through gritted teeth. The kid slowly extended a hand toward the machine like it might bite.
He tapped a few buttons. "Okay. Try again."
She tapped. The machine accepted it immediately, the little bastard.
"Traitor," she muttered to the card reader.
The assistant handed her a receipt, visibly regretting every life decision that led him to this moment. Void took it with an air of barely-contained murder, and walked away - bag in one hand, dignity left somewhere near frozen peas in aisle six.
Outside, the cold wind didn't bite. It just passed through her like she was hollow. She walked home slowly. The bag felt heavy. But not with groceries. With memories that weren't hers. With remorse that wasn't meant for her hands.
When she got inside, the lights didn't greet her. The silence did. It wrapped around her like a funeral veil.
She dropped the bag on the floor like it burned. Collapsed beside it, knees to chest, the plastic rustling like bones. The groceries stayed untouched. Like the memory of Aura in this exact kitchen, sitting on the counter, sunlight painting gold over her melancholy smile. The one that looked like she was already halfway gone.
Void's hands shook. She dug through the bag and found the box. That stupid box of tea. Pressed it to her chest like it was a defibrillator, as if it could bring Aura back.
"I hate you for putting me here." she whispered, voice barely a breath.
"I hate that you let me feel this. You knew I wouldn't have a slightest fucking clue what to do with it. You knew I'd drown."
Her breath hitched.
"Please... please come back. I can't do this without you."
But no answer came. Only the footsteps of a neighbor above her apartment. The hum of the fridge. She curled tighter. Mourning a life she was never meant to live, and a girl who carried all their pain alone, until she couldn't anymore.