Red Dress

Fool Me Twice spinoff about a particular crimson gown. October 9, 2016.

It was barely touching eighty degrees today.

The breeze ruffled the carefully-cut bushes. Roses pushed out in-between the tight gaps. They were orderly pushed onto the corners of the concrete slabs, cut to conform to its unnaturally sharp edges.

The red bricks were slabbed in swirly circular patterns on the ground in this large garden. The vegetation served as the flanking that enveloped the twentieth-century design and segregated it from the sea. The very same bricks formed structures around them to hold in the trees and hedges.

“So we’re spending an entire afternoon here? This is a great place to be in.” Miles asked in curiosity.

“I thought you asked for lunch before we actually spend the day here.” Luna followed it up. “There’s a cafeteria, up there. Kayla and I ate there a few times.”

She pointed to a pair of concrete staircases painted white that surrounded a central floral area that led upwards to a modest-looking indoor area with metal bars that formed grid lines around the glass walls.

Kayla instinctively walked up the stairs, and held a hand out behind her to stop the two from following her up. She placed her arms over the balcony, and the roses’ aroma caught up with her.

She looked down at them. Two tinier humans on top of a geometrically-precise floor. They looked up in wonder.

“I have a question for you, jerkface.” Kayla plucked a red rose off of the soil a feet from her and sniffed it, but she thought little about it. “Do you like this area?”

She offered a small pause to hear the birds and the motion of the sea.

“It is— well, it does look nice. I don’t know what you expected me to say.” Miles chuckled. “No, really, I don’t know. What did you expect me—“

“That answer is good enough.”

Kayla placed the rose on the slab in front of her, and stared down at it. The wind hurried from the sea to blow its leaves to the left. They were barely hanging on. She gave a smile.

The very next instant she was in a red dress next to the sea. There was still a small platform that formed a space for a few people. 

The howling breeze sailed through the fabric of her full-body piece in the same way in did her hair. It was slightly redder than the shirts she wore. Her head until the first inch of her arms were left bare, and the dress itself bloomed like a tropical flower in one uniform color, spreading out at both the top and bottom edges.

She scratched the non-existent wires that could have supported her dress, and asked Miles another question.
“I could have died or something.” Her face seemed uneasy. “I could have not been here.”

She held onto the rail, and turned back.

“They’re going to take me. If not, anyone else. Not that it mattered to you, Mr Hector.” Kayla’s voice faltered slightly.

“The water is going to come and ruin that dress.” He stared at the base of it, which seemed to plop against the tiles.

“Now.”

The water pushed through the spaces between the metal supports that formed the guard, ran through the colors and her hidden feet.

The water threatened to rush onto the staircase to dampen Miles.

Kayla picked up the red rose again from the balcony.

“Let’s go, Luna.”