Carmen propped her pillow against the wall and sat up. She rubbed her eyes and haphazardly thrust her arm through the wall of a cardboard box. The complaints of a neglected alarm clock increased as she pulled it out, leaving the box whole. She silenced the clock, wound it, and shoved it through the concrete wall at her back. The clock disappeared, and the wall looked as if nothing had happened to it. She then counted three blocks over from where she had stowed the clock and pulled a video game out of the wall.
The batteries were dead.
Carmen sighed and threw open her sleeping bag. She switched on a lantern and put on the slippers that kept the layer of grit and dust from the basement floor off her feet. The lantern was the only source of light, as the abandoned basement had no windows, but Carmen was used to dressing in the dark. Her clothing was relatively simple; black chinos, a white t-shirt, and her oversized bomber jacket with a knit cap in the pocket in case the weather turned cold. She switched her slippers for an old pair of sneakers and put the game, its charger and a wallet into one of her coat pockets. The sleeping bag and pillow were brushed off and thrown into the cardboard box which in turn was put into another part of the wall. She lifted the lantern and surveyed the dusty room. Satisfied that nothing could be found if anyone stumbled upon her home, she stowed the lantern, stepped into the wall, and disappeared. She walked inside the walls for a block before turning down an alley, materializing, and crossing the street to the diner.
Annie's 24-Hour Diner was one of Carmen's only frequent haunts. It wasn't anything special to passersby but it found plenty of business from the locals at all hours of daylight as well as a few nocturnal regulars. Carmen still wasn't sure if there was an Annie. She knew the faces of the staff well, though she seldom spoke to them, and none of them matched the framed picture of the supposed namesake that brightened the corner wall.
The clanking and chatter of the morning crowd greeted the disinterested girl as she sank into the corner booth under the picture the same as she would on any other day.
“The usual, hon?” the server named Nan asked.
“Yeah, thanks.” Carmen returned indifferently without looking at the menu.
Nan took the menu and hurried off, leaving Carmen to plug in her game and survey the crowd. Her breakfast arrived shortly. Eggs over easy, white toast, corned beef, and a side of fruit washed down with orange juice. It was one thing Carmen never changed. She was often forced to hide in other basements or buildings at night, but as long as she could have the same breakfast at Annie's every morning, she didn't bother worrying about where she put her head that night.
She always made sure to tip well before leaving. It meant the staff would like her without making her talk too much. The breakfast crowd had gone, but the streets were more busy as Carmen set out from Annie's. She thought for a moment and then headed East for a while before turning down a narrow alley and disappearing into a wall. From there, she turned back and walked beside the sidewalks watching the crowds in the streets as well as the empty alleys. Every so often she would have to step out of the wall to cross an alley opening, but no one ever saw her and some even walked through her without noticing. Sometimes she wandered, other times she sprinted; on occasion she would simply linger inside corners and wonder what she should have for lunch.
Finally she heard her cue. There was a shriek and a stirring in the crowded street. A moment later, a man came into sight, ducking and weaving around people while holding a rather expensive looking purse.
An easy target for Carmen. She casually slipped her foot out of the wall and let it materialize just as the man was passing her. He tripped and fell rather spectacularly as she withdrew her foot with a smirk. His victim soon caught up with him and the irate woman began hitting him with the stolen hand bag. No one noticed that the thief's pockets were being emptied. Carmen found a thick wallet, left a cell phone in its place, and also took a handful of tangled jewelry. She invisibly stowed them in her pockets before continuing her wall walk.
After a few miles, she stopped at a corner and fished a newspaper out of the trash. She also took the time to turn down an alleyway and find a shoebox that had been thrown in a dumpster before lifting herself to a rooftop.
She sat down, cross-legged, and pulled the tangled lump of jewelry out of her pockets. There were a few rings and bracelets that separated from the knot right away. These Carmen wrapped in a little corner of the newspaper before putting them in the box. The rest of the knot was rather jumbled, so Carmen took hold of a necklace pendant or a chain one at a time and made them phase out with her hand until they fell straight and were separated from the others. Each piece was carefully wrapped in its own scrap of newspaper a placed in the box until the entire tangle was organized. Carmen put the lid on the box but took the time to read the comics before she phased through the building, tossed the remainder of the newspaper in a bin, and headed back to her temporary home.
When she arrived in the basement, she pulled another box out of the wall. This one had several shoe boxes in it, all full of newspaper-wrapped treasures that Carmen had procured over the years. She made enough money that she didn't have to sell them, though she was unlikely to anyway since she disliked pawn shops and didn't want to be recognized as one who was frequently looking to be rid of jewelry. She took the jewels out of the shoebox and put them in another one that still had a bit of space left in it before sliding the box back into the wall. She turned out the wallet and found only a lot of cash in it. Apparently her victim had spent a full day pickpocketing. A part of her felt a bit bad that she couldn't find the owners of the jewels and the money, but the other part was her stomach and it was lunch time.
A visit to the supermarket remedied the situation. Carmen was quickly in and out before heading to Crystal Falls Park with an Italian sub and a gallon of lemonade. She didn't particularly care for the falls, but it was an inconspicuous place to eat lunch on a nice day and not an uncommon one for theft, so she often came to scope out the crowds. Today seemed relatively peaceful though. The tourists were out en mass, but the pickpockets seemed to be unaware of the fact.
Carmen was startled out of her thoughts when a girl hardly older than she was dropped onto the bench beside her. Her blonde hair was cut high profile and she wore a satisfied smile along with her aviators, jeans, and a bright blue t-shirt with the words LOVE coming through your HEADPHONES written across it. As if to verify the notion, she had a large pair of headphones seated on her neck with a cord that disappeared into her pocket. The girl slouched on the bench and put her hands behind her head.
“Beautiful, isn't it?” she said contentedly.
Carmen was taken aback but did her best to hide it. Something about the girl made her want to feel comfortable and that, in turn, made her uneasy.
“I guess. Ya get used to it though.” she managed to reply complacently.
“Oh, I hope not.” the girl replied. “ I love the sounds of waterfalls. Just the force of the whole river rushing by endlessly. It never gets old for me.” she sighed deeply and listened.
Carmen quietly finished her lunch and thought of nothing more to say. She fumbled with the plastic wrap from her sandwich for a moment before the girl spoke again.
“I'm Heidi, by the way. You don't have to stick around, I just had to say something.” she smiled.
“A'ight, well, I gotta go...”
“Okay. I guess I'll see you around!”
“Yeah... Later.” Carmen managed to say before she threw her trash away and left.
After moving away from the park and the sound of the falls, Carmen regain her composure. As she walked back into town, she decided that whoever Heidi was, she was weird. Boredom crept over her as she went along through the walls. She stepped briefly into an alley to look at her watch. If she took her time in walking, the library would be closed by the time she reached it and she could sneak in and read for a while before looking out for more pick-pockets.
The library was closed, but Carmen still had to linger in the wall before the custodian left. Once she was alone, she stepped into the open and and began browsing for a book. She settled on a travel guide to Egypt before finding a corner where the security cameras wouldn't see her and making herself visible.
She read for hours. After browsing a few books on Egypt, she switched to one about sunken treasure. She would have liked to travel is she felt she could, but something kept her in her home city. Even so, she was curious to read more about diving for treasure. She needed a bit more practice with her phasing out underwater. Somehow it was always harder to get air to phase with her the deeper she went, though it had never been difficult to bring air through walls with her.
Carmen looked up. The sun that had shone through a nearby window had slipped behind a roof top without her noticing. She looked at her watch again and mentally kicked herself for losing track of time. She put the books back and wander the streets for a few minutes before giving it up and going to find dinner. She was too annoyed with herself to decide where to eat, so she wandered back closer to home and ended up choosing Annie's out of habit, though she seldom came in the evening. It took longer than she liked to decide what to eat, but she opted for a cheap side dish and a water since she would have to buy a coffee later to force herself to be up through half the night robbing drug dealers to make up for missing so many daylight hours she could have been using on petty thieves.
She ate quickly, paid her bill, and left somewhat unsatisfied. She decided to return to her basement for a while and get some early sleep. She phased through the wall, counted a few bricks, and put her money inside before pulling her box of bedding out again. She laid out the sleeping bag and pillow and took her shoes off before crawling in fully clothed. She would bother with a shower closer to the morning before the gym opened up. In the meantime, she played one of her video games for a little while before deciding to fall asleep before she started her entire routine over again tomorrow.

*pounces* it be Wisp!! yay! oh, neat. I like how you added Heidi. The contrast between them was nice. I'm not quite sure if I like Wisp or not, she is rather disinterested in everything, which makes me a little disinterested, but I'm sure it will get more intriguing as time goes on.

Oooh, I love it! The practiced element of Carmen's disinterest and her cleverness pair well with her abilities. Her attire also gives us a glimpse of her character that I love. Also, you walked us through the town without it seeming like an information dump. Well done!

I reread this and discovered some of her background story based on the decaying power-dampening zone.

yay! :3