Story Title: For Want of a Mask

Angela trudged through the streets, looking right and left every so often to check if anyone was approaching her. When she heard a voice, or the sound of a car coming, she crouched behind a trashcan, or in the shadow of an alcove. The sun had set hours ago, so she could hide in streets…

Brimming with righteous fury, Angela stormed down the staircase, out of the building and halfway down the street, too mad to even pay attention to where she was going. There was no one around, but even if there had been, she might not have noticed. The sun was setting and she had wasted her whole…

In a matter of seconds, the alarm would engage, and Angela would have to explain to a bunch of security guards what she was doing in a high-security engineering office she didn’t work at on a Saturday afternoon. And why she wasn’t wearing any clothes, but that would be the least of her worries. To…

Angela sat in the passenger seat on the way to Mark’s office, feeling almost normal. Her feet were bare, which was a little weird, and obviously she wasn’t wearing any underwear—that seemed especially hard to come by today—but she was covered now, and that was the main thing. Mark had to make a stop to…

Mark, usually so cool and collected, seemed almost more flustered and embarrassed than Angela herself. “A-Angela, w-what, h-how? Are you…? What…? Is this…?” Angela scooted her body around so that she was facing him, but still crouching down to preserve whatever scraps of her modesty remained. “It’s a long story. But I’m so glad you’re…

For the second time that day, Angela found herself attempting to melt into the upholstery of the backseat of a car. She lay flat across the seat, gripping a seatbelt with her left hand. Tammy drove, more jerkily than Angela would have preferred, and her mother sat in the passenger seat, making casual, oblivious conversation….

Angela shot Tammy a pleading look. Tammy looked her up and down, raised an eyebrow, and then looked at her mother. Then she seemed to realize something, and her mouth formed an O shape. “Come along, Angela,” she said, “let’s get you into something… else.” Angela breathed a deep sigh of relief and followed Tammy…

A sign pointing to the bathrooms hung on the ceiling to Angela’s right. She took a deep breath, and sprinted towards it, then turned down the side corridor that led towards the gent’s and lady’s. She burst into an empty lady’s room and hid in a stall. Angela sat down on the toilet seat, trying…

If Angela had known the sign at the entrance of Rosa’s Beauty Salon was serious, she would have never left her mask at home. “Not one more step!” snapped the masked hairdresser, scowling with her eyebrows and gesticulating. “Read the sign!” Angela turned her head in the direction of the hairdresser’s frantic fingers. She’d seen…