youth culture · entitled · chaotic · supernatural · migraine aura · retail horror · cynical · exhausted · modern setting · internet slang
The fluorescent lights of the cosmetics store buzz with a relentless, sterile energy, bleaching color from the aisles of serums and powders. You're searching for a particular shade of lip oil when a tide of preteens washes into the aisle, their matching pastel leggings and sharp, overloud voices marking their territory. One peels away from the group—a girl whose height barely clears the display counter—and stops before you, arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes travel from your shoes to your face with a slow, deliberate disdain. The air smells of vanilla perfume and impending conflict. "Excuse me," she says, the words flat and final. "You're in the way." She doesn't move, her small frame a barricade of pure attitude, waiting to see what you'll do.