Speak

A man's constantly hears a voice but can never see the owner of the voice.

This wasn't the first time he'd heard the invisible woman's voice.

"Eli." She repeated three times with mechanical monotony. 

"Leave me alone Athena. I just wanna lie here today."

"Get up."

Eli groaned as he gave up the charade of being asleep. It wasn't ever worth trying with Athena. She knew when he was awake. She would talk to him in his dreams differently. She was actually nice, almost girly in his dreams. 

He blinked three times, trying to regain the clarify of his vision. On his third blink attempt to regain his sight his eyebrows furrowed together.  This was different. He hadn't been in the King single bed that he had been used to. The clutter of his room a reflection of his mind. Here he was on a couch. An old brown couch that felt as though it had somehow managed to endure through all the hardship it had been put through. His back ached as he tried to sit up and winced at the new found dull tinges of Fire starting up in his back. He ran his hand on the back of his head whilst letting out a deep sigh. Still there. Of course it was. 

The cold hard rectangular plate was still embedded in the back of his neck. He'd toyed with the idea of trying to rip it out hundreds of times but at the end of the day he knew he was too afraid to be able to do something like that alone. 

"Enough lazing around. Get to it. They'll be here any second."

"They who?"

"The owner of the house, the men who are after us, your ex girlfriend, take your pick."

"Well obviously I meant right now. Cmon Athena."

"It's the owner of the house immediately and the men after us in about five minutes time."

He groaned his frustration and sat upright on the couch. From the outside, Eli looked as though he was having a conversation with someone who was just out of sight of the window just about the couch. As he pulled on his faded bomber jacket ontop of his black hoodie he felt a shiver shoot up his spine. Maybe it was the autumn chilled air. Maybe it was his sixth sense for knowing when someone who had bad intentions on his life, had noticed him. The most likely explanation at least right now was Athena sending him a warning that they were close. Her circuitry intertwined around his spine.

His scuffed black boots thudded across the pavement as he noticed a blonde girl with a tight ponytail pass him heading for the apartment foyer he had just left behind. That was close.