[ castiel stares at the phone screen for a long time.

orientation? the more pressing question, of course, was why he was waking up here when he shouldn't be waking up at all, ever again. his brows furrow into a rictus of confusion, before he finally navigates this thumb over to the confirmation "button" and presses yes.

when he's done, he stumbles off the train car into air that's only marginally fresher. somewhere, a florescent light buzzes, and something faintly groans. the plumbing that runs through the building, maybe. he gives the station a perfunctory search before moving toward the exit. ]

[ the first thing castiel does after stepping outside is try to fly. it's a bad idea. he manages a jump of about fifty feet before a wave of dizziness washes over him so strong it knocks him off course. he tumbles, head over tail, and crash-lands inside the building. the smash of his body colliding with and overturning an empty desk might well be the loudest thing around. it's a sound that makes the blood run cold, with the way it splits the silence. that shunts into a person the kind of animal fear that drives them to hide even when they don't know if anything is chasing after.

castiel isn't an animal. he isn't even human. but fear still sits cold and heavy as a stone in his stomach as he crawls up off the floor and straightens out. he can feel his borrowed heart racing in his chest, a distantly familiar tightness in the pit of his throat.

he moves through the building, looking for the exit, trying not to wonder— what's wrong with him? ]

[ his stomach is already growling by the time he exits the labyrinth-like office complex, and he's just lucky enough to find an eatery close by, up the street. somehow it's even more disturbing to find these usual bastions of human activity empty— forget him, there's something clearly wrong with this city— but he can't bring himself to question it when he discovers a hot meal waiting for him in the kitchen of a smaller building with creaky plastic seats.

he moves his (ill-gotten?) gains to one of the tables to eat, clasping the burger in both hands and taking too-big bites as he wolfs down the still-hot food, quickly discovering that he's even hungrier than he thought. ]

[ after eating, castiel's curiosity is sparked. he spends a while longer in the apartment block before doubling back, and after a little investigation, finds the city hall.

he isn't certain if the blank papers filling the filing cabinets he rifles through is more or less disturbing than the empty restaurants, with no servers or wait staff or even chefs to cook the food. he may be ignorant of human life in most ways, but even he understands that this is not how the human world works. the same can be said for the empty hall and its records, sheafs of paper taking place of any real information that might have once been here, like a dollhouse facsimile.

even the angels could make better facades than this. ]

[ it feels like a last ditch effort.

it probably is. he knows there'll be no living person inside, at least not standing behind the counter, and he's not surprised to find that he's right. the shop is small and kitschy, and unnaturally quiet, just like everything else in this odd place, unreality laying as thick as the velvet cover draped over the crystal ball on the table.

he approaches the fortune telling machine, just to see if it'll work. his question is swallowed up by the silence of the city.

the small slip of paper he receives reads: outcome unlikely. he crumples it up and shoves it in his coat pocket. ]