—-Whoops! I was in St. Louis all week so I didn’t get much of a chance to focus on this and I forgot to post it. Do I love it? No. But I def didn’t have time to write anything else so here we are. I’ll try my best to post on time and without caveats next time! 🫣—-

It was nauseating. The scent was sour like something left rotting in the hot sun. Pungent and impossible to ignore, but Lorelei tried anyway. It had taken her a week to figure out what the smell was coming from after the first time it assaulted her nose. No one else seemed to notice it. Maybe it’s my imagination she had hoped. Quickly, it became clear that the scent was very real and for some reason, she was the only one who could sense it.

Lorelei groaned. She was bored and sitting on a hard chair for hours made her back ache. Being forced to watch one interrogation after another had made her wonder of it might be less agonizing to be the one getting interrogated. There was a steady flow of people in and out of the room in front of her and her mind was drifting. She was only paying just enough attention to be able to do her job. It’s not like she cared about it anyway. Once the Enforcement Agency was tipped off that Lorelei was a Whiff, she had no choice but to render her services. Whiffs were people who could smell an emotion. Only one emotion. Usually, it was a pleasant emotion like happiness or contentment, but there were rare exceptions. Lorelei was one of those exception. She could smell fear and that kind of ability was desirable.

The next person being interrogated was man who looked as uninterested as she felt. She probably wouldn’t have noticed, except that each subject had arrived to the room with apparent confusion or anger, and to her irritation, they all shared an undercurrent of fear. Maybe this man was just good at masking how he felt, but Lorelei should still be able catch some of the sour scent only she could detect. The weird thing was that she couldn’t. Not a single note of it was polluting the air as she took a deep breath in through her nose. That was unusual and what made her truly look at the man.

He was the kind of person who was forgettable upon first appraisal. Slightly tanned skin, dark hair, and light brown eyes. If she hadn’t been determined to inspect every detail of his appearance, she probably wouldn’t have noticed the devious glint in his eyes or the way he subtly tapped his fingers with impatience on his thigh. How unusual, he’s not like other boys she thought and snorted to herself. He whipped his head to the mesh screen Lorelei sat behind and she clapped her hands over her mouth. He couldn’t see her, but he certainly could hear her. It was similar a one-way mirror that also allowed airflow. The mesh was necessary so she could smell when fear was felt in the room and normally, noise wasn’t an issue. She simply pressed a button whenever there was a new wave of the fear smell. But this was the first time she had been curious about anyone sitting in the chair before her.