3.02
An Imago of Rust and Crimson
Chapter 3.02
I couldn't help it. I felt the coldness of the Other Place rush over me, like I'd suddenly stepped into a walk-in freezer. I gritted my teeth and tried to put it out of my mind, but I couldn't. I simply couldn't. It was the same confused panic that I'd needed to beat to get a grip on my powers. Fear squirmed in my head. I couldn't get rid of it, couldn't clear my mind. All I could think was that it was them.
The smell of the Other lunch hall was thick and glutinous, tasted more than smelt, sharp rot and sickly fat slapping my tongue. Ogres lurked ahead of me serving behind the counter, holding their ladles like clubs. I gripped onto my filthy tray, focussing on it. I wasn't going to turn around. Not until I calmed down. I didn't want to see them in the Other Place. I knew they were monsters in real life. I didn't need my creepy power to tell me that. It might not have shown the school as the living hell it was, but that was probably just because it was diluted across the whole student body. I didn't need to see the specifics. Especially not for them.
The guilt was on their hands. They'd carried it with them. I could smell the locker again. Had they not washed since then? The blood and filth and rot was right behind me. I could see them in the tarnished metal of the counters. God, how had I not noticed them? Had I just been too ready to pretend I'd never see them again, or had they cut in line to 'greet' me?
My tray clattered against the metal rail. My hands were shaking and my knees felt like jelly. They were going to get me. The three-headed monster was going to grab me and drag me back and… and they'd stuff me in there again. I wouldn't get out this time. No one would notice. Just like last time.
I heard Emma say something, but I wasn't listening. I couldn't listen. The smell was overpowering. Something patted me on the back, and I nearly screamed. I could feel the moisture seeping into me. Staining my clothes. Creeping and crawling over my skin. Leaving me dirty. Sullied. Unclean.
Focussing on my breathing, I tried to ignore the stench. I could taste the air. Each breath made me gag.
I had to get out of there. My vision in the Other Place stayed clear, but I could feel my eyes welling up. I left my tray on the rail and turned on my heel. I didn't have any destination. I just needed to get away from them. I didn't know what I'd do if they followed me. Hounds made of clotted blood and angels covered in snipping blades flashed through my head and I didn't know why I hadn't made them already. Why I wasn't I making those three suffer? There had to be a reason why I hadn't done it yet. There had to be.
Ah.
That was it. I was the good one. They were the villains. That was my lifeline. That was what I had to cling to, to stop me doing what I really, really wanted to do. To stop me giving them what they deserved. I wasn't even sure if the whispering I heard as I walked past table after table of monsters was real or not. I was just focussed on getting out of there, before I broke down entirely or did something I'd regret. Something they'd regret.
Just as I reached the corridor and safety, I made the mistake of looking back. They hadn't followed me. They were still in the lunch line. And they looked enough like themselves for me to recognise them.
Emma had no skin.
Emma had no skin.
I could see the wet, naked redness of her hands and neck. Her clothes were soaked crimson, and there was a pottery mask stapled to her face. It was sculpted to look like her features, but it was cracked and broken and red wept from the fractures and eye holes.
I gasped. I tried to cover it up, but I couldn't.
Compared to her, the other two weren't… weren't quite so bad. Sophia's skin was a thin paper layer over leaking, creeping black smoke. Her features had an animal cast, a snarling savage look that made me think of werewolf movies. Madison had two faces each with two twisted horns, living side by side and splitting her head in two. Their mouths took turns muttering, though I couldn't pick out the words. Her hands were blood-stained.
Oh, thank you Other Place. Yes, Sophia has a dark side and Madison is a two-faced cow. No fundamental insights there. But Emma – I had no idea what was going on there.
I'd like to think I managed to come up with all those observations on the spot. Of course I didn't. I could barely think. I fled. It was that simple. I ran away. I couldn't face it. I couldn't even be in the same room as those three. I ran away and locked myself in a cubicle in one of the girls' bathrooms – a safe one this time, luckily – and cried. I couldn't even get into the right state of mind to use my powers to calm myself. It took me long minutes to force myself out of the Other Place, back into the relative relief of a cramped, graffiti-coated toilet cubicle.
Blotting my eyes on the toilet paper, I took a great shuddering breath. I knew I looked like a mess. Some of my foundation was coming off on the paper, so I'd need to reapply that before the afternoon lessons. My eyes stung with salt, the way they only do when you've been crying too long.
I blew my nose on the soggy toilet paper as quietly as I could. Other people had probably already heard me in here, but I didn't want to make it worse for myself.
Goddammit. Breaking down crying on my first day. I couldn't really hope they hadn't realised what I was doing. There was only one reason I'd run away like that. I could look forwards to all kinds of rumours being spread about me. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. I'd cried, and they'd use that to make me cry again. They knew I was weak. Pathetic. Couldn't even look them in the eyes.
Fuck it. So much for any hope that becoming a parahuman would give me the confidence to stand up to them. Of course, my powers really could do that. I could lock away my fear, if I was strong enough.
And then I'd probably go and do something horrible to them with my powers, and the feds would be brought in and then I'd be the villain. Only the fact that I was scared of the consequences was stopping me from doing something wrong.
Fuck it all.
I don't know how I made it through the rest of the school day. I very nearly didn't. I was on the verge of calling Dad and asking to be picked up, but I just… I just didn't want to look weak. It wasn't like they'd really said anything. They hadn't even touched me. And what if he didn't understand? Sure, he'd act understanding, but he'd… he'd think I was crazy for breaking into tears just at the sight of them.
And the school would definitely find out if I told him. Yes. I couldn't let them know. It would mean that if they did anything really serious, I might not be believed. It would be like crying wolf. What would I be able to tell them? 'I saw them and they said a few things and I broke down?' They wouldn't do anything about that. They wouldn't want to do anything about that. They'd just be all 'we can't punish them just because you saw them, can we?' and I wouldn't be fucking patronised like that. I couldn't take it.
I'd… I'd just wait. Wait them out. I could stand it, if they didn't do anything worse. If they did do something worse, I'd have something more serious I could take to the school.
If they fucking touched me or my things or… or anything, that would be it.
So I just wrapped myself in Isolation and went to my lessons. That was fine. I was safe in Isolation. Anyway, one of the lessons was Computer Studies and I was still in my old class for that. That meant I just had to confirm I'd done the reading I'd been set. Which was easy. The machine at home might not have been new, but half the class didn't have a desktop at all, even one running Windows 2002 with a fan which sounded like a dying hovercraft. I was left alone to browse the web after I'd done the simple bit of 'research' they set us and filled out the multiple choice questions.
So, with nothing else to do, I navigated to the us.parahumans portal, and started looking for stuff about me. I guess I just wanted some reassurance. I wanted to know that I was making a difference. That I wasn't just a pathetic loser who couldn't even look them in the face.
No one was talking about me. I hadn't made the Brockton Bay PPD official listings of active parahumans. There wasn't even anything on the 'unconfirmed sightings' or 'rumours' mailing lists of various fansites.
Which might mean they were covering me up, I thought hopefully. After all, if they thought I was part of a secret government conspiracy, of course they wouldn't shout my name from the rooftops. Or maybe they just hadn't got around to it.
I was tearing up again, so I quietly wiped my eyes and blew my nose on some toilet paper I'd stuffed in my pockets. I still would have liked some acknowledgement. Just something to say that I was making a difference. I checked the New England Tribune website. At least they still had their web articles on the police raid. They were talking all about 'inhumane conditions' and 'arrests made'. At least I'd done something there! I… I didn't need public acknowledgement! At least the people in charge would know that Panopticon had made the difference there!
I didn't need the approval of the general public. I… I didn't.
The air in the computer lab was hot and stuffy, the CRTs and the machines whirring away. I fanned myself with my notebook, trying to cool down. They had the door open, but it didn't help. This room was totally intolerable in summer, but it was still too hot now, even though the sky looked overcast and like it might rain. I checked for the teacher. They were helping someone who apparently still hadn't grasped that you needed to save something to be able to find it again later.
Heaving a sigh, I sunk forward, elbows on the keyboard. I was hungry. I'd missed lunch. I'd need to lurk around in Isolation in future, and make sure they weren't there before I dropped it to get food. God. My life was so fucked up. My morning hadn't been too bad. Tolerable, even. And then this had ruined everything. I hated those three so much.
They deserved to suffer. Emma, Madison and Sophia. The school wasn't going to do anything. Dad had said that the police had told him that they didn't have any forensics and without witnesses, there was no case. So maybe it was up to me. I wouldn't do anything too bad to them. I was the good guy, after all, while if they had powers they'd totally be villains. But if I got caught I'd be in deep shit. They were pretty, popular, and they had contacts like Emma's dad, who was a lawyer. And my power wasn't exactly PR-friendly. No. I was the good one. I couldn't go Carrie on them.
But if any of them did happen to have a breakdown and confess to everything, that'd just be justice, right?
Trying to keep quiet, I tore a page out of my notebook and started drawing. I wasn't too great at it, but I was thinking of Other Place creatures. The scribbles and abandoned lines and weird proportions almost helped. It was all about the feel and the ideas and above all, my imagination. The pencil and the paper were just a way to lock the ideas down.
I narrowed my eyes. Go Carrie on them. I couldn't, but thinking about it, that wasn't the right Stephen King book. And no, not Firestarter either. I couldn't do that. Or Pet Semetary. Actually, considering how screwed up my power was, it might even let me reanimate corpses as evil twisted parodies of themselves. I would probably want to avoid that. Likewise, it probably could do the whole It thing with the fears and stuff. Hopefully with less underage sex. And the less said about Haven or St. George or Rage, the better.
Working through my mother's Stephen King collection when I was about eleven was probably a bad influence. I'll just cut to the chase – I was thinking of Thinner. My pencil scratched out a shape. It started out as a wolf with wide-open slathering jaws, but it turned out I wasn't very good at drawing legs, so I'd decided a snake would be easier. A skeletal snake made of rusty metal, its mouth open wide but its iron ribs spilling open, so it could never feel full. Thin and wasting away. Just like Emma would.
Wait, wouldn't that just make her hungry all the time? She'd eat too much because she wouldn't know how to stop. I chewed the end of my pencil, thinking. I'd originally thought about making everyone think she was anorexic, but that worked too. In fact, in some ways it worked better. After all, she was so proud of her stupid amateur modelling. Being too thin was probably a plus for that. But that'd be ruined if she got fat from stuffing her face at every meal, and no one would suspect anything except for her being a pig.
Sure, it wouldn't do anything to make her actually confess to what she'd done, but you know what? Emma had it coming. And the others too. I'd need to think up something for them. As the bell rang for the end of the day, everyone else rushed out of the stuffy room, but I took my time. I didn't want to be caught in the crowds, and anyway, I had to recreate Isolation.
It was a good thing I did. Madison was waiting for me outside. Not in an obvious place. She'd tucked herself into a recess in the wall, next to the fire extinguisher cabinet. I almost didn't notice her. I probably wouldn't have, if I hadn't still been in the Other Place and heard her muttering.
I flattened myself against the opposite wall, not caring that I was in Isolation. My breath came in gasps, and I felt faint. She… she'd actually been waiting for me here? I edged away, ignoring the flakes of rotting paint rubbing off on my clothes. The wall's bare concrete was solid, a reassuring surface, and the faint whirr of my circling rust-red butterflies reminded me that I was safe. I was going to control myself. I wasn't going to scream.
Swallowing and focussing, I emptied my mind and left the Other Place. No, it wasn't someone else who just happened to look the same to my powers. It was her. She was wearing new jeans and a pale pink fitted t-shirt with the slogan '24/7 Me Time'. Madison might not have been attractive in the same way Emma was, but she was still prettier than me. That wasn't really much of an accomplishment, but she was all petite compared to my lanky beanpole-ness, had brown hair which was naturally straight and didn't go frizzy in the rain, and above all got on with people. Stupid people who couldn't see how horrible she was.
What did she want? What was she going to do? She didn't have anything in her hands, so she at least she hadn't been waiting to throw something at me. She liked her 'practical jokes'. You know, funny stuff like emptying pencil shavings down the back of my neck, or 'accidentally' dropping an open juice carton in my bag. Still, she was waiting for me out here, and that meant she was planning something. Anyway, no one who was up to any good would be lurking like that.
I sniffed, then squared my jaw. So, seeing me cry at lunchtime wasn't enough, was it? I'd shown weakness in front of them, and they'd smelt blood. Rotting, stinking… I shook my head. No. I wouldn't dwell on that. I peered at her through my spectacles, pressed into her little beige corner, hugging her book-bag tight. Was there something in it? What could she want?
Fuck it. I was hungry, and the day was over. I just had to get out of here. I could grab something to eat on the way home and put the hellish existence that was to once more be my daily school life out of mind. For all of twelve-ish hours, before I had to get ready to do all over again.
I didn't hang around. The weather had got worse, and now the clouds were iron grey. The street lamps had been turned on early, and looking to the east, I could see the night-lights of the Boardwalk already shining their advertising slogans up at the grey sky. The smart thing to do would be to get home before it started raining, but at this point I didn't even care.
The cars zoomed past. I stamped down the sidewalk, hands thrust into my pockets, ignoring the other pedestrians in their brightly coloured waterproofs. None of them knew me. I just had to get away. To be alone for a while. Home wouldn't be a good place for that, not once Dad got back. Hell, there was a good chance he was home already, waiting for me as a 'surprise' after my first day back, and I… I just needed to get away. To calm down.
Also, I was hungry.
So I'd take the long way home. If he asked where I'd been, I'd just needed to talk to some teacher after school about my first day back. Hah! If the school had been not-shit, they'd have done that anyway. So, actually, I'd just tell him I couldn't find the teacher I'd been looking for, because I certainly wasn't going to cover their asses for them.
Walking through some parts of Brockton Bay was like walking through time. There's nothing new, just different layers of old and ignored. I cut through the old theatre circuit around Ferryman, leaving the grey Sixties area around Winslow in favour of crumbling facades from the Twenties. The theatres were almost all gone, and the cinemas which had taken their place were mostly bankrupt too. Even the Eighties in-town mall was bland concrete. I could hardly tell what colour they'd originally painted it, it was so faded and covered in graffiti. It barely looked any different in the Other Place, apart from gaining a slightly predatory air from all the famine-victim faces sprouting from the walls.
I could read that Other Place metaphor just fine. What happens to a business that's all about buy-buy-buy when the people stop buying? It starves.
Sighing, I returned to the normal world. My glasses were fogged up, so I took them off to polish them. When I put them back on, the blur in front of me became a black cat, scavenging in piles of garbage stacked up in the street. It stared at me, its amber gaze feral.
"I'm not here to take your food, kitty," I told it. I felt a drop of rain land on me. "You'll want to get under cover," I told it. "Else you'll get all wet."
It didn't pay any attention, but I picked up the pace. I didn't want to get drenched.
No such luck. It started raining. Heavily. I hated this day.
I ducked into the nearest shop, which turned out to be a discount electronics store. It smelt of ozone and heated plastic, and the shelves bulged with mismatched boxes. Fans whined overhead. I pretended to be browsing for something. Most of the goods had their labels written in Spanish, made in South American factories. The warranties would probably all be invalid or dodgy. That was the cost of not being able to afford the expensive tinkerfab things from shops on the Boardwalk. The fluorescent light was too bright, which only made the gloom outside more of a contrast. Sighing, I stared out at the rain, counting the cars which zipped past the dollar store on the other side of the road. A police car went screaming by, the lights a patch of colour out in the darkness.
I could have sent Sniffer or a barbed-wire cherub to follow them, to see what was going on. I could have. But what would be the point? I looked around this cheap shop full of cheap electronics run by cheap men. Was there anything here worth protecting? I had all these powers and none of them did anything to make things better.
Massaging my brow, I screwed my eyes shut. Maybe it was just low blood sugar. And being in a shit mood. I knew I'd made a difference with the sweatshop. I'd saved people, saved lives. I'd just need to find somewhere else I could change things for the better. I'd find more parahumans and see what their powers looked like. Anything was better than thinking about how shit school was.
Across the road, a red-lit sign flickered above a dollar store. I wondered if they had a map of Brockton Bay in there. If my power was good for one thing, it was finding out what was really going on. If I was going to take up jogging, I'd see more of the city. I should be able to mark down places where the Other Place showed bad things were happening.
I laughed bitterly to myself. I guessed what I was really going to be looking for was a cause.
Chapter 3.02
I couldn't help it. I felt the coldness of the Other Place rush over me, like I'd suddenly stepped into a walk-in freezer. I gritted my teeth and tried to put it out of my mind, but I couldn't. I simply couldn't. It was the same confused panic that I'd needed to beat to get a grip on my powers. Fear squirmed in my head. I couldn't get rid of it, couldn't clear my mind. All I could think was that it was them.
The smell of the Other lunch hall was thick and glutinous, tasted more than smelt, sharp rot and sickly fat slapping my tongue. Ogres lurked ahead of me serving behind the counter, holding their ladles like clubs. I gripped onto my filthy tray, focussing on it. I wasn't going to turn around. Not until I calmed down. I didn't want to see them in the Other Place. I knew they were monsters in real life. I didn't need my creepy power to tell me that. It might not have shown the school as the living hell it was, but that was probably just because it was diluted across the whole student body. I didn't need to see the specifics. Especially not for them.
The guilt was on their hands. They'd carried it with them. I could smell the locker again. Had they not washed since then? The blood and filth and rot was right behind me. I could see them in the tarnished metal of the counters. God, how had I not noticed them? Had I just been too ready to pretend I'd never see them again, or had they cut in line to 'greet' me?
My tray clattered against the metal rail. My hands were shaking and my knees felt like jelly. They were going to get me. The three-headed monster was going to grab me and drag me back and… and they'd stuff me in there again. I wouldn't get out this time. No one would notice. Just like last time.
I heard Emma say something, but I wasn't listening. I couldn't listen. The smell was overpowering. Something patted me on the back, and I nearly screamed. I could feel the moisture seeping into me. Staining my clothes. Creeping and crawling over my skin. Leaving me dirty. Sullied. Unclean.
Focussing on my breathing, I tried to ignore the stench. I could taste the air. Each breath made me gag.
I had to get out of there. My vision in the Other Place stayed clear, but I could feel my eyes welling up. I left my tray on the rail and turned on my heel. I didn't have any destination. I just needed to get away from them. I didn't know what I'd do if they followed me. Hounds made of clotted blood and angels covered in snipping blades flashed through my head and I didn't know why I hadn't made them already. Why I wasn't I making those three suffer? There had to be a reason why I hadn't done it yet. There had to be.
Ah.
That was it. I was the good one. They were the villains. That was my lifeline. That was what I had to cling to, to stop me doing what I really, really wanted to do. To stop me giving them what they deserved. I wasn't even sure if the whispering I heard as I walked past table after table of monsters was real or not. I was just focussed on getting out of there, before I broke down entirely or did something I'd regret. Something they'd regret.
Just as I reached the corridor and safety, I made the mistake of looking back. They hadn't followed me. They were still in the lunch line. And they looked enough like themselves for me to recognise them.
Emma had no skin.
Emma had no skin.
I could see the wet, naked redness of her hands and neck. Her clothes were soaked crimson, and there was a pottery mask stapled to her face. It was sculpted to look like her features, but it was cracked and broken and red wept from the fractures and eye holes.
I gasped. I tried to cover it up, but I couldn't.
Compared to her, the other two weren't… weren't quite so bad. Sophia's skin was a thin paper layer over leaking, creeping black smoke. Her features had an animal cast, a snarling savage look that made me think of werewolf movies. Madison had two faces each with two twisted horns, living side by side and splitting her head in two. Their mouths took turns muttering, though I couldn't pick out the words. Her hands were blood-stained.
Oh, thank you Other Place. Yes, Sophia has a dark side and Madison is a two-faced cow. No fundamental insights there. But Emma – I had no idea what was going on there.
I'd like to think I managed to come up with all those observations on the spot. Of course I didn't. I could barely think. I fled. It was that simple. I ran away. I couldn't face it. I couldn't even be in the same room as those three. I ran away and locked myself in a cubicle in one of the girls' bathrooms – a safe one this time, luckily – and cried. I couldn't even get into the right state of mind to use my powers to calm myself. It took me long minutes to force myself out of the Other Place, back into the relative relief of a cramped, graffiti-coated toilet cubicle.
Blotting my eyes on the toilet paper, I took a great shuddering breath. I knew I looked like a mess. Some of my foundation was coming off on the paper, so I'd need to reapply that before the afternoon lessons. My eyes stung with salt, the way they only do when you've been crying too long.
I blew my nose on the soggy toilet paper as quietly as I could. Other people had probably already heard me in here, but I didn't want to make it worse for myself.
Goddammit. Breaking down crying on my first day. I couldn't really hope they hadn't realised what I was doing. There was only one reason I'd run away like that. I could look forwards to all kinds of rumours being spread about me. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. I'd cried, and they'd use that to make me cry again. They knew I was weak. Pathetic. Couldn't even look them in the eyes.
Fuck it. So much for any hope that becoming a parahuman would give me the confidence to stand up to them. Of course, my powers really could do that. I could lock away my fear, if I was strong enough.
And then I'd probably go and do something horrible to them with my powers, and the feds would be brought in and then I'd be the villain. Only the fact that I was scared of the consequences was stopping me from doing something wrong.
Fuck it all.
I don't know how I made it through the rest of the school day. I very nearly didn't. I was on the verge of calling Dad and asking to be picked up, but I just… I just didn't want to look weak. It wasn't like they'd really said anything. They hadn't even touched me. And what if he didn't understand? Sure, he'd act understanding, but he'd… he'd think I was crazy for breaking into tears just at the sight of them.
And the school would definitely find out if I told him. Yes. I couldn't let them know. It would mean that if they did anything really serious, I might not be believed. It would be like crying wolf. What would I be able to tell them? 'I saw them and they said a few things and I broke down?' They wouldn't do anything about that. They wouldn't want to do anything about that. They'd just be all 'we can't punish them just because you saw them, can we?' and I wouldn't be fucking patronised like that. I couldn't take it.
I'd… I'd just wait. Wait them out. I could stand it, if they didn't do anything worse. If they did do something worse, I'd have something more serious I could take to the school.
If they fucking touched me or my things or… or anything, that would be it.
So I just wrapped myself in Isolation and went to my lessons. That was fine. I was safe in Isolation. Anyway, one of the lessons was Computer Studies and I was still in my old class for that. That meant I just had to confirm I'd done the reading I'd been set. Which was easy. The machine at home might not have been new, but half the class didn't have a desktop at all, even one running Windows 2002 with a fan which sounded like a dying hovercraft. I was left alone to browse the web after I'd done the simple bit of 'research' they set us and filled out the multiple choice questions.
So, with nothing else to do, I navigated to the us.parahumans portal, and started looking for stuff about me. I guess I just wanted some reassurance. I wanted to know that I was making a difference. That I wasn't just a pathetic loser who couldn't even look them in the face.
No one was talking about me. I hadn't made the Brockton Bay PPD official listings of active parahumans. There wasn't even anything on the 'unconfirmed sightings' or 'rumours' mailing lists of various fansites.
Which might mean they were covering me up, I thought hopefully. After all, if they thought I was part of a secret government conspiracy, of course they wouldn't shout my name from the rooftops. Or maybe they just hadn't got around to it.
I was tearing up again, so I quietly wiped my eyes and blew my nose on some toilet paper I'd stuffed in my pockets. I still would have liked some acknowledgement. Just something to say that I was making a difference. I checked the New England Tribune website. At least they still had their web articles on the police raid. They were talking all about 'inhumane conditions' and 'arrests made'. At least I'd done something there! I… I didn't need public acknowledgement! At least the people in charge would know that Panopticon had made the difference there!
I didn't need the approval of the general public. I… I didn't.
The air in the computer lab was hot and stuffy, the CRTs and the machines whirring away. I fanned myself with my notebook, trying to cool down. They had the door open, but it didn't help. This room was totally intolerable in summer, but it was still too hot now, even though the sky looked overcast and like it might rain. I checked for the teacher. They were helping someone who apparently still hadn't grasped that you needed to save something to be able to find it again later.
Heaving a sigh, I sunk forward, elbows on the keyboard. I was hungry. I'd missed lunch. I'd need to lurk around in Isolation in future, and make sure they weren't there before I dropped it to get food. God. My life was so fucked up. My morning hadn't been too bad. Tolerable, even. And then this had ruined everything. I hated those three so much.
They deserved to suffer. Emma, Madison and Sophia. The school wasn't going to do anything. Dad had said that the police had told him that they didn't have any forensics and without witnesses, there was no case. So maybe it was up to me. I wouldn't do anything too bad to them. I was the good guy, after all, while if they had powers they'd totally be villains. But if I got caught I'd be in deep shit. They were pretty, popular, and they had contacts like Emma's dad, who was a lawyer. And my power wasn't exactly PR-friendly. No. I was the good one. I couldn't go Carrie on them.
But if any of them did happen to have a breakdown and confess to everything, that'd just be justice, right?
Trying to keep quiet, I tore a page out of my notebook and started drawing. I wasn't too great at it, but I was thinking of Other Place creatures. The scribbles and abandoned lines and weird proportions almost helped. It was all about the feel and the ideas and above all, my imagination. The pencil and the paper were just a way to lock the ideas down.
I narrowed my eyes. Go Carrie on them. I couldn't, but thinking about it, that wasn't the right Stephen King book. And no, not Firestarter either. I couldn't do that. Or Pet Semetary. Actually, considering how screwed up my power was, it might even let me reanimate corpses as evil twisted parodies of themselves. I would probably want to avoid that. Likewise, it probably could do the whole It thing with the fears and stuff. Hopefully with less underage sex. And the less said about Haven or St. George or Rage, the better.
Working through my mother's Stephen King collection when I was about eleven was probably a bad influence. I'll just cut to the chase – I was thinking of Thinner. My pencil scratched out a shape. It started out as a wolf with wide-open slathering jaws, but it turned out I wasn't very good at drawing legs, so I'd decided a snake would be easier. A skeletal snake made of rusty metal, its mouth open wide but its iron ribs spilling open, so it could never feel full. Thin and wasting away. Just like Emma would.
Wait, wouldn't that just make her hungry all the time? She'd eat too much because she wouldn't know how to stop. I chewed the end of my pencil, thinking. I'd originally thought about making everyone think she was anorexic, but that worked too. In fact, in some ways it worked better. After all, she was so proud of her stupid amateur modelling. Being too thin was probably a plus for that. But that'd be ruined if she got fat from stuffing her face at every meal, and no one would suspect anything except for her being a pig.
Sure, it wouldn't do anything to make her actually confess to what she'd done, but you know what? Emma had it coming. And the others too. I'd need to think up something for them. As the bell rang for the end of the day, everyone else rushed out of the stuffy room, but I took my time. I didn't want to be caught in the crowds, and anyway, I had to recreate Isolation.
It was a good thing I did. Madison was waiting for me outside. Not in an obvious place. She'd tucked herself into a recess in the wall, next to the fire extinguisher cabinet. I almost didn't notice her. I probably wouldn't have, if I hadn't still been in the Other Place and heard her muttering.
I flattened myself against the opposite wall, not caring that I was in Isolation. My breath came in gasps, and I felt faint. She… she'd actually been waiting for me here? I edged away, ignoring the flakes of rotting paint rubbing off on my clothes. The wall's bare concrete was solid, a reassuring surface, and the faint whirr of my circling rust-red butterflies reminded me that I was safe. I was going to control myself. I wasn't going to scream.
Swallowing and focussing, I emptied my mind and left the Other Place. No, it wasn't someone else who just happened to look the same to my powers. It was her. She was wearing new jeans and a pale pink fitted t-shirt with the slogan '24/7 Me Time'. Madison might not have been attractive in the same way Emma was, but she was still prettier than me. That wasn't really much of an accomplishment, but she was all petite compared to my lanky beanpole-ness, had brown hair which was naturally straight and didn't go frizzy in the rain, and above all got on with people. Stupid people who couldn't see how horrible she was.
What did she want? What was she going to do? She didn't have anything in her hands, so she at least she hadn't been waiting to throw something at me. She liked her 'practical jokes'. You know, funny stuff like emptying pencil shavings down the back of my neck, or 'accidentally' dropping an open juice carton in my bag. Still, she was waiting for me out here, and that meant she was planning something. Anyway, no one who was up to any good would be lurking like that.
I sniffed, then squared my jaw. So, seeing me cry at lunchtime wasn't enough, was it? I'd shown weakness in front of them, and they'd smelt blood. Rotting, stinking… I shook my head. No. I wouldn't dwell on that. I peered at her through my spectacles, pressed into her little beige corner, hugging her book-bag tight. Was there something in it? What could she want?
Fuck it. I was hungry, and the day was over. I just had to get out of here. I could grab something to eat on the way home and put the hellish existence that was to once more be my daily school life out of mind. For all of twelve-ish hours, before I had to get ready to do all over again.
I didn't hang around. The weather had got worse, and now the clouds were iron grey. The street lamps had been turned on early, and looking to the east, I could see the night-lights of the Boardwalk already shining their advertising slogans up at the grey sky. The smart thing to do would be to get home before it started raining, but at this point I didn't even care.
The cars zoomed past. I stamped down the sidewalk, hands thrust into my pockets, ignoring the other pedestrians in their brightly coloured waterproofs. None of them knew me. I just had to get away. To be alone for a while. Home wouldn't be a good place for that, not once Dad got back. Hell, there was a good chance he was home already, waiting for me as a 'surprise' after my first day back, and I… I just needed to get away. To calm down.
Also, I was hungry.
So I'd take the long way home. If he asked where I'd been, I'd just needed to talk to some teacher after school about my first day back. Hah! If the school had been not-shit, they'd have done that anyway. So, actually, I'd just tell him I couldn't find the teacher I'd been looking for, because I certainly wasn't going to cover their asses for them.
Walking through some parts of Brockton Bay was like walking through time. There's nothing new, just different layers of old and ignored. I cut through the old theatre circuit around Ferryman, leaving the grey Sixties area around Winslow in favour of crumbling facades from the Twenties. The theatres were almost all gone, and the cinemas which had taken their place were mostly bankrupt too. Even the Eighties in-town mall was bland concrete. I could hardly tell what colour they'd originally painted it, it was so faded and covered in graffiti. It barely looked any different in the Other Place, apart from gaining a slightly predatory air from all the famine-victim faces sprouting from the walls.
I could read that Other Place metaphor just fine. What happens to a business that's all about buy-buy-buy when the people stop buying? It starves.
Sighing, I returned to the normal world. My glasses were fogged up, so I took them off to polish them. When I put them back on, the blur in front of me became a black cat, scavenging in piles of garbage stacked up in the street. It stared at me, its amber gaze feral.
"I'm not here to take your food, kitty," I told it. I felt a drop of rain land on me. "You'll want to get under cover," I told it. "Else you'll get all wet."
It didn't pay any attention, but I picked up the pace. I didn't want to get drenched.
No such luck. It started raining. Heavily. I hated this day.
I ducked into the nearest shop, which turned out to be a discount electronics store. It smelt of ozone and heated plastic, and the shelves bulged with mismatched boxes. Fans whined overhead. I pretended to be browsing for something. Most of the goods had their labels written in Spanish, made in South American factories. The warranties would probably all be invalid or dodgy. That was the cost of not being able to afford the expensive tinkerfab things from shops on the Boardwalk. The fluorescent light was too bright, which only made the gloom outside more of a contrast. Sighing, I stared out at the rain, counting the cars which zipped past the dollar store on the other side of the road. A police car went screaming by, the lights a patch of colour out in the darkness.
I could have sent Sniffer or a barbed-wire cherub to follow them, to see what was going on. I could have. But what would be the point? I looked around this cheap shop full of cheap electronics run by cheap men. Was there anything here worth protecting? I had all these powers and none of them did anything to make things better.
Massaging my brow, I screwed my eyes shut. Maybe it was just low blood sugar. And being in a shit mood. I knew I'd made a difference with the sweatshop. I'd saved people, saved lives. I'd just need to find somewhere else I could change things for the better. I'd find more parahumans and see what their powers looked like. Anything was better than thinking about how shit school was.
Across the road, a red-lit sign flickered above a dollar store. I wondered if they had a map of Brockton Bay in there. If my power was good for one thing, it was finding out what was really going on. If I was going to take up jogging, I'd see more of the city. I should be able to mark down places where the Other Place showed bad things were happening.
I laughed bitterly to myself. I guessed what I was really going to be looking for was a cause.
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