BIG TRIGGER WARNING: THIS STORY OPENS WITH SUICIDE AND WILL CONTAIN REFERENCES TO SELF HARM. It also has a bunch of other stuff as well but those'll be tagged as they come up.
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In hindsight, Taylor wasn't sure where it had all went wrong. Sure, the ceiling fan clearly hadn't been structurally stable, but by the same token the rope she had picked had snapped in the middle at the same time the various knots she had used had come undone. As a result, she was on the ground, the ceiling fan was next to her, and there was a stretch of rope that had fallen on the chair Taylor had used. Also, a probably concerning amount of dust.
Wow Taylor, good job, you can't even kill yourself correctly, whispered a dark voice in her ear.
Literally all you had to do was tie a rope and step off a chair. Simplest thing in the world, and you still fuck it up like the failure you are.
Letting out a steady breath, Taylor closed her eyes for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts before she shakily stood up, staggering to the wall and letting out a gasping sob as she leaned on the structure for support, the realization of what had just happened flooding her brain. Frustration, anger, despair,
relief, all of it churned within her gut, making the young woman feel like she was a cup with too much water, just waiting to overflow...
Which it promptly did, causing Taylor to double over and vomit all over her shoes.
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Once she had collected herself, Taylor felt around her collar, already feeling the bruising around her neck. Still trembling like a leaf in the wind, she opened her mouth to make a few noises, voice raspy, and she noted it was...a little harder to breath. Okay. That was...okay. She had done a real number on her neck and probably damaged her throat, but she could cover that up with makeup or a turtleneck. The voice could be explained with a cold, probably.
If you weren't a little bitch, you'd finish the job.
No, no she couldn't: the rope was broken and there was nothing to tie it to anyways.
Unbidden, a though forced its way to the surface. The medicine cabinet. It wasn't locked. Her mom had some pills, prozac.
You could take that, Taylor, the hateful part of her whispered.
Down a few, it'll be a party! They're antidepressants, so they'll probably make you feel REALLY good. And then you'll never have to feel anything ever again. Wouldn't that be so nice?
For a moment, Taylor found herself moving towards the stairs, placing the first foot up...
And stopping. She couldn't do it. It had taken months of mental preparation, months of planning, months of psyching herself up, and now that she had just avoided death by sheer dumb luck, and she had lost her nerve.
Coward. A white hot spike pierced her stomach, and Taylor let out another sob, her vision growing a bit blurry. Everything fell away for a moment: time, space. For a dreadful, terrible moment, all Taylor could do was breathe and sob.
It wasn't until an alarm went off: on the mantlepiece, something she had set up. It was currently 4:00 PM. She had thirty minutes until her mom got back. A surge of terror flooded Taylors bones. Oh no, she couldn't let her mom see this, couldn't let her know what Taylor had done, because Taylor knew she wouldn't understand: she'd get Dad involved and it'd make them fight more and she'd probably get shipped off to Blue Stone again. Snapping out of her fugue, she quickly went to clean up her mess, grabbing from her kitchen a broom to sweep up the dust and plaster. The rope she'd bury in the garden until trash day, at which point she could use the garbage pickup to assure that it wasn't her problem any more.
She wouldn't be able to hide the ceiling fan, but she could probably make something up.
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The next day, Taylor stepped off the bus and into the courtyard of Winslow, illuminated by the soft glow of the streetlights, the bright apertures of the schools windows, and a pair of gigantic floodlights erected atop the schools front. It was ten AM, students were swarming out of school buses and cars, the scent of tobacco and piss drifted in the air, and like every day for the sixteen years Taylor had spent in the Bay, there was a complete and utter lack of daylight.
She had had to spend forty bucks on a turtleneck and three hours watching tutorials on LeetNet for how to apply makeup (and also another ten dollars on actually purchasing makeup), but she was confident nobody would realize what had occurred, even though the dark, ugly part of her ensured that a pit of anxiety remained in her gut by whispering the possible ways she could get picked out.
As she shuffled forward past the doors, she did note that she only got the regular amount of stares, and the scraps of conversation she heard that were relevant to her were relatively few and mostly consisted of shitting on her wardrobe. Out of the corner of her eye, she did see Hess giving her an ugly look as she passed by the ex-Ward's locker, causing a small bout of fear as she passed by the parahumans locker, but to Hess credit, she didn't approach Taylor.
Sophia generally preferred to keep to herself, these days.
Eventually, she found herself in her homeroom, quickly shuffling to her desk and, removing her heavy backpack and placing it under the hard deskcounter, right were her legs would go, she herself slid into position. Looking around, she noted no one was here yet. Good chance to get a little reading in before class started, Taylor supposed, and it wasn't like she had a cell phone to play on any more. Reaching down, she grasped the lock she kept on her backpack, placing her thumb on the scanner and causing it to unlatch with a click. Unzipping the container, she shuffled through the assorted textbooks, before finding the her target, a two inch thick book, lacking any sort of title or identifier to clarify the contents of the brown hardback.
Quickly closing and relocking her backpack, Taylor placed the small tome on her desk, cracking it open. The Complete Works of Lewis Caroll
. Reading assignment: she had to write an essay on the themes of Alice in Wonderland for her english class. A project she had been slacking on because...Well, she had assumed it wouldn't really be her problem up until the damn rope had broke.
She was probably going to have to plagiarize something again. Luckily, the anti-cheat software Winslowe used was easy as fuck to game: you just had to strip out the citations, change some of the wording, and add maybe one or two paragraphs extra, and they'd never catch you. Still, probably good to do a refresher, and it wasn't like the story was particularly long.
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'
And so Taylor began reading, fidgeting the whole time, unable to get comfortable in her skin. As much as she wanted to get engrossed in her reading, she was too aware of her surroundings to really relax, uncomfortably cognizant of the slow trickle of students into the white tiled, painfully beige cube that served as their classroom. It wasn't that long that, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Madison enter, the cheerleader grimacing like she had eaten a lemon when she saw Taylor, before her rancid grin grew into a smile as she strode over to a seat riiight next to Taylor, pulling out her phone, tapping a few buttons...
Taylor jerked as a familiar noise filled the classroom.
Ting ting tingaling, ting tang ting. A guitar solo. A very particular guitar solo, one that made her skin crawl with the memories of helplessness, smoke filling her lungs with its acrid poison, and leaking gasoline. Taylor grit her teeth, pursing her mouth as she responded simply by reaching down to her bag again, undoing the lock, and pulling out a small MP3 player and some earphones, putting one in each ear as she tapped the button, causing her ears to be filled with the sound of soothing violins.
Madison rolled her eyes, opening her mouth to say something. Probably something mean: in the handful of years Taylor had known her, she honestly couldn't think of anything the blonde girl had ever said that was nice, frankly. "I can't hear you, I have my headphones in," Taylor responded blandly: out of her three tormentors, Madison was the only one who still made the effort to personally screw with Taylor these days: after what had happened a few months ago, Shadow Stalker knew she was on thin ice, and Emma, last she checked, was currently serving time in some cushy boarding school in Ohio for troubled teens with rich parents.
Still, as frustrating as Madison was, unlike Sophia she lacked any sort of instinct for cruelty, and unlike Emma didn't know exactly which buttons to press to make Taylor hurt. She had other ways to make her miserable, true, but nothing she could easily wield inside the bounds of Winslow, not when the teacher was watching. Returning to her reading, Taylor did her best to tune out Madison, putting as much effort as she could into reading.
Despite her bones being on edge, Taylor failed to notice when the teacher walked in, causing her a great deal of surprise when a thick ruler slammed against her desk, causing her to yelp and flinch, looking up into the annoyed eyes of their homeroom math teacher, #65. The clone glared at her, and Taylor silently took out her headphones, reaching down for her bag only to be interrupted. "Hebert," The man said, frustration in his voice. "This is the fifth time in the past seven days I've had to get onto you for this." He held out his hand, and Taylor felt her heart plummet. "I'm confiscating your device until you learn that all devices are to be off by the time the bell rings."
Whispering throughout the class.
Dumbass Taylor didn't hear the bell ring. Hey, did you hear? I heard Hebert is failing geography: who the hell fails Geography, it's a gimme class! For a moment, her vision went fuzzy, and Taylor felt a sharp tightness in her chest. "B-but, I, um-"
"You really shouldn't argue with the teachers, Tay-Tay!" Madison sang in a singsong voice, causing Mr. 65 to roll his eyes. "Besides, if you don't wanna do the crime, don't do the time!"
"....Yes, thank you for your contribution to this, Miss Madison," 65 said, deadpan, a small tremble in his eyes belying his clear desire to roll them. "Though I'll note the phrase is 'don't do the crime if you don't want to do the time'." His gaze shifted back to Taylor. "Moving on, she's correct: this isn't a negotiation. This is me being very, very patient," He said, a note of frustration creeping into his voice. "Unless you want detention, phone, now. If you pay attention and don't make any trouble, you can retrieve it at the end of the week."
"It's an MP3 player," Taylor rasped helplessly as she relented, passing it to the duplicate, who shoved it into the pocket of his khaki shorts.
"I really, really do not care. End of the week if and only if you can actually follow the rules of the classroom," He said, moving to his desk, sandals smacking against the floor. "Screw up and the confiscation WILL be permanent. Now, let me get todays lesson plan..."
"Wow, an MP3 player? What, can't afford a real phone?" Madison jeered from next to her, causing Taylors grip to tighten.
"I have a phone," Taylor replied, keeping her voice level and keeping the tremor out of it as best she could. "It's just not with me." It was, currently, at home, at the bottom of a drawer in Taylors room. Frankly, Taylor didn't know why she was bothering to engage: Madison damn well knew she had a phone, considering the blonde was the reason
why Taylor no longer used it.
Madison might not have Emma's knowledge or Sophia's instinct, but what she did have was a very, very large amount of friends on social media, and a talent for directing them. "Whatever," Taylor said, deflating, once again trying to tune the young woman out as she stared ahead into nothing. It was going to be a long, long day.
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The hour had passed by like molasses and Taylor had zoned out ten minutes into the lesson, staring blankly ahead and absorbing nothing that had been said. When it had ended, study hall began, and Taylor made her way to the third story bathroom. Entering the dingy, grimy lair, she walked to the counter, currently smeared with a flakey, thin layer of a brown substance that Taylor wasn't sure was dried blood or crusted over shit. Scowling, she made sure to not place her backpack anywheres near said smear, unlocking and unzipping it. It was eleven. That meant two things. Medication and lunch. Pulling out a plastic pill bottle, a water bottle, and a brown bag, she popped the lid off the pill bottle and unscrewed the waters cap, shaking two small grey capsules into her hand and downing them, quickly taking a swig of water. Okay. That was her depression medication for the day, now for food.
It was then that she heard the door open behind her, and Taylor frowned. Shit. In the mirror, she saw Madison enter, hand in her pink leather purse, pulling out a thin joint wrapped in yellowish paper.
The two of them froze, for a moment not saying each other as they stared at one another via reflection. Taylor because she had just realized she was alone with Madison, Madison because she had just been caught using a school bathroom to get high.
"...Tell anyone what you saw, I swear to god, I'll
bury you," Madison snarled, bringing the joint to her mouth alongside a lighter. "Do your business and get the fuck out," She said, flat.
I was here first, but okay...
"I really do not care," Madison responded, rolling her eyes. "After what you did to Emma, you really have some fucking nerve complaining about people running you off."
Taylors eye twitched, and she took a deep breath, not dignifying Madison with a response in lieu of reaching into the brown paper bag and retrieving her meal, unwrapping the turkey sandwhich and taking a bite...
And frowning when she realized she had no appetite. Wonderful.
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Mom wasn't home when Taylor returned. Good. Walking to the stairs, she ascended them as she made her way to her room, the floorboards creaking under her weight as she rose to the second story of her home. Striding through the hall, its walls painted a faded periwinkle color, she walked to her door, removing from her neck her keychain, shuffling through it as she unlocked the door to her room, before reaching her bed and flopping into it, letting out a breath.
Current time, 3:30. Closing her eyes, Taylor let herself relax for a moment, only to feel SOMETHING crawl onto her. Opening her eyes, she saw a large and extremely fluffy cat curling up on her stomach. "Hey Mr. Jingles," She said, a small smile creeping onto her face as she reached down and scratched the already purring black cat on the ears. "Rough day today," She admitted to her pet cat, the result of Dad trying to cheer her up after the divorce. "What about you?"
Jingles gave a loud meow, looking at her with wide eyes, occasionally giving a slow and soft blink. "Ah, lonely and bored," Taylor commiserated. "My sympathies," she said, giving him some scritches under his chin, causing the feline to lean forward into her fingers, letting out a soft meep of pleasure: Taylor might have been bad at everything, but she was an expert at chin scritches.
Slowly, the stress left her body, leaving Taylor exhausted. It wasn't much longer until her eyes had closed, and she was in the depths of sleep.
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Most days, Taylors dreams consisted of her, in a car, buckled into the passenger seat: in the drivers seat was Annette Hebert, unconsious, blood dripping onto the ground from her forehead, the womans glasses shattered into a million pieces and her phone having fallen to the ceiling. The car was upside down, its frame barely hanging together, the force of the semi having crushed most of the back half of the vehicle. Smoke fills Taylors lungs, and as she looks around, she sees fire, creeping up on her slowly, slowly. Squirming, she desperately tried to free herself.
Most days, the dream ends with Taylor burning to death, unable to free herself before the flames reach her. This time, something else happens.
The flames die, guttering out as an odd wind blows, the metal of the car frosting over even as ice began to cover the ground. Still in the throws of panic, Taylor finally managed to undo her belt, falling to the floor, on some level recognizing that this wasn't right, wasn't normal, but unable to put together what was wrong. Reaching for her mother, the moment Heberts hand touched her, Annette began to crumble, slowly turning into a mass of blue sand that fell through Taylors fingers as the teens jaw dropped. "Mom? M-mom? No no no no, don't, that-" She began breathing in and out rapidly, hyperventilating as she desperately tried to keep her mother from falling apart. "Don't go, please don't go, don't-"
"It isn't real, Taylor Hebert," A voice whispered. "You see merely a shade of your own nightmares given shape by apocyan sand."
This stopped Taylor, who turned, seeing a shape outside the car. Not...not real? What?
It was then that she realized she was dreaming. Replaying the same event from two years ago, like she always did, except for once she was lucid and cognizant of what was going on. That...that was new. So was the shape and the voice and the frost. Okay. This was a dream. That meant she couldn't be hurt, right?
"You would be sorely mistaken," The person outside her vehicle said, a sardonic tone in its high pitched voice. She saw a hand reach below, held out to her wrapped in a crimson glove that appeared to be made out of a rich, thick fabric. "Come. I would speak to your face." Hesitating for a moment, Taylor took the hand, using it as support as she shimmied her way out of the car and onto the frigid asphalt before standing up to face the person who had helped pull her from the dream-car.
They were tall, their form unnaturally lanky and long, towering over her, face and body obscured by heavy hooded robes made out of a pale, pearlescent material that seemed to shimmer not with color, but with what Taylor could only describe as the memory of color, adorned with what almost appeared to be swirling patterns and arrangements in ever shifting ink. The exception was a pair of burning eyes that blazed with a off-gold light that Taylor couldn't help but compare to the sun (seen on the rare occasion Taylor had left the boundaries of Brockton), peering at her from the shadowy confines of the hood, obscured only by a thin shroud hung from the top of the hood.
"Um, th-thank you," Taylor stammered, feeling her heart beat a mile a minute. "For, uh. Helping me."
"Your gratitude is unwanted and unnecessary. I did not help you for mere charity," The figure spoke, slowly. "I have watched you, Hebert. I have seen your suffering, and I have come to offer a trade of services," The figure hissed, and Taylor took a step back, alarm bells going off in her head before she reminded herself that this was a dream and she was in no danger. After all, people would know if there was a weird dream-parahuman running around, right?
"Believe my authenticity all you like: it is irrelevant for my matters, but if it reassures you to assume none of this is real, so be it," The figure said, deadpan.
Taylor swallowed. Right. Okay, humoring time, because dream or not this person was still extremely tall and extremely imposing and she didn't want to piss him off. "Okay. Weird dream guy wants my help. D-do you have a name, or...?"
A noise akin to wind sounded that Taylor realized only when it ended had been a sigh as the figure turned, looking away.
"Once, I was Mr. Veils. I will not be again, I suspect."
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Twenty years ago, the Simurgh was turned into black glass, and Brockton Bay was covered in shadow.
One day ago, Taylor Hebert tried to kill herself.
And now, things are going to get worse. 
