There is something relaxing about the night sky, you think to yourself. When you are up here, laying on the roof of your home, you don't have to think about your life, you don't have to worry about your problems, you can just put everything to the side and just...
be.
Of course, you know that such a thing can't last. That eventually you will have to come down off the roof, back down to the world where you have to deal with...
Well, everything.
A father who has become distant and detached following the death of your mother, a best friend who has turned on you, taking everything that had defined your life for close to a decade and throwing it back in your face with a razor wit and malicious intent. A city, slowly crumbling under the weight of gang violence and an upper class that doesn't care to help the city thrive, instead working to squeeze every cent out of it that they can, even if they kill a hundred thousand poor people to do so.
The Endbringers...
Towering titans that are slowly wearing down mankind, crushing them under heel for reasons that no one knows.
If you life is anything to go by, then it's probably out of sheer spite and a psychotic need to get off on the suffering of others. Not even the existence of super humans is enough to make the world make sense, if anything... given just how many terrible people there are, maybe it just helps make things worse instead.
Bah! This isn't the time for such heavy thoughts. This is your rooftop time, late at night long after the sun has set, when you can look up into the starry skies in order to wonder if there is something more out there, anything more, something greater...
Or maybe you are looking for a reason for everything that has happened to you, some kind of sign...
But... If you are being completely honest, if there is anything that you are looking for... It would be to recapture the peace and the tranquility of being at Summer Camp. The joy of the outdoors, back before everything in your life turned to shit.
Your name is Taylor Hebert, and you are fifteen years old. There are a lot of things that you could try and say about yourself, but most of them would be lies, because... in the end...
You aren't anyone special. You aren't anyone important. Just one more human in a sea of people, just another inconsequential nobody walking among all the regular people. Unable to do anything more than sit back and watch as Titans shape your world.
You sigh, closing your eyes for a moment. This... isn't working. The whole point of your nights up here, laying out on the roof and staring at the stars is so that you can clear your head. To get rid of the horrible thoughts and feelings that you struggle with, not to help them run roughshod around your brain even more.
Then, right before you finally give tonight up as a wash, you hear...
Something.
Honestly, the best description that pops into your head is the sound of gunfire, but strangely... quiet, like someone jammed a potato into the gun.
Thump thump!
Your eyes snap open, as you pull yourself up into a sitting position, your head snapping back and forth.
Thump thump!
There's the sound again! Pushing yourself up to your feet, you spot something out of the corner of your eye, but by the time you turn, facing the backyard, it's gone.
Thump thump thump!
In the middle of the backyard, dirt explodes into the air, flying high enough up that you can all but look straight ahead and see it, which is surprising and telling, given that you are on the roof. Carefully, you make your way across the roof, doing your best to keep from making even the slightest noise that might wake your dad. Around and down you climb, slipping over the gutters into the thick branches of the nearby tree. Two steps, before dropping down a little more, and your feet just barely scrape against the windowsill.
Sliding back down into your room, you allow your steps to become a little heavier, a little faster as you move down to the kitchen. You still don't want to wake your dad, but even the slightest creak from the roof would be enough to wake up your dad.
Cutting through the kitchen, you find yourself exiting into the backyard. The exploded dirt is enough to nearly trip you up, but you barely manage to keep your footing. It is here that one of the things that bothers you most about living in Brockton Bay, or really any city comes around to be helpful.
Even in the depths of night, things really only get dim. Streetlights and houses who haven't gone to sleep, cars and buses, and of course, the still glowing lights of downtown keep the city from getting truly dark. So even when it is late, you can barely see the stars. At the same time however, that means that you are able to see well enough to spot... Whatever the heck this is that landed in your backyard.
The surface of the fight sized object glimmers just barely in the low light, and curious, you kneel down next to it. A careful hand brushes the dirt aside, and you realize that you are looking at a glimmering sphere.
There is a part of your brain that is screaming at you -
'No! Don't touch, you don't know where that's been!' Unfortunately for that part of your brain, there is another part of your brain, one whose only thought is
'Oh! SHINY!', and that part of your brain managed to get control of your arms before the more intelligent part of your brain even managed to finish it's sentence.
A finger presses against cool crystal, and
everything changes.
Then... The moment is gone, and with it your memories of whatever it was that you just... saw. You are left feeling... Honestly, you aren't even sure how to explain the emotions roiling around in your chest. There is a heady dose of awe, of wonder and glee. Then there is this feeling that you don't have the words for, a level of strange confidence that makes it clear that you can take on all the world has to offer, as if there is nothing that can stand in your way.
Those aren't the only emotions however, but the are the brightest of most positive of them all, because along with all of those emotions is a harrowing feeling of... small. A feeling that makes you want to cower and hide, because in the scheme of the universe, you are so insignificant. And maybe that emotion makes the horrible feeling of loss more, or maybe it is that sensation of understanding that is gone that makes you feel so small.
In that moment, you knew things, you understood things, but those things are gone now. With a groan, you stand back up, rolling your neck and your shoulders as you turn. Thankfully, the added light makes it even easier to make your way back across the back yard and...
There is something wrong with that thought. You turn, head slowly sliding from one direction to the next, trying to understand what it is that... off.
Annoyingly, you can't put a finger on what is... off. the soft, almost rainbow glow isn't helllll...
Almost rainbow glow?
That thought brings you up short. A glance all around shows nothing that would make the glow, and... well, there is one thing that you have noticed while looking for the source of the glow. You don't seem to have a shadow anymore.
Well, you do, but only directly under you...
Which means... Slowly, your head tilts up, and up, and up.
There, floating over your head is... a glowing crystal orb. The exact same orb that you touched a moment ago.
[ ][Orb] A shimmering Purple gem
[ ][Orb] A clear Blue gem
[ ][Orb] A cloudy Green gem
[ ][Orb] A Yellow gem with a white dot inside
[ ][Orb] An Orange gem that seems to crackle with inner power
[ ][Orb] A smoky Red gem
[ ][Orb] A Violet gem that has a glowing squiggle inside of it
You freeze, staying stock still for a long moment, waiting to see what the mysterious stone will do, but as the moments slowly tick by, nothing happens. You can only keep yourself still for so long, and eventually you start to tire, muscles aching from holding entirely still, with the greatest pain in your chest. So hoping that it won't set off whatever this is over your head, you take a breath, allowing your body to go lax. As you do, you can feel something rubbing against the side of your mind, as the glowing gem slowly starts to sink down towards the ground. Freezing up once more, the gem freezes alongside you. A thought niggles at the back of your mind, and your eyes trail to the one side, as you desire the gem to move there. The stone perfectly followed the movement of your eyes. Then, even without making the motions with your eyes, you begin to make the gem go through more complex and sophisticated motions.
Even at times passing around the back of your head, but even as it moves beyond your sense of sight, you can still...
'Feel' it for lack of a better word. The funny thing is that making the stone move takes no more effort than it does to move your own arm. And in many a way it feels exactly the same. What is really interesting, is that when you stop thinking about the orb, it slowly floats back, spiraling up and around until it floats around your head.
You start to take a step forward, but... You can't.
You've struggled to put into words all the other things that have happened to you tonight, but this... this just takes the cake. You can't move any further forward than this. A few moments of twisting and turning, reaching out with legs and arms...
There is a spot in your chest, and it refuses to move any further in this direction than you currently are. The rest of the your body can move fine, but it is like there is a solid wall against your heart that is keeping you where you are. Again and again you slam yourself against the invisible barrier, and the third time you feel...
Well, you would have said something, but that isn't exactly correct. You do feel the wall keeping you trapped shift, yes, but that was but one thing that you felt shift.
The thing is that you felt seven things shift. One of which was the wall, but the other six felt like sleeping limbs. Backing away from the invisible barrier, you go back to door that leads to the backyard, looking out into the dark. Maybe it was some kind of time delay, or maybe it was you managing to move them when you slammed against the invisible barrier, or any number of different things, but there are six spots out there in the darkness.
Six holes in the ground that glow just faintly. Carefully, you... You move limbs that you don't have. The phantom sensations are unlike anything that you have ever experienced before, and as one, six more colored orbs lift from the ground. Carefully, you move the stones just a little bit closer to you, before moving back to the invisible barrier. All the while you had been careful not to allow the gems to move any closer.
The barrier has moved exactly the same amount of distance as the gemstones have.
You don't know what, you don't know why, and you don't know how, but somehow you have become... tethered to these strange orbs. You cannot move more than a certain distance from them, and equally they don't seem to be able to move further away from you. Going back to the Kitchen, you open the door, carefully floating the stones into the room, and as your focus leaves them, they join the other gemstone floating above your head.
At the moment, you don't know how you should feel. Panicked? Excited? Scared? Confused...
You know what. Yeah. That last one.
Confused, and more than that, exhausted.
You can think about all of this tomorrow morning. Actually, thinking about it, it is probably after midnight by now, which means that you can think about this later today?
Bah. Whatever. Time for sleep.
In the morning... After you sleep, whatever. It will be March 20th, 2011.
Choose Three:
[ ][Morrow] Show the Gems to your Dad!
[ ][Morrow] Find a Way to hide the Gems when going out
[ ][Morrow] Relax, pretend everything is normal
[ ][Morrow] Experiment with the Purple Gem
[ ][Morrow] Experiment with the Blue Gem
[ ][Morrow] Experiment with the Green Gem
[ ][Morrow] Experiment with the Yellow Gem
[ ][Morrow] Experiment with the Orange Gem
[ ][Morrow] Experiment with the Violet Gem
