Going Back
MordredRaal
Agitating
- Pronouns
- She/They
[X] Going Back
Waking up is a mixed experience.
On the one hand, holy shit you needed that! HOPE was not kidding about going without sleep wearing you down. You feel much better.
On the other hand, the fucking sun! It's shining right in your face.
You do the objectively correct thing.
You turn around and try to go back to sleep.
Unfortunately, that means getting a face full of ash. Which is not nearly as pleasant, now that it's cooled.
Ughhh.
You feel your attempt to leave this mortal plane failing miserable, as the events of last night come rushing back into your mind.
...
You're still alive, huh?
Weird.
It kinda felt like an end.
Despair. HOPE. Vengeance. Curtain Call.
But then again, you aren't done yet, are you?
You slowly get up, HOPE hovering just above you.
Has the Nazi shown himself?
NO. I WOULD HAVE WOKEN YOU
HOPE is a reassuring presence in your mind. It's good to have someone watching your back. Makes it all feel a little less impossible.
You briefly consider waiting for the Nazi to check on his garden, to give him the same treatment you'd given to his shrine. But, no. You don't know when he'd show up. Besides, someone else could be using this roof. Not being willing to piss of a Nazi who knows where you live is understandable after all.
Hmmm.
The thought of people being afraid is almost enough to make you reconsider, but there are practical reasons for why you shouldn't spend who-knows-how-long to kill one asshole in specific.
You need to do... a lot, today.
You'll just have to swing by here again some other time. Judging by how this garden was... decorated, it shouldn't be hard to find out which apartment is his.
You brush the ash off of yourself as best you can and step out onto the roof.
The search for a more permanent shelter turns out to be unfortunately brief.
An abandoned building near where you lived serves well enough.
It is unusually well barred off, with locks and chains all throughout the first and second floor. That and the fact that there isn't a way to climb up to the higher levels has prevented anyone from coming here for a few years at least, judging by all the dust.
You picked out a room with no windows and a door you can bar with some nearby pipes for the place where you will stash everything you gather today.
Then your excuse to delay had run it's course and you returned to your staring roof from the night before.
It's a bit less comfortable during the day, but you're pretty sure that no one can see you up here, so it'll do.
You're breathing quite heavily. Your attempts have been... draining. But you think you've finally got it.
You slow down your breathing. You stand up as straight as you can. Then you begin to push yourself out.
Gradually your awareness of your body retracts.
You know from prior attempts that it starts in your hands and feet, but you don't look down to see it. Seeing your body always messes you up.
It is harder because of the pain.
As your power recedes, the pain comes back. All the aches and discomforts that one accrues with their body are suddenly brought into focus as they return to you.
You're up to your arms and hips now, and it hurts! The sudden fragility and weakness is painful. It feels like the heat of the sun is gonna kill you. Like you're about to catch fire, and not in a good way!
Still, you keep going. You hadn't gotten this far before.
And it turns out that this is the worst part!
As the wave of misery creeps through your torso your organs one by one start straining. What was effortless before suddenly feels impossible.
Your heart feels like it's about to stop. Your breaths become labored as you struggle to get any air at all.
You start to feel your balance fail.
As you fall over, you still keep going.
The pain starts to fade. Your muscles feel leaded instead of like they're burning. Your organs settle into a low, low hum.
You briefly wonder when your head is gonna detransform and how bad that will be.
Then you realize that your head already is transformed, which freaks you out.
It didn't feel like your power went anywhere in your body. It didn't feel like it retreated into your heart or your brain or anything like that.
It feels like it just left.
You feel like you should cry, but your body isn't obeying you on this issue.
Your face in general feels numb. Even more than the rest of your body. Like you are wearing a mask of someone else's face.
You lie there for a while. Staring at the sky. Feeling your body, or, more accurately, not feeling it.
Eventually HOPE flies into your field into view.
You can tell that they want to congratulate you. You're glad that they don't. You don't think you could keep yourself from screaming at them.
After a few seconds you try to order your face into affecting something which could be construed as a smile. You're very certain you don't succeed.
Worked?
...YEAH
Seems like you deflated their excitement about your... accomplishment. Fuck.
You don't know how to get things back on track so instead you try to divert the topic.
You do this by forcing your body to get up, which it does with some difficulty. It looks more like a puppet getting pulled up than anything self motivated.
You intent to immediately go to your apartment, but discover a problem.
You're on a roof.
Maybe, in hindsight, not the smartest location to get rid of your ability to traverse vertical space.
Looking on the bright side you can confirm that standing on the edge of a roof sucks ass again!
You go back to that puppet metaphor and think about test dummies getting thrown out of planes.
The long, long, long fall.
Turning in the wind.
The Impact.
You throw yourself backwards, away from the ledge and back to the roof.
You even manage to avoid falling over again!
HOPE is close to you now. Trying their best to imitate a hug.
You draw in a few breaths and shutter as you consider the possibility that you have to do this all over again. Thankfully, a ladder at the back of the building saves you from that, for now.
You climb down the ladder, shaky hands struggling with even that much.
You cross the street, the sun shining a judging heat on you.
You go up the steps.
You open the door.
You hurry up the steps, desperate, clumsy and endlessly grateful that no one else is on the staircase right now.
You are standing in front of the door to your apartment.
You search for your key in a panic.
Found it!
You shove the key in, turn it and fall through the door.
You are almost physically hit by the air that greets you.
You didn't exactly concern yourself with air quality while you were wasting away. It's a wonder you didn't suffocate. You feel nauseous as you slam the door closed.
You are almost tempted to stay there, as far away from the rest of the apartment as you can be, but no!
You rush through the rooms dropping the curtains and blinds on what few windows there are in your home.
Once you got the last one you take a step back.
Back on that roof it felt like your power just left. You were afraid that getting it back would be just as painful as the detransformation was.
But now that you are standing in your cramped home, with barely breathable air and shut off from the world, that concern vanishes.
You're so fucking angry.
You want to scream.
Instead, you set yourself on fire.
In a good way.
The flames grow from your whole body, all at once.
And from one moment to the next...
You're You again.
You take quick, desperate breaths. The air is still extremely shit, but it doesn't bother you as much anymore.
You feel good again. Hell, you feel again.
The shock is almost enough to knock you off your feet.
You brace yourself on a wall and try to calm down.
HOPE is next to you. They followed you into the apartment.
And isn't that a thing. The apartment.
It, just like the building, is exactly as it was seven days ago.
You thought that it'd sicken you, and well, it did. But the transformation washed that away.
You can handle this. You can!
First things first, you get the coffers. Thankfully they are in the living room. You had to go into the bedroom to cover the windows and you aren't sure if you're ready to go in there again for more than running in and out.
Then you start gathering the things that you cannot leave behind. It takes a while. Weight isn't a consideration for you and if you had infinite time you could probably carry the whole apartment away in a few trips.
But you're only taking the stuff that matters. Which is itself a contemplative and freeing experience. You go through memories as you go through things.
It hurts less, now. You really had a good few years. Not nearly enough years. And not nearly enough good. But you wouldn't trade them for anything. Not even your powers or your life.
When you're done with the living room you sit at the dinner table. Facing the door like usual. It feels so familiar. Sitting here, exhausted from something that really shouldn't be exhausting at all. Thinking. Soon she'd come through the door.
Amanda is sitting in the living room, a melancholic and contemplative expression on her face.
The turning of a key is heard and Sarah enters.
Amanda blinks as Sarah approaches the table.
Sarah's expression is somewhere between amused and wistful.
Sarah: "Thinking again?"
A slight smile starts to form on Amanda's face.
Amanda: "Always."
S: "About?"
A: joking tone "You, of course!"
S: "You always say that."
A: "Cause it's true."
S: sighs and sits down beside Amanda "Only when I'm gone."
A slight pause.
A: "...Yeah."
S: "So. You're a Guardian now?"
A: "Yeah. I don't really know how that happened."
S: "'Cause you needed it. And the world needed you."
A: "I guess. But didn't you need it?"
S: "Probably. But I still had you, didn't I?"
A: "A lot of good that did you."
S: "You know it isn't your fault."
A: "You say that like it changes anything."
S: "I know. I'm sorry for leaving."
A: "I'm sorry."
A: "I'm sorry."
A: "I'm sorry."
…
Sarah takes Amanda's hand in her own.
S: "I know."
They wait a moment.
A: "Do you think this is maybe kinda fucked up?"
S: "Thinking up conversations with your dead girlfriend? Maybe a little. But you did it before, right?"
A: "Yeah. But that wasn't the same. I was just thinking about you. Now it feels like I'm putting words in your mouth."
Sarah thinks about that for a second then goes in for a hug.
S: "It's ok. You know I wouldn't mind. Not if it helps you."
A: "... I miss you a lot, you know?"
S: "I know. I miss you too."
...
You let your mind take you back to reality.
You feel... a lot.
You reach up to your face, but nope. No tears. You've probably shed all the tears you had already.
All that's left is... Longing. Longing and Memories.
You let out a long heavy breath and get up.
You've still got a lot to do.
Stuffing things into coffers, most immediately.
[] Literally One Day of Training: Your powers are pretty great. And from what you've heard they are relatively straight forward as powers go. But you also have no real experience with them. You are capable of burning what you want to burn, assuming it's inanimate, or frozen in shock, or trapped in a small room with you and the rest of their rotten gang. And you can stop burning stuff that you don't want to burn, mostly, sometimes, eventually. But you are no good in a real fight, yet. So find a place that you can test out your powers in. Get experience with your powers. Find a place to train without being found.
[] Talking To People: You had friends, of course. Mostly from the meetings for queer people that Sarah had a real talent in finding. You should talk to them. Not only because you need the information they have, but also because they should know that you are alright,... and that Sarah isn't. You don't know if they know, yet. You should have called them. But you didn't. Fuck. Talk to a human person for the first time in a week. Give emotional closure to people who are supposed to be your friends, you selfish idiot. Take the first step towards actually starting this fight.
[] Knowledge: You didn't follow up with the police about Sarah's death at all. You knew it wouldn't work and you really didn't have the energy to pretend otherwise at the time. But now you no longer have to pretend. You did the follow up yourself. Well, one part of the follow up. You hadn't... gone to see Sarah's body. You didn't want to and you still don't want to. But,... you don't know what happened to it. And you want to know, even if you don't know what you'll do with that knowledge yet. So you'll go to the local police station and from there to where she has been buried... if she has been buried. That said, you probably won't go about your search quietly, entering a police station without burning it down would be quite strange, after all. This will probably reveal your identity very quickly. And there isn't any time pressure... Except the pressure of not knowing, of course. Knowledge. Closure. Not just leaving Sarah's remains to the system, never to be found, or cared about, again.
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Author's note: I hope this wasn't too weird.
Also. Regardless of what you vote for, the next Update will be an interlude and we'll proceed with the action you've voted for after that.
