Taylor triggers in her locker and wakes up in the hospital, finally free. Or she would be, if she couldn't still feel the blood under her nails and the rusted walls around her- no roomier than a coffin.
The Widening Gyre (Worm- Altpower)
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The Locker Scene- 1
Things fall apart. Content warning for self-hatred, bullying, grief/loss, depression, blood and gore and...other unpleasant things. I'll state right away that this isn't really going to be a 'Taylor goes around kicking ass and escalating' type of fic, though there will still be action at times. Also my girl is extremely gay so I guess if that bothers you maybe don't read this? Thanks for reading 
Her laugh floats light and carefree into the air with the white chick fuzz of dandelion fluff, flying up and up and up into the clear blue sky.
Her hands are intertwined messily with Emma's, legs knocked companionably together, knees identically bruised and grass stained. Moss tickles the back of her sweating neck, but she hardly notices the irritation over her own joy.
Everything in this moment is beautiful- from the swelteringly hot sun which will later burn her shoulders to the mosquito bites that will puff and itch. The stick poking semi-painfully into the back of her leg, the exhaustion from hours of playing straining in her lungs, Emma's too hot palm in her own.
It is divine- holy. A picture so intricate and happy and wonderous it rewrites the world one millisecond at a time.
The lenses of Taylors glasses have ugly scratches on them that her parents will surely berate her for, Emma's toenails need to be cut and have scraped painfully against her leg, and her best friend pushes up against the green grass and looks down at her, eyes sparkling with mischief and mirth and fondness.
Taylor gazes back up at her like a mortal does a god, or a drowning man a lake of crystal-clear water. Her chest is hot and light and swirling with affection, everything in her bursting with love, love, love.
They don't promise to be together forever, or to never hurt each other, or even to always be friends.
But Emma smiles at her like she can't believe how lucky she is, and asks, voice full and sly, if Taylor thinks the neighbor will notice if they steal his cat again.
And that's that- neither of them need to say anything more. Forever doesn't need words, all it needs is love.
And, Taylor thinks carelessly, they'll never run out of that.
Annette Hebert is a busy woman- a caring mother, a devoted wife, and a teacher with a frightening amount of passion for both her subject and her students. She's not the type of person who mindlessly texts with their phone while driving, and is quite normally a firm believer of having the device turned off on the road.
But she's worried about one of her students who's going through a rough breakup after recently moving away from his less than perfect parents, and she's told him a million times to text or call her if he needs help.
Her phone flashes, and she glances down to read the incoming words for just a moment too long.
Jake Melonege is not a bad driver or a bad person- but he's late, and he's tired, and he's worried about his divorce and his kids and his job. Maybe, on a good day, when he was fully concentrating and focused on the road, he would notice that the car in front of him isn't coming to a stop.
But he isn't, and he doesn't.
Annette Hebert dies- and, as with everyone who dies, she leaves behind everything.
Including, and probably most importantly to Annette, her daughter and husband.
What do we mean when we say something is no one's fault?
A car accident is not a lightning strike or a lottery ticket- it is not random, not a work of nature or geological rifts.
Is it Annette's fault for keeping her phone on in case of emergency, for being worried about someone young and vulnerable, for looking away for a few seconds too long?
Is it Jakes for not noticing? Or maybe his boss for making him work late or his bosses' boss for demanding more efficiency? Or maybe it's the nameless student's fault, or the slight darkness of the gloomy clouds, or the fact that it recently rained.
Daniel Herbert stares at the rock in the ground that's supposed to represent his wife, his partner, his everything- like all her smiles and laughter and silly little arguments could somehow be squished and molded to encompass only a few words engraved on a public stone.
Daniel Hebert feels something leak out from him every moment she is not here- something vital and important and precious. He lets it go. Oh, he doesn't think he does- he looks at her picture, dutifully puts up their old Christmas tree, still sits around the same old table and shares a meal with his daughter- but he does.
He eats his morning toast without butter and when he leaves in a hurry for work crumbs still lay in the corners of his countertops. He'll clean it later- he thinks, and then forgets. He stays later and later at his work, trying oh so hard to not have one more thing crumble and fall down around him. Another hour won't hurt, we can have dinner together tomorrow- he thinks, and then forgets. He sits back in the couch and watches the television with eyes that don't quite focus, his sentences get slimmer and slimmer, he stops going out for drinks with his friends, stops going out for fun entirely. He can't cook much, and he's home so late, and really, Taylors much better at it anyway. His daughter stops trying to talk to him, stops smiling, growing thinner and bitter and bruised. He doesn't notice, because he's busy, or he's tired, or she looks too much like her mother, or its just a bad day, or, or, or.
He loves his daughter- he would die for her, would kill for her.
He doesn't love her enough to love himself.
And then Emma betrays Taylor. A simple sentence and a simple premise. How boring, how overdone- skip to the good parts.
The truth is that Emma does not come up to her best friend, her sister and confidant and holder of all her greatest secrets and break her heart.
The truth is that she see's another broken child's fear for strength and decides that anything is worth having it. Anything is worth not feeling like this- scared and broken and alone, checking and rechecking roads, crying out in the night, her heart in her mouth instead of in her chest.
She does not decide to leave Taylor, or hurt Taylor, she's really not even thinking about her- not right then.
She's just thinking, shaky with relief, that she can finally make the hurt go away.
Talking to Taylor is too hard- it's a too honest reflection of a version of herself that she hates, and the idea of opening her mouth and pretending that everything is normal and she's normal and nothing is wrong makes her sick.
So she ignores her, makes excuses for why they can't hang out, how she's already done her homework, that her mom or her dad or her sister need her. She says, trying not to sound like a girl who no longer fits her body- that they always do the same stuff anyway, that she needs time to herself, that Taylors too clingy, that she wants to make her own friends.
Taylor tries to talk to her at school, tries to sit down with her at lunch, nudges her shoulder and laughs at in jokes and automatically glances at Emma to roll her eyes when a teacher says something stupid.
And there is a part, the biggest and the oldest and the most in love- of Emma that wants to run into her arms, to bury her head into soft black hair and pretend nothing ever happened. But Sophia sneers and the other girl's titter and point- because Taylor is too loud and too weird and speaks too much and nobody ever knows what she's talking about- and isn't she so immature? Isn't she so stupid? She's embarrassing, really, to even be around.
And heat rushes to Emma's cheeks as tears appear in Taylors, and she thinks with horror- I'm not like that, I'm nothing like that- before laughing along with the rest.
If it was anyone but Taylor then Emma would think it was too far, that it was getting kind of weird to keep fixating on this one ugly little girl- but Emma has known that ugly little girl for most of her life, has shared every deep and intricate part of herself, every detail and micro expression and turn of phrase.
Of course she's fixated on her- she's been fixated on her for her whole life.
Whether she's perfecting the ways to make Taylor Hebert cry tears of laughter or whispering words just to watch her cry tears of pain- it's all the same. It's all about her.
Maybe it never stopped being about her.
Of course, from the inside things do not look this complicated or nuanced.
To Taylor it looks like this: She is a normal girl, with looks she doesn't care about one way or the other, a best friend she loves and spends almost every day with, and two extremely caring, intelligent, and loyal parents who are kind to her. She eats good food and occasionally goes out to restaurants with her parents and doesn't really have much of a relationship with her relatives.
She likes books and learning and languages, she likes movies about spies or animals talking, swimming is not her favorite but she can spend hours climbing and running.
Her family is not very wealthy, but she hardly notices- too busy with the important things in life- mainly picking up worms with her hand to make Emma squeal and sneaking bites of her mother's cookie dough when she thinks she's not looking.
Things aren't perfect- she can be occasionally shy around strangers, and she'd been told before than she's weird- sometimes her parents grow stressed over taxes and paperwork and politics- and this is Brockton Bay, and she lives in the poorer part of town- danger lurks around every gang tagged corner.
But it's what she knows, and she doesn't really have much problem with it- because she has her family and that's all she really needs.
And then her mother dies. Her mother is gone. Her mother is gone, and she doesn't come back, and that isn't something that gets fixed or filled or put away.
Her father stops talking, stops eating, stops coming home before dark. She loses one parent and then the next within months, and she loves her dad- of course she does, but it's hard not to take it personally, when the adults in your life both drop out and leave you to fight the waves by yourself.
And then Emma starts to grow distant. And Taylor, filled with panic and despair and hurt over the loss of her parents, clings and clings and clings- hands bloody and nails torn- to the one thing still holding her afloat.
She puts everything she has- all her self-worth and love and fear- into this girl, this piece of her soul. Because forever doesn't need words it only needs love and surely- surely- someone still loves her.
Taylor drowns.
If Winslow was less of an underfunded hyper-violent dump which needed every spare cent it could scrap together, if Brockton Bay had less villains and Nazi's and invincible regenerating dragons, if the people in power spent more money on rebuilding and infrastructure and gang prevention, if the PRT had more man power and less bias, if the Wards were more carefully managed and saw less combat, if any single one of the teachers or students or bystanders had cared just a little bit more, if, if, if-
Sophia would not have gotten away with it. It wouldn't have mattered that Sophia was a Ward or that Madison was cute and rich or that Emma had connections. In most places, pushing a student down the stairs, or publicly circling them, or dumping juice over their head, or spitting at them, or stealing their things- none of it would go without consequences.
But Winslow was a gang school- one that was constantly teetering over the precipice of warfare. It wasn't so much that Taylor's problems were small or ignorable- not when they started getting potentially lethal- but it was much easer for the staff to tell themselves that it was.
They would huff, trying to shove away the annoying itch of guilt in the backs of their heads, fingers crumpling yet another bullying report. All in good fun- they'd think- children are cruel and this girl needs to toughen up. How dare she complain of a little pranking, when her halls are filled with the potential to explode at any moment now!
Who does she think she is?
The answer of course, being this- Taylor Hebert thought she was bad. That her skin was rough and blemished, that she was too tall and skinny and bony, that her voice was awkward and irritating, that her clothes were worn and out of fashion, that she was ugly and unlovable and that nobody would ever want her.
She thought that the trio was evil, and stupid and cruel, and she told herself it was them and not her. But what she told herself had very little to do with what everyone else told her.
Because sometimes late at night she wondered if they were right- that she was weak and annoying and dull, that she deserved whatever she got and that she was making a big deal out of nothing, a few students harmless jokes.
Taylor is of course, wrong. She's wrong in many ways, but mostly in this- she calls her bullies the Trio.
Madison, Emma, and Sophia. The three girls that make her life hell. Everyone else, she thinks, are just hangers on. No big deal.
But Taylor is not just bullied by three students- Taylor is a punching bag for half the school.
Taylor gets harassed, and she gets kicked, and her things are stolen. She tells the staff, they do nothing- sometimes they punish her instead.
The message this sends out to the other students is this- Taylor Hebert can be hurt, and no one will notice, and no one will care.
And they're right.
Sophia shoves her into her locker, and nobody says a word.
Sophia's hands- and she just knows they're hers- and harsh and callused as they shove her towards the yawning opening of her locker.
Taylor struggles, tries to get her hands in front of her and push back- but it all happens so fast, and nothing feels real, and Sophia is so much stronger- Sophia's nails scratch pale bloody lines into the skin of her upper arm and she cries out, weakened by the distraction- and then it's all over.
Her legs push together awkwardly, and her knees scrape against the side of the wall. Taylor's forehead meets the back end of the locker painfully and one of her hands bends awfully in the cramped space.
The door shuts closed with a final bang, but Taylor doesn't even notice- shocked into messily heaving and trying to swallow back vomit over the stench.
The garbage has been left to soak- blood and shit and urine and old food and thick oil and sticky pop juice and apple cores and toilet water drenched paper towels- the smell is unspeakable. It is a physical presence, pressing in all around her and thick in her lungs- solid and grasping and sour.
She has nothing to compare it to, no chance to steel herself or figure out a way to block her nose- she just wants out.
The filth is piled up around her, a tomb of rotting garbage threatening to swallow her whole- clumps of old blood and tissue paper stick to her skin, period pads and rotting food and paper towel turns into a foul slush that forms a thick mold around her shoes.
Her skin is hot and wet, her fingers do not part immediately because of the sticky substance in between them-
-She tries to breathe, and she chokes, the air gone and replaced with a wall of toxic fumes, but she's panicking and crying and screaming which means she needs air, which means she has to breathe, which means she panics more-
-She vomits over herself, and it all just blends into the rest of it-
-And she kicks backwards at the door, scrambles against the rusting walls, thrashes like a creature possessed, with no reason or logic, just sheer unadulterated fear-
-And she can hear, so so far away, the distant laughter of her peers, of Emma- not the familiar gasping sort of half wheeze that she used to make back when the world made sense, but a fake high-pitched chuckle, like she couldn't even bother to fake it right-
-and she knows, she knows she knows that no one is coming to save her, that no one is going to help, or tell anyone, that anybody who isn't actively amused is non-committaly guilty in a way that fucking doesn't help her-
-and just this once, thinks, she prays, she screams-
-Just this once can I be wrong- just this once can someone- an adult, the police, a hero, a student, fucking Madison- mom- swoop in and save her and tuck her to her chest and hum and tell her that everything will be okay little owl-
Just this once-
- God fuck she just wants to be out out out- please- please-
Her scream sounds more animal than human.
Taylor can't get enough air, and her chest cramps and her vision swims, head full of blurry shapes she can't comprehend and a million shining stars gleaming uncaringly back at her.
Taylor gains consciousness off and on, thoughts heavy and limbs stiff and painful. Her body is bent and twisted awkwardly, her legs folded in such a way that she cannot stand fully up without being able to rearrange herself- which, of course, she can't.
One of her arms is numb and deadened- pressed up harshly between the locker wall and her side. Her head has a bit more room, but only enough to press it against the back of the locker so her tired neck muscles can take a break from keeping her head up.
Her entire body feels like one big bruise, her muscles sore and aching from her earlier struggles, and after a moment she's able to identify the stinging sharp pain on her knees and elbows as cuts she probably gained thrashing against the rough edges of Winslow's shitty metal.
Her eyes feel puffy and irritated, her mouth tastes like vomit and her breathing is still labored and uncomfortable. The smell has not got any worse, and much to her eternal frustration ignoring it seems near impossible it is so strong.
The disgusting garbage enclosing her has cooled and stiffened into a cold paste which sticks to every inch of her available. She wants more than anything to tear herself away from the trash and at least suffer her imprisonment without having to endure its greasy clutches- but there's nowhere to escape to and not much room to move regardless.
Taylor can't hear people directly outside her locker anymore. She can hear something, but it's low and faint- a strange droning rumble that seems to have no end and no beginning.
She wonders what time it is- if she's past the first class yet. They might leave her in here all day- the thought is agonizing and panic inducing- it's almost too horrible to even consider. Taylor has endured a lot a lot of bad shit without snapping, but she thinks if she has to stay trapped in this hell for even a few more hours she'll go fucking insane.
Taylor sucks in a ragged breath, hot tears doubtlessly tracing a visible line through the crusted blood on her face.
She tries to move her arm to wipe at her tears before realizing that her hand is probably filthy and should go nowhere near her face- but the halting movement causes a thin strip of stained toilet paper to fall off her arm.
The drop doesn't even last a second, the descent of the paper abruptly halting as soon as it separates itself from her arm.
Taylor stares.
It's just…floating. For a few moments she thinks it's some sort of optical illusion, after all it's dark in the locker and she's not exactly doing her best mentally. But no, even after she attempts to carefully move her head around to view it at different angles the facts remain the same. It's levitating.
Except, 'levitating' makes it sound like magic- like it's bobbing up and down in the wind and sparkling slightly or something. It's not. It looks perfectly normal except for the fact that it's consistently raising the middle figure to gravity.
It's not really bobbing up and down either- it's just frozen there, still as a rock in the ground. Or at least, that's what she thinks at first, but observing it for a tense few minutes proves that it's not still at all.
It's still falling actually- or at least it appears that way- but just so slowly that it's almost impossible to notice.
Like everything but her is slowed down to an agonizing crawl.
Taylor's mind feels numb, and her fingers are cold and trembling.
She doesn't want to consider this- doesn't want to think about what this means, doesn't want to think at all.
Unfortunately, overthinking has always been a problem of hers, and no matter how much she wants to resist it's next to impossible not to theorize exactly what this means for her.
Because if time really is slower for everything and everyone else but her, then every minute is going to be an eternity and if she already wasn't going to be able to stand a few more hours of this nightmare than there's no fucking way she'll survive this.
Because if she's not just crazy or hallucinating or dreaming, and this is all real it implies that she has powers. That she's parahuman.
She's parahuman and her power is what? The ability to cry and scream and loose her mind in a rotting box faster than most people could blink?
Is this how other people got powers? Exactly in the moment where they needed them the least? Did Alexandria get super-strength just as she was playfully punching a friend? How exactly was bendable lasers or flight or any of the other cool shit capes got even remotely similar to whatever bullshit this was??
Taylor let out a bitter laugh that really didn't sound like one at all.
Of course, she supposed they didn't have the good old Hebert luck.
She closed her eyes, wishing desperately that none of this was real.
For a moment it was almost peaceful, her vision filled with nothing but black and a droning silence surrounding her.
And then a light so powerful it physically hurt flashed, and even though her eyes were closed hard enough that she could feel the scrunch in her cheeks suddenly she could see.
She was staring up at an off-white ceiling, her body swaddled in worn blue bedsheets that smelled thickly of laundry detergent. Except- no- she wasn't- because she could still smell shit and blood and cooling piss, because she could still feel her cramped muscles and taste the vomit on her tongue.
Still feel her goddamn eyelids over her goddamn eyes, and still fucking see nothing but blackness.
The sensation was dizzying and fiercely disorientating- like she was somehow in two bodies at the same time, but not really- because one of them was almost fuzzy and dream-like and the other was painfully real.
Predictably, the real one was not the vision where she was clean and breathing non-toxic air.
Taylor clenched her eyes shut- well, she did in the body that wasn't already closing her eyes- oh god what the fuck was happening- and after a second of both of her visions filled with darkness something shifted.
It was like tensing a rubber band before letting it snap back into its proper shape- except she was the rubber band.
Suddenly, she just had one point of view again, the one stuck in the locker.
What. The. Fuck.
my exact words. no idea what's going on, and i'm too tired ot figure it out. I'll leave it up to morning-me to solve this puzzle.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sorry? This is more of a character fic than anything, so if that sort of thing bores you it's probably better you drop out now. Have a good one!
Aurora Raven
(Verified Bird)
- Location
- Surrey, UK
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I love the tone of this story, the misery that seeps from every character and scene.
The power is some form of time travel? Moving the perspective, not the body, forwards and backwards, quickly and slowly.
Regarding Alexandria, I've found it interesting that despite being Cauldron capes, many of them have had trigger worthy events that fit their powers.
The power is some form of time travel? Moving the perspective, not the body, forwards and backwards, quickly and slowly.
Regarding Alexandria, I've found it interesting that despite being Cauldron capes, many of them have had trigger worthy events that fit their powers.
Thank you! I always think it's kind of interesting whenever we get more perspective on the people around Taylor, like her dad and Emma.
I won't spoil what her power is quite yet, but I will say that you are on the right track.
The Locker Scene- 2
Her father's face was exhausted, worry and anger and stress dragging his features down like a heavy weight. His hand was calloused and anxiously tightening over hers, his leg bouncing slightly in the silence of the hospital room.
Taylor observed his features desperately, looking for any falseness, any glitch or mistake that would indicate that this was all in her head. And it was- it had to be- some sort of simulation or future vision that she could activate, all while she was still stuck in her fucking locker.
Her dad's worried smile was just a pattern on the back of her eyelids, the smell of fresh air and laundry detergent, of bleach and sanitizer and other hospital smells- it was fake. And she hated it- she hated it because even if it was a lie, she should be able to enjoy it, but in the end she could always feel reality underneath it all- the pleasant warmth of the clean blankets covering her not enough to hide the cold wetness of the clumps of wretchedness she was really surrounded in.
She'd had this conversation with her dad twice already now, having abruptly shut her eyes and restarting the simulation over again as her panic and hysteria rose.
His lips were moving, he was asking her about what happened, about who did this- and god, she just wanted this to be real- but it wasn't. Her dad wasn't with her at all- he was at work now, probably stressing over Brockton Bays shitty economy and getting ink stains on his jaw as he rubbed his hand absently on it.
He didn't know she was stuck here. He wasn't going to come and get her, wasn't going to hold her tight to his chest and kiss her head and tell her he'd always be there for her.
Taylor felt hot tears leak from her shut eyes in one reality.
"-Taylor honey? Are you okay? Do you want me to call a doctor in? They said Panacea made sure that- "She didn't let him finish his sentence, her chest spiking with longing.
"None of this is real dad. I'm not- I'm not actually here." Taylor's voice came out cracked and agonized, the sensation of her throat aching with pain disturbingly genuine in the simulation.
If anything, her dad looked a million times more anxious than before, his eyes widening slightly and his skin paling.
"What- what do you mean? Where are you?" Taylor let out a shuddering breath, hands clenched into a fist over her blankets.
"I-I'm still there- I'm still in the locker!" The last part was shouted, her voice almost unrecognizable to her own ears- the sound of a wounded animal caught in the jaws of a trap. The sound of something that needed to be put down for its own good.
Her dad was sputtering, trying to hold her hands, voice unsure and eyes almost wild with concern. He probably thought she was crazy now. Not that if fucking mattered- none of this did.
Taylor shut her eyes, and after a few seconds she returned fully to her body.
The piece of stained paper that she'd thrown off her arm was still slowly falling, though it seemed noticeably lower. Or at least hopefully it was, and she wasn't just tricking herself with wishful thinking.
Taylor tried to calm down, to find something within herself that even remotely resembled peace, but it was impossible, the sensations around her too awful to overcome with mere will alone. The air was damp with her own carbon dioxide and sweat, and her skin felt feverishly hot- like she was being cooked alive.
Flies buzzed lazy spirals around her head and her arms and legs crawled with trails of ants. Maggots rubbed against her bare skin, and her mind wouldn't stop repeating the image of them working their way into her open cuts and eating her from the inside out.
Taylor closed her eyes. Real or not, anything had to be better than this.
Trying to get her dad to stop worrying and let her leave proved to be a fool's errand, so eventually she discovered it was just easier to break out of the hospital before he even got to her room.
Well, easier was maybe the wrong word. It was certainly good she got as many chances as she needed to figure out how to do things like silently push up her rooms window and wriggling out without breaking something- or sneaking past security and crawling through decorative shrubbery while dressed in a flimsy blue hospital gown.
Actually finding clothes to wear instead of trotting around town half-naked was a task in itself as well. Technically, she could just not care- it didn't matter if people saw a flash of her bare butt, because neither her butt nor the people were real. And that was all well and good to know in theory, but there was simply some things Taylor wouldn't be comfortable with- even in what was basically a dream.
Stealing from strangers' clotheslines was not a crime she'd ever thought she'd commit before now, and certainly the entire experience had a bizarre quality to it. It was hard to even believe it was her doing these things- Taylor Hebert wasn't the type of person to do- well, any of this!
She hated it- hated that she still felt guilty and weird and itchy even though she knew her actions didn't have consequences here. It was a victimless crime- the people she was stealing from as she knew them now simply did not exist!
Taylor sighed, the air tasting like salt and smoke in one mouth and sweat and blood in the other.
Abruptly, she decided she was going to go to a damn coffee shop and drink some damn coffee. Who cared that she ran away from her dad, and stole a bunch of overly big men's clothes, who cared if people were giving her weird looks because she probably had some manic energy going on and she was dressed like a flying squirrel?
She didn't even bother to read the name of the café that she entered- it was one of those touristy places with the overpriced drinks by the boardwalk. The type of place she normally avoided, because between Emma, Madison and Sophia she spent more than enough money on school supplies.
There was only one person in front of her in line, and Taylor let her eyes wander the menu aimlessly, trying and failing to get them to read any of the overly pretentious beverage names.
By the time it was her turn to order Taylor felt untethered and ready to jump out of her own skin, the sensation of casually perusing a fancy caffeinated drink while she slowly suffered from dehydration in real life almost dizzying.
She ordered the first thing she read properly on the menu, something complicated with strawberries and whip cream that was probably going to taste like pure sugar and melt all her teeth off. (Except no it wasn't- her teeth were sticky and bitter and not sweetened in the slightest)
The cashier was looking at her a bit oddly, and after an awkward moment Taylor realized she'd asked her if she was paying in cash or card.
Right. Money. That.
Fuck. Well, was she going to leave now? Or what, rob a fucking café? God she was so fucking stupid-
"Here- let me pay, okay?" Taylor blinked, head snapping to the side as a thin arm reached out from beside her with their own credit card in hand. Following the arm up led her to a knowing smile and a face dotted by freckles. Alligator green eyes flicked her way as the transaction went through, and for a moment Taylor felt like this stranger- this girl surely no older than herself- was looking straight through the dream and into her real eyes.
Taylor snapped out of her momentary reverie as the girl wrapped nimble fingers around her wrist, carefully leading her towards a table in the corner of the room with Taylors too-pink nightmare drink in hand.
"Sit with me?" She asked, though it mostly seemed to be rhetorical, seeing as she sat herself down comfortably and pushed out another chair for Taylor herself with an expectant gaze.
Taylor sat, feeling numb. Why did this girl pay for her drink? Or for that matter, why ask her to sit together? She hadn't exactly had time to gaze into a mirror, but Taylor was pretty sure she looked awful- frazzled and pale and not all there.
People hated it when you visibly suffered in front of them- it made them feel guilty and aggressive, like you were accusing them off something just by existing.
This girl had nice brand-name clothing and subtle makeup, hair done neatly, and a expensive looking laptop propped open beside her. Why would she care about Taylor- why would she even want her nearby? Was she just a figment of her mind- an illusion of the type of person Taylor secretly wished would look at her and see themselves- empathize?
At this point the girls assured grin had softened slightly, facial features molding into something more sympathetic.
Taylor took in a shaky breath, letting her eyes drop to the dark wood of the tabletop, deeply frustrated with her entire situation.
"Thanks." She squeezed out, voice stilted and tense. The other girl smiled calmly, seemingly unfazed by Taylor's inability to function like a normal fucking human being.
"Well, you're welcome, but that wasn't a totally selfless move of mine there- I'm the sort of person who likes people watching y'know? I'm always on the lookout for interesting people or situations." The girl explained, and Taylor didn't bother to hold back the bitter laugh that crumpled out from her mouth.
"Interesting people?" She asked back rhetorically, the irony thick as vomit on her tongue. The girl shrugged nonchalantly, head casually tilting to the side even as her piercing gaze was anything but.
"Yep. Seems to me like you have a lot of stuff weighing you down right now- probably nothing interesting to you, but might be a good story from an outsiders perspective." Taylor nodded absently, trailing her fingertips over the cold condensation that had formed on the outside of her plastic cup. The dichotomy of the sweet chill of the drink and the condensed damp air in real life was almost too much to bear.
It made sense that the girl had asked her over now- or at least more than it had before. She was probably the kind of person who liked a good story, who might listen in on neighbors' conversations to get details about their homelife or read someone else's mail.
Certainly, it made more sense as a motive than genuinely wanting to help Taylor.
"What's your name?" Taylor responded, voice oddly even to her own ears. The other girl spoke- Lisa, Lisa Wilbourn- eyes gleaming with some sort of inner light. Taylor felt her own mouth move into a small smile, but she didn't return with her own name in kind. No point really.
"I have powers you know?" -Lisa froze, sparkling eyes widening and smile becoming still and tense- " -not good ones- well, actually they kind of suck, but…" Taylor let out a breath, suddenly exhausted beyond words. She felt like crying, she felt like sleeping for a million years, she felt like laying in her own bed and staring at her own shitty ceiling instead of the back of her eyelids.
"I guess this is kind of shitty to tell you, but you're not really real. None of this is- it's all – it's all just in my head." Taylors words were monotone by the time she was finished, and even though she was more numb and tired than panicked for some reason her hands were still shaking.
Across the table Lisa was stuck silent, sharp eyes flicking around Taylor like the persistent flies that currently buzzed around her head.
Taylor shifted, taking a small experimental sip of her drink while she waited- it was far too sweet and overly saturated, but it was so cool and crisp and god she wished she could just taste it and nothing else behind it. Wished desperately she could just give herself wholly to this hallucination.
When she looked back at Lisa the girl was, if anything, paler than before- her expression close to horrified before it shuttered into a pained sort of concern.
"Oh fuck me."
Taylor observed his features desperately, looking for any falseness, any glitch or mistake that would indicate that this was all in her head. And it was- it had to be- some sort of simulation or future vision that she could activate, all while she was still stuck in her fucking locker.
Her dad's worried smile was just a pattern on the back of her eyelids, the smell of fresh air and laundry detergent, of bleach and sanitizer and other hospital smells- it was fake. And she hated it- she hated it because even if it was a lie, she should be able to enjoy it, but in the end she could always feel reality underneath it all- the pleasant warmth of the clean blankets covering her not enough to hide the cold wetness of the clumps of wretchedness she was really surrounded in.
She'd had this conversation with her dad twice already now, having abruptly shut her eyes and restarting the simulation over again as her panic and hysteria rose.
His lips were moving, he was asking her about what happened, about who did this- and god, she just wanted this to be real- but it wasn't. Her dad wasn't with her at all- he was at work now, probably stressing over Brockton Bays shitty economy and getting ink stains on his jaw as he rubbed his hand absently on it.
He didn't know she was stuck here. He wasn't going to come and get her, wasn't going to hold her tight to his chest and kiss her head and tell her he'd always be there for her.
Taylor felt hot tears leak from her shut eyes in one reality.
"-Taylor honey? Are you okay? Do you want me to call a doctor in? They said Panacea made sure that- "She didn't let him finish his sentence, her chest spiking with longing.
"None of this is real dad. I'm not- I'm not actually here." Taylor's voice came out cracked and agonized, the sensation of her throat aching with pain disturbingly genuine in the simulation.
If anything, her dad looked a million times more anxious than before, his eyes widening slightly and his skin paling.
"What- what do you mean? Where are you?" Taylor let out a shuddering breath, hands clenched into a fist over her blankets.
"I-I'm still there- I'm still in the locker!" The last part was shouted, her voice almost unrecognizable to her own ears- the sound of a wounded animal caught in the jaws of a trap. The sound of something that needed to be put down for its own good.
Her dad was sputtering, trying to hold her hands, voice unsure and eyes almost wild with concern. He probably thought she was crazy now. Not that if fucking mattered- none of this did.
Taylor shut her eyes, and after a few seconds she returned fully to her body.
The piece of stained paper that she'd thrown off her arm was still slowly falling, though it seemed noticeably lower. Or at least hopefully it was, and she wasn't just tricking herself with wishful thinking.
Taylor tried to calm down, to find something within herself that even remotely resembled peace, but it was impossible, the sensations around her too awful to overcome with mere will alone. The air was damp with her own carbon dioxide and sweat, and her skin felt feverishly hot- like she was being cooked alive.
Flies buzzed lazy spirals around her head and her arms and legs crawled with trails of ants. Maggots rubbed against her bare skin, and her mind wouldn't stop repeating the image of them working their way into her open cuts and eating her from the inside out.
Taylor closed her eyes. Real or not, anything had to be better than this.
Trying to get her dad to stop worrying and let her leave proved to be a fool's errand, so eventually she discovered it was just easier to break out of the hospital before he even got to her room.
Well, easier was maybe the wrong word. It was certainly good she got as many chances as she needed to figure out how to do things like silently push up her rooms window and wriggling out without breaking something- or sneaking past security and crawling through decorative shrubbery while dressed in a flimsy blue hospital gown.
Actually finding clothes to wear instead of trotting around town half-naked was a task in itself as well. Technically, she could just not care- it didn't matter if people saw a flash of her bare butt, because neither her butt nor the people were real. And that was all well and good to know in theory, but there was simply some things Taylor wouldn't be comfortable with- even in what was basically a dream.
Stealing from strangers' clotheslines was not a crime she'd ever thought she'd commit before now, and certainly the entire experience had a bizarre quality to it. It was hard to even believe it was her doing these things- Taylor Hebert wasn't the type of person to do- well, any of this!
She hated it- hated that she still felt guilty and weird and itchy even though she knew her actions didn't have consequences here. It was a victimless crime- the people she was stealing from as she knew them now simply did not exist!
Taylor sighed, the air tasting like salt and smoke in one mouth and sweat and blood in the other.
Abruptly, she decided she was going to go to a damn coffee shop and drink some damn coffee. Who cared that she ran away from her dad, and stole a bunch of overly big men's clothes, who cared if people were giving her weird looks because she probably had some manic energy going on and she was dressed like a flying squirrel?
She didn't even bother to read the name of the café that she entered- it was one of those touristy places with the overpriced drinks by the boardwalk. The type of place she normally avoided, because between Emma, Madison and Sophia she spent more than enough money on school supplies.
There was only one person in front of her in line, and Taylor let her eyes wander the menu aimlessly, trying and failing to get them to read any of the overly pretentious beverage names.
By the time it was her turn to order Taylor felt untethered and ready to jump out of her own skin, the sensation of casually perusing a fancy caffeinated drink while she slowly suffered from dehydration in real life almost dizzying.
She ordered the first thing she read properly on the menu, something complicated with strawberries and whip cream that was probably going to taste like pure sugar and melt all her teeth off. (Except no it wasn't- her teeth were sticky and bitter and not sweetened in the slightest)
The cashier was looking at her a bit oddly, and after an awkward moment Taylor realized she'd asked her if she was paying in cash or card.
Right. Money. That.
Fuck. Well, was she going to leave now? Or what, rob a fucking café? God she was so fucking stupid-
"Here- let me pay, okay?" Taylor blinked, head snapping to the side as a thin arm reached out from beside her with their own credit card in hand. Following the arm up led her to a knowing smile and a face dotted by freckles. Alligator green eyes flicked her way as the transaction went through, and for a moment Taylor felt like this stranger- this girl surely no older than herself- was looking straight through the dream and into her real eyes.
Taylor snapped out of her momentary reverie as the girl wrapped nimble fingers around her wrist, carefully leading her towards a table in the corner of the room with Taylors too-pink nightmare drink in hand.
"Sit with me?" She asked, though it mostly seemed to be rhetorical, seeing as she sat herself down comfortably and pushed out another chair for Taylor herself with an expectant gaze.
Taylor sat, feeling numb. Why did this girl pay for her drink? Or for that matter, why ask her to sit together? She hadn't exactly had time to gaze into a mirror, but Taylor was pretty sure she looked awful- frazzled and pale and not all there.
People hated it when you visibly suffered in front of them- it made them feel guilty and aggressive, like you were accusing them off something just by existing.
This girl had nice brand-name clothing and subtle makeup, hair done neatly, and a expensive looking laptop propped open beside her. Why would she care about Taylor- why would she even want her nearby? Was she just a figment of her mind- an illusion of the type of person Taylor secretly wished would look at her and see themselves- empathize?
At this point the girls assured grin had softened slightly, facial features molding into something more sympathetic.
Taylor took in a shaky breath, letting her eyes drop to the dark wood of the tabletop, deeply frustrated with her entire situation.
"Thanks." She squeezed out, voice stilted and tense. The other girl smiled calmly, seemingly unfazed by Taylor's inability to function like a normal fucking human being.
"Well, you're welcome, but that wasn't a totally selfless move of mine there- I'm the sort of person who likes people watching y'know? I'm always on the lookout for interesting people or situations." The girl explained, and Taylor didn't bother to hold back the bitter laugh that crumpled out from her mouth.
"Interesting people?" She asked back rhetorically, the irony thick as vomit on her tongue. The girl shrugged nonchalantly, head casually tilting to the side even as her piercing gaze was anything but.
"Yep. Seems to me like you have a lot of stuff weighing you down right now- probably nothing interesting to you, but might be a good story from an outsiders perspective." Taylor nodded absently, trailing her fingertips over the cold condensation that had formed on the outside of her plastic cup. The dichotomy of the sweet chill of the drink and the condensed damp air in real life was almost too much to bear.
It made sense that the girl had asked her over now- or at least more than it had before. She was probably the kind of person who liked a good story, who might listen in on neighbors' conversations to get details about their homelife or read someone else's mail.
Certainly, it made more sense as a motive than genuinely wanting to help Taylor.
"What's your name?" Taylor responded, voice oddly even to her own ears. The other girl spoke- Lisa, Lisa Wilbourn- eyes gleaming with some sort of inner light. Taylor felt her own mouth move into a small smile, but she didn't return with her own name in kind. No point really.
"I have powers you know?" -Lisa froze, sparkling eyes widening and smile becoming still and tense- " -not good ones- well, actually they kind of suck, but…" Taylor let out a breath, suddenly exhausted beyond words. She felt like crying, she felt like sleeping for a million years, she felt like laying in her own bed and staring at her own shitty ceiling instead of the back of her eyelids.
"I guess this is kind of shitty to tell you, but you're not really real. None of this is- it's all – it's all just in my head." Taylors words were monotone by the time she was finished, and even though she was more numb and tired than panicked for some reason her hands were still shaking.
Across the table Lisa was stuck silent, sharp eyes flicking around Taylor like the persistent flies that currently buzzed around her head.
Taylor shifted, taking a small experimental sip of her drink while she waited- it was far too sweet and overly saturated, but it was so cool and crisp and god she wished she could just taste it and nothing else behind it. Wished desperately she could just give herself wholly to this hallucination.
When she looked back at Lisa the girl was, if anything, paler than before- her expression close to horrified before it shuttered into a pained sort of concern.
"Oh fuck me."
Hylas
Veni apud me, Frater!
Chilling. Also Lisa realizing she isn't real is super interesting. She's literally the only (BB main cast) character that could really confirm that aside from Dinah. And having an outside perspective in her own head - or alternate Coil-ish timeline - might serve Tay very well.
Aurora Raven
(Verified Bird)
- Location
- Surrey, UK
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Rip to Lisa this is exactly the type of mind fuck existential nightmare that would intrigue/horrify her
I bet Lisa's regretting her predictable beverage consumption now
Haha reasonable! I like to have a bunch of fics juggling at once, it helps keep me motivated and if I ever get tired of writing one fic I just swap back to another. I assure you none of my fics are dead currently, and that I will let people know if they become so. Have a good one
BlamelessSuspect
The butler did it.
A Coil-package? Simulating future timelines? But then what is the trigger for the split? Ah, I give up, I'm bad at in-depth fiction analysis when I've got impending finals on my mind.
- Pronouns
- she/her
God, your stories have some of my favorite moments of just...Taylor and her broken mindset.
I predict that Taylor will get out of the locker eventually, but that her power is going to work somewhat like Labyrinth in that it'll be inherently tied to her emotional state. If she's stressed, she becomes increasingly decoupled from her real time, so she can't just take full advantage of it and become super-Coil, but with practice she'll be able to use it in dangerous situations to find safe ways out, be really good at combat, etc. But if she's comfortable and feels safe, she won't have much access to it, or her "real time" will move much faster, so she can't look as far ahead.
Interested to see where this goes, there are a lot of ways you could take this idea.
Interested to see where this goes, there are a lot of ways you could take this idea.
The Locker Scene- 3
Taylor looked back down at the sickly sweet pinkness stored in the plastic cup in front of her. Even though none of this was really real, it was still easier to distract herself with her fake surroundings than face any of her problems head on. She couldn't even meet Lisa's eyes comfortably- god, she was such a coward.
"I know I- I probably just sound crazy but-"
"-Hey! Whoa, no you- I don't think you're crazy." Lisa interrupted, voice pitched with some sort of strange urgency. Taylor looked up, quizzically regarding the seriousness in the other girl's facial expression. She didn't get it- what did Lisa get out of pretending to believe her?
Lisa winced for no apparent reason, and after a moment of scanning the crowd of the coffee shop, stood up swiftly.
"I swear I actually do believe you okay- and I- well, maybe the rest of this conversation should be a bit more private." For her part, Taylor really had no need to worry about people overhearing or privacy- she could shout her greatest secrets from the rooftop and then just simply open her eyes in real life and have this reality wash away like a footprint by the tide.
But Lisa was being concerning nice and was currently offering her hand again and- well- it was embarrassing to admit but she hadn't had positive physical contact with another human being in…a long time.
Hesitantly, she wrapped her own bony and spiderlike fingers around Lisa's- and despite the circumstances- still found her own cheeks heating up and her heartbeat raising in response.
Irritated with her own pathetic behavior but unable to stop herself, Taylor allowed the blonde girl to gently lead her out the stores doors and down the street.
The sidewalk was uneven and cracked underneath her stolen too-big shoes, and the Bays air was refreshingly cold against her skin. It was nice, but the underlying feeling of reality made for a disconcerting comparison. Worse- her mind seemed to struggle with wholly separating her experiences from each other, so sometimes when she opened her mouth to take a big breath of salty smoke filled air she instead choked on humid sweat and vomit. And sometimes when she went to turn her shoulder bumped into a hot metal wall that was but also wasn't actually there.
If Lisa noticed her strange behavior she didn't do anything about it other than occasionally turn her head to give Taylor a comforting but worried smile and increasingly piercing looks.
Some part of Taylor distantly noted that if Lisa was some sort of psycho killer who liked to cut people up for a living then following her obediently and without question probably wasn't a good idea. But…
Well. It didn't matter did it? If Lisa did turn out to be just as awful as everything else then who cared? Taylor would just reset the simulation and know to avoid her next time. She could probably catch criminals like this actually- though that was under the illusion that she didn't go crazy or possibly die before she got out of the locker.
When Lisa finally stopped it was at a small and mostly overgrown park on the 'bad side of town'- which was to say, not all that far away from her house.
She supposed it was as good a place as any for not being heard- it was filled with thistles and long itchy grass which made it not the most popular spot even just in terms of abandoned parks.
Marching through the undergrowth was interesting- Lisa looked to be having a miserable time of it, but for Taylor the pain was somewhat repressed- or rather, a bit numb. She certainly felt the thistles that snagged at her skin, but not as much as she felt the pain of her cramping muscles or the deep scratches rent by the lockers shitty interior in the real world. Sort of a cold comfort there.
Eventually Lisa led them to the decently sized creek which ran through the park and sat herself down on a conveniently placed log. Taylor watched her for a moment, eyeing the area suspiciously.
It was a location surrounded by trees- they couldn't be seen from above or from the sides surely- covered in dense brush and thorns which would work to hide them, slow pursuers, and alert them to anyone coming their direction well before they got here. The log was nicely shaped and rounded with soft moss, and the creek just below their feet was noisy enough that it would be basically impossible to overhear them.
Lisa had obviously put some thought into this- and somewhat eerily, it was just the kind of location Taylor herself would choose to hide from the bullies if she could.
Carefully, Taylor joined Lisa on the log, looking at the other girl only to realize she'd been carefully studying her the whole time.
Taylor met Lisa's grasshopper green eyes with her own muddy brown before awkwardly looking away.
There was a moment of silence before Lisa took in an audible breath and began to talk.
"Okay. Okay- so. Here's the thing, I don't believe you because I'm pitying you or trying to trick you or something- I believe you because I know you're telling the truth." Taylor snapped her head up, blinking a little at the proclamation. That- that was not what she was expecting. Lisa gave her a dry smile in response but didn't stop talking.
"The reason I know that is because I'm a parahuman too- you know what a Thinker is?" Taylor nodded numbly, shoulders tensing. How? How did she manage to run into another parahuman out of all the thousands of people in the city with no powers at all? Was this her mind? Bending the rules of her simulated reality to make things a bit more interesting? Was it really just a freakish coincidence?
"Right. Well, that's what I am. I'm like Sherlock Holmes sort of- I extrapolate data from information around me and my power lets me sort of cheat to fill in the blanks." Taylor nodded again to show she was listening, fighting down the inward surge of envy- knowing so much about people and your surroundings probably wasn't all it was cracked up to be but- well. It had to be better than this.
"So when you said that- that this was all in your head? Yeah. My power confirmed that." At this Taylor was taken aback- how the hell did that work?
"What do you mean your power confirmed it? If you're not really real then…" Taylor awkwardly trailed off, sinking into herself a bit- she really didn't have the words to describe what she meant.
Strangely Lisa didn't seem to mind her bumbling question, simply giving Taylor a knowing smile like she'd totally heard and understood what she meant. Which- well, with her power maybe she did? Good god that would make social interaction more bearable.
"Yeah! Okay so- here's the thing, either A- you really are crazy, in which case, I am a hallucination and it doesn't matter whether or not you listen to me, or B- you are a parahuman but your power does not perfectly reflect the future, in which case I might be totally acting out of character and you can't really do anything about that, or, and personally I think you should focus more on this last one because otherwise you'll snap- C- you are a parahuman and a powerful precog at that. It could be that you are accurately and perfectly simulating any future timeline and all the people within it. In which case me and my powers would be accurately represented. Are you with me so far?" Lisa asked, her tone almost frantic as she described her theories.
Honestly, it was starting to be a bit much for Taylor to take in all at once, but she got the basic gist of it regardless. Sensing this, Lisa continued.
"Right. So if I'm perfectly replicating in a simulation what I would say in real life if I were in this exact situation but I'm still telling you my power thinks I'm not real and you're not crazy then- well- god fuck this is hurting my head-or at least it would be if my head was real what the fuck!" Taylor blinked. What?
"…So wait, if you know you're not real and you actually aren't existing then how can you feel pain?" Taylor asked, stretching her legs out and letting her feet-shoes and all- cool themselves in the creeks shiver-inducing water.
Lisa gave her a somewhat manic smile in return.
"That's just it! I'm not feeling real pain! Because I don't actually have a perspective! But- since I am a perfect replica of the real Lisa Wilbourn your simulation is making me- or the image of me- react to a pain that doesn't exist because the real Lisa would be having headaches at this point. Christ. It's enough to give a girl a complex." Taylor massaged her head idly while thinking that clusterfuck through.
"So- so why tell me any of this? Are you really just curious?" Taylor asked skeptically- most people didn't go around helping each other out for no reason after all, and even with the whole 'simulation' thing going on it didn't really explain why Lisa was doing any of this.
Lisa bit her lip, her eyes flickering down to the mossy floor and back up to Taylor.
"I am curious about this- I mean, can you blame me? But, no, that's not the main reason why I'm doing this...When I first saw you, I mean, even without my power it was obvious you were in a bad place and I- I just-" Lisa sighed, her shoulders sagging in the exact same way Taylors dads did, like the entire world was dragging them down.
"You reminded me of someone that I once knew- someone that I- that I should have helped. And just because your situation is a bit more…complex than I first thought it would be when I invited you to my table, doesn't mean that you still don't deserve someone in your corner." Taylor stared, chest aching and eyes watering despite her attempts to keep dry eyed.
Oh. That was- that was a lot. Someone in her corner huh? Taylor let out a small warbling laugh- her corner was pretty fucking tight at the moment.
"So!" Lisa clapped her hands together, seeming to go from solemn and morose to eager in the blink of an eye.
"If I'm gonna help you at all then I have to know what I'm dealing with. I know this might be a of a rough topic right now, but I need to know exactly what's happening to you that's not allowing you to be in the real world instead of your simulation." Taylor grimaced, shifting. Fuck. Well, they said talking about trauma could be therapeutic didn't they?
Hopefully that still applied even when said trauma was still happening to you.
"I know I- I probably just sound crazy but-"
"-Hey! Whoa, no you- I don't think you're crazy." Lisa interrupted, voice pitched with some sort of strange urgency. Taylor looked up, quizzically regarding the seriousness in the other girl's facial expression. She didn't get it- what did Lisa get out of pretending to believe her?
Lisa winced for no apparent reason, and after a moment of scanning the crowd of the coffee shop, stood up swiftly.
"I swear I actually do believe you okay- and I- well, maybe the rest of this conversation should be a bit more private." For her part, Taylor really had no need to worry about people overhearing or privacy- she could shout her greatest secrets from the rooftop and then just simply open her eyes in real life and have this reality wash away like a footprint by the tide.
But Lisa was being concerning nice and was currently offering her hand again and- well- it was embarrassing to admit but she hadn't had positive physical contact with another human being in…a long time.
Hesitantly, she wrapped her own bony and spiderlike fingers around Lisa's- and despite the circumstances- still found her own cheeks heating up and her heartbeat raising in response.
Irritated with her own pathetic behavior but unable to stop herself, Taylor allowed the blonde girl to gently lead her out the stores doors and down the street.
The sidewalk was uneven and cracked underneath her stolen too-big shoes, and the Bays air was refreshingly cold against her skin. It was nice, but the underlying feeling of reality made for a disconcerting comparison. Worse- her mind seemed to struggle with wholly separating her experiences from each other, so sometimes when she opened her mouth to take a big breath of salty smoke filled air she instead choked on humid sweat and vomit. And sometimes when she went to turn her shoulder bumped into a hot metal wall that was but also wasn't actually there.
If Lisa noticed her strange behavior she didn't do anything about it other than occasionally turn her head to give Taylor a comforting but worried smile and increasingly piercing looks.
Some part of Taylor distantly noted that if Lisa was some sort of psycho killer who liked to cut people up for a living then following her obediently and without question probably wasn't a good idea. But…
Well. It didn't matter did it? If Lisa did turn out to be just as awful as everything else then who cared? Taylor would just reset the simulation and know to avoid her next time. She could probably catch criminals like this actually- though that was under the illusion that she didn't go crazy or possibly die before she got out of the locker.
When Lisa finally stopped it was at a small and mostly overgrown park on the 'bad side of town'- which was to say, not all that far away from her house.
She supposed it was as good a place as any for not being heard- it was filled with thistles and long itchy grass which made it not the most popular spot even just in terms of abandoned parks.
Marching through the undergrowth was interesting- Lisa looked to be having a miserable time of it, but for Taylor the pain was somewhat repressed- or rather, a bit numb. She certainly felt the thistles that snagged at her skin, but not as much as she felt the pain of her cramping muscles or the deep scratches rent by the lockers shitty interior in the real world. Sort of a cold comfort there.
Eventually Lisa led them to the decently sized creek which ran through the park and sat herself down on a conveniently placed log. Taylor watched her for a moment, eyeing the area suspiciously.
It was a location surrounded by trees- they couldn't be seen from above or from the sides surely- covered in dense brush and thorns which would work to hide them, slow pursuers, and alert them to anyone coming their direction well before they got here. The log was nicely shaped and rounded with soft moss, and the creek just below their feet was noisy enough that it would be basically impossible to overhear them.
Lisa had obviously put some thought into this- and somewhat eerily, it was just the kind of location Taylor herself would choose to hide from the bullies if she could.
Carefully, Taylor joined Lisa on the log, looking at the other girl only to realize she'd been carefully studying her the whole time.
Taylor met Lisa's grasshopper green eyes with her own muddy brown before awkwardly looking away.
There was a moment of silence before Lisa took in an audible breath and began to talk.
"Okay. Okay- so. Here's the thing, I don't believe you because I'm pitying you or trying to trick you or something- I believe you because I know you're telling the truth." Taylor snapped her head up, blinking a little at the proclamation. That- that was not what she was expecting. Lisa gave her a dry smile in response but didn't stop talking.
"The reason I know that is because I'm a parahuman too- you know what a Thinker is?" Taylor nodded numbly, shoulders tensing. How? How did she manage to run into another parahuman out of all the thousands of people in the city with no powers at all? Was this her mind? Bending the rules of her simulated reality to make things a bit more interesting? Was it really just a freakish coincidence?
"Right. Well, that's what I am. I'm like Sherlock Holmes sort of- I extrapolate data from information around me and my power lets me sort of cheat to fill in the blanks." Taylor nodded again to show she was listening, fighting down the inward surge of envy- knowing so much about people and your surroundings probably wasn't all it was cracked up to be but- well. It had to be better than this.
"So when you said that- that this was all in your head? Yeah. My power confirmed that." At this Taylor was taken aback- how the hell did that work?
"What do you mean your power confirmed it? If you're not really real then…" Taylor awkwardly trailed off, sinking into herself a bit- she really didn't have the words to describe what she meant.
Strangely Lisa didn't seem to mind her bumbling question, simply giving Taylor a knowing smile like she'd totally heard and understood what she meant. Which- well, with her power maybe she did? Good god that would make social interaction more bearable.
"Yeah! Okay so- here's the thing, either A- you really are crazy, in which case, I am a hallucination and it doesn't matter whether or not you listen to me, or B- you are a parahuman but your power does not perfectly reflect the future, in which case I might be totally acting out of character and you can't really do anything about that, or, and personally I think you should focus more on this last one because otherwise you'll snap- C- you are a parahuman and a powerful precog at that. It could be that you are accurately and perfectly simulating any future timeline and all the people within it. In which case me and my powers would be accurately represented. Are you with me so far?" Lisa asked, her tone almost frantic as she described her theories.
Honestly, it was starting to be a bit much for Taylor to take in all at once, but she got the basic gist of it regardless. Sensing this, Lisa continued.
"Right. So if I'm perfectly replicating in a simulation what I would say in real life if I were in this exact situation but I'm still telling you my power thinks I'm not real and you're not crazy then- well- god fuck this is hurting my head-or at least it would be if my head was real what the fuck!" Taylor blinked. What?
"…So wait, if you know you're not real and you actually aren't existing then how can you feel pain?" Taylor asked, stretching her legs out and letting her feet-shoes and all- cool themselves in the creeks shiver-inducing water.
Lisa gave her a somewhat manic smile in return.
"That's just it! I'm not feeling real pain! Because I don't actually have a perspective! But- since I am a perfect replica of the real Lisa Wilbourn your simulation is making me- or the image of me- react to a pain that doesn't exist because the real Lisa would be having headaches at this point. Christ. It's enough to give a girl a complex." Taylor massaged her head idly while thinking that clusterfuck through.
"So- so why tell me any of this? Are you really just curious?" Taylor asked skeptically- most people didn't go around helping each other out for no reason after all, and even with the whole 'simulation' thing going on it didn't really explain why Lisa was doing any of this.
Lisa bit her lip, her eyes flickering down to the mossy floor and back up to Taylor.
"I am curious about this- I mean, can you blame me? But, no, that's not the main reason why I'm doing this...When I first saw you, I mean, even without my power it was obvious you were in a bad place and I- I just-" Lisa sighed, her shoulders sagging in the exact same way Taylors dads did, like the entire world was dragging them down.
"You reminded me of someone that I once knew- someone that I- that I should have helped. And just because your situation is a bit more…complex than I first thought it would be when I invited you to my table, doesn't mean that you still don't deserve someone in your corner." Taylor stared, chest aching and eyes watering despite her attempts to keep dry eyed.
Oh. That was- that was a lot. Someone in her corner huh? Taylor let out a small warbling laugh- her corner was pretty fucking tight at the moment.
"So!" Lisa clapped her hands together, seeming to go from solemn and morose to eager in the blink of an eye.
"If I'm gonna help you at all then I have to know what I'm dealing with. I know this might be a of a rough topic right now, but I need to know exactly what's happening to you that's not allowing you to be in the real world instead of your simulation." Taylor grimaced, shifting. Fuck. Well, they said talking about trauma could be therapeutic didn't they?
Hopefully that still applied even when said trauma was still happening to you.
Nice to see the update, thanks! We'll have to see if simulation Lisa can figure out a way for Taylor to get out of the locker, in which case it would be interesting to see the interaction with real Lisa.
No prob! This chapter is not as long as I would like, but life's kinda wild for me right now so I figured posting something was better than making people wait another month
Taylor was lucky to stumble upon the right person. Not that she's been lucky lately, but at least something good was finally going to happen, right?
Damn, I hope Lisa finds a way to help her. After all, if anyone can find a solution, it's her (and importantly, she wants to help). Hang in there, Taylor.
Damn, I hope Lisa finds a way to help her. After all, if anyone can find a solution, it's her (and importantly, she wants to help). Hang in there, Taylor.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is still such an interesting premise and I can't wait to see where you go with it.
Unfortunately Taylor, it does not. 😅 (No but really, therapeutic options during ongoing traumatic situations are much more limited than post-trauma treatment.)
Unfortunately Taylor, it does not. 😅 (No but really, therapeutic options during ongoing traumatic situations are much more limited than post-trauma treatment.)