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Aftermath
Topic Started: Mar 5 2018, 10:55 AM (59 Views)
Caledonia

I hurt myself today,
To see if I still feel.
I focus on the pain,
The only thing that's real.


I am fighting Jace Valentine, who is fighting Choronzon. Jace, with a look of pure rage and hatred I have only seen in one other pair of eyes. I gouge at those hateful eyes, and Valentine recoils. But he grabs my arm, slams it into a boulder.

My arm is broken.

Jace grabs me by the throat, lifts me. I feel the life leaving my body as his hands crush my throat. He is stronger now than he was before, stronger than when we fought all those weeks ago. I know that I am about to die.

I wish only that I could have told Dan that I loved him one more time.

And then he drops me. I hear a yell from above. Words I don't understand. But it gets the attention of Jace and Choronzon. I see Eris above me. They yell 'For the strongest!'. They throw down a book. The Book.

The three of us clash in trying to seize the book. All of us lay hands on it. It begins to tear.

I collapse. Pure adrenaline has gotten me through the agony of my broken arm, but as I grab the Book, tear a third of the pages out, I catch sight of my bone protruding through my flesh, and my will to remain fighting diminishes. The last thing I see before I lose consciousness is my foes fleeing, each clutching their own third of the book.

The needle tears a hole,
The old familiar sting,
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything.


I awake in the infirmary. I cannot tell how long I've been asleep. I see Eris in the next bed, unconscious. I don't know why they are there. I make to reach out to them but there is no strength in my limbs. James Skelton is a few beds down, alive but barely, his heart monitor pinging regularly, but weakly.

I see an intravenous line in my right hand. My arm is whole once more, I cannot see my bones. But my arm is now entombed in plaster, and some substance or another is flooding my veins.

I am alone.

In time, RedEmma, Eris' medical drone, comes by to check on me. She makes some satisfied noises as she inspects my arm. She says that the bone has set nicely. That I need to sleep. I don't want to. I want to find my husband, comfort my friend, do anything but sit here useless.

She doesn't give me a choice. One of the IV tubes fills with liquid, with some substance of Eris' concoction. I lose my grip on consciousness.

When I wake again, Elijah is sitting at the end of my bed. His eyes are on Eris when my eyes open. I close my eyes and go back to sleep. I don't want to talk to Elijah. Not after what he's done.

What have I become,
My sweetest friend?
Everyone I know goes away in the end.


I wake again and Elijah is gone. This time Eris is awake. I am able to get up and walk over to them. My legs have regained their strength. Eris looks at me and I see the pain in their eyes. We say nothing for now. I take their hand in my left hand - I am unused to it, using my left hand - and hold theirs in mine for some time.

I realize that I have forgotten my husband. Guilt stabs at me like an icicle in my heart. Good medical sense be damned, I tear the needle from my hand and run upstairs, not caring that I am wearing only a gown.

And you could have it all,
My empire of dirt.


As I run I see the devastation of the Academy. The fires are out but their marks remain. These halls, once my home, are scorched and burned and dead. And there is no-one here. I don't know where anyone is. I don't know what day it is, or what time. I know only where I need to go.

I reach my chamber. It has been heavily damaged. No fire, but the roof has collapsed in parts. My bed is covered in dust and rubble, and the rain pours in. I scramble for my laptop, open it, try to reach Dan on Skype. He isn't there. I try his phone. Same thing. No response. I look at the time. It is after midnight here - but that means that in Atlanta it's still the early evening. He should be there.

I will let you down,
I will make you hurt.


I take a deep breath. My heart is pounding. I don't know what has happened to my husband. I have no communications from him, though it has been days since the attack. Something is wrong. Dan has been more and more distant recently, and I don't know why, save that my father and some of his friends had said something to him, something he had never told me.

I scream. A deep, primal scream. I cannot help it. The rest of the Academy probably hears me. I don't care. I scream out of physical and mental pain, frustration, rage. My husband is missing, my home destroyed, so many of my friends hurt or killed or worse. God knows what they're doing to Flame, what my mistake has unleashed upon that poor woman.

God knows what they're doing to Dan.

Most of my things have been badly damaged. Someone has replaced my bow in the closet. I can't look at it. It reminds me too much of the battle. Involuntarily, my eyes are drawn to the photograph on the dresser, the one taken when Eris and I won the tag team championships. Happy times. Before all this horror. I look at the smiling faces in the picture and can't help but think of what has happened to them. Skelton, holding up a tankard of mead and clearly yelling something through an open-mouth grin. Shot through the stomach, barely clinging to life. Eris, their arm around me, wearing that ridiculous medieval outfit - their body broken from a fall, barely able to move without feeling agonizing pain. Phoenix and Flame - those inseparable twins, now separated by my sheer stupidity, poor Flame doubtlessly suffering in the bowels of the Institute.

Dan.

God knows what they're doing to Dan.

I wear this crown of thorns,
Upon my liar's chair.
Full of broken thoughts,
I cannot repair.


I cannot be strong anymore. I clutch the photo to my chest and curl on the floor, silently sobbing. I hurt everywhere, inside and out. I have to let myself go, let free all that I pushed down in the battle.

God… I killed someone. I shot him, clean through the eye. For all I know, somewhere some mother or father or wife or husband or child has been told that their loved one isn't coming home. They probably didn't know what he did, that he was an agent of a brutal organization. They just knew that he was their son or husband or father.

And the worst part? I'd do it again if I had to. It was kill or be tortured, twisted, turned into a monstrosity like Jace. And not just me, but so many people I cared about.

And I hadn't even been able to save them all.

Beneath the stains of time,
The feelings disappear,
You are someone else,
I am still right here.


I don't know how long I lie there, in the wreckage of my life. I cry until I feel like there are no more tears left in my body. Somewhere down the line, sleep takes me. I wake up in a bed, not my bed. I recognize my surroundings. Eris' room. They must not be out of the infirmary yet. I see a card by the table. I pick it up and open it. About a dozen signatures, around the words "THANK YOU". Oscar "The Grouch" Gonzales. John Njeri. Wang Xiaolei. Some of my other students, who had fought by my side in the attack.

Phoenix.

I feel sick to my stomach. What could that man possibly have to thank me for? I have doomed his sister, his twin, his best friend, to a fate worse than death.

I hear the door open. It's Amber. She's been allowed to stay free from her bonds, obviously. She explains to me what has happened, that she heard my scream, carried me to Eris' room when she found me catatonic on the floor. And those of my students who had recovered from their injuries had made the card for me. Nice of them. But I feel like I don't deserve their thanks. I have failed them. Their home has been destroyed, they have been injured, killed, taken. Amber reassures me that they don't blame me for this. She reassures me that it's the opposite.

I wish I could believe her.

I ask her if anyone has heard anything from Dan. She shakes her head. I bury my face in my hands. My last hope has been that the problem was on my end, that he'd sent a veritable barrage of messages trying to find me, or even come here, and has contacted someone else. But he is gone, he has been taken, it's the only explanation.

I resolve that I will go back to Atlanta. I have to see, have to confirm. I won't fully believe that my husband is gone until I see that he's gone.

I can't.

If I could start again,
A million miles away,
I would keep myself,
I would find a way.

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