(Episode XII) (Act 5)

                                                                                     ***

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshsitshsitshit

It was down to the fat failure to save someone.

River was now in a situation she kept thinking about, taking a hit if it meant not being a bother later, and now she can’t even do that.

She was locked within her own body and can feel herself ceasing up again. There was only one thing to it.

“AIKO!” River screamed. “SAVE HER!”

River turned her head.

Of course there was something wrong.

Aiko simply looked over, with her eyes glazed over and a hazy expression hanging off her skull. It seemed like she heard River, but couldn’t understand.

It felt like River was gulping down something that was choking the life out of her, and it continued to bore itself within her chest cavity.

She was never meant to be somebody.

She tried being somebody, so the actual, living people she cared about could finally enjoy being people. She failed that.

So even if she failed doing this, she won’t be taking people down with her this time.

She just wished…

The girl ran, shifted to sliding on her knees on the floor to get to Jackie’s body.

She shook her, to the point her head could’ve snapped but she’s been seeing what Jackie’s doing. It deals with motion, her ability maybe—maybe outside forces can

She felt N’atural’s claw slap her cheek open, before her glasses shattered.

Being flung at speeds like she was, the human reaction time couldn’t keep up, of course.

All she did, all she could’ve done, was activate her ability before she slammed into the floor feet away from everyone.

Figures… Couldn’t even die right. A life of failure, ending with…

***

Maddie saw River sail across the floor, only turning into smoke as soon as she slammed into it.

Jackson fucked up, Aiko’s just staring at everyone with a dumb look on her face, and Tracy’s screaming her throat open before the monster girl could do it herself. Who is racing towards them.

Yeah. Maybe it’s just time to call it quits.

She’s going to feel shitty about it for the rest of her limited days, but they’re not worth getting killed like this. But then again, what’s new? She always felt shit.

Maddie turned on her bare heel, about to book it down the stairs.

All Maddie could feel was her ankle getting crushed. It was the only thing to feel in that moment.

She only could yell, gritting her teeth, when she was picked upside down in quick succession.

She couldn’t fucking believe it—she barely got the breath in to react and this lizard managed to flip her in a fucking second.

It was like, even with this bullshit siVis brain of hers, couldn’t fucking follow a single frame of her moving—

Maddie was caught off from her thoughts. All that flooded her mind wasn’t just the pain at the moment.

It was the feeling of weight, being shifted around her small and feeble body, as N’atural began to swing her around in a circle. One handed, her transforming arm stretching out more and more as she spins around.

When people talked about the dangers of siVis-freaks, they always went on about the constant change in perspective. Maddie was always confused with that—how cared about some shit like that when they could flay you alive and boil you with some cooking power?

But the fact that she was being pulled around by gravity, as if she was on some rollercoaster, along with the fact that her brain was struggling to even catch up with what’s going on to her right now, she got it. And she should’ve fucking got it.

“And awaaaaay you go~!” N’atural couldn’t swing, letting go from her left.

Her worthless body couldn’t move from trajectory—bent into a L-shape, careening from the side as she’s getting hurled like she was a fucking booger. Like a fucking doll.

If it wasn’t the crushed leg crippling her entire body, it was her brain being slushed around, trying to figure out—to perceive what the fuck is happening as she’s being hurled into the wall.

She made impact and she was finally allowed to cry out in complete and utter anguish.

When she crashed into the wall, at the end of the hallway, she felt her body being flatten due to the force, a constant pressing until squeeze sensation that kept going until her body ached and alarmingly numb from top to bottom.

But it was her screaming. Crying out in pain that transitioned seemingly into uncontrollable sobs, was the thing that truly winded her.

She flopped out of the indent she made from the wall, like she was some shit thrown at the wall.

Maddie tried to stop, tried to cut off her wailing with yelling once more—she always managed it. It always worked. She screamed, she refused. She tried to thrash about when her limbs haven’t fully responded to her.

And with her “useless as fuck siVis” pointed out for her, with her ears that ceased their ringing, that by trying to scream to mask the sobbing—she only made an even mournful sound.

No.

Hell no.

Hell fucking no.

She’s survived this long. She survived when the doctors said she couldn’t. She fucking survived when her little sister fucking didn’t—she’s not fucking dying like this, looking like this, for no fucking reason, even to a Trend.

The perspective shifts caught up with her. She leaned forward, stiffened and she cut herself off so that she could spit up.

She instantly looked away, between reflex and outright refusal that this happened. With this view, she finally saw that her arm was twisted to the left, into the shape of a J.

Maddie could only look down, shaking over the revelation, not quite grasping what happened. Not in the sense of not visually catching it. But in the sense, it just doesn’t register with the grid she’s painstakingly made.

There’s nothing for this.

There’s nothing she could do.

So she did what she was only capable of. The only thing that defined after all, in the end.

Maddie Solomon went weak and cried in pain.

***

Well. Tracy was the only one standing, and there was so many things to do in her head—she was afraid, among many things, that they’ll stay in her head.

What was she to do? N’atural is turning into a monster, shrugged off the efforts of people who were more skilled than her, and the person with the ability to escape all of this is somehow more braindead than usual.

Does she wall her off again? Does she open up a trap door and hope for her digging to take long time for her? Grab Aiko and use her a possible bait—well, that could be… There’s no way the others could survive this, so maybe that’s actually viable.

“I’M COMING FOR YOU BOTH NOW” N’atural, saying a line that even a b-movie rubber suit couldn’t be paid to say. Not much intelligence left, stating the obvious.

And no way to talk it out, appeal to her, maybe strike a deal to be her chewtoy as long it isn’t instant death. She could always run, it never failed her in the past.

Tracy looked at Aiko, still in a daze, her arms dangling in wind—despite all of the oxygen sucked out of this building, this scene.

She quivered. Then wavered.

She couldn’t. Not when she knows that she has a family, worried sick about her.

Coward she forever will be, Tracy’s cowardly enough to not try human shields.

…She’ll have to see where this next move would take her. She looked at N’atural barreling towards them from the side.

Tracy extended her arms, grabbing onto the air and pulling back towards her chest.

siVis Ability!

She flipped the wall behind Aiko, to cover her up like a solid sheet. A move that she instantly figured out in a haste during that terrible fight at the diner.

She whimpered after. Immediately feeling bad. She should’ve ran. She should’ve just walled her off and ran and never looked back.

The girl’s safe, sure… But Tracy is still standing there.

That girl talked about having regrets, how it powers your choices, how it acts as some fucking superpower and therefore, absolves you from their weight.

As N’atural jumped in the air and lunging forward while spinning towards Tracy—she only thought of what she truly has left in this “life” of hers. You’re only powered by your resolve to ease those regrets that weigh on you.

By any means necessary.

Tracy scrambled and pulled the last pillar forth, acting as a last minute shield… And the debris hitting Tracy point blank caused her to slide back and fall straight onto her back, the pieces of brick raining down across her left leg, right shoulder, left forearm and right side of her face.

Here she was. Covered and bruised, within some school that possibly fudged their statics to appear posher yet ended up looking pompous while an overrated europop star has her mental breakdown and being the victim to that. After everything, after everything she did so far to finally make her life resemble something closer to the word—and she’s going to die here of all places.

She felt like crying. She wanted to scream. She even thought about opting for a last ditch effort to just crawl away, maybe fake a spasm and play dead.

But no.

“Y—YO—YOOOU!” Tracy was so incensed; she couldn’t choke out the phrase without frothing with anger. “YOU WHINY BRAT!”

N’atural literally changed her trajectory mid-air, and landed on all fours. She just looked at Tracy.

“You call yourself hurting—all because of your self image issues?!” Tracy easily reached the tenors she struggled to reach for during “villainess” call reads. She felt the tears running down her face, but she didn’t care. She was fueled by the hot flush that was bubbling under her surely-now-pink skin.

“I only had a percental of what you had—and I fucked my entire life! And here you are—Me, being the pathetic one and you’re the one ranting and raving and screaming and wanting to commit murder?! NO!”

In her frenzied, demented state—Tracy found the strength to only wave her arms so hard, the debris that was supposed to pin her down flew in differing directions. For a monster that lacks the subtly of human expression, N’atural appeared to be easily dumbfounded.

“YOU’RE GETTING PITY PARTIES, DOCUMENTRIES, SCIENIFIC STUDIES—I EVEN HEARD THAT THEY WANT TO BUILD A MURAL FOR YOU! A fucking mural! If I had your ability; I would rival Godzilla and King Kong in size! Fuck you! Fuck everything about you, you appalling example of ‘mediocre yet undeserving of that either’! Just… Fuck off. I don’t care anymore. As long as you have what I said in your head until the Extant Helmet blows it off clean; I give. Go on. Eat me or some shit.”

N’atural was just paralyzed, unable to take in what lies before her. Clearly defeated prey, yet defiantly opposed to being something other than that. Shaking and screaming, yet in pure anger and rage.

…Though, now that she cleared her head of that, Tracy should’ve just made the floor into a trap door and crawled for it.

She closed her eyes, just laying on the floor and with her thoughts. Only this time, she’s not warped up in a blanket as the television light kept her from sleeping in a empty apartment.

And most certainly, she wasn’t able to see Jackie come behind N’atural, tackling her with the full brunt of her ability.

***

Jackie felt the crackling of bone and platelet as she rushed N’atural, the explosion darting her forward into the wall of the stairs below.

She saw the “sparks” come out of her arm and side, but she couldn’t dwell on that. She had to do what she… Everyone else…

She saw what she could’ve once she awoke, and the images of her latest failure will be there in her head forevermore.

The grief dulled her senses so much so, she couldn’t feel the pain. Or rather, even hear the siVis Call.

…Or notice, how she moved before she told herself to. And the fact she was shaking.

She glanced over the two girls, and noticed they were too, and not from their injuries.

Oh no.

Was he right after all--?

Jackie tried to keep herself together, tried to keep Stark—the girls—Bentley—Leslie—her parents in mind because she felt like she was losing it and everything she worked so hard to keep.

Her siVis activated on her own, creeping along her body until she became a ghastly figure in white, made of puzzles and captures the struggle of humanity uncannily well.

Jackie fell into her Mindspace. In fact, all of them did—all of the girls.

They fell, and they fell, and they fell. Right down to the bottomless well of nothingness yet infinity.

A new rock bottom, and there’s no way they can continue like this—not the way they are.

Different thoughts, different minds, different hearts. But they all came to the same conclusion.

They keep unravelling, they have unraveled at this point. There’s nothing left of them to crumble away that isn’t complete death or mind decay.

This is truly the bottom. They have nothing left to climb out with.

…So why not let siVis rebuild the things they needed.

A burst from the nothingness, as streaks within the void became lines, lines that became shapes—sigils—and design. Spinning off into different directions, but always connected. It ended up resembling a cross between a bodily system and an ancient line formation lost to time. A mix of stardust, but wiring.

It wasn’t done forming yet.

The system began rooting itself across their bodies—reseparating their various layers, bones, organs and turning them inside out before recreating them into the style of unearthly yet familiar, before settling back into the merge—still connected.

Like it or not, the girls cannot refuse, protest, or go back.

The change that they were searching for has finally taken hold.

At the cost of who they once were.