Our Trauma

“Did Kiddie… choose to do all this?”

Now they stood further away from it all, their exhausted, worldlsss eyes were still fixed on the thing. It was surreal to even be here, much less see the exact thing they had during their first near-death experience. Frankie wondered why Katie wasn’t more scared than she was- the girl had this aura to her colder than Frankie’s own had ever been. She was like a walking corpse.

As a matter of fact, that was exactly how Katie saw herself.

“He must have…” At least the poor woman was talking to her now. “I mean, after all the money he would’ve lost… this would’ve been the smartest option, even if it could be seen as disrespectful. It sure does look like it’s working.”

“Well… sure, but…” Frankie briefly looked down as she then bore her eyes into her almost broken-sounding sister. “We’re the ones that they’re disrespecting. Don’t you feel anything about that?”

“No, not really.”

Katie was calm in her tone as she spoke about what made it that way to her.

“It’s… natural, to be this way about this kind of thing. I look at it myself, and I… I’m just as fascinated as that lady back there. There’s something about it that calms the mind. To see, with your own eyes, that the world is just as hostile as you think it is.”

“…I just think that’s pretty disheartening.” The little sister soberly mourned.

“…Not to me.”

They both agreed to stare at that terrible ruin awhile longer, again without speaking a word.

“Been awhile since I thought about any of this.” Frankie eventually spoke up.

“You’re telling me.”

“We haven’t… seen anyone quite like Action, since then. Not that I’m not grateful, I just… my brain just figured there had to be people like that everywhere. And… there were bad people… for sure, but… those made sense. Action… she was different. She was nothing like any of them.”

“Mm… I agree. She fascinates me, more than anything.”

Frankie swallowed again.

“What did she… want?”

Katie kept staring at the rubble instead of at her conversation partner. To be fair, Frankie was doing the same.

“I think she wanted to make everyone else realize what she already had.”