(Episode I) (Act 2)

“ALRIGHT,” Maddie attempted to snap everyone out of it, only coughing out the rest as she struggles to move to a crate to lean on, “A-alright…”

It was just a warehouse with crates and boxes laid out and about. Detail-less, colorless, breadth-less. A cover over the crate Maddie leans against being completely pointless, the hangar stapled against the paper walls overhead. Even the grime texture was clean, even square, in its looks.

“Anyone…” Maddie struggled to ask, “Anyone fucked up? Injured bad?”

It wasn’t until that question was the nature of the injuries were made clear and felt present.

Maddie’s left leg was choked then skinned due to her jeans splitting, the threads doing the work. Tracy got a bloody, bruised nose which made her sniffling more pronounced. Not only were River’s glasses shattered so badly only the frame was left, but the glass scattered some on River’s cheeks, and only small fragments maybe in an attempt by her to get them away from her eyes in the fall. Aiko took the fall brunt of the various falls, caked with dirt contained by her rough skin all around her, stronger in some areas as she’s shaking with dust.

Maddie snapped at Aiko, which made the latter jump, “Tourist, you got First Aid in that bag? If so, move it…”

Aiko was going to comment on her tone, until Maddie motioned her head to a crying Tracy, covering her nose in a vain, pathetic attempt. Without a pause in her step, Aiko opened and dug into her back, pulling out that First Aid kit. Maddie noticed this, limped forward to grab it, and had to hold back a comment on that as she rushed toward Tracy to clean her up.

Even after being done with her sickness, Jackie getting up was laced in pain and nausea. There was something about the process of being sick, that causes one to feel and become sicker. If it wasn’t aching, it was the pain. If not the pain, it was the nausea. But the prevailing mood, which acted as an umbrella to contain each one then connected together, was her being crestfallen. What was this? Where are they? Is this even a place to answer those questions, when logic has left behind in the reality they fell out of?

She wobbled, when she tried to stand. She tried to speak, but the acid was still fresh in her gullet. Who was she kidding, if not herself?

She proceeded to back away a few steps, before planting herself onto the floor. There was nothing left to fight against the headache, so she rested her head into her hands. And in this murkiness of her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder if the only sense, the only meaning of this world, was to prove to them that…

No. Focus, she tells herself. Finish.

“River,” Jackie croaked out. She had to keep talking, so that she could clear her throat, keep it firm. “Has anything you’ve read… Detailed any of this happening…?”

She only shook her head. Her cheeks were rid of the small glass shards, leaving behind alcohol rubbed, centimeter indents.

“Please. Anything that you can recall, even the stupidest, vague details—”

River cut her off, all without raising her voice a fraction. The monotone that was made light of was laid heavy, and noted here, “I know and read and heard of the craziest, dark, and fucked up the Shift has done. Stuff they don’t tell anyone. Secondhand information sure, but all the same, I’m just as lost as you all are.”

Then she closed her eyes gently. Acceptance, it seemed like? Then Jackie caught her eyelids trying to keep themselves still, shut. Resignation.

“Well we just can’t accept that!” Tracy had her nose cleaned, bandaged, and stopped up. Her eyes by contrast were bulging out of her head almost, and the fact that they were bloodshot twice over did not help in absorbing this image that steam rolled her previous one. “Where are we?! What part of the Shifts that cause this?! You can’t just say—'oh all the crazy shit I’ve heard and nope, this isn’t on it despite it being insanity given form’! It’s pointless to say something like that, so tell us what you know!”

Maddie’s audible whisper of “holy shit” perfectly encapsulated Jackie’s reaction. She was too staggered by it to respond, to deescalate this.

Tracy turned to Maddie, “And make sure not to give her anything else if she doesn’t.”

“Whoa there lady listen, let’s not drag me into all this,” Maddie retorted back, staring her down as she continued to wipe Aiko down with sanitary wipes.

“Let’s answer your questions with another question,” River responded and simply did, “Since we’re at the point of threats. Don’t you think, in the 50 odd years of reality wavering back and forth, crunching and then stretching, that there was ever this sense of stability? And after all this damage, this so-called stability lasts? Let’s face it. There’s nothing that can explain this. This is simply a thing that’s happening because existence itself is being worn down. This is the debris, the leftovers. And now we’re the debris and leftovers.”

The young woman that was fling accusations, that was attempting to perform ultimatums, that planned and parse her words… Could only make a squeak in the aftermath of that.

“FUCK!” Maddie roared out in anger, throwing the kit down. “I don’t even know what the fuck that means and I get it!” She proceeded to kick it away, as it spun out on the floor. “Out of all the ways this fucking place fucked me, it does this. I should’ve fucking known, it was gonna be something like this.”

“Okay, fine,” Jackie interjected, can’t allow for more breakdowns, “Let’s figure this out then.”

“Sure,” Maddie spat at, “Before we lose our minds when we ‘realize’ that we’re stuck or before we all starve? Or kill each other?”

“It won’t get to that because we’ll be together, racking our brains around this, using everything we have left. Then yeah, all is lost.”

“Why isn’t it ‘all is lost’ now Police Cadet; fucking spell out better than she did!”

Jackie just looked at Maddie, then got up, taking her a few, pregnant moments.

She then raised her wounded fist and took a hard swing against the crate, the impact shattering into a wide, gaping hole.

The rest can only just stare at her, then the crate, then her again.

“Right,” Jackie said “calmly”, pulling her splittered hand out of the wreck. “There. We know it’s fragile. Fake. That’s a first head start.”

The rest of the girls are now huddled together, just starting at the girl that has literally proved that she’s strong enough to knock every single one of them out cold. While still being injured.

“…You’re just as fucking crazy as the rest of us…” There was nothing venomous about the comment Maddie made, just awe.

“Actually quite the opposite, I’m sure I’m the only clear-minded person here,” Jackie then grabbed the stray bandages and begun to apply it to her hand, continuing, “So let’s expand on that, use it. This world, this whatever it is, is totally and utterly fake. At the point where it can be easily broken with the slightest action. Maybe it can be broken out of? Broken through?”

And with her “bandaged” hand, she walked about, gesturing to describe her words, “If we can breakthrough, maybe that can get us back to our home? Back to the forest, maybe? Though the area for that’s gone, so maybe we’ll come back to…”

Nothing was said. And there was nearly nothing but fear within the other’s eyes.

“…” Jackie then sighed. “I’m sorry, I’m—… I guess it’s what I said to you all. I hate not being able to do something. Anything. I was sick of it then; I still am now. Sure, I’m crazy, but… Please… Let’s just push through this.”

The silence continued, before Maddie offered her own sigh. “At least lemme see that hand that you literally banged into wood then pushed it all in further…” She gathered the remnants of the kit and undid Jackie’s work, getting ready to pull the splitters out. “Y’know, you can’t start speaking sane, then do something fucking crazy, then back to sane…”

Jackie smiled, which quickly turned into a twisted wincing as Maddie started pulling out the wood.

“Plus hey,” Maddie smirked, “I can get payback doing this. I think you’re on to something with this constructive shit.”

“Fwwwuauafair enough…” Jackie whined out. “Baaack to the musing…”

There was no sound, no echoes or ambience in this ghost trash heap. No sun and its rays really, it was just clear. No rhyme, no reason, but only because this normally happened.

…Or is it…?

Jackie looked out the window, the vehicle that gave her the sight that nearly broke her… The tear, the soft light, ripped across the fake sky, now giving her a shred of hope. All the debris begun hurling heavenward, and systematically spiraling into the void.

“See girls,” Jackie using her own hand to point at it, can’t help to brim with something she taught that she wasn’t capable anymore. “There’s always a way. You just have to believe it. You just have to fucking believe…”