(Episode I) (Act 4)

They all scanned the environment, the harbor-warehouse-business district was just a long road, stretching on and on. Plenty of buildings of different forms, plenty of chances.

Lining up in the middle of the street, they all uncoupled from one another and started to prepare. Maddie rolled her shoulders, Aiko moved side to side lightly to rekindle her energy, Tracy tightened her fists, and River breathed and out. Jackie just looked at the road ahead.

And with that, they stood together as they ran.

Jackie formed the sharp tip of the arrow that formed, as the rest formed the ridges. In this formation, they ran past the warehouses as each one was a repeat of the one they stayed in, just in different orders and patterns, something clear by passing glances. No uses here.

So they jogged towards the so-called business district of the harbor-warehouse-district; lines up different skyscrapers made of the same material, even if it didn’t suit the design. Blue window planes that couldn’t be seen though, lined on the sides of thick, gray structures. The same door that the girls need to open.

Three darted off to the side, breaking formation, followed by the remaining two that went to the left. Jackie kicked down the paperthin door and Aiko scouted about the makeshift lobby, Jackie following their lead. Their eyes were trained at the contents of the room versus the layout, they’ll hear about that when they get out, they were sure. Aiko tugged at the leather chairs and they tore like tender meat from the bone, Jackie instantly tore down the wall. Both grabbed for the front desk and it separated into pieces in their hands with the slightest lift. They moved on and raced out the door, meeting the other three as they reformed.

“Desks, chairs and stuff in yours?” Jackie breathed out.

“Nah,” River gasped out, and regained her breath to respond further, “Not even a different pattern thing, different layouts and stuff hopefully—”

Jackie nodded, and she returned to spearhead the operation.

It was both crushing and hopeful. Different rooms caused different facets of hope to alight then extinguish. Coffee tables, windows, racks; they would’ve resorted to rugs had they not undone themselves as soon as they rushed literally over and on them. The exhaustion and pain started to settle in, where it became a part of their consciousness versus being at the edge trying to worm in. Not only their bodies ached, but their minds as well.

It wasn’t good, but it was more or less perfect. It was getting as complicated as the conditions to achieve siVis permitted. Few more rounds of this and no doubt something would happen. And if something never came; they will make it come due to one of their breakdowns. Jackie hoped that she fully absorbed how utterly torturous this is, to even think about this choice and how it’s the only one, she hopes that such information would be the thing that sets her off.

But of course, even this false world had different plans.

Traction didn’t become difficult until they noticed the street getting steeper.

The whole street was beginning to slowly rise upward. Not peel backwards, not become a hill. But erect.

“…You have to be fucking kidding me,” Maddie, too exhausted to even react, much less try to right herself as she started to slide down.

“Crap!” Jackie grunted. She quickly grabbed Tracy which spooked her, but River quickly grabbed Aiko on her side, which made the rest catch on, forming a human chain. They took off, staying close, moving fast.

Their legwork was slowly becoming feeble, every run turning into uneven slipping as the street didn’t stop. Their target, the next building was right there, but the incline and it’s troubles came into reality, once again plunging them into a trap that they can’t make any headway, any choice to move forward. They peeled out, the time for pacing was done, like a car on a frozen lake, only making movements to the swaying, the side to side, and backwards.

Desperate, they moved to the sidewalk, in hopes for something. The change of pace gave them the momentum they needed, Jackie quickly grappling the door frame, so that they can finally have the anchor to climb. With the power of the human chain scaled the vertical plane successfully, going into the room as the building is at its side.

This tenth or eleventh near-death experience ended up something good at least; it gave them time for all the furniture in the lobby to smash against the walls, as they slowly walked into the shattered remains. Heavy breathing filled the air and their echoes carried throughout the buildings.

“So,” Maddie coughed out, “Anyone able to move shit with their minds or create doors or some shit yet?!”

Tired, solemn headshakes followed.

“How does it work anyway,” Aiko brought up. “How does it look like? What does it even feel like?”

“No,” River flatly said and her stare that looked around the tilted room. “You’re not all saying you didn’t look up the signs?”

“Well I didn’t,” Aiko instantly said. “I was hoping you all did—”

River flopped her arms to her side, “Well shit, people—"

“I did, I did… But even then, they’re more broad guidelines—discoveries th-than symptoms…” Tracy answered.

“Hell yeah, that’s what I meant,” Maddie rubbed her face with her hands. “All the videos and shit I saw, the only thing that was common was that there was light, the camera fucked up, and there was tons of screaming. But there was videos were the powers came first and then it cuts to the poor fuck doing what I just said. It’s random as fuck, trying to get it and how it happens…”

“The leading theories are basically… It’s very complicated. Complicated as the person who achieve it,” River looked at Jackie. “It’s not just the weirdness that shatters open the person, it helps the mood, but it’s a mood setter all the same… Apparently, we haven’t suffered yet because maybe we’re too normal to be complicated.”

“Buuut, wouldn’t being too normal thus becomes complicated in of itself?” Jackie asked.

River paused, her head went down, heavy with thoughts. “It really says how desperate we are that I honestly buy that.”

“Still,” Maddie pressed on, “What if we just can’t do it? What does it exactly take for it to happen?”

Jackie was hit with another revelation, and the realization that it wasn’t the answer followed right after.

“…The feeling of witnessing reality warping before your very eyes,” Jackie answered.

“…I mean,” Maddie stated the obvious that was obvious to her, “Duh. That’s why we did what we did—”

“No, no,” River interjected, “Expand on that.”

“Maybe it’s not just seeing all that before your eyes, it’s not something that just… Because I had a breakthrough moment before we all got plunged into this, yeah? If that was me, witnessing the might of the Shifts, and my eyes, my mind reconciled that this is truly something that I shouldn’t be able to… Well, even if we were the ones that can’t obtain it, there would’ve been a flicker, there would’ve been something if it was just… Realization.”

“…You’re right,” Tracy said softly, wide-eyed. “O-otherwise, we would’ve been achieved siVis even before this night. There is something more to it than just that.”

“So what’s the last piece of the puzzle, people?!” Maddie asked fervently. “What’s the thing that we teenage girls managed to crack when 50 or 60 whatever years of Brainiacs lost their damn minds trying to figure out on their own?”

“That’s the thing,” River began to point out to her, “Maybe they did figure it out. And maybe on some level since siVis is such a big open secret sort of thing; they tell people what they need to know and that in of itself has levels to it, but… What if it’s a thing they figured this out and… It’s too new of a concept to even think about as they are…”

Jackie nodded solemnly, “Living like this, trying to accept that everything you once knew was a mere microcosm to pure insanity, watching it happen before your eyes, experiencing it for yourself; all these things aren’t the source after all. It’s the ignition. The keys, elements, that need to swirl around. All that combines to create a new feeling that thus changes the rest of you. Both and beyond an evolution and an epiphany. I think that’s siVis.”

And then they all fell silent, trying to process that alone.

“Well shit,” Maddie let her arms flap to her sides.

“Yeah, I don’t think I can have any of that,” Aiko said. “I still don’t even get what you even said—”

“And that’s the trick,” Jackie tried to knead back the hair strains that were undone, leaving River to step up to explain further.

“It is totally and utter bullshit, yes. But it’s total and utter bullshit because we’re us. This is the kind of realm that we were trying to tap into here. Where our definitions and meaning of things, the human element, needs an update at an incredible, accelerated scale, and it’s so foreign, so confusing, and so counterintuitive it’s like chucking a smartphone to a caveman and saying, ‘Hey, order some takeout for me, yeah? I need to finish my job resume in Docs. Card’ll autopay for it, don’t worry’.”

“…Ooooh,” it dawned on Aiko. “Because the caveman is human… But we can do that stuff now… And that’s asking him to do something he could do in theory… But it’s too new… Too much… Even if he theoretically can…”

“…So, it’s all flighty bullshit we can’t make sense of, even if we tried?” Tracy said, scared.

“I’m afraid it’s all flighty bullshit we can’t make sense of, even if we tried,” River said, defeated.

“A-and we’ve just wasted our goddamn time,” Tracy said in abject horror.

“We’ve might’ve just wasted our goddamn time,” River just simply said.

“So, that’s an all in favor of Plan B if I ever heard one,” Maddie said dejectedly, if not trying to inject humor. The rest murmured as they slowly went to go look outside.

Jackie was glad that they did, her hand gripping her forehead as it was coated with fresh sweat. She was glad that the haze, the confusion of the discussion completely hid the clear and damning ramifications. Maybe it did, maybe they’ll come to realize what she has.

This was a complete and utter fool’s errand. Another dig, another blunt hit from the reality that was so absurd yet so absolute. That the so-called salvation that they all wanted, was just as complicated and needless as the forces that they needed it so that they could raise against it, fight against it.

They were stupid, to do this. She was so, so, stupid.

“Just FUCK MY FUCKING ASS,” jogged Jackie back, she raced over to see what Maddie shouted at, over.

“…Oh fuck my fucking ass…” Jackie repeated, somehow making it sound like a tragic cry for help.

The street proceeded to bend itself, blocking out the sky with its monolithic movements. It rained pavement from above, destroying the buildings like hail peppering a hill of salt.

Aiko was already clawing into her backpack, pleading that she didn’t lose it. She even tossed out the plans and ideas she had for weeks as her instincts were driving her. She kept glancing, scared, at her equally afraid victims, but she couldn’t help it, she couldn’t focus.

She found it. Thank goodness that she found it, the very climbing/grappling rope that she pulled out earlier the night. She walked before everyone, one foot planted on the door frame as she poked her head outside to scan the area, finding a streetlight post. She began swing the hook-end, in rotation, even against the rock-sized pieces of street that hit and pinged off it. Her palm was getting seared by the rope but she couldn’t afford to care.

A toss, barely even making headway before falling back down, the rocks aiding the trajectory. She had to do it again, faster, more intense, more ropeburn settling in. She had to ignore the tears welling in her eyes in silence, throwing it again, and again, and again.

Finally, just about it’s base, it looped itself around the pole and became the girl’s anchor. Wasting no more time, Aiko leaped to the sounds of protest from the screams of the others, grappling for her life and the hook to lock itself in place. She swung, tried to plant her feet on the sidewalk as she climbed back to the doorway, to the others.

Her shout of “C’MON!” wasn’t even heard or was made. The horrible sound of a building being crashed into rung in their ears, making Aiko jump upwards on the rope and the rest jump onto the rope; they call climbed and climbed, and eventually clung to the rope as the building was decimated by rockfall along with the others around it. The girls surroundings became nothing but the spray of glass, breaking of concrete and the rain of asphalt, destruction at all sides as they can only hope that it’ll pass over. It’s all that they could do, at this point.

Jackie felt the drop of blood on her cheek, only peeking slightly to notice that River’s left ear was leaking it. Even with the swaying of the rope being caused by the forces of destruction repelling them; this was truly their lowest point. She felt shivering, she heard panicked screaming and the sniffling of tears finally let out. No more exhaustion, it wasn’t about that, now. This was it. This was it.

At least she should try to act as the counter anchor for Aiko, and she found her sense of gravity to put her feet onto the sidewalk. Funny, how it worked out like that.

…Then Jackie realized that it was more than that. The pull of the fall below faded. Changed.

They found themselves upright again, recorrected, back to what they were used to. The perspective of the world also begun to flip, as the girls were standing on the ground again as the rockfall continued.

They flopped to the ground, as if they didn’t matter. And at the point, did they, they all thought at once?

With not a beat missed, they scrambled toward the alley that was in their view, to find something of a makeshift shelter. The shadows of the looming street started to set in, and while the others booked for the alley without a though, Aiko quickly undid the rope, with Jackie struggling to help with her trembling hands and heart hammering her body.

Jackie looked up and frozen where she was. A thick, comet of street was barreling towards Maddie, Tracy and River, none of them knew. But when they do, it’s going to make them freeze in their tracks.

It was time for Jackie to move without thinking.