(Episode III) (De)Construction of Memory Lane

The searing pain building up within Jackie’s smushed cheek woke her up. Instantly alert, she ripped it from the asphalt, and every single damn thing that weighed on her, did.

She instinctively felt said cheek with her left hand, a wound way too impressionable, way too fresh to simply be skin irritated and indented due to rock. Her senses are alert, but so attuned to the world around her, it’s all still a blurring yet pitched mess, causing her to hunch over.

And she’s still shaking, shuddering, and sweating because of the mortal terror she and hundreds of others were subjected to for possibly hours.

She had to get a hold of herself… But she didn’t know how. How, when she’s against a world that refuses anything to happen?

A world where meaning goes to die, yet refuses to let people do the same?

Some broken hellhole, that’s so fucked that people can fall into it—causally spat back out—give them power that they clearly were never meant to have—that constantly proves again and again that things can and will get worse?

If she wasn’t clutching her drenched gown, it was her pounding head. Since this was her right, while her left still planted onto her cheek, she felt she looked as crazy as she was getting. No more circulation. Just no more. Jackie knew at this point; her body just can’t handle anymore stress that it was already overtaxed by.

Even so. Fitting, that this nightmare world can’t let her despair, either.

Frankly, one of the reasons being simply having no time to, as a loud—profound—and most importantly familiar, “SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT” rang in the air.

A quick succession of cringing, crumpling, then realization followed. Jackie shook her head—somehow still pounding against her head harder than her racing heart against her chest, to clear it and to express just how much this whole thing is so stupid yet so torturous. Jackie figured that just like turning on a TV and leaving it on some channel you forgot about: her siVis-attuned hearing was still trained on the rest of the girls.

Jackie snapped her head towards a Maddie, recently woken up, on her knees gripping her own head, at something that caused her to express genuine anxiety that despite all of this, didn’t know that she was capable of.

Jackie looked at what caused this, and she wished she didn’t.

She didn’t get what she was looking at. It was truly, and utterly, insane.

It could only be best described as… Jackie’s head throbbed harder trying to make of this.

Space stretched thin, then layered again, hung up and intertwined like using spider web as wrapping paper. A translucent, cobbled together air-wall that latched and uprooted nearby buildings to merge it into its very structure.

What laid before the disaster area, the part where Jackie wanted to see the most… Was the ruination of people and what was once their lives.

People were pulled from the rumble, Shift recovery officials of Extant seemingly where the only ones moving, bustling from group to group, feebly aiding victims that were hurt and victims that were lost. The crowds becoming a near-crush because they’re looking toward the grotesque wall.

People who lost their homes, people who has nothing left, people who now have no reason left to hold onto their sanity…

And the worst part was that Jackie could not focus on the scene. Her vision, her sight, it was getting worse. She knows what she was looking at and yet, they’re starting to become blurs. Smudges.

And now dots, become she tried to wipe her eyes.

She wished she hadn’t.

After furiously rubbing her eyes with her hands, shaking her head to rejog something—anything… She glanced back down at her hand that held her hurt cheek.

There wasn’t blood. It’s sad that she wanted to see blood, after seeing this.

But her hand was covered in… Crumbling dust—sparking across her palm. Glittering as it bounced about on her once-human skin.

She couldn’t see her cheek, but she can feel it. Feel it succumbing to it’s wounds, crumbling in on itself as the pain… Well, it didn’t feel like pain anymore.

She just felt herself, little by little, fall apart.

Startled—struggling—scared, she used her siVis to focus her eyesight, feeling her eye dilate, shrink, then finally grappling with the adjustment system—whatever that means. Working though her wincing, fighting back against it as the tensing clogs up the adjustment.

The girls… Well, they all are just staring at the wall. Maddie still clutching her shaking head, Aiko on her side as she pants away per second it feels like, River on her belly as she looked away, around, then finally down as she couldn’t take anymore… And Tracy begun curling into a ball, burying her possibly-tear-covered face.

Damn it. Damn this…

The screams of “LET US GO”, blaring into her siVis-enhanced ear, and pounding into her headache, that proceeded to slam against her in retaliation.

Jackie crumpled, her eyesight going blurry again, her crumbling cheek falling apart further as she holds it, and the other invisible, hard to define scarring all catching up to her. And just as hard to reach, much less heal, because there wasn’t simply anymore time.

But she will not yield. She didn’t build herself up, she didn’t live, just to give up—to be deconstructed. She adjusted her eyesight again, looking towards the increasing screaming.

Two boys, can’t be no older than 12. They were held back, literally within the mittens, of two Extant Recovery workers. As they struggled, their messed-up clothes got further jacked up, their bruises were more apparent. The one with the long, brown hair kept screaming,

“JUST LET US GO, JUST LET US GET IT!”

Jackie couldn’t think, let alone try to read into this scene. She looked toward the Extant workers.

They always looked as creepy as what they clean up. Something out of an old movie from the 50’s, blocky, reenforced, and obtuse hazard suits. Cream-toned, any curve tightened into edges, rimmed at the base of their elbows and knees with obsidian braces. The braces held together the suits and the massive, streamlined, multi-purpose gantlets and boots they wore able to scale, cultivate, and grapple with the environment they often had to face. They weren’t holding the kids back, so much as restraining them with the combination of the volume of their suits and the gantlets morphing into a firm hold alone, using themselves as the wall padding in some mental patient’s room.

Worse part was the “TV visors” that jutted out from their trapezoid helmets.

The design intended for the workers to remain anonymous, creating this two-way mirror effect where normally, all you see is a face covered in harsh shadows, making out one’s mouth and cheeks but eyes, nose and everything else overcast with darkness. Then you had the opposite effect whenever the Shift related things started to happen, only revealing their eyes… but still being featureless, giving the imagery of a wide-eyed yet beady eyed evil Astronaut from a bad monster movie.

But they said nothing, to the boys that continued to struggle and struggle. And that was the reason for the anonymity for these workers: they had every right to do what they can in the event of a Shift Noumena crisis, even against the victim’s best interests. Break property, quickly getting people out of the situation even if it meant harm…

Then it clicked within Jackie as it rung hollow within her. She quickly scanned behind her, and her fears were proven.

Tons of the Recovery workers, holding back pre-teens to young adults, trying to overpower and bone rush them as a unit. They came in all shapes, sizes, nationalities, and creeds… Wanting the same thing.

To try their hands at gaining siVis.

This… Always happened. Always has to be an extra concern in dealing with the Shift. Teens… Kids, trying their hand in being lucky and having enough to spark something. Most of the injury, death, and Warp cases aren’t the victims that never knew or never could outrun, escape…

It’s the fools that knew full well that they’d lose their lives but went for it anyways. It’s gotten to the point that you have to prove that you lived or knew someone in a Shift effected area or else you’re grouped up with the foolish masses…

…That Jackie stupidly joined and is forever grouped with, now.

She wanted to take those children away herself, back at the blockade that they’ve fashioned.

In fact…

“HEY!” Jackie called out towards the boys, they and the workers turning to her.

She moved her hand, letting her cheek be the example, her point.

“YOU DON’T WANT THIS!” she screamed at them. “YOU DON’T WANT THIS AT ALL!”

They looked at her, bewildered and a bit scared. Maybe she’s exploding again? It’s so often now that she might not be able to feel that anymore. Not a trend anymore, but a staple.

“MY HEAD HURTS, EVERYTHING LOOKS UGLIER, AND I—I,” she screamed so hard that her body forced her to gulp back the excess saliva. Was it her? Or was it the elephant in the room…?

She crumbled over, starting to cough, pulsating the pain rocking her head, her body, her soul.

“I’M AN IDIOT, I’M A FOOL—DON’T BE LIKE ME, IT’S OKAY TO BE…To be…”

Jackie wanted to say the words, but somehow the pain felt sharper than the others.

But the shorter of the two boys, lightly shaven, short hair with circular designs embedded, decided to speak.

“We have a friend! He’s really messed up; he’s been fighting this thing for all of his life--! We have to keep helping him! We need to keep helping him, we can’t anymore if we stay like this--!”

That line practically punched her in the side of her head.

The headache was getting to the point where she felt delirious, even with siVis-enhanced sight, it was starting to waver. Never mind the fresh tears accumulating, her heartrate hammering her body again: all she could witness, all she could understand were smears, dots, and distortion.

But she could still hear.

“WE DON’T HAVE ANYTHING LEFT PLEASE; OUR PARENTS ARE ON THE OTHER SIIIDE! WE CAN’T TAKE CARE OF HIM, WE DON’T HAVE HOUSES ANYMORE! WE CAN’T DO ANYTHING AND WE NEED TO, WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?!”

It didn’t matter who said that.

Jackie’s mind scattered, and she became trapped within it.

She fell into this… Void of cascading colors. Merging and creating waves of different, shining shades. It all collided to create this realm of navy blue, with pulsing colors, fading to brilliant, as the waves push themselves and pull.