(Episode III) (Act 3)

Young Jackie wore a sports tank that showed off her arms and belly, with her sport shorts reaching just short of her knees. And to make things all the more clear, she had her gray hoodie tied at her waist. She took it off once she got out of mom’s car and knew it’d be a symbol for people that wouldn’t recognize her to connect the dots.

She walked up to Scarlet’s locker and lightly planted her fist against it. Causing her and the two girls of her team to turn around.

“…Damn,” Scarlet said flatly. “I didn’t expect you to grow that fucking fast. It’s only been a few months—”

“Training does wonders when you finally know what you’re doing,” Jackie then crossed her arms. She felt like she was hiding behind a costume. A costume she worked hard on mind, but a mask nonetheless. She had to make it hers. She didn’t work hard to mess up now.

“Yeah…” Scarlet, again, said flatly.

“Huh,” Jackie remarked. “You bullied a boy into transferring and yet you’re doing what you accused him of.”

“Hey man,” Scarlet tried to rebut, “You look good, but not that good for me let you talk shit this much. The hell do you care, anyways? You gonna beat me up for his honor or something?”

“Well no,” Jackie stated. “But I am going to make sure that something like that never happens again.”

Scarlet looked amused. “Ooooh?”

“Yeah. I’m going to keep my eye on you and have my ear to the ground. If you start causing rumbling with your temper tantrums, I’ll be more than happy to calm you down.”

Scarlet laughed in Jackie’s face, “You bulk up just a little bit and you think you can take the world, huh? Fine then. Anyone that pisses me off, I’m going straight for you, Wonder Girl.”

Jackie was still stern, taking her all not to flinch. She then proceeded to smile, “We’re going to be the bestest of friends.”

Scarlet looked Jackie up and down, sucked her teeth, before walking away with her cronies.

Jackie glanced around her, seeing some people were watching and then pretending that they didn’t.

It wasn’t until second period’s bell started to ring, as people rushed to and into their classes, that Jackie deflated, blowing out the building pressure into air escaping from her mouth, falling into and leaning against the lockers.

“holy fucking shit, I might actually die… If she doesn’t literally fuck me first… I gotta figure out a plan…”

Jackie, both past and present, found themselves at the dessert again. Starting at the line and the ticks, stuck once again despite the progress and systems in place.

A sigh transitioned into her into the school’s weight room. It was gym class, and she was taking it easily, just finishing on the treadmill for the other student to get on. She saw Scarlet, struggling with the weight machine, more or less alone. Oddly enough, her usual posse wasn’t with her in this class.

Jackie knew that the redhead felt her stare, so she just came over.

“Fuck off.”

“Nah,” Jackie rebutted. “You’re pushing too hard. Either lighten up or adjust the weights—”

“I know hooow to work the machine, jackass!” Scarlet spat back.

“Funny…” Jackie rolled her eyes, only for them to settle back and figure out that she wasn’t joking.

She was straining herself, the pain visible on her face. Whatever goal she was gunning for, it was just too far right now for her, and she couldn’t admit that.

…Of course.

“If you keep going, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Jackie said, finding herself mapping out the ticks so… Helping Scarlet can be the finish line.

“I know!” she yelled back. “No pain, nooo ga—ack!”

She stopped in her tracks, the weights coming down. Jackie then went to the back of the device, take out the pen mechanism, and plugged it into the lighter weights. Before Scarlet could roar back at her, Jackie already circled back.

“Maybe everyone else is scared in telling you something, but I’m not anymore. Guess what? Pain takes the gain anyways—there’s pushing yourself and then there’s mutilating yourself. I know you’re a big girl and very fond of this shit for me to say this, to get it through to you; you’re never going to get anywhere being like this. So, drop the headstrong bad-girl thing. It’s making you weak.”

Scarlet could only pant in rage, something that she couldn’t keep up when it was so easy up until now.

Jackie then finished, “How did I go from lanky loser to shit talking you with some hard truth? Simple. I grew. And I grew stronger.”

Scarlet then got up, took her towel and exited the weight room as the rest of the class stared at Jackie in mock awe and horror.

Jackie could only look at the weight machine. “Ewww. She didn’t wipe down…”

Later on, after washing off, cleaning up and dressing back up in the washroom, Jackie stepped out into the hall, only to find a sulking Scarlet against the wall, staring at her.

The tension could’ve been cut with a knife.

“You were right, I’m mad, and you suck for being right,” she pouted out.

Jackie blinked rapidly. “Thanks. I think?”

It wasn’t tension, just profound, silent downtroddenness.

Jackie then walked up to her. “You’re going to be amazed how much you’ll improve. All you have to do is… Just throw all that stuff holding you back away.”

“Right,” Scarlet dejectedly said. She looked at her with her brown eyes. “And you think that’s gonna wash away everything that I did before?”

“Hell no,” Jackie said bluntly, surprising Scarlet. “But it’s a start for the better and that’s what matters. Besides, uh… You might wanna wash off, yourself. Were you sulking so much that you skipped shower time?”

“Shut up,” Scarlet got up and walked past Jackie. “But thanks.”

Jackie smirked. “No problem.”

What followed was something out of a dream. After clashing time and time again, she managed to tame and even befriended Scarlet. Still rowdy, of course, but she managed the impossible—while being on top of her classes, winning some awards, and even being an unofficial gym aid in said class. What was once just some lanky kid finally became a giant herself, thanks to the continued guidance of her parents. She took everything that came to her head-on, keep moving forward, and became a leader of sorts towards everyone that followed her.

It came, to the point, of Scarlet recommending her to the coach of the Women’s Basketball Team. Something Jackie wasn’t even aiming for, she was more of an educational pursuer. But she needed the diversity and experience, so she took it, becoming a valued player and got into the in-crowd she was prepared to face off against all those times ago.

Too bad none of that didn’t matter.

Jackie was jerked backwards, just as the Young Jackie was thrown out of the mall along with her friends.

“THIS MALL AND THE SURROUNDING AREA WILL BE CLOSED DOWN,” the Extant Recovery shouted, with their featureless, blank eyes stared at the crowd.

The group on top of the roof grabbed the metal sheets with their large gantlets, then jumped down to drag the plating as they fall down, covering the building in what felt like seconds.

“REFER TO AETHERNET UPDATES REGARDING YOUR STATE; THE IMPLICATIONS ARE BECOMING NOTICIBLE!”

While shaken up, the girls didn’t pay any mind…They’ve been through these Shift warnings and proceedings all the time. The mall would be closed for a month or so, they have a story to rant about in the locker rooms, everything’ll calm down…

Then the “Collocation of Education” announcement happened. Schooling will be in an indefinite pause, all students will be given a literal free pass to go or do anything that their immediate future needed, and it come into effect at the end of the semester.

It crushed her. It wasn’t just about… About the fact that she was doing great. It… It was hitting her from a place she didn’t know about then.

She fell into the rabbit hole she found herself buried in for the next two years. She tried to find something, anything, that would finally fill her in, ease her now-aching, anxiety ridden mind… And nothing. She just found similar people that come from the same place as her.

She went to her parents, to for support when she needed it the most…

“We have to leave, Jackie,” Jack Sr. said.

“Why…?” Jackie looked back and forth, between her parents in the living room. “Is… Is the town…?”

Dawn nodded, and stated way too matter-of-factly, “The implications are becoming more and more noticeable. We have to join the exodus and we need to do it quick.”

“B-but,” Jackie felt so vulnerable, so lost again. Feelings that she hadn’t felt in years. “I won’t be able to say goodbye to everyone for the last day of school.”

“You have the final basketball game to use it, at least,” Jack pointed out.

“Yeah but—” Jackie was cutting herself off, feeling herself getting angry, “Why now? Why can’t we wait?”

“Listen to us, Jackie,” Dawn said, bluntly. “We can’t keep ignoring this.”

“Ignoring this?” Jackie paddled back.

“We were notified about this for a long while… We… We wanted you and the other kids to have the best time, we kept this a secret because—because we—”

Jackie couldn’t believe this. “You knew this ever since… Ever since we all started high school…?”

“Your father is right. We had you all in mind, keeping the information away from you all. Having this hang over you like a cloud, when you all deserve a normal life… Well, we didn’t have a choice. Now we can’t ignore the signs. This town is going to be wiped out.”

Jackie rose from the couch, “Then let’s move up the timetables: let’s just—if you all knew this whole time, then what’s wrong making our last day the same day as the finals?”

She tried not to raise her voice, not to freak out. Her parents, basically the perfect people on the planet… And they missed her up by preparing her for a life that was a lie?

Her growth, her achievements, her life: it was pointless?

Jack made a pained face. “Some, if not most, of the families decided to stay because… This is all that they have. They’re hoping that Extant will provide enough aid to—”

Jackie waved her arms, her twisted reflection gleaming off her trophies. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?! You’re just—Just—You’re just piling this on me out of nowhere!”

They said nothing.

“All this time—you taught me, over and over, about never giving in, about being honest, about—about stuff that I doubted until it worked out! For people that told me that I can grapple with and—and face anything with enough grace and I can do anything! So what about this Shift stuff?!”

“…Sometimes,” Jack began. “Sometimes, you just have to let bad things happen to you. There’s things that you can’t handle, fight back against. What control we have, we have to treasure it.”

Jackie couldn’t scream, yell, or fire back. She just stared at her father.

Jackie was so into this, reliving this stressful event, that she took the place of what the “actress” was and she didn’t notice. The scene changed around her, and she found herself in the locker room.

It was an honorable loss, but a loss all the time. What felt good in the moment, was immediately consumed by the growing darkness that consumed the line, started to consume her. The team where talking to each other, conversing, still in lighter spirits. Except for Jackie, who was sitting on the bench. Stewing in this.

“Yo, Jackie,” Scarlet snapped at. “I know you hate losing, but I thought you wanted to make this great or whatever you said back then.”

Lie raised her eyebrow, “You saying that you blocked that whole speech out and you admitted it to Jackson?”

Scarlet shrugged, “Hey, I heard it spiritually, and that’s what matters.”

Everyone in the room laughed, and then Jackie stopped that real quick.

“Fuck you,” Jackie said, despondently.

“…I mean,” Scarlet turned back to her. “I actually heard it, I’m sorry that I can’t recite it, girl.”

“How can any of you act like everything’s okay…?”

“…Because things are okay—” Scarlet retorted.

“No, they aren’t!” Jackie rose. “We all know what we could all die or worse, everything’s going to change!”

Scarlet shrugged. “Sure. But this whole Shift thing is beyond us, excuse us if we’re not thinking about it 24/7 like you are now.”

“And you’re not?!”

“Jackie, chill,” Scarlet stared down her “friend”.

Jackie tightened her fists. She tried to accept it, she tried applying everyone’s so-called philosophy, but she can’t. The problem was that she wasn’t the one to accept things, to roll over and effectively die.

“So,” Scarlet snapped at her, “Let’s wipe our tears, get cleaned up, and fucking move on. Shit’s bad, and we can’t do anything about it!”

Jackie just stared at her.

Scarlet stared back, feeling her growing intentions in the air. “Careful now, Jackson.”

“You know what I’m going through right now.”

“And you’re being a massive baby about it. Boo hoo.”

“Scarlet—”

“Guess what, Ms. Perfect? Nothing matters, what you’ve been doing doesn’t make you above that.”

“Funny,” Jackie said with the anger brimming to the surface. “Me helping your ass was a part of that.”

Scarlet paused. “You’re starting to sound funny yourself. You trying to be a comedian or something?”

Her signature threat, something she hasn’t used in years, and it’s directed towards her.

Everything that she worked for, blown back in her face. Everything that she built herself towards, gone now.

Jackie found that word, that feeling, that’s now consumed and broke her apart.

She needed to do something.

Without warning and without thought, she started to grapple with Scarlet. The fight was starting to get messy, bags falling, the girls throwing themselves against the lockers, the other girls trying to stop it…

And as the fight got heated, the stage was falling apart by the steams. The other girls started to turn into a mixture of pieces and dust, the lockers and surrounds eroding away in dust. And soon, Scarlet herself was turning into dust.

Jackie found herself within a familiar dessert, pushing and overpowering “Scarlet” and throwing her onto the ground.

She looked around, just hurt. Hurt to relive this memory, her at her lowest, and taking things out on people that… Regardless of their views, were still her friends. Family.

And now they all lay before her, broken and turned into dust.

There was nothing that could prepare her for this. And what little control she had? She made them meaningless.

What better way to show that then what’s happened in the past few days?

She looked around, and then realized something even worse.

She went over the line. The line, she made and self-imposed upon herself.

She fell onto her knees. She’s trapped, trapped within her little world of false progress. A world she broke the rules of if that meant keeping her happy—in control. But in the end, she crosses the line and became the same meaningless darkness that she’s fought against.

She began to wail out, crumbling over as she breathes in the scattered dust and remains of everything she’s destroyed. And she did it for what felt like hours.

hey

Jackie shot up, looking around.

Heya, uh, I don’t know you of course, but you dropped your banana once and I kept it in case if we ever met again.

“…What?” an emotionally distraught Jackie could only mutter.

It’s a bit bruised, but it’s as fresh as it can be! I want you to hold it. Puuutting it in your hand…

Jackie felt it, despite looking at said hand right now.

I want you to focus it on it, because while I don’t think it’s that weird, it’s weird enough for you to get out of this funk…

Jackie honestly has nothing else to do. So, she indulged this… Weirdly nasally voice.

You must’ve had a rough time, lately, if that’s okay to point out… I’m totally a stranger, in any other situation, you shouldn’t be listening to me at all. But, in this strange case, I need you to voice on my voice—Also really focus on the banana, I want you to grab it how you do it!

Jackie gripped it.

Good! Good, good, good! Nicely good. Now I need you to focus on… I know it’s hard, but can you find the small, good moments you’ve had recently. I get that it seems like… Y’know, there aren’t any. But I need you to trust this friendly stranger.

She shook her head.

See! You shook your head here! Outside here, by the way. You’re really, really stuck right now, and you’re more than capable of getting yourself out. You have to find something, anything, please.

Her mind was racing… She held her head, the headache started to drum heavy, hard.

And suddenly, Edith appeared as Jackie fell back.

“Edith” was a strong word, but more like a sand-statue in pieces. It started to speak, “…There’s no need to hurt yourself more… Reality can do that fine….Treasure…”

Jackie wavered, hesitated…

Her parents were next to be constructed, “We can rebuild… What we’ve broken… We love you…”

She gripped her head, rocking back and forth…

And finally, the girls—as they were in Pell Forest, laughing and being quirky, was the last to be simulated.

I know things are hard, take it from your mysterious, hopefully friendly stranger… Reality’s been giving us massive, massive scars right now—scars that might not heal that well. But at the same time, we can still heal. And healing… Healing can shrink scars, right? These bad moments, they’re just gonna shrink away… But you need to heal first.

“…Yeah,” Jackie nodded. “Yeah. You’re right…”

She begun thinking about these little moments and closed her eyes.

And suddenly, she was back to reality. Her vision was still blurry, but she can make out the banana in her head.

“Good!” the blob that was the kind stranger said. “You can teach your friends over there what you just went through as well! I gotta go, I got my own… People I need to help.”

The kind stranger began to walk… Or rather, what Jackie thought they walked, moving away.

“Th…Thank you!” Jackie shouted out. Maybe it was a wave or a hand raise, but it was communication all the same. The least I can do.

Jackie looked back down at the bruised banana, coming into color and shape as it’s black on the back and the rest yellow. She lightly squeezed it.

If anything this foolish, rash young lady can do, the least she could do was to move forward.