METAMORPHOSIS, marvel

I. Born Again

There is, in the idea of metamorphosis, an act of shedding the past; a change in structure that cuts a clear distinction between two selves. A rebirth occurs, because who you were is both dead, and alive. Schrödinger's cocoon. Until it unravels you are in limbo, and the outcome is suspended.

For Araxi Taheri, her metamorphosis didn't occur when half the population was wiped out, her older brother included, but instead when they were brought back. The world had ended, not with a bang or a whimper, but with a snap, and the survivors left in the wreckage had been suspended in time ever since. Time doesn't always heal all wounds, instead it leaves it to fester and worsen, and when you finally peel back the bandages masking the hidden collapse and attempt to fix the infection, it's already too late. There was a stillness, a holding of breath, a pause in the world. And then, with another snap, the silence breaks; there is an exhale. And in that exhale is change; a new age.

In a girl, beneath her dark, smooth hair, tanned skin, and calloused fingers, lies a current. A flow of electricity, nonexistent one moment, and awoken the next, almost like a snap of fingers. It burns in her veins and begs to be released, it's pounding in her bloodstream, screaming in her ears and—

—she silences the tremors with the heated metal of a lighter to her thigh.

"Give me that," Dani says from her side, eyes not wandering from the movie in front of them. Araxi hums, the only indication she's in the present and not consumed by what lurks beneath, and lifts the lighter from where it's pressed against the skin of her thigh that's exposed by the holes in her baggy jeans and passes it to her friend, before refocusing on the movie. Dani fumbles the preroll that she's popped out of its container, and as she lights it a cherry red ember ignites. She's taking a drag from it when the rumbling of a car interrupts them––two girls tucked away in the lower level of a parking garage, Dani's shitty sticker covered laptop in front of them, their backs against the wall. She chokes on the smoke in her lungs at the site of the car, but Araxi reaches out for her turn, uncaring of the vehicle which had begun to turn and exit. She takes a drag herself, holds it in like the world has been for the past half decade, and expels the smoke.

"I'm a goddamn force of nature," she mouths along with the monstrous girl on the screen, joint dangled between her fingers.

Dani's phone buzzes and Araxi continues to smoke, the smell of weed hangs around them and she grins lazily through the hazy cloud around her as the girl on screen continues her murderous rampage. The stilted conversation Dani is having beside her, with her mother judging by the Japanese that she speaks only with family, is muffled to her, as if underwater. The redhead on the screen holds her attention as she morphs from girl to monster, a gruesome transformation of breaking bones and ripped flesh. Blood is associated with girlhood, but most never go that far, never embrace the connection. To be a girl, to be a god, to be a monster; it's all the same.

Araxi draws her eyes away from the metamorphosis on her screen and to her friend beside her. "Little Dani has to run along home to dearest mumsy, huh?" she grins, face pressed against the knee drawn up to her chest.

Dani scowls and takes the joint back for one last hit. "Yeah, well not all of us have military moms and older brothers who've taught us how to handle ourselves. Besides, mom's neurotic, ya know. She's so damn terrified of those mutants the news is on about. Thinks I'm going to be jumped by some psycho high on supernatural abilities, or some shit".

"Maybe she thinks you're going to become one of the psychos."

Dani slants an unimpressed look towards her as she gets up and gathers her laptop and bag. Araxi watches her with hooded eyes and fiddles with the frayed edge of her doc laces. "Whatever, loser. See you next week. Unless your mom decides to send you off to Tehran to your aunt or whatever."