Phia's Fragile and Fantastic Fingers || ONC 2023

Breakfast

Penelope

I can't get her name to stop playing over and over and over in my head. It's like a song caught on repeat, screaming at me. I'm the one chosen to rescue her. 

Chosen One

Finally. Penelope. Find her.

Penelope went missing two years ago.

                  She went "missing assumed dead."

I look at the bed where Penelope used to sleep, the desk drawer Mercy and I haven't cleaned out. It's been two and half years without our fearless leader. Penelope was smart. She knew philosophy and physics. She never let us take a mission we couldn't finish, or one that wasn't fully aligned with her universal good. She knew what she wanted. Her hands were soft. She had a voice that quieted the things in my chest that made me hurt the most.

I miss her in the same way I would miss a chunk of my body if someone had gouged it out. Mercy may have saved me, but Penelope gave me purpose.

Penelope is missing assumed dead. She's not dead though. The paper in my hand says so.

I can find her.

I crumple up the paper to hide the evidence. My fingers sting as I toss it into the trash bin by the door. I bite my tongue to remain calm. I breathe in counts of four to get my heart rate back under control, the echo of Penelope's hand on my back where she used to count the numbers for me forever there. 

I'm the chosen one.

Now what am I supposed to do with that?

I could tell John and Mercy. They could help me find Penelope.

No

    YES?

Not yet.

Mercy and John are my partners, but they won't believe me. They haven't talked about Penelope since the search ended six months after her fall into the pacific. It was better for all of us that way.

Before I tell them, I need proof that's more than just my fingers talking to me. I have a history that means they won't believe me. I have vague, amorphous powers, but sentient fingers isn't one of them. I stare at the silver shining on the tips. The bubbles of burn. 

"How?" I ask.

I don't get a response.

Even though I don't want to see Mercy and John whispering sweetly to one another, I go to breakfast. Penelope's name is clenched tight between my teeth, buried behind my ribcage.

I find John at our usual table, a plate full of uncooked oatmeal, apple slices and cookies. They feed us whatever we want here. We kind of deserve it for doing their dirty work. John's not eating though, he's confiscated handfuls of silverware and is using his delicate powers to construct a bridge from his plate to the napkin dispenser. His bony fingers glow and bits of crystal materializes in whatever shape he demands. He can be an artist and an architect and a barricade. 

His thick brown hair hangs in his face. His shoulders have filled out in the last year. I suspect his powers are fading and he's trying to compensate with bulk. I don't say anything, because saying it might break the fragile mirage we're all living in. The one where John's not going to be removed from YEPP in the next year for losing his powers. 

I always thought of John as a little lost, like a child in a fairy tale about to wander into the woods, but that impression has increased exponentially in the last few months. He's never known anything but YEPP.

I get a bowl of cereal and plop down next to him. I'm not terribly hungry, but sugar cereal is sugar cereal. 

"Golden gate?" I ask. John gives me a disappointed look.