Deception | NaNoWriMo2023

Chapter Eight: Everyone Abandoned You

The rest of the day passes like a gun fight, with each bullet a slice of the day burned into me with perfect clarity. BANG. The look on Conflagration's face when he spotted me. BANG. The shrouded hall with Wrath disappearing into the darkness.

BANG. Deception's worried eyes, strained at the edges like Edison's when he realizes all over again I am not the same person he knew. It's funny how much more that look hurts when it's on someone else's face.

BANG. The ornate designs on the edges of the teacups Deception along with tea cakes, scones, and appetizers, claiming that they were my favorite. I remember them as much as I remember the taste of hot chocolate ice cream: not at all. BANG. Purple stains her lips like velvet blood, accentuating the rueful smile she gives after she catches me staring. "Don't you remember me?" hangs between us, unspoken but so loud I can taste it.

BANG. The swish of her hair as she leaves, our conversation still buzzing furiously in my head. She's not what I expected; all dangerous and sly like the viper she's named after, someone who couldn't care less about me other than what I could do for her.

But she does care. I can see it in her eyes, hear it in the questions she doesn't ask, feel it in every stilted, careful move she makes. She cares about me, and just like Edison, it is tearing her apart that I don't remember her.

BANG. I'm shaking in the corner, on the floor, clutching a pack of pens like my life depends on it. I can't breathe right, the room is spinning, and my hands, no, everything, is ice cold. Winter teeth dig into my skin, aching, pounding, screaming to be let out. My grip on it is slipping, the ice prying open my control, and a tiny breeze squeezes past and the pack of pens is gone.

I asked for a PowDown patch. Deception brought it, lips turned down into a disapproving but sympathetic frown. She doesn't like that I had been so suppressed, that a part of me had been locked away out of my reach, but she doesn't understand.

With the patch on, I am safe. If I am spooked or stressed (and megabytes, am I stressed), I couldn't bring the whole facility down on me, Edison, David, and everyone else. The side effects suck, but it is better than accidentally hurting everyone I love again.

But no one I love is here. I am alone. I am—

I blink, no, open my eyes (when had they closed?), the afterglows of the memories hovering in front of me like distant ghosts. I'm staring up at the slope of the ceiling, the burn of the PowDown patch reigning in my power and removing the possibility I blank my bed or the building.

Silence rings in my ears with my quiet breaths, not a whisper of footsteps, a gush from the pipes, or even the hum and twitter of my white noise playlist breaking the still darkness in my room. It's night. I must have fallen asleep.

A sigh gusts from my lungs and I roll onto my side, curling my limbs inwards, letting my gaze trail listlessly across the wrinkles in the pillowcase. One time I took a nap in Edison's bed and accidentally stayed the night. Instead of kicking me out or taking the couch, he got in beside me. Waking up to his back pressed to mine was...familiar, in the comforting sense.

He told me we used to curl up like puppies all the time when we were younger. It, "Kept the nighttotters" (we couldn't pronounce "terror", then) away—and us out of our parent's beds. When we were older, we'd have 'sleepovers' complete with snacks and pillow fights whenever one of us had a bad day. "It was our way of saying, 'I'm here for you,'" Edison had said.

My throat swells and a hand digs nails into my chest as my lungs collapse and crumble into dust. If only Edison was here right now. I could use a brother sleepover right now, with I'm here for you hugs, my favorite sour gummies, and pillow fights and long heart-to-heart talks late into the night. I could use my brother right now to face this rotten situation with me.