Translucent (Solangelo AU)

9. We Are Terror

Holy holograms I hate mornings. Will insisted that we rise early so we have time to do everything, as well as prep for the party. He had pranced into my room much too cheerily for what could've been the middle of the night, and unceremoniously splashed cold coffee in my face, as if he thought that was a good idea. I huffed, wiping the rest of the liquid out of my eyes (that of it that wasn't already in my sheets, of course) and stepped on his feet as I got out of bed.

Apparently there was a costume shop in town, one that had opened when they started celebrating Halloween again, and, for some reason, that required waking up with the sun. Actually, no, I take that back—waking up before the sun. And it was cold! Well, I mean, obviously it was cold; there was no sun!

As we crossed the town, I tried to keep my mouth shut. I wasn't exactly the most pleasant in the morning, and the mood wasn't really helping. Will kept glancing at me nervously, as if I might go off at any second and scold him for waking me up at such unholy hours. Though I was considering it, I had more important things to worry about. Besides, it was entertaining to see him so flustered.

"—So anyway, I thought maybe after we found costumes for the party we could go for breakfast at this really nice cafe they have—" he rambled, the words rolling off his tongue at ninety miles an hour. No wonder he'd been giving me such an odd look, I hadn't been listening to a single word he's said. "Nico?"

My head snapped up at the mention of my name, and I tried to process what he had been saying. "Hm? Oh, right, yeah. Yeah, sure," I nodded, "breakfast sounds great."

He laughed and went back to talking nonsense while I did my best not to zone off again. I couldn't help it, though. I couldn't stop my attention from drifting from the reassuring waves of his voice to the tranquility of the alien territory that surrounded me. While the manor was impressive, the rest of the small island was just spooky. I had only seen fragments before, little glimpses here and there, and a somewhat overall view last night when we were on the roof. But seeing it up close, living and walking down the deserted streets, it felt so isolated that it had an aura of emptiness that stuck by and that you could practically feel in the air you breathed. The island itself couldn't be much bigger than my village back home, but it mirrored our downtown so precisely that that's what really set me on edge. The fact that I had escaped one cage to find myself in a potential one. That maybe I hadn't truly escaped. That I might still be in a stimulation.

There was nothing comforting about the town other than the fact that Will hadn't disappeared yet; he was the only thing keeping me from going mad, even though I was nearly halfway there. Could I be going mad? Bianca always warned me that it would happen, and though I doubt she ever really meant it, what if I was going mad? Could I still get caught in my own whirlwind? Would I lose my head completely?

Why was I always contemplating my sanity? Of course it wasn't a stimulation. Wouldn't a stimulation have a purpose? A finale? What did going to a Halloween party have to do with forcing me to vanquish my homosexuality? Or maybe it was never about that. I was messed enough that they could find any excuse to need to run me through thick tests and evaluations to evaluate and therefore control my behaviours.

I should have listened to Bianca. Bow your head, don't make eye contact, don't step out of line, don't think don't think don't think. But no matter how much I tried not to think, all I could do was think think think. I wasn't even thinking about the right things. I should've been thinking of ways to get home without getting plunged back into imprisonment and bullshit guards and hungry rats.

Stars, this is getting repetitive. I couldn't keep a straight mind about anything.

I must've looked like I was inwardly dying because Will stopped me just as we were rounding the corner to the shop to 'intervene'. "This is getting out of hand," he said, studying my expression with a cocked brow, as if he could unravel my mind through the looks of my sheepish features, "what's going on with you? Every time I look over it's like you're being tortured in a completely different way."