Light & Shadow

Chapter 1

Warnings: mentions of blood, violence

It pours down like rain. My clothes are sticky, and all I can smell is the metallic iron tang. With each new wave, I have an eerie knowledge of who it came from. It's my family, just like always. This time it started with Dad's, quickly followed by Nat, Gran, Mum, and Morgan.

I can't breathe. My fingers claw at my chest as I wake up from the nightmare that's haunted me these past few months. "ARTI, security check."

"It's quiet tonight." He replies, "The tracker on Holt is still active. He's currently out for lunch at Xaver's like always."

"You gotta admit, this one is punctual. Makes things a little easier." I mumble and rub my temples. Every inch of my body aches, which I should have known would happen when I went on the run, but it's what I had to do. At least, that's what I tell myself when I get out of 'bed' each morning. "Do me a favor? Secure the room and keep an eye on him. I've gotta clean up."

"Sure thing." ARTI chimes, and I can hear the rudimentary locks I connected to his system close over the doors and windows.

I grab a relatively fresh set of clothes from my bag and head into the washroom—if that's even what you can call it. The shower only runs cold, the sink pretends it's a shower most days, and the toilet is hopeless. Surprisingly, this isn't the worst place I've crashed in.

My heart drops when I catch a glimpse of myself in the cracked mirror. I'm starting to wonder if I'm nothing more than just a shadow of myself—if I died the day I left—if maybe I left the best parts of me back home.

The cold water brings goosebumps across my skin, but I continue on. I can't stop scrubbing at my skin. A part of me hopes that if I keep going until my skin is raw, I'll be able to wash away these past six months.

Instead, I smell eucalyptus.

It always manages to remind me of Dad. He used something different for years, but after the one time they ran out of his soap at the store, he used Pepper's, which was a blend designed for stress relief—something anyone that spent a lot of time around Dad in the old days needed. Once he used it, he never went back. The smell is now ingrained in my mind to only be associated with Dad. Sometimes, just for a second, it makes me feel happy—like he's still around looking out for me through all this. I could use one of those seconds right now.

There's still streaks of blood over the shower drain. I spent most of the day last week trying to wash it away, but it's still there.

I keep pouring the soap into my hands and scrubbing at my skin. The longer it doesn't work, the more the frustration clouds my mind until my skin is red. "Why won't you work? Please, I—I just need him again."

My chest tightens. The walls seem to close in on me. I rush out and slide across the floor along with the mat. Everything is screaming and pounding, and I can't stop crying. So, I just sit on the floor, a completely broken mess.

Each day, my body get heavier. It's harder and harder to move—to function. Anxiety gets a deeper grip on me. I'm starting to feel like all I'm made up of is it, pain, grief, and constantly shifting vortex of emotions, and it hurts. All I can do is take one trembling breath at a time until my clears little by little until I can function again.

Once it subsides, I shakily clean myself up and head out into the cold, dim room I've been living in since I got here three weeks ago. "I have an update on Peter. Seems like you could use a little cheering up." ARTI calls and displays a hologram from my watch.

"Not now, ARTI." I call with a raw throat and aching body as I collapse on the crummy mattress. "I just—I just wanna go back to sleep until Holt leaves the lab."