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ratyyyexclamationpoint · 2 months ago

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Crossing Point .ii

Jake ruminates on the state of his brother as he fiddles with the string of his hoodie. Irene pulls into the empty parking lot of the brutalist structure they called home.

The woman tapped her finger against the steering wheel. “That–that’s never happened before, has it?”

“No,” Jake shakes his head. “Not to that degree. Not with me, or us, as far as I know. Something back there must’ve done something. Or maybe he knows about–”

He cuts himself off with a sigh. The two just sat there in a rift of silence, like a gash unhealed. This was something that happened often.

“I’ll unload the groceries.” She finally says, unbuckling. “Get Ethan and give him a cup of water once you’re inside.”

The man nods and goes to the back and sees the boy staring out the window with a shell-shocked expression. Jake presses his lips together as he approaches him.

“We’re home.”

His voice snaps Ethan out of his trance. The boy glances back outside with a puzzled expression. “We are?”

“Yeah. Here,” he helps him up and leads him out of the car(t) and toward the stone building. Trailing behind them is Irene carrying a couple of heavy-looking bags. Ethan knits his brows together at the sight of their ‘home’, confused.

“This isn’t…”

Jake holds the door to let the bewildered boy in, and waits patiently for Irene to come in.

“Thank you,” she says in passing. Jake hums and shuts the door, Irene makes a turn for the kitchen.

“Ethan!” a small voice calls out excitedly. This is one the boy can’t recognize. Before he can react, he feels something latch onto him–a small girl with doglike features, tail wagging in excitement. “You’re back!”

“Um–”

“Sadie,” Jake’s voice is firm. “He’s not feeling good right now, so give him some space.”

She blinks and frees him from her hold. “Okay…What happened?”

“We don’t know yet. He’ll tell us in his own time though.” Jake pats Ethan’s back. “Wanna go to your room or hang out here for the time being?”

Ethan tenses. He looks down at the girl, his surroundings, and sputters out an answer. “Room,” sounded definite.

With a nod, Jake led him over to the elevator.

Aside from the soft mechanical hum, the lift was quiet. Two brothers stand on opposite ends of the contained space. Ethan’s vision wandered around the room, glancing occasionally at his brother’s burns. Jake takes notice of this.

“I think I did tell you about them, actually. The power dampeners, remember?”

“Power dampeners?”

The man nods. “You know, since everyone had magic.”

Sounds awfully familiar.

“Did the UDC do something?”

It was Jake’s turn to look puzzled. “What? No, we were… We were captured.”

“They burned you.” Ethan’s jaw flexes, of course it was them.

Jake shakes his head and rubs the rough skin of his neck. “Uh, I kind of burned myself trying to get them off, actually. It’s not anything bad though! Anymore, at least.”

“And they collared you??”

“Well, yes–”

“Those–those bastards! How did they even capture you? Why?”

The questions make the man freeze up, feeling the room turn claustrophobic. Ethan stares at him expectantly, gaze intense with a fire Jake hadn't even seen before.

“Ethan,” he starts, voice weaker than he’d like it to be. “What happened to you?”

The boy sighs. “Nothing, just…Sorry.”

The elevator dings, doors sliding to reveal a narrow hall. They look out and back at each other before stepping out–finally, some fresh air.

Jake coughs and regains his composure.

“You’ll finally get an actual bed.” A change of subject. Ethan doesn’t reply and simply follows Jake into a sad-looking room that is barely decorated and was primarily made of stone. There were thick blankets in a pile to form some sort of cushion.

Jake walks over to kick aside the blankets, then he takes out a pocket watch. He clicks it open and after a moment, a bedframe materialized where the blankets once were, then a mattress, then neatly folded sheets. Ethan watched with wide eyes as the man set up the bed for him.

“How’d you…”

“Thought we’d do some actual furniture shopping. This place was starting to feel like a prison, you know?”

“No, no, the…how’d you do that? You just summoned it out of nowhere.”

“The old reliable,” Jake dangled the pocket watch from his finger. “Haven’t had to use it in a while, though. Here, sit.”

Jake pats the fresh mattress, Ethan hesitates before going to sit on the bed. The soft material relaxed him just a bit.

“Nice, right?”

The boy nods, running a hand through the silk sheets. He mulls over something for a second.

“It is, but…What happened to the other place? The one we got from Nightmare?”

Jake tilts his head. “Who’s–Do you mean Famine?”

They’re interrupted again with a knock on the door.

“Hey, Jake, can I borrow your bathroom? Charlie’s invaded mine.” Ryan sees Ethan and perks up. “Oh, what’s up little man? Looks like you got the first of the beds.”

Ethan looks over at Ryan–Jake’s friend, he thinks–giving him a friendly wave. Ethan awkwardly waves back. Jake shrugs and replies “Sure,” before sending Ryan off. He turns his attention back to his brother.

“You should uh, take a shower by the way.” He motions toward the bathroom.

The boy blinks, realizing that he’s still incredibly filthy from the night before. “Oh, right.”

He pushes himself off the bed and makes his way over to the bathroom. Jake hesitates before he departs.

The bathroom was nice. The water was warm and relaxing, the tension in his body washing away with the muck on his skin–though, the bruise on his arm stung as a reminder that this was probably not some weird dream. Unless pinching doesn’t work anymore? Nevertheless, it seems like this place had the self-care supplies he’d always preferred. He stayed there for a while, staring at the porcelain tiles as he thought back on what’s happened; the storm, the sudden disappearance of their last home, Jake and these new people, especially–

He shakes the final thought out of his head and finishes up–drying off and finding a fresh set of clothing to wear. The boy makes his way out of the room into the hall that was lit with sleek fixtures of light attached to the walls and ceiling. Then, he peeked around the corner that led to a large room only to find it completely empty of, well, anything, aside from ‘chairs’ that were just rectangular cubes protruding from the ground. There were other rooms that he thinks are probably bedrooms as well. Deciding that there’s nothing else to explore on this floor, he goes back down the hall to call in the elevator.

This place was definitely worse than the condo. Anyone would go insane living here.

The elevator doors open to reveal someone already taking it, which would be a large, muscular person with draconic features.

“Oh, hey kid.” They greet. “Was just about to tell you that the others are waiting for you in the lobby.”

He blinks. “I was, um, already planning on going down there, anyway.”

“Sweet. Here,” they move out of the elevator and give him some space to enter. “We’re already finished movin’ everything in, anyway.”

Ethan just smiles and nods before he goes in, pressing the button to the lobby. He watches in confusion as they walk up the hall and into the room across from his, and the doors close. Was he supposed to know that person?

Irene and Jake had just finished moving everything around the building–with the help of Crna, of course–which became rather tiring since they couldn’t fit everything in the watch. Sadie’s playing with her doll (with a convoluted name that im not typing) on the new carpet. Satisfied with their work, they plop down on opposite armchairs.

“We don’t need to do the other floors, do we?” Jake asks, dabbing the sweat off his forehead with a towel.

“No. For now, at least. There’s still the training supplies upstairs, but we’ll save that for tomorrow.”

Jake replies with a groan.

“Tis the price of–how does that saying go? ‘Making this house a home.’”

“Yeah, that’s it, I think–”

Ding.

The woman’s knifelike ears twitch up. “Jake, go get your brother.”

“I can’t feel my limbs. You can’t even get tired, Irene.”

She narrows her brows. “Well, he’ll feel more comfortable around you right now. Go on.”

Jake rolls his eyes and pushes himself up. He drags himself over to the elevator, where his brother stood.

“Hey,” Jake waves with a tired smile. “You were in there for a while.”

“I was? Sorry about that,” Ethan rubs the back of his neck. “And about…Earlier, too.”

“It’s okay, you’re going through a lot.” He nods over to the living room. “We set up the TV and ordered food. I know, we just bought groceries, but it was too late to start cooking. And, I thought you’d be hungry since…I don’t know. We haven’t sat down and eaten with each other in a while.”

“True…” Ethan mutters. “But will you explain what’s going on? I still don’t know why we’re here, or who these people are. Where’s Mia? Oracle?”

Jake looks lost. “Who are you talking about?”

Ethan becomes frantic. “You know. Your friends? Our friends??”

“Uhm…” The man scratches his head. “Looks like we have a lot to catch up on.”

Then there’s knocking on the door, which must’ve been the food.

“Coming!” A woman calls from one room over. The ring of her voice makes Ethan jolt—it was too familiar. His heart races.

“Jake,” he whispers. “Who was that?”

The clacking of heels gets louder as the woman approaches the front lobby.

Jake mutters, “Guess Irene’s getting the food.”

Ethan blinks.

“Repeat that?”

“Irene’s getting the food. I think she’s giving you some space.”

Ethan frowns. “That’s not funny, Jake.”

Jake replies, but it slips the boy’s mind once he sees her walk out of the left hall.

Ethan is absolutely mortified, now very aware of the pounding of his heartbeat. He looks between her and his concerned brother and blinks rapidly, trying to shoo her away from his sight, as if she were a figment that manifested from the mention of her name.

Then she turns and looks straight at him with a hesitant expression. The corner of her mouth twitched, but he couldn’t tell if it was to smile or frown.

She walks away without a word, back to the living room.

She looked so…so /real/.

Ethan shuts his eyes, not wanting another chance to glimpse her again.

“Why,” his brows furrow angrily, eyelids squeezing. “Why would you…”

“Ethan?“

“You promised we’d stop talking about it!” Ethan snaps, eyes opening to give Jake a nasty glare. “You wanted to stop talking about it! And now–now you’ve—“

“Woah, woah,” Jake reaches out to comfort Ethan, but the boy swats his hand away and makes a sound of frustration.

He takes a tight hold of the hem of his shirt, looking away as he fights back tears. “I was getting better. We were getting better.”

Jake furrows his brows. He can’t think of anything to say, absolutely dumbfounded at the situation. The two stiffen at the sound of Irene rushing back over.

The woman goes to Jake’s side. “What the hell happened?”

He looks at her with a helpless expression. “I don’t know. He’s been speaking nonsense since he got back.”

Irene is visibly confused as all hell. She turns to look at Ethan, who’s frozen looking at her like he’s seen—or is seeing—a ghost.

“What did you say to him?”

“I don’t—I don’t know, either?? I just told him you were getting the food and he just…”

Irene knits her brows together and reaches out to put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. The touch makes him jolt in place, but he doesn’t move. His gaze is still fixed on her, somehow looking even more shocked.

“What’s wrong, little one?“

There’s a moment of silence, air thick with anticipation. The woman and the boy stare holes into each other. Jake looks between them, nervous.

Then, Ethan hiccups, the layer of tears he tried so hard to subdue now flowing freely as he became overwhelmed with, well, everything.

“Oh my.“

The boy practically collapses into her, engulfing her in an embrace as he sobbed so hard he could barely breathe. He was rambling incoherently into her sweater; “mom” was the only word she could make out from whatever he was trying to say. Irene hesitates before returning the gesture, rubbing circles on the boy’s back as she looks at Jake awkwardly. He shrugs, looking just as confused as she did.

“You’re alright, you’re—“

He wails, which makes Irene jump.

“Uh.” Jake shifts.

The woman shrugs too, a little uncomfortable. She tries lightly pulling away, but the boy’s holding onto her like she’d disappear if he let go.

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ratyyyexclamationpoint · 2 months ago

Text

Crossing Point .i

Cars slip down the street, carried by a flood of filthy rainwater; streetlights uprooted by the sheer pressure of the wind; a cacophony of car alarms accompanied the howling winds. It was anarchy.

He held the groceries tight against his body and heaved them through the flood. It was hard to move - he was freezing - and he could hardly keep balance. Raindrops pelt him in the face like cold bullets.

Ethan looked around frantically, eyes squinted, trying his hardest to sight his brother in the raging cyclone. He must be in the flood too, he thinks - he shouldn’t be far.

“Jake?” The boy called out, voice breaking. “Jake!”

And he kept calling for him, but his voice would only be drowned out by the gale, the torrent, and the rolling thunder. Despite the chaos, the street was achingly lonely and devoid of life. He was accompanied only by the forces of nature. It seemed like he wasn’t making much progress up the road, like he was being kept still by the water. Panic built in his chest like bricks stacking on top of eachother as water streaks his face, unable to differentiate his tears to the rain. He tries to take control over the wind, but he’s overwhelmed with–well, everything.

His brother would know what to do.

“Help!” he cries pathetically, rough with desperation and a kind of dread he hadn’t felt in a while. “Anyone, please!”

He was pretty much swimming through the filth at this point. Running out of options, he sploshes toward a brownstone building with stairs high enough to avoid most of the flood, and tumbles toward its door.

It was locked to his dismay, so the boy rams his frail body against it until it eventually breaks in. He shuts it back closed and collapses, curling up against the door to keep it from letting the flood in. The rain pitters against the wood like violent little knocks.

He took in a couple of deep, shaggy breaths, then went into a full sob until he slept.

Silence came and so did the morning light.

Ethan woke up in the same place, stuffy and sore. He sniffles and scans his surroundings, which seemed to be the hall into someone’s house. He had hoped it was empty, considering that he had broken in the door and tracked filthy water onto the wooden floor.

He pulls himself up and swings the door open, his skin warmed by the gleam of sunlight. He blinks, a bit confused at the state of the city. The street was dry and as clean as New York City gets, and there were a couple of cars and pedestrians casually passing by - everything looked completely unaffected by yesterday’s storm.

It must have been [insert guy who would’ve been able to reverse damages/the storm im lazy]. Thank goodness for that.

He gets a couple of glances, making him conscious of how filthy he must be. Still disoriented from wading through the water for so long, he stumbles down the stairs and marches up the slope, cringing at the feeling of dried muck on his skin. Home shouldn’t be far.

The closer he got, the more unrecognizable everything looked–was that plaza always there? He looked back and forth, a little appalled, and passed it to reach his building…which wouldn’t even be in sight.

He thinks that he somehow managed to get lost, despite following the same straight path up the road. Retracing his steps back to the corner store, he tries again.

Still no home.

He makes a frustrated sound, going to the plaza where he thought his building was supposed to be - then, he gives it a dirty look. It was bustling with people even though it popped out of nowhere. Those who had finished shopping make some distance between themselves and the boy as they pass over to their cars.

“Real funny,” he mutters to himself.

“Ethan!” Someone calls out to him in the distance. Looking toward the source, he sees his brother! The boy ran to him, tears welling in his eyes as he went to hug him. Jake could barely process.

“Hey, hey,” he sounded concerned. “What happened?”

“The-the storm, I couldn’t–I couldn’t find you, or anyone, and,” Ethan sniffles. “The apartment, I can’t find it.”

“Storm–” Jake pulls him off to look at him. “What are you talking about? What storm?”

“The one from last night. I-I couldn’t even get back with the groceries…I’m sorry.” The boy sniffles again, blinking out globs of tears that blurred his vision.

Jake looked perplexed, to say the least. Still, he kept his composure, speaking to him as softly as he could. “Okay, we were just about done here anyway.” The boy nods, taking deep breaths. “Irene should already be in the car. C’mon.”

Ethan hums, hardly listening as he tries to calm himself down. Jake leads him to the car and lets him into the back (the interior looks much bigger than the car itself, somehow,) sits him down, and goes over to the front. He hears him talking to someone, but at this point he’s already tuned himself out to the sound of his own heartbeat.

“--Something about a storm.” Jake says, glancing at the rearview mirror. “I don’t know how. Maybe the B-word has something to do with it?”

The other person, a woman, speaks up. “Peculiar. But, I’m not surprised - I’m glad he’s alright.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “He looks really shaken up about it though. We should just hurry home and get him to bed.”

Once Ethan had completely calmed down, he finally took a good look at his surroundings. It looked closer to a shared loft than an actual car–it didn’t even look like an RV. He gets up to wander the ‘car’ and finds that it even has a second story! It looked clean and sparsely decorated with an assortment of crystals and wooden furniture. There were a couple of bed frames with no mattresses, as well. When did Jake get a hold of something like this? Is he even in a car?? He quickly makes his way down the stairs toward the curtained front seats.

“Hey, Jake,” he opens the curtain and hears Jake hum in acknowledgement. He’s shocked to see that the front almost looks like an airplane’s control system. Through the window is the street - it looks like they’re experiencing some heavy traffic. “Where…are we?”

“Almost there.” His brother says reassuringly. Ethan looks at him and opens his mouth to say something, but the words are lost when he sees his gnarly burn scars.

“Holy crap.”

Jake blinks. “What?”

“Your,” he points to his own face. “Your scars! What happened?”

The man rubs the scars from neck to his jaw to feel for what could be wrong with them. “Are they healing or something?”

“No, it’s - how’d you get those??”

“Um.” Jake shifts in his seat. “The prison?–”

“Prison?!”

“–I haven’t really explained what happened there yet, I don’t think.” He ruffles his brows, glancing between the silent driver and the boy, confused. “I’ll, uh, talk about it once we get back. You should sit down.”

“Just another block.” The driver reminds them. Ethan looks at her only to fall silent again.

“You should listen to your brother. You seem awfully out of it, little one.”

His blood runs cold. He blinks once, twice, and he yanks the curtain closed.

His knees buckle and he collapses onto the ground.

“No. No, this isn’t–” he tremors and squeezes his eyes shut as he whispers to himself. “You’re doing it again.”

He pulls his knees close to his body and pinches himself hard enough to form a bruise. “Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

The ones in the front speak worriedly among themselves. He can hardly hear them, his heart beating a thousand paces. He takes quick, shallow breaths–his lungs feel like they’re being wrung.

“Shit–” Jake moves the curtain aside to rush to Ethan’s side. He pulls his hand away from the skin of his arm, hushing him in the attempt to soothe him. “Breathe with me. One, two,”

Ethan follows, squeezing his brother’s hand, feeling his pulse steady. He hears his brother sigh.

“Okay, just–” Jake pulls him up and leads him to the sofa. “Once we get there, I’ll take you to your room and we’ll set up the mattress. Cool?”

The boy nods silently as he tries to push back the memory of what can’t have happened.

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