#he’s dodging calls from Lola embers because he doesn’t know who that is but apparently he’s supposed to release an album

[asteriskemily]

The fact that Ruben doesn’t remember what happened is absolutely sending me.

Like, imagine your name is Ruben Hopclap. You wake up in front of a ruined school gym wearing clothes you don’t recognize and missing your favorite necklace. You don’t remember falling asleep. Your chest hurts.

Uncle Henry is there talking to principal Auegfort over scraps of a robot. For a moment he looks at you like you’re a ghost before wrapping you in a tight hug. He asks what you remember. You tell him you remember packing your bag to go to the mountains of chaos for your spring break quest. You don’t remember anything after that. He hugs you again.

Your party’s there too. Most of them at least. Along with another party that you recognize as the Bad Kids, the most infamous party in your grade, maybe in the whole school. You tamp down any jealousy you might feel about that when you see the way that Mary Ann Almost-but-not-quite smiles at their barbarian. Instead you go to where Oisin and Ivy are huddle together, speaking softly to each other.

You ask where Kipperlily is. They look uncomfortable. For a moment you think about asking after Buddy, but then you realize you don’t know who that is. They keep avoiding answering the question, so you walk away. You almost go to talk to Lucy, but you see how uncomfortable she looks, how she flinches away when you start to move towards her. You decide to leave her alone.

Eventually Henry takes you home. On the drive home he turns on the radio and you hear yourself singing a song you’ve never heard. It’s loud and chaotic and so so angry. The sound of it makes you want to throw up. You turn it off and ride in silence back to the house.

The walls of your bedroom have been painted a deep, bloody red. There’s an electric guitar that you don’t know how to play leaning against the wall. Your desk is covered in notes and plans, some of it written in codes you can’t decipher. That doesn’t really matter because you don’t understand the stuff that’s not in code either.

Your parents look almost scared of you when you ask where your normal clothes are. They tell you that you got rid of them. They keep apologizing, like they think you’ll get mad at them. You tell them it’s okay, but still search your closet for something a bit more your style. You find a box shoved into a corner, under some clothes. Inside is your puka shell necklace and your ukulele. The string on the necklace is broken like it had been ripped off. The body of the ukulele is cracked like it had been thrown to the ground. You decide to deal with that in the morning.

You fall asleep and you dream of a girl. She’s a tiefling with red and black raccoon streaks in her hair. She smiles at you with lips painted black. If you stare at her for too long you can see blood dripping out of those lips and a crossbow bolt lodged in her side. You look at her and feel longing, feel grief, feel betrayal. You want to stop dreaming of her, but some part of you knows that any other dream would be filled with blood and crystals and rage. You accept that you are doomed to Wanda.