#ive never worked with a more muted color palette like this before so it was a nice challenge

[spoopy-nevermore-dump]

You were trying to cross the border right?

[docholligay]

An Overwatch Christmas Carol: Stave IV-- The Last of the Spirits

Creeping out of the shadows of the subway station, little bits of shadow began to move toward her, and even as Ana stepped back, they came into a pile on the ground, growing higher and higher. As it grew she heard voices overlapping, little snippets of conversations, things that could not be, in contradiction with each other, wave upon wave of idea, none real and all real, at once. 

The shadows became one. It was a tall, imposing figure, the face unable to be seen, its body barely formed, wavering in the air. The darknesses overlapped one another, shade upon shade, and Ana felt a chill knowledge come into her heart that she was looking at her very own future. Darkness upon darkness. Shade upon shade. Moving and whispering in every second. 

The future. 

“Are you,” her voice sounded so high and so fearful even to her, but she could not control it, “Are you the ghost--the spirit---that Jack and Reinhardt and Tra--my friends. Are you the ghost that my friends have sent to me?”

No face fell into view, just that same blue and grey and black in a muted palette, brushing up against each other, as the spirit nodded and whispers of a dozen different voices emanated from in it and around it. 

Nem. Ja. Tak. Of course. Ken. Oui. Yes. 

“You’re here,” she walked cautiously about the spirit as it towered over here, “to show me things that haven’t happened yet.” 

More nods, and more whispers, and more shadows. The shade of an arm outstretched, and pointed on toward the stairs that led up and out of that tube station, toward the future. No longer was Ana concerned with narrative structure, nor surprised at the spectre of a spectre itself, and yet, in a way that no spirit before it had managed, she felt herself tremble before the gliding shadows and barely audible whispers in some form of human shape before her. 

“Are you,” she thought of those that had come before, “A friend?” 

No. Nein. Nyet. Nej. La. Meiyou. 

She gave a low, shaking chuckle. “Not that you need to be. I’ve worn out my chances with that, I think.” 

The spirit did not respond but with the same hand, pointing up the stairs, out of the darkness into a far more terrifying morning gloom. Ana’s eyes followed the hand, knowing where she had to go, wishing she could go anywhere else. 

“I am afraid of you,” she steadied her voice, let herself like in that terrible, vulnerable truth, “In a way I have not been of any ghost before you. But I know they would not send you if you couldn’t help me. I will try to learn from you, more than I ever have have before, Spirit.” 

A shadowed finger to the stairs, the only response. 

“Yes.” Ana tightened her scarf and tied her robe tight, trying to crack a smile, “Come on, then, as Tracer would say.” 

They started up the stairs, but they did not so much climb them as the stairs fell down around them, revealing the city as they fell away, and suddenly Ana was on a snow-dusted street, and then the cafe with the black awning and the gingham tables, and then they were inside of it, the two women behind the counter, same as they were every morning. 

Ana looked around, not much about the place but a few pastries left here and there, the two women cleaning up tea pots and chatting amongst themselves. She knew this place well, had frequented it many times before, and yet she was nervous to enter it again. 

“You seen that old bat of ours lately?” One of them said to the other. 

“Oh, the one grumbling every morning, with the coffee? Naw, not for a week or better now.” She did not seem to give the matter any thought, but squeezed out a mop. 

“Wonder if she’s died.” From over a wiped off counter. 

“Think we might have heard?” 

The first burst into a peal of laughter. “From who exactly? Not as if she’s ever with anyone, right? And I’m more noticing than mourning, mind you.” 

The other chuckled appreciatively. “Maybe it’s only that she’s decided to grace someone else with her growling.” 

“We should be so lucky, I think!” 

The women collapsed into laughter as the sides of the cafe fell away, and then more walls began to be constructed in its place, newspapers on the walls falling away to clean, crisp white, the floor from wood to a highly polished stone, the counter becoming a front desk with pictures behind it, the plaque above them reading For Those Who Gave All In The Cause Of Good. 

“Well I don’t know anything about it, just that she couldn’t be reached. Commander Amari said to send someone over later, been two weeks since she checked in,” the little secretary laughed behind the desk, ‘She told me, the agent is either gone rouge or dead, and handed me plans for both, said not to worry till after the holiday. Commander Amari said I should go home to me and mine, it’s nearly Christmas.” 

“That was kind of her,” a dark haired man leaned against the edge of the desk, “I think it’s only a handful of us that don’t bother with it on today. You know,” he laughed, “I’d really rather her be rouge. More entertaining, and I don’t have the energy for an official Overwatch funeral.” 

“Oh,” she stood up and grabbed her coat, “I doubt there’d be any kind of funeral, even if the devil has taken his own at last. Or a cheap one, none of the trimmings.” 

“I mean,” He laughed, “I’ll go if there’s a tea at least. I heard when Commander Oxton died, there was a spread for the gods.” 

She slipped on her coat. “Not likely to be that. Maybe a bag of crisps, for the memory.” 

They laughed together, him wishing her a Happy Christmas with her family, and again the walls fell away as Ana turned to the spirit. These conversations were so small and could have been insignificant, and yet Ana felt something twisting around her heart, tighter and tighter. It came to her so fast, here with this cold and silent spirit, this lesson, and yet she cursed the Ana of the past, and the present, who had taken so long to see their own lessons. 

“I understand, Spirit.” She nodded slowly. “This woman could be me. My life--it does support that sort of treatment, right now. I won’t ever forget this lesson that you’ve taught me, but--what about...my Fareeha? She must--”

But before she could finish the thought, the walls fell away again, and constructed just as quickly, until they were on that same street she had seen with Tracer, in what had been earlier this evening, and so long ago. It was no more impressive than it had been, though certainly more built up, no longer many empty shells of what had been bombed and shot out in the Battle for London, but apartments and a market, a pub and a bakery, all the street looking so much more complete for all of it. 

Pharah and Mercy’s home was there, standing where it had before, in a row of newer apartments made to incorporate the old bits of what had been there before the unpleasantness of battle. 

The apartment was not at all decorated, a light in the upstairs window the only indication of anything at all. In the dim light it glowed like a candle, beckoning them on. The doors to apartments around them were covered in garland, trees lighting up the windows, but this one was quiet, and undecorated. 

“Fareeha.” The name escaped her lips before she could even finish the thought, “I know this part of the story. I mistook Tracer for Tiny Tim but--She must have---” she paused, and looked down at the snow made dull and muddy by the traffic that had already walked by. “She was so angry. And I never did anything. I encouraged it, in her. I told her to set it aside. I never helped her deal with it. And now--” 

She looked back to the spirit, who simply pointed to that grey door, a hole opening in it, darker grey still, overlapping colors of the night so much like the spirit itself. 

Kommen. Ma. Priyti. Come. 

“But, I have to see. Yes.” 

She walked into the house, and looked around. Still dark, thought it was fully eight am and if Pharah had been here there would have been a flurry of activity, certainly. She smelled a hint of cinnamon in the air, that must have been wafting over from one of the other close-knit apartments, but she stared and stared up those stairs, where she knew that bedroom sat, where she knew she would have to look and see what all her failures had wrought. 

The Spirit pointed up the stairs, not even whispers from its lips as it points, Ana looking up into the hallway that should have been cheerful and bright, but seemed so foreboding, so dull, so frightening. A step. She had to climb. 

“Poor Angela.” 

It surprised her even as she said it. She had spent so long thinking that Mercy was weak, that she wasn’t built for the work that she had chosen to do, that she would have been better off choosing a softer job, marrying into a softer family. Now, she felt a stirring in her, something that could remember Mercy had lost her parents young, Mercy had seen soldiers crying for their parents in their last moments, Mercy had plucked dead children out of rubble. And she refused to callous. She cried every time. 

Maybe she was braver than Ana had ever given her credit for. Maybe she was braver than Ana. 

She turned around, nearly up the stairs now, to the Spirit. “Are you going to tell me what happened to their child?” 

An outstretched hand, pointing. 

Another step. Another turn, another pause. 

“Pharah can’t be dead. I know this, because she was mentioned at Headquarters.” 

Nothing but that finger, those moving, shifting, shading darknesses. Ana turned around, and took those final steps. Staring down the hallway where the light circled the door, waiting to be opened, knowing she had to do it. 

“I can’t imagine Fareeha leaving…”she kept walking, even as she feared it, “Angela must have left her. I should have...This is all my fault. ” She stopped at the door. “Oh no. Angela can’t have died, Spirit, that would be the most unfair thing of all. I could have--I will stop it. I will.” 

She rested her hand on that cold, hard doorknob, and let the rage flash in her. Knowing that she would change Mercy’s death, knowing that she would heal Pharah, knowing that she would go back and fix it all. She twisted, and let it open. 

Pharah lay in bed, her arm not even on, reading a book in the dim light. The smell of coffee filled the air, and that cinnamon she had been so sure earlier was coming from another house was the cinnamon roll sitting by her side of the bed. 

And Mercy’s. Mercy was tucked in next to her, hair piled high on her head, in an oversized t-shirt and her glasses, paging through her own novel. Between them was a little blonde girl, sitting crosslegged and also determinedly reading her own book, a blanket drawn around her shoulders, a battered stuffed sloth tucked into her lap, helping her read. 

“Mama,” she turned to Pharah, “Can I have a bite?” 

“Of course.” Pharah smiled warmly, and the little girl crawled onto her, mouth open as Pharah chuckled and stuffed a piece in her mouth. 

“I love you, Mama.” She chewed on the bun. 

“I love you, too,” she swung over her arm and pulled the little girl onto herself, “Don’t talk with your mouth full. You could choke.” 

The little girl nodded, and carefully swallowed, then treated Pharah to a sticky kiss, Pharah smiling contently all the while, as Mercy looked on, licking her fingers from her own cinnamon roll. Pharah tucked her own blanket around the little girl, and patted her affectionately. 

“We’ll have to dig into the cookies, at this rate. And so early.” 

“Oh do we?” Mercy sat up and looked over at the both of them. 

“Avi’s stolen most of my cinnamon roll, you see.” 

“Nuh-uh!!” Avi protested. “You said I could have a bite, Mama!”

Pharah gave a deep laugh. “I should have made more.” 

Ana looked at her daughter as she leaned against the doorframe. She had told herself as she came up the stairs that now was the time when she would see all the mistakes that were made, that now was the dark part of this story, that there was nothing but sadness to be seen here. And yet. It was warmth and coziness and comfort, all. There were none of her fears, either of the old Ana or the new, in this family. 

“But I thought…” Ana stepped forward a few steps, staring at Pharah. 

There was no red about her at all, no halo about her spelling trouble, just, if anything, the gentle light of a contented love. 

The breath left her as she realized. 

“It has nothing to do with me.” She felt it catch in her throat. “Her anger...she didn’t need me. She, she let it go herself. Because I mean nothing to her.” 

The floor dropped out from beneath her, falling, falling, through all the grey and the darkness, like smoke surrounding her and clouding her, entering into her as she opened her mouth to scream. 

And then, as soon as the fall started, it stopped. 

She was on the floor of that same raggedy hallway in her apartment building, with that same flickering light, though it seemed somehow even dimmer than the last time. She struggled to her feet as the Spirit materialized beside her, extending that same arm, pointing to the door that she knew, oh, very well indeed. 

“Am I--going home?” she looked for a moment, confused, and then let the moment settle in. “No. This is the woman everyone was talking about. This is the woman no one was talking about.” 

She took a step. 

“I have a question. The future, I mean, these can only be the shadows of what might happen. Things could change, in any moment. This is true of the future, it always is.” 

There was no response, not even a whisper, just pointing, pointing. Ana looked at the door, and slowly inched forward, knowing she had to see the truth, knowing she could hardly bear it. She reached out her hand to the knob, and could feel the cold breeze coming from inside the room. She took a shaking breath, and tightened her grip. 

She lost her nerve, and pivoted, looking back at the Spirit, so close behind her she could smell those hundreds of smells, just like the whispers, one overlapped over the other. 

“I know what’s behind that door. What is the point of any of this? Why bother showing it to me if I can’t change!? It exists only to torment me!” 

Ana felt her hand on the doorknob, though she could not remember placing it there, and heard that horrid, dark click as the door creaked open, calling her inside. 

“No.” She whispered. 

But she looked, because she must look, and there it was, on the terrible, dank, threadbare carpet, but her own self, stone dead where she had fallen. There was a squeaking Ana realized could not longer be coming from the door, and she adjusted her vision a moment, saw two rats eating at the edge of her hand, their own Christmas feast offering the filling warmth Ana never had otherwise. 

She cried out, bent against the doorframe. How long had she been here? Days, and no one had noticed she was missing, more than a week, at least, and in that time not one person had reached out to see her, to check on her, to even know that she was dead. How much longer might her body lie there, eaten by rats in the cool of the evening? 

Ana looked up at the Spirit, hurt and angry, most of all with herself and her own thousand failures. 

“Tell me who you are! Let me at least know the face of my accuser!” 

The Spirit stepped back away from her, and slowly, slowly the shadows began to drift, two hands becoming many tiny hands as they ringed around the cowl that hid the face, the horrible face that Ana had asked to see and yet now wished to see no longer, and she took a step back as it pulled away the cowl, like a peel slowly retreating from the fruit. 

Pharah’s eyes glowered at her, and Ana shrank back, shaking her head, opening her mouth to apologize, to say something, and then the shades turned and moved and became Waldemar, and then again to Mercy, to Tracer, to Zeina, to Reinhardt, moving and shifting between all these people she had known, all their voices and whispers surrounding her and cutting her as she held back, and then, there it was, locked in and staring furiously: Ana herself. The whispers started, the accusations, everything she had learned and already known coalescing in her head, tying tight around her, and she felt that same chain, cold and hard. 

She fell to her knees, grasping at the Spirit. 

“Please! I can change! Jack must have sent you because he knew!” The words choked up in her throat and stuck there, tears coming to her eyes, “Tell me these things can be changed. Why show me if these things can’t be changed? A life CAN BE CHANGE--”