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chatonnoir · 2 years

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Predictably adrienette fangirls are vagueposting me and to no one’s surprise they’re being dense and illiterate about it at that so I’m going to repeat myself about what my actual problem with pre-reveal adrienette is and maybe they’ll read it this time before they go on to write another 8 paragraphs about how much they supposedly don’t care about my opinion

I love Adrienette, contrary to how the Adrienette fangirls are trying to frame this is as just being about Side Preference, because considering that people’s upset could be anything more than “they’re just salty it wasn’t their favorite side 💅” is apparently too complex a concept to grasp. You know why Adrienette could never be my favorite side of the square, though?

The problem is the show never let them be what they could be at their best because it always chose to prioritize drama. Things like their adventures in Gorizilla and them joking around together in Puppeteer 2... they never gave me more of it. They always chose cliche contrived drama and drawing out the will they won't they """tension"""" over letting them spend real time together and get close. And that just makes me mourn the fact its only this way because the majority of people think THATS the most interesting part of a ship. Why let Adrienette get to the point of being able to comfortably hang out together as close friends when that "diminishes" the """tension"""" after all??? No one wants to see FRIENDSHIP silly!

This side is always plagued with corny forced drama and manufactured "tension" more than other, which is achieved by not letting Adrienette get close as friends at all costs and throwing in waste my time bullshit like love rivals to extend the runtime of said "tension". Every seemingly promising scene with them becomes a microcosm of this phenomenon. Puppeteer 2 was nice but the comfort and joking around together didn't stick and they cut it short with more of that love triangle "the girl you're in love with?" bullshit. I was excited when it seemed like Marinette was going to join the fencing team in Riposte because their interactions in that scene were cute and I was happy to see them spend more time together and become comfortable while sharing this common interest, only for it to turn out that that was all to introduce a goddamn love rival plot that amounted to nothing besides developing the friendship between the two protagonists and said love rival more than their friendship to .... each other. Again, gotta prioritize the Tension!!1!1!!

I've said if I wanted to watch another generic school romance I'd choose to watch a much better one than pre-reveal Adrienette. One example? Anne/Gilbert. I'm going to talk about the Netflix version here: Anne/Gilbert feels a bit like what Adrienette might've been if the umbrella scene didn't happen and it took longer for Marinette to warm up to him. Anne gets awkward and babbles and puts her foot in her mouth around Gilbert. Gilbert is all smitten smiles and soft looks when he sees her being Anne(TM) and being her weird self or standing up for what’s right. But that's not all. They're good friends. They have a rivalry. They tease each other. They argue. He tells her directly when he disagrees with something she did. They challenge each other’s perspectives. They grieve together. They hold each other and cry after they lose someone important to them. Anne’s the first person Gilbert wants to tell about things that happen to him. Gilbert comes to Anne to discuss his future when he's confused. This was all before they were even together. This is the depth and rawness and realness that I wish Adrienette gave me. Alas, it's Ladynoir that has all that depth and closeness, while I'm not even convinced Adrienette can even be considered "close" at the end of season 4. Three hundred “soft looks” scenes only go so far. They only just scratched the surface of said closeness with Risk, and even that wasn't entirely organic considering it took magic to get it to happen. I hoped that would finally be the start of letting Adrienette get closer as friends and have some real substance and--- oops! They're dating now lol.

Weird as hell that Adrienette fangirls are being like “you all think platonic relationships are less than romantic ones and it shows 💅 one lovesquare side getting together doesn’t kill the others” acting like they really did something when … the whole fucking issue here is that Adrienette needed to develop as friends. Even if we ignore the fact that this is a piece of fucking Romance media and therefore not the place to whine about the value of platonic love when the romantic development is literally the main fucking plot, Ladynoir has had all the depth and platonic development and platonic love built up already. Ladynoir is fully realized. They've struggled and been at odds and reconciled and seen each other at their best and worst and grown together. It’s Adrienette that’s lacking in platonic development, it’s Adrienette that some of us wanted to have developed into a strong platonic relationship first but apparently, for reasons unknown, they’re incapable of being friends and needed to date to have any of that long overdue development. The Adrienette stans KNOW they needed development, they even defend pre-reveal Adrienette by saying they needed the development, but bizarrely y'all think it absolutely had to happen through speed running pre-reveal dating rather than uh..... friendship. Are ladynoir stans really the ones failing to see the value of platonic love here lol

One thing I always hated that this fandom did was treat romantic love as an ulterior motive or somehow shallow. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that once again that theme comes up in the defense of this plot point with “nOw LaDyNoIr CaN bE fRiEnDs wItHoUt uLtErIoR mOtIvEs.” I’m sorry some of y’all think someone wanting to get closer to another person or having affection for them is an ulterior motive lol. Maybe this is the consequence of how hollywood and popular culture has equated romantic love to sexual tension. Maybe this is why I’m having to listen to adrienette fangirls say deranged shit like “ladynoir was meant to be the platonic side and adrienette was meant to be the lovers side uwu” because of course, a deep bond built on real trust and friendship and affection with someone who you can share things you can’t with most others, a relationship reminiscent of what actual healthy romantic relationships look like in real life, isn’t romantic at all, but forced Tension and contrived schoolgirl drama, apparently, is romantic.

In case some Adrienette fangirls are still having trouble with reading comprehension: I love adrienette and everything they could be. I hate how they’re often handled in canon. When I talk about what Ladynoir has that Adrienette does not, that’s me explaining how their writing and development was handled better and how Adrienette isn’t allowed to reach that point, not why one side is “superior” lol. Despite me saying this I know Adrienette stans are still going to take it as a personal attack when I point out the objective fact that Ladynoir has the closer and more developed relationship lol

The past four seasons but season 4 more than any other established these themes of truth vs. lies and secrets and the importance of being honest with your loved ones and how secrets are hurting them more than they’re helping. They were even in the fucking titles of the first three episodes of the season. And it seemed so obviously to be building up to a reveal, of course the culmination of all the interpersonal conflicts and anguish they’re going through would be the two of them revealing their identities right? No, actually, the solution to the question of truth/lies/secrets posed at the beginning of season 4 is ….. for Adrien and Marinette to have sex.

That’s right, folks. Not identity reveal, not for Adrien and Marinette to be honest with each other the way Alya and Nino were, the culmination of this conflict is …. For them to have sex. The picnic blanket date scene where they lay down and try to kiss only for Marinette to be “Not Ready” and for Adrien to tell her that he can Wait For Her <3, which takes place in the same spot as the implied GabrielxEmilie Adrien Conception Picnic, is an unsubtle first time sex metaphor. Fuck honesty and personal growth! Fuck Adrien and Marinette actually saying goodbye to their best friends! "I'll never abandon you" and "never do that to me again" and "I'm afraid of you disappearing for my life" all didn't mean fuck all when it comes to getting fucked on a picnic blanket! The rest of the lovesquare got thrown over because Adrien and Marinette are just so fucking horny apparently :’) This is what the pre-reveal Adrienette stans are calling peak romance and the best season of the show. My god

Though I can’t say this kind of contrived botched unnecessary conflict and nonsensical “development” on the Adrienette side is new to this season. Adrienette stans were noting the Glaciator 2 -> Risk """"development"""" like "look! Marinette stopped seeing Adrien's sadness as an Opportunity to Win him and listened to his feelings! Character/Relationship development 😌✨" Except.... no. That wasn't development that ever needed to happen. Marinette was already capable of seeing Adrien's sadness way back in season 1 (Rogercop) and of caring more to see him happy than about pushing her own feelings on him (the scarf in Bubbler + being his 3rd wheel in Frozer). Then Glaciator 2 decides to introduce this asinine "Adrien is sad now's my chance!!1!1!" moment so that y'all can later pretend Adrienette had a development moment here when it REALLY didn't. That was literally not what was holding her back for the past 4 seasons. That was a solution to a problem that never existed in the first place.

The drawn-out “not being ready to kiss Adrien” conflict this season is a completely new invention too because guess what: We had Chat Blanc! We SAW Marinette was already happily ready to kiss Adrien in full view of her friends back in season 3!!! Pre-reveal Adrienette is repeatedly negating past characterization and past development and past established themes for its forced drama and Adrienette stans are shutting their eyes to that fact because uuwwwu cute Adrienette scenes!!!11!!!1

(And y’all know people can enjoy the scenes/think they’re cute while still disliking the plotpoint/writing surrounding it, right? Or is that still too complex a thought for this fandom)

The fear of rejection has been there for the past 7 years, ready to be tackled at any moment. Those of us that actually paid attention to Marinette’s character, and weren’t just projecting ourselves and our high school fantasies on to her like a lot of these pre-reveal Adrienette stans, were all waiting for it to naturally payoff with a Marinette confession scene, regardless of the outcome. Let her overcome that rejection sensitive dysphoria!!!! Oh, wait, nevermind, now that problem has been gleefully skipped over and apparently the REAL issue is that Marinette can’t kiss Adrien. Fucking Phenomenal. Marinette already knows Adrien loves her and was able to completely skip over the "overcoming her fear of rejection" part but she's still scared for some reason and everyone is going to pretend this is so compelling and soft uwu and not completely lackluster compared to the powerful character moment that could've been if she'd been allowed to confront this fear pre-relationship. The past 4 seasons of her trying and failing to tell Adrien how she feels were actually just more dilly dallying contrived runtime expansion because that issue was never going to be something she needed to overcome through Facing Said Fear, apparently. Adrien had adequate development in realizing he needed to drop the Cat-sanova schtick with Ladybug if he wanted to be seen for who he is. On Marinette's side of the personal growth and development? Crickets. She’s just a scared little animal who needs Adrien to handle it all for her uwu. She never needed to do any growing, it was always Adrien! Adrien’s Feelings were always the obstacle actually! It’s Adrien’s job to make this all happen! Fuck seeing our protagonist taking initiative and overcoming that seasons-long fear in a satisfying confession payoff I guess!

There were conditions under which I actually would’ve accepted pre-reveal Adrienette, like for example actually getting that confession scene, but the way it played out in canon flopped. I thought ML was following the Raimi Spider-Man plot, which it has been in many ways, but even those movies had Peter Reject Mary Jane after she finally realized she loved him, and only let them get together after his identity was revealed and Mary Jane was able to accept that Spider-Man and Peter Parker are a package deal. Here’s another example of an actual good school romance I’d choose over pre-reveal Adrienette every time: Sawako and Kazehaya. The pinnacle of sweet slowburn slice of life school romance. Kurumi, an actually effective romantic rival character, tells Sawako that she’s not worthy of being called her rival if she simply gives up and wallows without ever actually mustering up the courage to confess her feelings to Kazehaya. The love rival got rejected and got her heart broken, only to be the one who pushed the protagonist to confess, and then we got a beautiful, emotional confession scene where Sawako, despite all her shyness and anxiety, puts herself out there and pours her heart out and tells Kazehaya that she loves him, all Without Knowing Her Feelings Are Returned. It was powerful and satisfying and tear-jerking and earned and it put the reigns in our protagonists’ hands. Pre-reveal Adrienette flopped with this. Now I’m going to have to endure the fans acting like this half-season-long contrived drama/first time sex metaphor was the REAL issue all along and that it’s actually a well-written and compelling conflict. Now they’re going to pretend Marinette continuing to be afraid to confess and having to overcome that while already knowing Adrien loves her is in any way logical or satisfying. Who cares about seeing our protagonist take initiative and grow and be rewarded for it!

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the same people who are rallying for this shit are some of the same people who’ve put Adrien salt on my dash and whine about Chameleon on a monthly basis because it was already clear from those salt takes that they clearly do not understand these characters. It was never about character growth for Marinette. Narrative themes never really mattered. It’s all about the self-projection. The people who are happiest about this are the Marinette kinnies who think Adrien needed to learn a lesson and Finally Notice and Appreciate NormalGirl Marinette and/or stop being “pushy” with Ladybug and learn his Lesson to blindly follow Marinette through all Chameleon-esque drama in the future. They love the idea of having that celebrity boycrush romance fall in to their laps with no personal reflection or growth on their own parts and they love their self-insert Marinette having an echo chamber entourage of friends that follow her blindly and never disagree with her if she has personal beef with someone. The inequality and double standard -- that Adrien's original crush was treated as the Obstacle that he had to Grow from and Get Over while Marinette's isn't -- isn't a problem to the Marinette kinnies because to them it's always everyone else's fault for not Appreciating or being Loyal Enough to Marinette of course. It was never about her growing. The real problem was always Adrien ~~~being too blinded by red and black to notice the cute girl behind him in class uwuwuww~~~ or however that cornyass cliche shitty fanfic line always goes.

Pre-reveal Adrienette has framed the rest of the lovesquare, and especially Adrien's feelings for Ladybug, as a simple obstacle that always stood in the way of the end goal of Adrienette, not a completed/fully realized square. Pre-reveal Adrienette decided that the entire point of the season 4 conflict was actually about making Adrien finally ~get over~ Ladybug so he'd ~notice~ Marinette. Pre-reveal Adrienette made it so Alya's entire role in Season 4 was actually just to get in-between Ladynoir to reach this end. Pre-reveal Adrienette started with the two of them bizarrely forgetting about the existence of their superhero best friends and ghosting them to get laid, which, seeing the later eps, was clearly just a summary of how this entire phase of their relationship is going to play out. Pre-reveal Adrienette bizarrely snubs the years-long plotline of Marinette's romantic feelings for Chat Noir after just 3 episodes of exploring them (even the Adrienette stans are relying on pure speculation of future episodes to justify this shit, you know, when they're not relying on their asspull argument that ladynoir stans just "think platonic relationships are less than romantic ones and it shows 💅🤪").

It’s hilarious to hear pre-reveal Adrienette fangirls vaguepost like “you’re just mad it wasn’t your favorite side 💅” when I’ve said multiple times that I would not have been satisfied with pre-reveal Ladynoir either because I Wanted to see that climactic Marinette confession moment and see Marinette’s fear of rejection handled in a satisfying way (and my dream for season 5 was to see all 4 sides openly simping), meanwhile it’s exceedingly clear these Adrienette stans are making a lot of excuses and hinging their defenses of pre-reveal Adrienette on pure speculation (lmao when their justification depends on future, yet-to-be-seen episodes being Better) and retroactively rewriting the past four seasons to ignore the abandoned themes and to tell anyone who doesn’t like it that they're just salty about their own side and were actually hallucinating all the blatant themes in the past seasons and to pretend this writing isn’t completely disjointed and nonsensical because they’re actually the ones who only care about seeing their favorite side be canon 🤷‍♀️

#ml spoilers #ml salt #ml fandom salt #why is it that every time i see a weird take in some other remote corner of the fandom and decide to comment on it on my blog #one of the self-absorbed noisy weirdos in my vicinity on this website naturally decides it's about them #and then writes a paragraphs-long vague post attempting very embarrassingly to show me attitude while missing the point entirely #please go back to writing y'alls embarrassing chameleon salt instead of giving me secondhand embarrassment through ... this #vague posting me on new years when i haven't even been here in over a week like come the fuck on don't you have a life to attend to #sick to death of this fandom

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w0lp3rtinger · 10 months

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Maria, Who Smiles as She Pulls the Lever

You know how this ends. Still, Shadow and Maria. Maria and Shadow. This was meant to be, if only for one glorious, beautiful moment. (Read on A03)

This has been a labor of mine for months.

Listen I’m a bit of a masochist and I may have been obsessed with rereading the ‘unedited’ version of Ann Frank’s diary and subsequently been up late listening to the isolated vocals for ‘Cancer’ by MCR a few too many nights in a row but even then, this has been boiling over in my brain for... ages.

So here we are.

This publication would not have been possible without some tremendous characters to whom I wish to give thanks.

@biolizardboils

@shadowsfascination

@killingthecringe

@bimboamyrose

@lambpaca

@mellow-elbow

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Maria is from Earth. Sometimes she has to remind herself of this, so that the sterile steel of the ARK doesn’t become too comfortable.

“Dziadzio Gerald will fix you and keep you safe.” “He worked so hard to get this contract.” “You need to be brave.”

This is what she remembers more than the faces.

This is what all the letters keep saying until they stop coming.

Maria works hard to stay well. When she’s well, Grandpa’s there with her, laughing with her, telling her about the work he’s doing. Grandpa is a gentle man, with big calloused hands and wily eyes magnified behind coke bottle lenses.

But the sickness grows. Illuminated x-rays and CT scans seem to almost grow against the wall like strange mold. Silent. Deadly. Grandpa gone for weeks at a time, only to appear weary and quiet as he checks her vitals before giving her new medicine.

Of course he loves her, else he wouldn’t be doing all of this, but she wishes he’d be her grandfather a little bit more and her doctor a little bit less.

Maria, being told not to leave her room.

Why did the letters stop coming?

Maria, being poked and prodded and talked over, rather than talked to or talked with.

When did she start to feel so lonely?

Maria, growing up from a toddler to a child to a teen. The sterile steel world is home now. She doesn’t even remember what flowers smell like anymore. Once, she thought her favorite was poppies. Now, she clings to the idea, even though she can only recall them in their still, cold photos from the biology book on her nightstand.

Maybe that’s why she cries tears of joy when she first spots Abraham, with his sharp pressed trousers and his two-toned eyes. And of course, this scares him. And of course, Maria chases after him as best she can.

She so badly wants a friend.

But he’s younger than she is, he doesn’t want to play the same games. He throws tantrums that leave her with deep black bruises which take ages to heal. Still, it’s frustrating when Abe asks her why she hasn’t been able to play for months, and she turns to the nurse who gives no answer.

She’s never been sure what exactly is wrong with her. Nobody will explain.

They read a lot, and when they run out of books, they make their own.

And one day, when Dziadzio is doing a checkup, with all of the wires and sensors attached to her head when she’s in that big silver tube, she just starts talking. About nothing. About everything. About how little Abe is so annoying, but fun, like a baby brother, especially when they read his kid mysteries together, or when he tells her scary stories, like that of the three-eyed monster man he swears he saw with the goblin in the jar.

When Grandfather snaps at her to be silent, she’s shocked.

Then, she seethes.

Maria, with Abe’s story running through her head.

Maria, gritting her teeth as Abe now keeps insisting, gloating even, that he knows more than she does.

Maria, sitting up in bed one night with a growl, hands bunching the scratchy hospital quilt up in her fists.

The fabric crunches in her hands, and when she beats her palms against it, it crackles. He can be such a brat! She’ll show him! She’ll find the thing he was talking about!

Over-planning is key. There’s no way she can pull off the cool sneaking tactics she’s read about. Instead, she puts on three pairs of socks, both to keep her feet warm and to dull the sound of her footsteps. A few capsules of fish oil she’s supposed to take are broken open, and she’s on the floor, gritting her teeth against the pain in her knees as she rubs its contents all over the wheels of her IV poll, willing it to keep them from squeaking.

Maria creeps through the dark. The hum of the ARK, that constant white noise of her existence, can do nothing to drown out the pounding in her ears. Her lungs are burning as she measures her breaths, knuckles white against the IV poll she’s gripping as she shuffles along. The blackness stretches forever until, from around a closed door, she sees a faint green glow.

She licks her lips as she eyes the keypad at the door, tasting iron.

No matter.

There’s only one shot at getting this code right, but she’s got a pretty good guess as to what it is. And when the lock opens with a beep after she punches in the last letter of her name, she rolls her eyes.

She pretends not to notice the shaking of her hands.

Maria, who cannot help but gasp when she sees the strange dark thing floating in a tube of radioactive green goo, like something straight out of one of Abe’s stories.

No, it is Abe’s story. There is the jar goblin.

She found it.

And it opens an eye to look at her. One dark eye, wide and wild.

Panic swells within her.

Maria, quickly shutting the door, shuffling back to her room as fast as possible. She crawls into bed, but cannot sleep. In the morning, when she is pale and sweaty, when her feet are swollen and her hands stiff, Grandfather comes in only to tell her she’s bed-bound for two weeks.

She spends the time fixated on that single eye.

When Abe slips into her room with arms full of toys and books and crawls into bed, she can’t help but smirk. She has now seen his creature. Now the two of them must keep the secret.

And she knows Abe will keep it, because despite her complaining, Maria also knows he’s probably the best baby brother anyone could ask for.

But it’s not enough.

Maria, heart pounding and fingers tingling with adventure, even if she’s still recovering from her last escapade. She starts stashing away some of her anti-inflammatory medication, keeping it tucked in the bindings of one of her books that has come loose at the spine.

That dark thing in the tube, she wants to see it again.

Abe says in the false whisper of children that he once saw it move, says that he thinks it responds to people talking.

There’s only one way to find out if he’s right.

When she snatches a nearly empty bag of morphine from the pile on the nurse’s cart, Maria almost feels guilty... almost. Just when she’s about to confess, just when she’s about to give up, the faintest flame lights up within her.

She’s angry at the time taken from her. She’s angry at this bed, at this body, at these people who keep poking and prodding and talking at her.

Maria settles down on her pillow, feeling the bag squish underneath her head. She smiles when the nurse asks if she is comfortable, and she promises that she is.

Maria, creeping through the halls, the painkillers already in place and working. She’s slower this time, she knows she has to be, but when she gets to the room, there’s an impossible excitement that builds up within her and cannot be restrained. The door barely has time to close behind her before she’s at the tube. Leaning in, she places one hand on the glass, and the eye opens once more.

Its eyes are so dark. They don’t look black, but she can’t tell what colour they’re supposed to be.

“Hello,” she whispers, smiling. “You are a strange little thing, aren’t you.”

She spends the night slowly moving around the tube, taking it in. It makes sense now why Abe called it a goblin, but Maria is pretty sure that’s just because it’s just all wrinkly skin right now, like a very ugly baby. Still, it has such a soft face. Maria can’t help but hope that whatever skin, or feathers, or- or whatever, is soft. It should be soft.

She thinks she remembers what soft is.

Maria, alone the next day as she brushes her hair, cursing the knots and the burning in her eyes, remembering how Dziadzio promised her that he’d teach her how to braid it, but that was before, and this is now.

She’s stuck in her room again.

The pain isn’t as bad as last time, but it’s still pain.

She still can’t walk.

The rage inside of Maria blooms once more as she looks at her rat's nest of a brush, and she throws it against the opposite wall with a shriek.

With tears staining her cheeks, she falls asleep and dreams.

She dreams of having thick golden hair, the kind that frames the faces of the angles on the pendants she used to get from her one aunt. But suddenly, there in her mind, she sees the dark eyes of the ugly baby. They sparkle as though they’re full of starlight. When she leans in to have a better look, suddenly, she’s falling headfirst into the open and inky void between the ARK and the planet below. Her hair, her beautiful golden hair, it grows longer and longer until it turns into wings. She tries to fly to Earth, but it just keeps getting further away no matter how hard she reaches for it.

Maria, who screams at the professor when she’s told that she can’t see Abe anymore.

“He’s too rowdy,” he keeps saying, “It’s making you sicker.”

It doesn’t matter. She can see him clutching his father’s pant leg, acting as though the camouflage of the fatigues may hide him too, as she rages against the hands trying to hold her down. Her monitor is going wild. The IV poll is overturned. Maria keeps calling his name, keeps hoping he’ll run into the room, into her arms, but instead, little Abe’s father picks him up and leaves.

She stays awake and waits for him, but Abe never arrives. She does this for three straight days.

He never arrives.

Maria, silent in her own tube, the wires and sensors all over her, staring straight ahead. The lab tech tries to make small talk, but even if Maria wanted to answer, the professor tells them to shush.

“We have work to do,” he says, “We must preserve what we have as quickly as possible.”

As if he is talking about perishable groceries. Maria can feel her nails break in her palm as she balls her hands into fists.

One of the nurses does finally bring a card from Abe. It’s a drawing of the two of them playing in a field full of flowers, a bright sun overhead wreathed in birds. Maria smashes it into a ball and throws it in the trash.

Later that evening though, she stretches as far as she can to dig through the bin and find the card. She cries as she tries to smooth its creases. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, over and over, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Maria, being fitted for an oxygen tube. She hasn’t had to wear one of these in a while, and can’t help but fight the nurse a little. Over their muttered curses, Maria can hear the professor in the hallway talking to some looming shape she cannot make out.

“I’m hoping the gizoid will keep them distracted, but I’m not sure how much time that will buy us. Especially if this one dies on us like the others.”

And everything in her clenches.

Maria, pouring her IV nutrients into a spare commode in the closet.

Maria, stashing vitamins away in bent bookbindings.

Maria, sweat on her brow as she pictures that tiny creature all alone in that room, darkness closing in.

They will not die. They will not die. They will not die.

Maria, who gags when she combines her ill-gotten goods into a foul slurry. With one hand over her mouth, she takes deep breaths before pulling the commode out of the closet.

She’s slow. She’s careful. She’s thankful this thing has wheels that can lock and unlock, because she’s going to use it as a walker. There is no other option if she wants to carry all of this.

She squares her shoulders and slips out into the hallway.

She will not think about how much this is going to hurt tomorrow. There’s a job to do.

Maria, who punches her own name again into the keypad, who grits her teeth as she wheels herself over to the little baby in the tube.

Their eyes flicker open when she lays her hand atop the glass. What light was in their eyes from before is fading fast.

She will not let it see her fear.

“Hello, you.”

They blink, a slow, lazy movement. She can’t help but laugh a little.

“My name is Maria. Sorry I didn’t introduce myself sooner. Don’t suppose you can tell me your name, can you?”

Silence. They blink again.

“I heard you were sick, so I’ve brought some stuff that might make you better.” she says as she moves around the tube, looking. “It won’t taste good, but… ah!”

There are two large drums that hook into where the little thing floats silently, and they open when Maria presses a button on top. She can see the same green liquid, viscus and thick, as it is slapped about by a rotating filter.

There’s no way she can lift the commode up to pour everything in.

Maria, who stays there for well over an hour. She’s cupping the nutrients in her hands, letting it go through her fingers and into the vortex below.

She hasn’t prayed in a long time. Truthfully she’s not even sure a god would listen.

Instead, she just hopes.

She hopes the filter won’t suck all of her hard work away, hopes she doesn’t get caught, hopes that maybe, please, maybe, the ugly baby will live.

When she has to take a break, she closes the lid of the commode and sits there, watching those large eyes watch her back, and somehow, she finds the will to keep hoping.

Maybe she’ll find out what colour their eyes become, if this all goes right.

By the time Maria gets back to bed, it’s nearly morning. Her limbs ache, and she can’t eat breakfast, but she’s grinning from ear to ear.

Maria, writing letters back and forth with Abe for weeks through the nurse whose name she now knows is Eleni. Eleni, with dark eyes, and dark skin, and the darkest, curliest hair that Maria had ever seen in her life. She can’t help but feel a bit guilty that she’s never taken the time to get to know this woman. Eleni doesn’t care though. She waves a hand, “You have been sick, too sick for anything else, and you’ve only gotten sicker since they took that little boy away. You have nothing to apologize for.”

And Eleni says she comes from Apotos, and Eleni sighs wistfully about the way the breeze smelled coming in from the ocean, and Eleni talks with both hands about the way the sun burned into dusk over the olive groves near her home.

Eleni, Eleni, Eleni.

Maria repeats it, paying attention to the way her mouth and tongue and teeth come together around her name.

She feels so bad when she steals front the medcart now, but somehow, she thinks that Eleni would understand.

Perhaps that’s just to ease her conscience.

Maria, who feels a gloom call from the hallway.

“And how does Project Shadow proceed?”

There is no voice, and yet, the words cut the air like the imagined hiss of a very real gas leak. It conjures strange visions of swirling pitch behind Maria’s eyes.

Every hair she has left is on end.

A threat. It moves, it breathes, as a threat.

But then there is her grandfather’s familiar rumble of a voice, low and tumbled on his tombstone teeth. She’s almost grateful the speaker and the professor go further down the hall, away from her doorway, taking the murk with them.

That night, she holds her pillow tight and curls inward, as if her whole body can protect the name it dropped in the hallway, the name she now keeps tucked in her own mouth. She imagines spikes growing from her, like great big sharp spines, keeping them safe by filling the room to the point where that voice and its owner would never be able to get near them again.

Still, it haunts her.

“Are you Shadow?” she asks, standing at the tank as she dries her hands off on the skirts of her shift.

The baby is now covered in dark fur, rich and deep, with little curls in the quills atop their tiny head. There’s a little scarlet, too, starting to show from under the black almost like the faint fingers of a polar aurora as they stretch toward the equator. What makes her most excited though, are their eyes. They’re a livid red now, flecked with gold, wide and wild. When they tilt their head at her words, it’s hard not to imagine an actual glint of curiosity flashing in them.

She giggles. “I wasn’t sure at first if that was a good name for you. In fact, I had started a list of alternatives.”

Maria tilts her head opposite the way the little baby tilts theirs. After a moment, it adjusts to match her.

“Darkness is just darkness. I know the books and all try to make it out to be something bigger, but it’s not.” She shakes her head. “But the more I thought about it… well, maybe it is fitting. You can always turn to a shadow to find the light, you know. That’s sort of poetic. At least, I think so.”

Maria purses her lips against the tightness in her heart. When she rests her hand against her chin, bowing her head to think, they copy her.

She laughs, and the gloominess is dispelled.

And she keeps laughing every time she thinks about that moment, even if it hurts.

Maria, who keeps visiting the baby in the tube, though now she has to admit it looks less like a baby and more like a- well, she’s not sure. Her grandfather used to show her photographs and sketches of ancient artifacts from excavations on the Earth below, things that inspired him with his research.

Perhaps this is to look like that one thing in that mural he is so fond of.

Maria sneers. She knows the professor only likes that mural because he thinks the other figure depicted there in the ancient tilework is him.

How egotistical.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she will not let Shadow die.

There are nights where, with tears staining her cheeks, she falls asleep and dreams of Shadow, dreams of them growing the most beautiful dark curls, dreams of knowing how to braid so that she can teach them how to braid, dreams of being friends.

There are nights when she hears that murky whispering in her head though, and the dreams turn to nightmares.

Eyes, watching. Thoughts, hissing. A hunger unlike anything else, eating.

Maria, who in the morning wakes up and draws her and the tube baby dancing together on the backsides of used sticky notes. She can’t get the stars right. They always end up upside down. It doesn’t matter though. In this moment, all she thinks about is watching Shadow learn to crawl, to walk, to run, to dance. She wants to teach them how to dance. She wants to grab them and run through the halls to dance through the wide space of the observatory like she used to.

She wants them to dance for hours on end until they run out of breath and their feet are sore.

Maria hums a tune she heard Eleni singing.

She keeps humming even as she shreds the drawings to hide her dreams.

Maria, who finds one day she cannot hold the pencil. Her hands feel numb, fingers thick and fumbling. She keeps trying, but it doesn’t get any better no matter what she does, so she hides it. Everything becomes gross motor. Everything becomes careful. Her hands don’t need to be perfect in order to take what she needs, but she still needs to fit the part of perfect patient.

So she is patient.

But Maria can’t steal the used IV bags anymore, can’t cup her hands to move the slurry from the commode to the vats anymore. She has to change tactics.

Maria, who holds onto a shaky smile for her little friend as they watch her struggle to flip her sweater pocket inside out and shake the fat pills into the swirling tank water below.

“You’re getting so big,” she whispers, “I knew you could make it. I’m so proud of you, Shadow.”

Maria places a hand to the glass and watches amazed as they lift their own and try to press it against hers. They’re so close. They’re right there. Only a thin panel of glass separating their two palms.

And all the little hand-drawn, upside-down stars in her head alight.

But the empty days start to become longer, become worse.

These are the hours where she is too tired to think.

These are the moments when she can’t even cry.

The next time she sees the professor, it’s been ages. He’s smiling. She had almost forgotten what that looked like, but there he is, mustache twitching upwards as he throws his hands into the air.

“I have wonderful news,” Grandpa says as his big hands settle on her bony shoulders. “We have potentially found a cure.”

Maria can’t speak, let alone understand much of what is being said. That doesn’t matter. The professor just keeps talking about his latest medical advancements until Eleni comes in for the evening meds and tells him he has to leave.

There’s no letter from Abe this time.

She doesn’t sleep that night.

The rage boiling in her doesn’t let her rest.

Maria, watching the injection dissipate through her skin as it enters her bloodstream. There’s a golden glint to it, glittering like what she imagines fairy dust to glitter like, moving like what she imagines ambrosia to move like. Still, there’s something about it that stops her cold if she squints too hard. Maria takes measured breaths through her nose, expression blank, as the professor lectures the attending aids and scientists on what is happening.

Then, she recognizes it. That glowing pallor. Even if the red hue underneath it is vibrant and rich, and the golden glitter shines so invitingly, she would know that glow from anywhere.

All it takes is one attendant to point at her spiking heart rate and it all goes south fast.

She stares at her hands in the dark of the room when it’s all over. Her skin carries that light within it now, a soft radiance, and she swears to herself that if they hurt her friend, she will cut these hands of hers apart to return what was taken.

But the next day, she can pick up a pencil again.

She can talk again.

She hates it. Hates the professor, hates the nurses, hates the scientists and the attending aids and the way it takes the blood of her little friend to feel this alive again.

She hates herself.

It’s another month before the professor finally outfits Maria in an electric wheelchair. It’s not particularly fast, but it doesn’t need to be. He says he didn’t do it sooner because they didn’t see her as being strong enough. The professor laughs at this while he ruffles what is left of her hair. She’s been so good, he says. She’s gotten so much better.

Maria smiles to hide her gritted teeth.

She imagines the flesh of his hand between them.

She wants to see Shadow. Needs to see them. Every night in her mind she walks herself down the hallway. The pinpad appears on the ceiling of her room like a mirage, and she has found herself reaching out a hand to input her name.

How dare it be her name. How DARE he use her name in that way. Like this is even about her anymore.

But she must be on her best behavior, no matter what happens. She will do whatever they ask of her, smiling.

She’s worried they’ll take her new wheelchair away if she doesn’t, and she’s already figured out how to take the speed limiter off.

“You can say something if we’re pushing you too hard.” All the nurses say that. It’s the first thing out of everyone’s mouth when she slips up, and it loops like a broken record around the room.

But she just shakes her head and keeps on smiling.

In her dreams, she floats in space with her golden hair and golden wings and her little Shadow, where together they watch the ARK sail straight into the sun.

When did she become so angry?

It frightens her some days, but then pain sets in and she remembers.

They will not take everything from her. They might try, but they won’t succeed.

Maria, back in her wires, in her tube. She doesn’t even feel it when they push the needle into her anymore, her wrists and inner elbows pockmarked by the years spent watching a slow dripping life.

But now, she’s watching the life of her little friend, bagged and hooked up to her IV pole. Now, she’s watching that spark in their eye, distilled and packaged and scrubbed for her consummation, make its way down the tube.

She hates it. Get it out. Make it stop.

Stop.

But Maria is so, so tired.

Was this the moment to say they were pushing her too hard? Or had that moment passed? Or had it only been offered as a formality?

It had been so long since she had been here. She forgot how tight and lonely it is inside the tube, and she wonders if this is how Shadow feels all the time.

Where is her little friend? She wants to hold her little friend.

She doesn’t realize she fell asleep until she wakes with a start, back in her own room, in her bed. When she presses a hand to her eyes with a yawn, she hears something shift beside her.

There sits the professor, watching.

He’s not smiling.

“Maria, is there something you have to tell me?” He says, but the way he speaks has that coiling, hissing gloom within it.

She says no, and she says no as sweetly as she can, hiding the way her heart monitor starts to go faster by sitting up in bed and feigning dizziness. Normally, that works.

It doesn’t this time.

“Maria, I need you to tell me. What is the little creature you keep harping on about?”

She freezes at that.

What has she done? Did she say something in her sleep?

But again, she says no.

“You’re lying to me.”

How does he know?

Just an imaginary friend, nothing more.

“Maria, what have you done?”

It’s like he’s reading her thoughts.

It’s been lonely since they said she and Abe can’t play. Please, she’s tired. Please, go away.

Instead, he stands up, reaching for her with wide empty eyes.

Eleni saves the day just in time. “Doesn’t your granddaughter need rest, sir?” The words break across her teeth, as if she is shattering a glass in warning.

The professor doesn’t even react. He just stands there, still watching Maria. It takes Eleni using the call bell to get help from the aids to remove him, and even then, he turns his head to stare as he leaves.

It is the first time Maria has cried in a long time.

Eleni holds her. She puts Maria’s head to her chest and rocks softly, humming the song she loves so much in that voice she loves so much, smelling of something that makes her heart cave in around a black hole of hurt.

It’s Eleni who dries her tears and teaches her how to braid.

She takes sets of spare shoelaces from the nurse's supply room and spends hours with her, going over all sorts of different techniques. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she whispers everything like it’s a secret until all that fills Maria’s head is the soft sounds of her voice that roll over her brain like ocean waves.

Eleni lets Maria keep the shoelaces, and Maria stays up all night practicing to beat back the memory of how the professor looked at her.

Maria, weeks later, who sits up in bed when Abe walks in. It’s been- how long has it been? How much time has passed since she has seen him. He’s gotten taller, and his face has gained a sharp edge around the chin.

They stay there, watching one another. An aid tries to chip through the silence with a few surface-level pleasantries, but neither one of them give. Ultimately, the aid leaves.

Abe steps forward. “We need to get you out of here.”

How much can a voice change? And how severe can a person become? The boy standing before her now is no longer the baby brother she had loved. No, this person is a stranger, both the boy and the weight he seemed to carry about his shoulders.

Maria stays silent.

“Something bad is going to happen.” Abe walks closer, but stops short of the bed. He could reach out, he could sit down. Instead, he stands there, just a little over an arm's distance away.

Something bad has been happening. He just hasn’t been paying attention. Brat. Selfish brat. She wants to hug him and cry as much as she wants to beat him with her IV pole. Where has he been? Why did he stop writing?

Abe isn’t looking at her. His gaze is fixed on nothing over her shoulder as his hands slowly come up and twist their fingers into knots before him. “That thing the professor talks with, it’s been hanging around, and my dad’s been getting nervous. He’s been talking on the phone he’s not suppose to have. That’s bad.”

Maria grits her teeth, hands curling into fists in her sheets. Abe’s gaze finally shifts to hers, hard as stone.

“We have a plan. When we go to leave, I’ll come get you. You can’t tell anyone though, got it?”

She nods, and Abe leaves.

Jokes on him. She’ll already be gone.

Maria, braiding the laces over and over as cold fire certainty seeps into her bones. Abe might not have the patience to get many details in his stories right, but he did have a good sense of danger.

She looks at her hands. Perhaps it is just her imagination, but she swears she can still see her veins glowing faintly.

They’ll both be long gone.

It feels like every day is a day in eternity, waiting to see them again. She has nightmares of the light in her veins growing brighter as the light in their own eyes fade. Her friend shrivels before her, curling into a ball as their skin turns ashen. Eyes struggle to stay open, rolling under closing lids, breathing labored and heavy as they try to look for her and can’t.

Maria, drowning in her golden hair, screams and screams and screams.

Her hands still hurt when she wakes from visions of trying to break the glass.

But finally, she is well enough. Finally, she can be with her friend.

The braiding shoelaces in her hand shake, soaking in sweat, as she checks to make sure they are alright.

“I don’t know how well you can see,” she mutters as she knots the laces around the head support of a nearby office chair at the base of Shadow’s tube. “How’s that? Is that okay?”

When she looks up, she can’t help but smile. They’ve gotten so big. The colour along their arms and legs is a deep and healthy red, their eyes bright and alert.

Those quills, oh, those thick dark curls, just like Maria had dreamed, streaked through with that red.

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispers, shaking her head. “I had hoped you’d be.”

Shadow bends down slowly in their tube, crouching toward the bottom to come closer to where Maria sits. It was then she noticed the faint eruption of white hairs coming in just under their collarbone, over their heart.

She smiles. “Still so full of surprises.”

It takes another two months for Shadow’s chest fur to come in. It’s a beautiful shock of white against the black, like a moon against the infinite sky.

Reflecting the light, pointing the way.

Maria imagines what it will feel like as she runs her fingers through the fresh peach fuzz on top of her head.

Shadow really is a poetic name.

Maria whispers their name over and over, placing it next to hers.

Shadow and Maria. Maria and Shadow. Say it often enough and it sounds like it’s meant to be true.

They are friends. It doesn’t matter that they’ve never held hands, or braided for each other, or danced.

Though she really wants to dance.

They are friends. She etches it into the wall behind her headboard with an errant safety pin just to see it somewhere that cannot be erased.

Maria and Shadow.

One day. One day. It’ll happen. Shadow will be strong enough to get out of the tube and they’ll do whatever they want forever.

But she’s out of time now.

There is screaming, and gunshots, and screaming, and bursting pressure valves, and screaming, and crying, and just so much screaming.

Maria, who leaves Abe in the care of Eleni, telling her of Abe and his father’s plan, telling Abe to take her and run, telling them both to be safe.

There’s so many tears. There’s so many grabbing hands.

The way Abe’s big eyes glow under the red lights, the way Eleni’s voice snaps when she screams her name.

Maria, rocketing down the hall as fast as she can. Even with the limiters removed from her wheelchair, she feels like she is moving in slow motion. The flashing lights throw strange shapes across her vision, things that make her jump away from the edges of hallways and peer around corners.

She hopes Abe and his dad will keep Eleni safe. She doesn’t want to think about what might happen if Abe’s father says no.

Maria’s wheelchair skids to a halt just outside the door. She measures her breathing as she stands to push her name into the pinpad. The thundering of boots is getting closer and closer.

They round the corner just as she slips in through the door. There’s no time to get back in the wheelchair and bring it inside.

“Shadow!” She’s gasping, stumbling towards the tank. “We’ve got to go!”

And Shadow looks at her, eyes blazing.

The inquisitive brow, the near ethereal calm they normally possess, is gone. Now, there is a panic in them, palpable and real as they spin in helpless circles. She watches them shake as she collapses atop the console.

Maria, pushing every button she can, throwing every switch. Lights start to flash. Somewhere, there is a high-pitched beeping, followed by a low-toned alarm. Nothing works. It’s all in lockdown.

They’re spinning faster.

There’s shouting from the other side of the door. More gunshots. Down a hallway, there is the sound like a bomb going off. Something roars.

She freezes at the horrid, strangled sound. What could have caused that? What has the professor really been doing?

Focus.

She strikes the glass with a snarl as she viciously tugs on the lever, but nothing budges.

She smacks the tube again. Something in her wrist cracks. It doesn’t matter. She clenches her hands and beats the glass.

Again.

She’s screaming.

Again.

She’s beating the glass with her firsts and screaming. Every atom of her being seems to burst into flame as the rage she’s worked so hard to keep in check bursts forth from her skin.

Again.

Her forehead is pressed to the cool glass, though it does nothing to dull the burning ache in her brain. Tears stream down her face, and she’s biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, when suddenly, she feels a thump.

Then there’s another thump, a rippling vibration, and Maria snaps to attention.

Shadow is hitting the glass. It’s gentle, but they’re doing it, eyes darting between two sets of fists under that perpetually knotted brow.

Maria, gasping, smiles.

“That’s it.” she says, “just like that!”

And she hits the tube with both hands, making sure Shadow can see her, making sure they can understand just how hard she’s trying.

“You can do it. I know you can. Come on, Shadow!”

There’s a pause. Something comes over Shadow’s face, an expression she doesn’t know the name for. As they rear back, she swears she sees a flash of that green glow in their eyes just before they slam the glass with clenched fists.

The tube does more than shatter, it explodes. Maria ducks just as water and glass go flying. Overhead the alarms reach a new frenzied pitch, then buzz, then break their speakers. Bulbs buzz brightly and burst.

It’s dark, save for a few errant lights on the edges of the room. As the last tinkling pieces settle on the floor, she looks up.

And there they are.

Finally.

Maria, grinning so hard it hurts. She watches them take their first breath, chest expanding as their eyes go wide, as their hands come up in front of them like they’re just now seeing them for the first time.

Finally.

Maria, laughing, sobbing, as she struggles to her feet, only to fall forward as she wraps her little Shadow in the tightest hug she can.

Finally.

He’s so gross. Slippery and soggy and damp. It doesn’t matter.

Maria and Shadow.

Shadow and Maria.

Together at last.

Maria, who wants to say so much, who wants to do so much, but there’s no time. There are soldiers outside, their guns still warm. They may think to check here. They may beat down the door to shoot her where she stands, and what is she doing?

Hanging off of her friend, her knees give out underneath her as her lungs struggle to catch the air. The room is spinning, but she feels Shadow’s arms come up and around her, she feels them hold her, hug her back.

Their quills are cold to the touch and smooth like laquer, but the fluff of their chest, damp as it is- she knew they would be soft, she knew it.

There’s another boom, closer this time. She holds Shadow tighter.

It’s getting so hard to see.

Maria, who tries to be brave, who takes a deep breath she cannot keep as she looks into her friend’s wide, innocent stare.

“There’s an escape pod room. I-I think I can figure out the way. If we get there, then we’re free.”

Her voice is a rough whisper, but swallowing just makes her throat hurt. Instead, she takes Shadow’s hand in hers and smiles as she points to the door.

Their first steps to the door are tottering, unsure ventures, and she cannot help but groan when she sees the broken remains of her wheelchair. But it’s fine. This is fine. Her knees are screaming. If only for just this moment, she wants to take it slow.

She’ll need her energy when they make a run for it.

Maria and Shadow, looking up and down the hallway. Shadow just stares, tightening and relaxing their grip on her hand. Though she would love to marvel at the feeling, her hair is standing on end as she listens with bated breath.

But no one is coming.

Maybe there is no one left.

Maria and Shadow, shuffling down the hall. It’s all small steps and furtive glances. The gunfire sounds further away now, moving toward the ARKs core. She swears she can feel the floor shake beneath her feet, and wonders if something has exploded below.

From the belly of the beast, she hears another roar and shivers.

“Left,” she says. It comes out as a croak.

Shadow just looks at her. Maria has to point, and then lead them down the hallway to the left, to get them to understand.

Maria and Shadow, wandering the halls. Neither say much. Truthfully, there’s nothing Maria can think of to say. Her whole body feels like it’s being shaken apart by her own frail bones

But her little friend’s hand feels so warm in hers.

She sees blood.

“Wait.”

Shadow looks at her again, at her hand tugging on their own. The growing pool of blood creeps closer, closer, closer to the tips of their bare toes against the steel.

They step back to her.

Maria licks her lips.

“Close your eyes.”

She tries to pantomime for Shadow to understand. It’s not working. All she accomplishes is that slow, lazy blink. Maria pulls them to her, turning them around as she rests her forearms on their shoulders and covers their eyes with her hands. She pushes lightly, and they walk forward.

Good. She can do this. She can do this.

Maria and Shadow, rounding the corner. The body is slumped against the wall closest to them. Maria’s mind played tricks, told her she surely knew them, but that grey hair and those wrinkles could have belonged to anyone. She swallows as she leads Shadow forward, wincing against the warmth as the blood soaks into her socks.

Focus

She doesn’t want to look at the body.

In the periphery of her vision, she sees the brackish red smattering their teeth.

Her eyes narrow on the center of Shadow’s quills.

She doesn’t remove her hands until they make it to the other side, down the hall, and around the corner. The bile in her throat burns, but her little friend will not see. They will not know.

Maria and Shadow, their hands slowly coming up to cover hers atop their eyes, and she pulls them away. As they look around, their gaze begins to drift towards their feet, towards the bloody footprints they have left behind them.

“Don’t!” The word snaps in her mouth like a firecracker.

Keep their eyes on her.

Maria catches their face in her hands. She turns them toward her, and maybe she is gripping too hard, and maybe they know something is wrong, but she smiles against her singed tongue anyway.

“It’s nothing. We have to keep going. Okay?”

She nods. After a moment, Shadow nods too, and Maria’s smile softens.

The hallway behind them collapses in a burst of fire.

Maria and Shadow, falling to the floor. Smoke and ash fill her lungs as her ears pop from the sudden change in pressure. She reaches for them, curls one arm about their thrashing head and the other around their body as she pulls them under her as best she can.

Not that she could shield them from much, but that will not stop her from trying.

It’s all too much. The burst of heat that throws her skirt about her knees, the sudden onrush of gunfire and popping flames. Her legs feel useless. They kick and fail and can gain no purchase against the steel, but she has to find something. If she doesn’t—

There’s that roar, louder, closer. Maria lifts her head just enough to see a soldier screaming as it pours bullets into something moving through the din.

She covers Shadow’s ears just before it gets to the soldier. The sound it makes–

She gags, looking away.

They have to run.

She can’t run.

She has to find a way.

Maria and Shadow, sliding slowly down their dangling piece of hallway. Maria reaches out to grab a piece of twisted rebar. She can feel the flesh of her hand prickle against the heat.

Her grip tightens.

They will not die here.

From seemingly nowhere, there are soldiers flooding their hallway. They’re yelling, pointing. One lifts their gun to aim.

She clutches Shadow tighter to her.

And in an instant, they’re gone.

The monster rises from the dark corner, trailing behind its arm that now lies embedded within the chest of the soldier. The man twitches like a puppet, limbs jerking as their head rolls back onto their shoulders, before being cast aside.

Pandemonium.

Gunfire and flames, explosions, sirens. It is too much. An errant bullet tears through her nightgown and on instinct she recoils, almost losing her grip.

Figure it out. She has to figure this out. She has to get them out.

“Shadow!” Maria looks at her little friend, uncovering his ears as she shifts her grip. “I need you to help me.”

They just stare, fear in every inch of their face.

“I need you to pull me up.”

Can they understand her? Do they know what she’s asking for?

She hoists her arm holding him as best as she is able, just a little, then pulls on the arm clinging to the rebar. Joints pop. Tendons strain.

She wants to cry so badly, but she will not. She will be brave. They have made it so far.

And against all odds, she sees the light of understanding come through the fear in Shadow’s eyes.

Shadow twists out of her grasp. They move in ways they shouldn’t, their body contorting as claws reach out and pierce the steel of the dangling hallway floor like it is made of cotton. Shadow doesn’t crawl. They scuttle. It’s the only word she can find to describe what she is witnessing. They scuttle like a bug up the floor and out of the hole back into the hallway.

Don’t think about it too hard.

And then their hands come down, red and black and clawed, but still such gentle palms, and with one movement, it grabs her own hand still clinging to the rebar and gives an almighty tug.

And she flies up-

(her shoulder dislocates)

- and out of the hole.

The impact against the floor forces the air from her, releases the sounds of pain she has kept locked tight for so long. She’s gasping, choking and coughing on tears.

“Damn it.” She curls in on herself, clutching her shoulder. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

Shadow and Maria, there on the floor.

Safe, but for how long?

Her little friend is crouched next to her, huddling over her, and through watering eyes, she realizes they are trying to shield her just as she did them. Their face is close, eyes etching a pattern into her skin as they rove across her.

They’re afraid.

For her, of her - doesn’t matter.

Maria takes her good arm, the one that can still move, and lifts it to pat Shadow’s face.

“Thank you,” she says softly. “You did such a good job, and you’re being so brave. I’m so proud of you.”

Their eyes soften.

But this moment cannot last.

Maria and Shadow, one dragging the other to their feet, stumbling down the hall. She swears they’re close to the escape pod room, but she can’t be sure. And then what? She not sure she’ll know how to work the controls. Nobody ever told her. Nobody ever thought Maria Robotnick, after all the attempts at saving her Grandfather has done over the years, would have to save herself, let alone her little friend.

Maria grits her teeth. Nobody ever thought she could do anything by herself, and here she is, not even able to walk alone.

Useless arm. Useless legs. Useless, useless. She was too slow. Deadweight walking. The sounds of gunfire behind them echoes through the hallway. She’s going to get them killed. She should have just told Shadow to leave. Maybe then it would have been her body slumped against the wall, her blood they would have to run through, but at least they could run.

But who saved Shadow in the first place?

She looked to her little friend, who looked back up at her with those wide, bright eyes.

Maria feels her heart beat in her chest. It vibrates in her fingertips, shakes the air in her lungs as she breathes.

She did. She saved them.

Her good hand grips Shadow’s shoulder.

“Right,” she whispers, pointing.

Shadow carefully steers them around the corner, and there stands the door she’s been looking for. The sign panel next to it is a little melted, the floor pockmarked with bullet holes from one level down, but it’s a door, and it looks like the power here is still on.

Shadow doesn’t have to worry about the raw-edged metal around the holes in the floor, but Maria does. She stands on her toes, ankles wobbling, as she opens the panel next to the door. A hand scanner, not a pin pad, stares back at her.

She breathes a sigh of relief as she places her hand atop the screen.

Shadow hisses.

Maria fumbles, turning around to see Shadow’s eyes wide, claws and teeth bared. No longer do they look like her sweet, soft friend. In this moment, they are alien. The sound coming from them – maybe it isn’t a hiss, maybe it’s something else– there’s a strange clicking in there somewhere- it echoes along the hallway, rolling like a rogue marble, only getting louder as it goes on.

Maria grabs him by the head, palm flat against his quills.

“Stop! Someone will-!”

She turns a little further, and there, turning back around down the hall, was a soldier.

Shadow’s hissing grows louder. Maria could feel their quills under her hand bristle and bite flesh. The soldier seemed frozen in place.

Then, the door opens.

Maria, grabbing Shadow and falling backwards through the opening, rolling out of the way as a shot rings out. The door closes behind them again and two deep dents break its sterile smoothness.

Shadow wriggles in her arms, teeth gnashing they try to break free. Maria clings to them tighter.

“Shh!” Maria doesn’t have a good grip. “Shh- it’s okay! We’re okay! Shadow, please!”

She pets them even though it hurts her hands. It’s the only thing she can think to do. For a moment, Shadow goes still. Their gaze flickers back to her, and Maria can see them recognize her once more.

The soldier beats his fist against it. “You need to open this door! If you don’t, I can’t guarantee your safety!”

Shadow’s hackles start to rise once more.

“Ignore him!” It comes out as a wail despite her best efforts, “Leave him alone, we’re almost out of here!”

“Open the door!”

“No!”

Maria and Shadow, one dragging the other. She’s doing her best but they’re being so stubborn, and she’s only got one working arm. Tears are rolling down her face as her knees scream in protest. She can see the last escape pod right there, in the middle of the room. And there, against the wall, that looks like the control panel. If she can figure it out, they’ll be out of here!

But Shadow is not making this easy. They want to fight, but there is no time to fight.

“Go!” Maria points to the open pod. “Go stand there! Now!”

Shadow won’t comply. It’s getting hard to touch them, let alone hold them. Their quills pierce her skin like needles.

With a snarl, Maria changes directions, moving for the escape pod with Shadow in tow. She has to push and shove to get them up and inside, but eventually, they get the message.

Behind her, there is a burst of gunfire, and then the door is forced open.

Maria’s hand hits the red button at the base of the escape pod faster than she can think. In an instant, the glass door comes down between her and Shadow. She can hear Shadow’s muffled screaming as she turns to face the gun.

“Stop!”

Maria blinks. She looks past the shaking barrel to the person holding it, watching as they seem to almost shrink as she makes eye contact with them through their visor.

They’re a boy, not much older than her. It’s obvious as soon as she sees it. They’re just a boy.

The gun jerks.

“Get away from there.” There’s a hard edge to his voice, a falsehood of control. He’s trying to be brave, just like she is.

She hears thumping behind her, the screaming getting louder. Maria is sure if she were to look, she would see Shadow pounding on the glass.

The boy cocks his gun and fires a shot just to the side of her, making her jump.

“I said get away from there!”

The lights in the room flicker

Something shifts deep within, and for a moment, Maria is outside of herself looking in, watching, knowing what is coming. The anger- that burning furious need to cry, to scream, to fight- in an instant, it is choked out by the crystalline peace that floods her soul.

She hasn’t prayed in a long time.

Maria, slowly reaching behind her and grabbing the lever labled ‘emergency’ at the base of the escape pod.

“Don’t do anything stupid!” The boy is yelling again, but that can’t hide the fact his gun is shaking in his hands.

She’s not even sure a god would listen, but it doesn’t matter.

Maria, slowly turning to Shadow to look one last time at the light in those wide, bright eyes. It’s as if the two of them are alone in the silent vacuum of space. Everything is cold. The view is clear.

Shadow and Maria. Maria and Shadow. This was meant to be, if only for one glorious, beautiful moment.

She hopes she’s been a good enough friend, hopes the escape pod does its job, hopes that maybe, please, maybe, Shadow will get to Earth, and live, and be happy.

Maria, who smiles as she pulls the lever.

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