#sorry if this sounds extremely mean i just woke up from the world's worst nap

[raytorosaurus]

who the fuck is ode2 I can't find their blog????

lol honestly don't wanna give them any more attention than they used to get so i'm not gonna link their blog but they were an extremely extremely disrespectful and invasive tinhatter who would openly speculate about things including but not limited to gerard's struggles with addiction, parenting style, marital relationship etc, based on evidence of absolutely nothing (besides their ~special connection~ with frank) to push the narrative that gerard has been stringing frank along in some kind of sick abusive sexual relationship for years and years while lynz is also abusing gerard and controlling his every move and sapping his personality and also cyberbullying frank on instagram stories LMAO. seems like they got their entire worldview shattered when mcr returned and confirmed that, shock horror, they are in fact friends who enjoy spending time with each other, because they've stopped posting theories so much on their blog and wrote a pinned message that includes the point "YES grown adults act like teenage girls on social media," said entirely seriously and unironically. they're kind of like the example of that one breed of frerardie who claims to love frank but seems to ignore his actual personality in favour of treating him like a poor uwu abused baby who's never stood up for anything once in his life and treats gerard like an idol rather than a friend, but magnified by a million and even more disconnected from reality. genuinely a really sad blog filled with a lot of hate and im glad they've stepped back from spending every day posting about their theories

[artificialqueens]

Powerless Part 6 (Branjie)- athena2

A/N: Frost continues to tell more about the lab and Vanessa deals with her feelings. This chapter kicked my ass, so first off, thank you to youre-a-kite for betaing and helping out with this one. This is longer than the other chapters, I hope it’s not too long. Your comments and feedback mean so, so, much to me and I would really appreciate it if you have any for this chapter. Also, apologies in advance for the extreme angst. 

Vanessa runs her mask nervously between her fingers, still not sure how it ended up in her hands. For the first time, she looks at Frost with Vanessa’s eyes, not Vanjie’s.

The mask isn’t in her way anymore.

She sees Frost clearly now, and she’s not a supervillain. She’s just a woman who’s scared, who’s been lied to and manipulated. A woman who needs someone to trust, someone to help her. Vanessa would give anything to be that someone.

Frost collapses onto the couch, eyes wide and breath coming in frantic pants. “Vanessa.” She tests it out slowly, tasting each letter. Vanessa has never given much thought to her own name, especially not since Vanjie overtook her. But Frost says her name like it’s the answer to a question she never thought she’d have the courage to ask.

“Vanessa,” she repeats, biting her lip. A shiver runs down Vanessa’s spine. “You promise you’re not lying?”

“I promise. I want to help you.” Her tone is so steady and serious even she is surprised by it.

Frost lowers her head into her hands for agonizing seconds that pass by like years. “I trust you,” she says quietly.

“Vanj, your mask,” Silk hisses.

“I don’t care.” She’s broken superhero rule number one, but something about Frost, maybe those cool, sad eyes begging to be warmed and brightened, is worth breaking the rule for. It’s not the first rule she’s broken in her life, and if she gets her hands on these lab people, it definitely won’t be the last.

“Well, okay then,” A’Keria says brightly. “Frost, is it okay if we ask you some questions? We just want to learn about you and the lab, alright?”

Frost lifts her head. “The lab won’t know?”

“No,” Vanessa answers quickly and firmly. “Everything you tell us stays secret. I won’t let them hurt you anymore, okay?”

“Okay.”

Frost burrows herself into the couch, legs crossed, hands in her lap, head down, cushions practically swallowing her whole. The fear is radiating off her, and why wouldn’t it be? The only life she remembers, the only life she knows, is crashing down around her. Frost fidgets beside her and Vanessa has no idea how to help, feeling more useless than a screen door in a submarine. She used to be good at comforting people. Everyone would come to her with their problems, and she’d have them laughing and feeling better in minutes. But there hasn’t been a friend to need her help in a while.

A’Keria asks questions while Silk takes notes. A’Keria is perfect for this, an empath that senses and manipulates emotions. She’s not using her powers now, but A’Keria didn’t need powers to make people feel good, and she notices Frost picking her head up more often to meet A’Keria’s eyes.

The basic information comes easy: ice storm, plane crash, powers. It’s the followup questions that make Vanessa want to puke and blow something up and commit elaborately-detailed murders.

This is so fucked up. It was Vanessa’s first thought when Frost told her about the lab, and it’s still the only thing in her head, mainly because if she lets herself think anything else she’ll cry or kill someone (or both, she’ll decide later), as A’Keria asks Frost about her “medicine”.

“Can you tell me how you would feel after they gave it to you? What kind of side effects you had?” she asks gently.

Frost takes a breath and squares her shoulders, like she’s forcing the words to flow.

“I’d usually be sleepy, and I’d feel kinda… floaty?” she pauses to make sure A’Keria understands. “My head would be fuzzy, but then I felt better, and all I could think about was following orders. I didn’t have the nightmares, didn’t try to remember. I-I didn’t want to, because it was bad. I just wanted to be good and do what they told me. Sometimes–” she takes another breath, “Sometimes it was like my thoughts weren’t mine? I’d wake up and the night before was blank. Or I’d wake up in the lab and couldn’t remember how I got there and they’d tell me, and I wasn’t sure but my brain listened to it. I listened to whatever they told me. I…it was like I couldn’t think, I-I don’t know how to explain it, I’m sorry…”

Vanessa burns with rage and bites the inside of her cheek to keep from erupting. A’Keria soothes Frost and Vanessa checks out, allowing her mind to wander from the misery weighing the brown leather couch down like an anvil. She settles on a fantasy of her and Frost taking down the lab in a flurry of fire and ice, lets it loop in her mind as Frost explains the little she knows about the lab’s leaders, resurfacing as Frost lists everything the lab told her was bad.

“Asking questions was bad. Disobeying was bad. When I had nightmares of before the accident, that was the worst. When that happened, they gave me a lot more medicine. Usually it was stronger, and it made me sleep a long time, and when I woke up I didn’t feel awake all the way, you know? I was really bad if I tried to remember, and I…I’m bad for telling you this, I’m bad, I’m bad…” She’s shaking, breathing harsh and ragged, and Vanessa can’t sit and watch anymore. Instinctually, she reaches out and rubs slow circles on Frost’s back, feels the tense muscles trembling beneath her hand.

A’Keria brings Frost a glass of water, but she’s shaking so much that Vanessa holds it to her mouth while she takes a few sips. Silk puts her notebook away, and it’s a good thing because Vanessa is ready to tear it to shreds and disintegrate it into nothing.

What a shit show this turned into. A few hours ago she was ready to go full-on Saw to get information out of Frost, and now she wants to wrap her in a blanket and hug her while killing anyone that ever made her suffer.

“I think that’s enough for now. You did such a good job,” A’Keria says warmly. “Would you be alright with us taking a blood sample?”

“She’s not too big on needles,” Vanessa explains, her heart breaking. She knows they’re doing it to help her, but the poor thing has been through enough.

“It’s okay,” Frost sighs, holding out her left arm in a well-practiced motion.

Vanessa wordlessly offers her hand to Frost. She hesitates for a second before grabbing it tightly, and Vanessa rubs her thumb over the cool skin, lets it calm her own fire.

“Your hand is really warm,” Frost says.

“Yours is really cold.”

She thinks she could get used to a little cold. —

Silk herds everyone into the kitchen for a “debriefing”. Frost is yawning and her eyes have glazed over, and she accepts gratefully when Vanessa asks if she wants to take a nap. She curls up on the couch and Vanessa carefully lays a blanket over her, smiling as Frost melts into the soft fleece. She���s asleep before Vanessa finishes tucking her in.

Silk begins somberly. “So, they’re basically numbing her brain activity-”

“I don’t want to hear the science shit right now. What’s our plan?” Vanessa gulps a fresh cup of coffee. She feels like she’s lived three lifetimes since Frost got shot.

“A’Keria and I are gonna do some research, see what we can find about this plane crash and the lab, then work from there. We’ll need to get her to our base soon, talk to her more, but I think she should stay with you for now, Vanjie. Just be careful.”

“I’ll take care of her. Let me know if you find anything.”

They leave, and the quiet is suffocating. The air is heavy with Frost’s secrets, and Vanessa wishes she could take all the air out of the room and replace it with clean air, air that isn’t poisoned with knowledge.

Vanessa paces around restlessly. Patience may be a virtue, but it’s certainly not one of hers. She wants to destroy something, but she wants to do it herself, without powers, wants to feel something crush and break beyond repair in her own hands. She could smash wine bottles, but she’d have to drink them first, and as tempting as that sounds, she should probably be sober in case Silk calls. She rifles through her kitchen junk drawer, the burial site for all random things she never threw out, finds some old papers, and tears them into pieces so small she can barely see them, lets them flutter to the floor like tiny white bits of ash.

She feels somewhat better, but it’s not enough, and she can’t go on a rampage when she’s supposed to watch Frost, so she sighs and resumes her post in the chair beside the couch, studying Frost’s slow breathing. She seems so peaceful that Vanessa can pretend today never happened, pretend she hasn’t taken away Frost’s entire life, her entire world, in a matter of hours. Not that Vanessa’s world is too stable at the moment either. The “villain” she’s been fighting for almost a year is nothing more than an innocent person who’s been drugged and brainwashed. And to top it all off, Vanessa thinks she might like her. No, not might. She definitely likes her. Likes her graceful limbs, how she smells like strawberries, her rare smiles when they fought. Likes the sound of her voice, the green of her eyes, the kindness in her that the lab hasn’t managed to take away. Yeah, she definitely likes her.

Vanessa tries to distract herself with TV, but nothing on screen is as distracting as Frost. —

The sky is dark when Vanessa hears Frost mumbling in her sleep. It sounds like she’s pleading with someone, and Vanessa tries not to intrude as she gently grips her shoulder to wake her.

Frost’s body tosses back and forth and the blanket lands on the floor before her eyes snap open. She’s trembling, and she stares right at Vanessa but her eyes are miles and maybe even years away, and Vanessa knows that whatever she’s seeing, wherever her mind is, it’s not this apartment.

“You’re okay, you’re safe.” She takes Frost’s hand, hoping the touch will bring her back. She keeps whispering, telling Frost she’s okay, as her breathing slows and her eyes seem to focus.

“I-I’m sorry.” She wipes beads of sweat off her forehead.

“No, don’t be sorry. I get them too.”

She has no idea what to say next. What did you say to someone after you found out they’ve been drugged by a secret lab? She doesn’t want to make Frost talk about her nightmare if she’s uncomfortable, not to mention that trauma-based night terrors are a pretty fucked-up topic for bonding with someone.

“Are you hungry?”

Frost shakes her head, and Vanessa doesn’t blame her. She doesn’t even think she could eat chips right now, the anger and sadness like lead in her stomach, stealing her appetite.

Vanessa thinks of what her mom would do, tries to swallow back the pain that comes with the memory. “How about hot chocolate?”

Frost nods eagerly, green eyes shining with excitement.

Vanessa pours the milk in the mugs and she’s six years old again, shouting about a fight she’d gotten in at school while her mom calms her down. That’s gone now, she reminds herself as she goes to town piling on whipped cream, because people who didn’t like whipped cream had no soul.

“Are you trying to be funny?” Frost asks, holding up her blue mug decorated with tiny dancing snowmen.

“Nope, I just happened to grab that one.”

Frost’s lips turn up at the corners, and then she laughs. A real, genuine laugh, one that Vanessa doesn’t think she’s ever heard before. She laughs too, cutting through the leftover tension and filling the deathly quiet apartment.

Frost grins at her, and it’s that grin that pushes her. “Hey, you wanna come in my bed with me? It’s way more comfortable.”

And Frost, though looking shocked at her answer, says yes. —

“So, your name is Vanessa?” Frost slurps her hot chocolate. A dollop of whipped cream, white as snow, lands on the tip of her nose.

Vanessa reaches over and wipes it away, letting her touch drift across the cool plane of Frost’s nose before popping her finger into her mouth. Frost’s cheeks redden and she smiles again, but nervously, shyly, like she’s not used to doing it so often.

“Yeah, why?”

“And your hero name is Vanjie? It’s just not really…creative, I guess? Sorry.”

Vanessa laughs. “No, I get it. Silk and A’Keria literally spent days coming up with names for me. Blaze, Torch, Fireball. I didn’t want any of them. Made me feel like a kid playing dress-up. Vanjie’s something my mom used to call me.” Not that she’s around to call her that anymore.

“Oh. That’s nice, I like that.”

“What’s your name?” Her mouth blurts the question on its own, and she kicks herself immediately after. What was she thinking? That they would drink hot chocolate and gossip like twelve-year-olds at a sleepover? That Frost would feel the same connection she’s been denying for months and something would happen?

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” Vanessa amends quickly. “You don’t have to tell me. I get it.”

“It’s not that,” Frost begins. “I would tell you. Really, I would. It’s just…I don’t know it.”

“What?”

“I-I can’t remember it. I couldn’t remember when I woke up there, and they never told me. Said it wasn’t important. Whenever I asked they said it was bad to ask and gave me more medicine.”

Vanessa’s heart breaks all over again. They took her name away. They took her name away and she doesn’t understand she did nothing wrong. She blinks away tears so Frost won’t see, head filling with fantasies of burning that lab to the ground.

“Oh. That’s–I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“This is gonna sound awful, but sometimes I wish I could forget.” It’s the first time she’s ever confessed it to anyone. Something about the night, or Frost, is making her want to talk in a way she hasn’t in years. “I lost my family and everything in the fire, but I still remember them, and there’s some days I wish I could erase it all from my mind. Just forget everything I had, because I can’t have it anymore, you know? Like maybe it would hurt less. But it’s better than your situation. Shit, you don’t even know your own name.”

“Remembering can be hard too,” Frost says softly.

They sip hot chocolate in a comfortable silence, Vanessa growing warmer and warmer inside despite the cool body next to her. Her mom used to say her mouth ran like a sewer, words spewing out faster than anyone could hear, but this is the most Vanessa has said to anyone since the accident. She misses talking, or maybe she just misses having someone to talk to. She shimmies down the mattress and lays on her side, Frost copying the movement. She bites her lip like she wants to say something and Vanessa smiles reassuringly and waits for the words to come.

“Vanessa?”

“Yeah?”

“I want to, um…”

Vanessa nods in encouragement and watches, not daring to hope, as Frost’s hands make their way up to her mask. She takes a deep breath before pulling it away from her face.

With the mask gone, her face is finally on full display. It’s like a Technicolor high-definition image when you’ve been used to a clunky black-and-white TV with rabbit ears. Her smooth skin, her flushed cheeks, her bold lips, the striking bright green of her eyes steal Vanessa’s breath away. Who needs to breathe anyway?

“You’re beautiful,” Vanessa whispers. She cautiously lets her thumb brush across Frost’s face, seeking proof that this is real, that Frost really is in front of her and not a hologram or some kind of sci-fi shit. Frost doesn’t flinch away like Vanessa thought she might, but leans into the touch. Her skin is cool but warming rapidly as Vanessa’s fingers dance around, touching her nose. Her cheeks. Her forehead.

Her lips.

Vanessa’s thumb ghosts over Frost’s wide lips, and she imagines how it would feel to press her own lips against Frost’s. Is she crazy? She can’t take advantage of her, she probably doesn’t even feel the same way–

And then Frost’s thumb is on her cheek, the cold touch seeping into Vanessa’s skin and melting away inside her. She runs a finger over Vanessa’s eyebrow as Vanessa moves her hand to rest on Frost’s cheek, and she’s thinking maybe Frost would be okay with a kiss when a stream of moisture washes over her fingers. “Hey, what’s wrong?” she pulls her hand away. “Did I burn you or somethin’?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just–you shouldn’t be nice to me, you shouldn’t be touching me, I don’t deserve it, I’m bad! The stuff I did…it was wrong! I should be punished for it, I hurt people!”

“No, no, stop,” Vanessa shushes her. “Listen to me. This is not your fault. The lab did this to you, okay? It wasn’t you.”

“But it was! I should’ve fought harder, I should’ve known it was wrong, but I just listened to them! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” the tears fall thick as raindrops and Frost starts coughing as she struggles to breathe through the sobs. Vanessa quickly brings her hand back up, caressing her cheek and wiping the tears away.

“There was nothing you could have done. You fought real hard, I know you did. You saved that girl, you saved me. You couldn’t fight against everything they did to you. You’re so brave, Frost, and this isn’t your fault, okay?” She eases her back against the mattress and places Frost’s head on her chest. She wraps her arms around the taller woman and strokes her back, whispers soothing words to her until she is able to take an easy breath.

Eventually her breathing steadies, and Vanessa realizes she’s asleep. She tightens her hold on Frost and places a gentle kiss on the top of her head. She knows that when all this is over, Frost will probably need more help than Vanessa can give her, but for now, she holds on as tight as she can. She lets her tears fall this time, and while most are for Frost, some are for herself. —

She wakes up and Frost is still there. She’s still there and it almost scares Vanessa to not be in an empty bed. Frost lies on her side, eyes burning into Vanessa. “Sorry, did I wake you? I wanted to let you sleep.”

“No, you’re fine.” She scooches across the bed and runs her fingers through Frost’s short blonde hair while she hums with pleasure.

The soft hair between her fingers is calming, a reminder that the past day has been real and not a dream, and she’s thinking she could do this all day when Frost’s stomach growls.

“Sorry,” she laughs. “I guess the hunger caught up with me.”

“I guess so,” Vanessa smiles. “I’m pretty hungry too. You like pancakes? My mom always used to make ‘em on Sundays.”

Frost bobs her head up and down happily, making her look like an enthusiastic golden retriever, then suddenly bolts into a sitting position.

“Today’s Sunday?” she asks, voice deadly serious.

“Yeah, why?”

“Oh my God.” She throws the covers back to the mattress and launches out of the bed. Vanessa trails behind her in confusion. Clothes litter the living room floor and Frost is tugging her suit back on, wincing in pain.

“I never had a girl run out of my bed before. Usually they begging me to stay.” Frost doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even smile. “You gonna tell me what the hell’s going on?”

“It’s Sunday, I go to the lab for my medicine on Sunday, I’m late, I have to go,” she informs Vanessa in one breath, zipping her suit.

“You can’t go back there! Everything they’ve done to you, and you’re gonna let them do it again?!”

“I have to! They’re probably already at my apartment looking for me!”

No. This isn’t happening. Just last night they were in bed together, masks off. Just last night she had Frost in her arms and wasn’t going to ever let her go. She can’t be taken away from her already. The pillows still smell like strawberries.

“But we…we can help you. Let me call Silk, just don’t go back there, please. Please.”

“I don’t have a choice.” She yanks on her green boots.

Vanessa grabs her arm. Is this the last time she’ll get to touch her? “What about your stitches?” her mind scrambles for something, anything, that will stop Frost from going back. “How are you gonna explain that?”

“I…I’ll tell them I got shot, and I stitched it myself because I couldn’t make it to the lab, and that I overslept.”

“Won’t you get in trouble?” How badly will they punish her? Will she still be herself when they’re done? Will she even remember last night?

“Probably,” she admits. “But I can’t come up with anything else, and I-I don’t have time, I have to go. Look, it’s more dangerous if I don’t go at all. It’s just routine. They’ll do their exam and give me my shots and then I’ll come back to you, I promise.” Vanessa can’t tell which of them she’s trying to sound brave for.

But will you still be you when you come back?

She runs back to the bedroom while Vanessa stands there, tears pooling in her eyes as she fails to think of a way out. She’s helpless, and she hates to be helpless. Frost returns, smoothing her mask over her face, and Vanessa knows this is it. She knows Frost is insisting things will be fine, but she can’t help but feel that everything is about to be ripped from right now, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. She can’t even get her mouth to form the words about last night and how it’s the happiest she remembers being in years.

“Vanessa, I’m sorry. About everything. I’m so sorry.”

A car door slams, and they turn to the window, where a black van has pulled up. 5 men exit, three in black suits, one in army gear, one in a white coat.

“Are they tracking you?” she asks Frost.

Her eyes widen and she curses under her breath. “They must be, I didn’t know, I’m sorry,” she says genuinely, and Vanessa figures they probably chipped her without her knowing.

Frost grabs Vanessa’s face. “Get out of here. Go to your friends and get help. I’ll hold them off.”

“I’m not leaving you here for them!” She peeks out the window. They’re already entering the lobby, and time is running out.

Vanessa sprints to her room and struggles into her suit, pressing the emergency call button on her bracelet.

She stands by Frost’s side in the living room, holding her hand and hoping it says everything she can’t. Choking back a sob, she pushes away Vanessa, pushes away last night, and forces herself to become Vanjie. Vanessa can’t matter right now. Frost glances down at her. “Vanessa, I lo-”

The door bursts open and the men rush inside.

“You’ve been very bad, Frost,” the man in the white coat, probably a doctor, taunts her.

The change in her is immediate. She bows her head and her entire body curls inward, and Vanjie hates that anyone can make her feel so small.

“You’re not bad Frost, they are!” Vanjie yells, lobbing a fireball at one the suit men. It grazes his arm and he stamps it out as one of the others turns his gun on her. She sends him flying into the wall with a crash, but not before he gets a shot off. It’s some kind of pulse rifle, and the energy burst burns through her. She twists on the ground, muscles convulsing as she rides out the pain.

“Don’t hurt her,” Frost begs. “Don’t hurt her, please!”

Two of the men get Frost’s shoulders and force her to her knees, and she doesn’t fight. She doesn’t fight, Vanjie realizes, because she thinks they’ll hurt me if she does. One pulls Frost’s hands behind her back and the other grabs her head and twists it roughly to the side, exposing her neck. She watches in horror as the doctor pulls a giant-ass needle, big enough to tranquilize an elephant, out of his briefcase. He shoves the needle into Frost’s neck while she whimpers in pain and Vanjie’s heart shatters.

They shove her on to the living room floor, whole body twitching, hands pressed against her head. Then it’s over. Frost stands up shakily, and as soon as Vanjie looks in her eyes, she knows. These are not the warm, bright eyes of the Frost she spent last night with, because this is not her Frost. This is not the Frost who laughed with her in a hot chocolate sugar rush and got whipped cream on her nose and lay in Vanessa’s arms. This is not even the kind-of nice Frost she’s been fighting the past eight months. This is the Frost the lab has always wanted.

And this Frost is going to kill her.

“Frost,” she tries. “Please, it’s me, it’s Vanessa. You know me. You know me.”

“Who’s Vanessa?”

[welcometothepenumbra]

JUNO STEEL AND THE LONG WAY HOME (PART TWO)

SOUND: RAIN. TRAIN ARRIVES, CREAKS TO A STOP. DOOR CLANKS OPEN.

CONDUCTOR: Ah, good evening, Traveler. And welcome… to The Penumbra.

SOUND: DOOR CLANKS SHUT.

Take your seat, please, take your seat.

MUSIC: STARTS.

The junction lies ahead, so if you’ll allow me just a moment.

SOUND: TRAIN WHISTLE.

We are now passing through Hyperion City.

SOUND: TRAIN MOVING.

Our next stop?

SOUND: TRAIN BRAKES.

Juno Steel and the Long Way Home.

SOUND: DOOR CLANKS OPEN, RAIN.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

***

SOUND: WATER DRIPPING, RIPPLING.

THEIA: (DISTANT, OVERLAPPING) Target located. Alerting central office. Exchanging map data. Sector is clear. Recharging. Recharging.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Here’s a lesson that never sticks, no matter how many times you learn it: even when you’re not around, the world keeps movin’ without you. Never feels that way. When you leave, you take a frozen version of the place with you in your head, and that feels real, but… then you get back and find the place is melting right in front of you.

SMALL FRY: (WHIMPERS, QUIET BARKS)

JUNO: Yep, I’m pretty wiped too, Small Fry. How ‘bout a snack break?

SOUND: SPLASH.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I remember these sewers as an escape, if you can believe it. When things got too rough topside I would lose myself down here, where things were simple. Where the monsters looked like monsters, big furry ones with long teeth and mean eyes. They were scary, but… that was part of the escape.

SMALL FRY: (IN BACKGROUND) (BARKS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): When you’re so young you think monsters are the scariest things out there… what could feel better than teaching the boogeyman to eat out of the palm of your hand?

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: Whatsamatter? You don’t like salmon chips?

SMALL FRY: (YIP!)

JUNO: Don’t tell me you’re picky.

SOUND: CRUNCHING, CHEWING.

(GARBLED, MOUTH FULL) Aw, man, these’ve got the freeze-dried soy dust and everything! You’re outta your mind, Small Fry.

SMALL FRY: (SNIFFS & SNORTS)

JUNO: Oh, what’s that? Now you want one?

SMALL FRY: (SNORTS)

JUNO: That’s what I thought. Take the bag, it’s yours.

SMALL FRY: (GRRRR)

JUNO: (SIGHS)

SOUND: CRUNCHING, CHEWING.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I wonder sometimes if having that escape as a kid felt a little too good. Like I’d go underground and feel like all the world’s horrors could be tamed, then, come back up and think that feeling should last forever. It felt like I could make it last forever if I tried. But, things change.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

SOUND: CREAKING.

JUNO: What’s the matter, Small Fry? You hear some… thing…?

THEIA: Target sighted.

JUNO: Damn it! Get in…

…that pipe, quickly! Hide under my coat!

SMALL FRY: (SNUFFLES)

THEIA: Target recognized. Target is—

JUNO: (OVER THE BELOW) Juno Steel, yeah.

THEIA: —Juno Steel. Directive: do no—

JUNO: (OVER THE ABOVE) Do no harm, Mayor O’Flaherty requests my presence, you can’t capture me nonviolently so I’m supposed to go there on my own, that it?

THEIA: (AFTER A PAUSE) This is your only—

JUNO: Right, thanks, almost forgot, this is my only warning. I’m workin’ on it now, but thanks for the reminder, bye!

THEIA: Farewell. Juno Steel.

SOUND: CREAKING FADES OUT.

JUNO: (QUIETLY) Going… going, aaaaaand gone. Psst!

Hey kid! Coast is clear!

SOUND: HEAVY CREAK.

Small Fry?

SOUND: SPLASHING.

…The hell is this?

SOUND: SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS.

Another room?

SMALL FRY: (SNORES)

JUNO: (GASPS)

SOUND: GUN COCKING.

…Oh.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The rabbit was asleep. Just… tuckered out.

Then I felt the exhaustion piling on me too, so I sat and let her nap awhile. And if I got some rest out of the bargain, so be it.

Small Fry had found a good hiding spot. The pipe I’d shoved her into led through a shattered wall, which opened up into another one of the sewer’s old chambers. Must have been a false start from some earlier construction job, walled-up so it’d just go away, but… that never kept anything hidden forever, did it?

The Theia bots were tearing this place apart, and soon one would find Small Fry. But even if they did clear out and we did get outta here, what the hell was I gonna do with her?

MUSIC: STARTS.

My name’s Juno Steel. I’m a private eye, and that means I’m supposed to reserve my blaster for whoever pays my bills. Money hasn’t mattered to me for years, but even so, it… was a rule, and rules are comfortable.

I keep feeling like I don’t know any of the rules anymore, but… I need ‘em. Because if you try to save every sorry soul who hops into your life…

…that might make you a hero, and… right now I’m not sure there’s anything worse.

MUSIC: ENDS. STARTS (FROM COMMS).

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Welcome back to Questions Unanswered: Where is Jack Takano? Tonight’s episode: Part 11 – “The Mask.”

Jack Takano was famously a very private man: until the end of his time at Northstar, he never kept a home address on file, or spoke to anyone about his friends and family outside the company. Even his face was private, as Founder and CEO of Northstar Miranda Fairbanks wrote:

FAIRBANKS ACTOR (FROM COMMS): It was known around the office that Jack daily wore makeup thick even by Hyperion’s standards… I once came into the office quite early to find that he had fallen asleep, drooling, onto his desk and hand. It was almost sweet… until he moved that hand and a layer of skin peeled off his face, only to reveal another, much paler skin beneath. Or so it seemed, until I saw the foundation smudges on the table. When I woke him, he covered his face, mumbled something about not looking decent, and ran off to reapply. A skin condition, he told me later. I never bought it. The difference between the skin beneath and the mask over it was so extreme that it seemed like there was another man under there, buried alive.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): But even a man with a hidden face can’t hide everything. Takano may not have left an explanation for his disappearance in his famous farewell note, but his coworkers did notice a change.

VEGA (FROM COMMS): Well, we all expected something was going to happen. Just not… something that extreme.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): What about his behavior seemed like the first sign, Dr. Vega?

VEGA (FROM COMMS): Isolation, first. Irritability, some days, although he’d always apologize soon after. But I think the first unquestionable sign for me was Andromeda 3.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): If you didn’t see Andromeda 3 at release, it’s unlikely you ever will: the film was panned so universally that Northstar established an Anti-Informations Department just to erase every copy they could find. Or as one reviewer put it:

VOICE 6 (FROM COMMS): Schlock and drivel. Its characterization is so flat it approaches concave. Its pacing makes death seem a fond alternative. And worst of all, it appears Takano has no idea what made Andromeda so compelling in the first place, and what remains are only echoes of the Turbo nonsense that nearly put Northstar into its early, and perhaps deserved, grave. Takano needs to get his head out of building tourist traps and back into telling stories, because this was clearly rushed.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): The only thing atypical of this review is its lenience: the reviewer gave Andromeda 3 the highest rating we could find. But that last sentiment, that the film was rushed, is repeated by nearly every review on record, despite the fact that it is completely untrue.

CHEN (FROM COMMS): I don’t think I ever saw Jack work harder on a project. Besides the park, obviously.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): That’s Jocelyn Chen, former Head of Animation at Northstar.

MUSIC: ENDS.

CHEN (FROM COMMS): I remember seeing pages of script and sketches of Andromeda 3 a few weeks before the first film came out, but he was never satisfied. It was just rewrite after rewrite with him.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Was his process similar for Chainmail Warrior Andromeda or Sea of Sinners?

CHEN (FROM COMMS): Not at all. He had full storyboards for both ready when he first pitched the project, and he only had a month on those. But the third one… I don’t know. He kept talking about the responsibility, and… I tried to help, but, the pressure must’ve gotten to him.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): You came under fire for that film, too.

CHEN (FROM COMMS): I did.

I– I wasn’t mad at him for having writer’s block. I was mad at him for not listening earlier, for not giving us something, anyway. I had to steal his notes just so we could start work on time for a sloppy release, and… that was the only time I’ve ever heard him get angry.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): A recording of Takano’s tirade was leaked a few months after Andromeda 3’s release:

SOUND: BACKGROUND STATIC.

JACK (FROM COMMS): We are doing something important here. Am I the only one who sees that? Am I?!

CHEN (FROM COMMS): Jack, we have a deadline—

JACK (FROM COMMS): Damn the deadline! You’re exactly the problem, Jocelyn, focusing on the smallest issues when you should be solving the big ones, taking the solution now over the solution that works– DO NOT SPEAK while I am speaking!

No. Keep the damn notes. It’s too late already.

SOUND: STATIC FADES OUT.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): The company could have scrubbed this leak like they erased the film, had Takano himself not acknowledged it, in a press conference the day after it spread:

JACK (FROM COMMS): …I would like to apologize, of course. I’ve already apologized to Jocelyn, but, like it or not I’ve been thrust into the public eye; and as a result, my responsibility extends to each and every one of you.

SMALL FRY: (SNUFFLES & SNORTS)

JUNO: Mmm… quit it.

SOUND: WATER DRIPPING, BUBBLING.

JACK (FROM COMMS): Three years is not a very long time to grow old, and, yet I find that, compared to the early days of Andromeda, I feel precisely—

JUNO: (OVER THE BELOW) I said quit it!

JACK (FROM COMMS): (OVER THE ABOVE) —how I expected an old man must: very tired, and only slightly more wise.

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

JACK (FROM COMMS): What strikes me as most beautiful about Andromeda is how she works not just on the world, but also on herself. Tirelessly. When Andromeda discovers that her magic chainmail is empowered by the suffering of others, she sees immediately how this might corrupt her… and she steels herself against it.

I see now the power I have in Northstar. And I see the heavy responsibility that power bestows upon me. We will use it for good, from here out. For Polaris.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

SOUND: SLAP.

JUNO: (OVER THE BELOW) Damn it, Rita, I’m taking a nap, you—!

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

HAWK (FROM COMMS): (OVER THE ABOVE) Takano’s apology was very well received—

JUNO: …Oh.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): (OVER THE BELOW) —as Jocelyn Chen recalls.

JUNO: (OVER THE ABOVE) Small Fry. Right.

SMALL FRY: (GROWLS)

CHEN (FROM COMMS): (OVER THE BELOW) He could do that, apologize and have all forgiven—

JUNO: (OVER THE ABOVE) What’s the matter, kid, you hungry?

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

JUNO: What the hell? Get off me!

CHEN (FROM COMMS): —really forgiven. You could always tell he meant it, that it really had eaten him up inside. He—

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

SOUND: CLICK, COMMS CUTS OFF.

JUNO: The hell?

Did you… take my comms? Out of my ear?

SMALL FRY: (BARKS, GROWLS)

JUNO: Don’t eat it!

Well, looks like we’re awake now, doesn’t it? Here, come close. You just put it up to your ear like this, and—

SOUND: FEEDBACK SCREECH.

JUNO & SMALL FRY: (PAINED YELLS)

JUNO: God dammit, what did you do?

SMALL FRY: (WHIMPERING)

JUNO: You know how long it took me to figure that thing out? Now look, it’s wet and it stinks and I can’t even listen to it and I don’t know where anybody is or what the hell I’m gonna do to keep you safe and—

SOUND: PLOP, SPLASH.

There. It’s trash now. Just like this whole stupid idea. Whatever.

SOUND: SPLASHES. DISTANT FEEDBACK.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: I told you, the comms is broken.

SOUND: FEEDBACK STOPS. ELECTRONIC SCROLLING.

JUNO: You’re just gonna hurt yourself. Make it explode or something.

SMALL FRY: (GROWLS)

SOUND: BEEPS.

JUNO: Damn it, don’t you listen?

SOUND: ALARM BEEPS.

It’s busted. See?

SOUND: JINGLE (FROM COMMS).

VOICE 7 (FROM COMMS): Welcome to your comms. Please enter your name.

JUNO: Wait, what?

SMALL FRY: (GROWLS)

JUNO: You… there’s no way you know how to use this. You can’t.

SMALL FRY: (YIPS)

JUNO: Alright, take it.

SMALL FRY: (RRRRR!)

SOUND: BEEPS.

JUNO: No. Way.

SMALL FRY: (GRRRS, YIP!)

SOUND: LOUD JINGLE (FROM COMMS).

VOICE 7 (FROM COMMS): (VERY LOUD) Bienvenue à votre comms.

JUNO: (HISS OF PAIN) Nevermind! (SIGHS)

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: But… you did have it for a second.

SOUND: BEEPS.

SMALL FRY: (SNUFFLE, GROWLS)

JUNO: No, no, I’m gonna try this time.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: And, uh… thanks, Small Fry. I needed that.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO (NARRATOR): While I messed with that comms I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about Rita. She’d been telling me what Small Fry just had for years – that I didn’t need her to set everything up, that I wasn’t even trying, and… I’d yell at her that I got it, but I was just busy. And then sit alone, like an idiot, while she set up my comms, my monitor, everything.

Ma never let us have that stuff. And then I just got too proud to admit I didn’t get it, and… I got better and better at asking other people to work around me, I guess. Anyway, I… had the thing up and running again soon.

SOUND: BLIP.

JACKET (FROM COMMS): We may look backward only to ensure we have not walked this path before.

JUNO: Yeah, thanks, big guy.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: Just… give me one more minute.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Maybe I’d gone mad with power, but… I had an idea, and I was hungry for another win. I knew the comms could get on the net, and I knew the sewer system’s layout was a public document. The rest was just guesswork. Learning and mistakes.

SOUND: ERROR BEEP.

JUNO: (GROWLS)

SOUND: ERROR BEEP.

Aghhhh!

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): …a whole lot of mistakes. But, still.

It took me an hour to do what Rita could’ve done in two seconds, but, I was proud of it.

SOUND: BEEP.

JUNO: Ha! Got it! Look, it’s a map, and I think I found a manhole that’ll take us…

SMALL FRY: (SNORES)

JUNO: …out of the… sewer.

Hey. Hey, c’mon, Small Fry. C’mon.

SMALL FRY: (SNUFFLES AWAKE)

JUNO: We gotta go, kid. I think I found a way out of here. And after that…

We’ll have to figure that out together, I guess.

SMALL FRY: (MEWLS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): I split the comms so I could carry it in my hand and my ear at the same time. It was gonna be a hike to get to that manhole leading out of the sewer, and… to Oldtown.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): (FADING IN) The year between Andromeda 3’s release and the opening of Polaris Park marked a shift in how Northstar was run. Takano removed himself from the film production process completely, hiring previously-terminated Northstar writer Kenni Okombe and rock-star-slash-poet Rajavi to co-write Andromeda and the Dragon’s Peak, based on some of Takano’s early sketches. In the meantime, Jack Takano redoubled his efforts on Polaris Park, and though he spent many, many hours in that office – staying for days or weeks on end, according to some – his coworkers saw him less than ever.

VEGA (FROM COMMS): Always in his office. It was as though we’d taken on a staff hermit. (LAUGHS) Not that it was a funny situation, of course, Jack was clearly troubled. But, well… we all just thought that if the tortured genius needs his space, give him his space.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Many of Takano’s former coworkers expressed similar sentiments. But not Jocelyn Chen.

CHEN (FROM COMMS): Everyone always said yes to Jack, and it wasn’t good for him. So when he started hiding, working himself sick, all that… I wasn’t having it, and I said so.

He gave me some line… something about how he had to figure out the problem by himself, that he couldn’t compromise on the park any more than he already had. And I said, “Jack, you can take all your toys, and go hide in your room if you want. But if you keep working like this, you’re going to get yourself killed, and—”

After that… after I said that, he just… looked at me and waited. Like I hadn’t gotten to my point yet. Like that wasn’t even enough reason t—

Anyway. I ended the conversation there, because I wasn’t getting anywhere. But clearly he wasn’t done.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Ms. Chen is referring to a public charity event at which Takano spoke to raise funds for Martian fire departments. Though the speech was largely typical of his optimistic oratory, there was a tangent that was met with confusion in the press:

JACK (FROM COMMS): But the most beautiful thing about Andromeda, I think, is… that she always goes it alone. She recognizes that heroism is a blessing for the world and a curse for the hero, who must live with the weight of every decision they make, the pain of every loss they fail to prevent. And yet she never stops. And she never shares this burden with another, because she knows it is better for one to suffer than two. Goodness is her charge. And she lives up to it alone.

CHEN (FROM COMMS): Which isn’t even true. Aries, the Ramblers, Captain Cancer, Queen Pisces – by that point, Andromeda had relied on others twice a movie! Well, minus Andromeda 3, but… (SIGHS)

VEGA (FROM COMMS): Jack never spoke to me directly about his design problem, but I could see it amongst the lines, as it were. Something at the core of Polaris Park had gone wrong for him, somewhere. Some of his work orders implied that the problem had come from compromises he’d made, and so he tried hiding the gift shops, changing the logo so that ‘Polaris’ was much larger than ‘Park,’ that kind of thing. Then a week later, all those orders would be undone, and he clearly felt that the problem came earlier than his compromises… from the park’s initial contraception, perhaps.

I knew that he expected me to decode that subtext. I like to think I was rather a confidant for him in that way – the only one he could undress even part of his heart to.

SOUND: WATER DRIPPING, RIPPLING FADES IN. DISTANT BOOM.

SMALL FRY: (BARK BARK!)

JUNO: Huh?

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Despite Dr. Vega’s claims, the work orders we’ve unearthed state Takano’s frustrations directly to every head of every department. Polaris Park was not doing what it was supposed to – though Takano was never clear about what its actual purpose was.

SOUND: DISTANT BOOM.

JUNO: What the hell was—

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

HAWK (FROM COMMS): And as Takano tried to solve it—

SOUND: DISTANT BOOM.

—the days to Polaris Park’s opening – and the man’s disappearance—

SOUND: TWO DISTANT BOOMS.

—drew closer and closer.

SMALL FRY: (BARK BARK!)

SOUND: CLICK, COMMS CUTS OFF.

JUNO: Shhh!

JUNO (NARRATOR): We were close to the exit by then. There was just one last pipe we had to pass through, one big enough to stand and walk in. We hadn’t heard a Theia bot in half an hour; it was quiet here.

Until that thumping started, down at the end of the pipe.

SOUND: DISTANT BOOMS.

As quickly as I could I searched the wall around me for weak spots – cracks, openings, anywhere at all to hide – but there were none. This thing had picked the one solid spot left in the entire Oldtown sewer system to corner us.

SMALL FRY: (WHIMPERS)

SOUND: DISTANT BOOM.

JUNO: (QUIETLY) Get behind me, kid, it’s alright. You’re gonna be alright.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The noise kept coming. I tried to make a plan: hide Small Fry in the sludge and try to talk my way out? No, the Theia bots were chatty, and she couldn’t hold her breath that long. Take a shot at it before it saw us? Maybe, but I doubted I could connect without a Theia on my side.

It got closer.

SOUND: SPLASH.

And closer. And then it rounded the corner.

SOUND: SPLASH.

?????: (GROWLS, PANTING)

SMALL FRY: (YIPS & BARKS)

JUNO: A rabbit…? Alive?

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

RABBIT: (GROWL-BARKS)

JUNO: You know him. You know that rabbit, don’t you?

SMALL FRY: (YIPS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): So, that was it, then. Some of the rabbits were alive. I’d brought Small Fry home, and… I felt just… awful.

Looking into her big black eyes, one hand on her matted fur, I realized I already cared about this little rabbit. Protecting her made me feel useful, and loved, and… it was hard to put that away.

I let myself live in maybes for a second. A little rabbit munching snack food under my desk. A big one asleep in the corner of my office – ‘the muscle,’ I’d call her, but really… her name would be Small Fry. Even when she got huge.

I never really would’ve taken her, not really; but… it was nice to pretend, for a second.

JUNO: You can trust that big fella over there?

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: Then go home, kid.

Go home.

SOUND: SPLASHING.

JUNO (NARRATOR): So I watched her hop away. She seemed… happy.

RABBIT: (IN BACKGROUND) (GROWLS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): And that’s when the big rabbit ran over and socked me in the face.

RABBIT: (ROARS)

SOUND: PUNCH.

JUNO: Oof!

SOUND: BIG SPLASH.

H-hey, come on! I know you were scared, but—

SOUND: PUNCH, SPLASH.

Oof!

The hell do you want from me? Money? I got creds, but you have to get off me—

RABBIT: (ROARS, GROWLS)

SOUND: PUNCHES.

JUNO (NARRATOR): This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how the rabbits were. They’d never turn down creds and they never made those noises and they were never… this angry.

I reached for my blaster. But the rabbit had a desperate quickness I’d never seen before and in a second my gun was spinning over his shoulder.

RABBIT: (ROARRRRRR)

SOUND: PUNCH. PLOP.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The rabbit reared back to howl. He still had crumbs and frosting in his fur, big soft belly for scratching, just like all the rabbits I knew. But this one was burned, too. Charred trenches of fur and skin running along his sides, part of one ear gone.

And he looked… so scared. Pissed-off and powerless; like if he couldn’t pin down and punch all those Theia bots, or the human race, or death itself… he was ready to settle for me.

I still had my plasma knife, but I couldn’t stab him. I couldn’t let Ramses make me kill again.

RABBIT: (ROARS)

SMALL FRY: (SQUEAKING)

JUNO (NARRATOR): Small Fry ran up to the rabbit and tugged on his tail. The rabbit nearly jumped out of his fur, and didn’t even look behind him before he kicked one of those huge legs back at the kid.

RABBIT: (RAHHH!)

SOUND: PUNCH. PLOP, SPLASH.

SMALL FRY: (WHIMPERING)

JUNO (NARRATOR): I’ve never seen a rabbit do that. This rabbit had never seen it, either. Looked like he’d spend the rest of his life wishing he hadn’t. Then he turned, and I saw that he was ready to blame it all on me.

RABBIT: (PANTING, BIG HOWL)

JUNO (NARRATOR): A few months ago I might’ve let him, too. That’s what a hero’s for, right? Taking all the hits so the innocent don’t have to, while the ones causing all the pain sit in the stands and watch, blood and popcorn butter sticky on their fingertips.

I was done with that. Instead, I was gonna give the rabbit some advice. So I turned the volume on my comms all the way up.

SOUND: INCREASINGLY LOUDER BEEPS.

RABBIT: (ROARRRR)

JUNO (NARRATOR): And right when he was about to crush my skull… I jammed my comms into his ear and pressed play.

SOUND: FEEDBACK SCREECH. BLIP.

JACKET (FROM COMMS): (VERY LOUD, OVER THE BELOW) We may look backward only to ensure we have not walked this path before.

RABBIT: (OVER THE ABOVE) (HOWL OF PAIN)

SOUND: BLIP. SPLASH.

JUNO: Whaddaya know? Looks like that advice just saved my life, too.

SOUND: SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS.

Stay down, cottontail. I’m not kidding.

SOUND: LOW ELECTRIC HUM.

(OVER THE BELOW) See this? Plasma knife. Real hot; real sharp. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you come any closer, I’ll have to.

RABBIT: (OVER THE ABOVE) (GROWLS)

JUNO: Take the kid and go. This’ll kill you, you understand? Dead.

Stop! Neither one of us wants this!

RABBIT: (BIG GROWL)

JUNO (NARRATOR): But he kept running towards me. And he knew he wouldn’t win. I’m just not sure he cared.

He was almost on top of me. I knew I’d do it if I had to, and… that’s when I heard the first shot.

SOUND: BIG BLASTER SHOT. ELECTRIC WHIR.

THEIA: (AFTER A PAUSE) Targets detected.

SOUND: CREAKING.

JUNO (NARRATOR): A big Theia bot stood in front of me and its first laser sizzled in the wall behind.

The bot had Small Fry pinned between a wall and the end of its cannon.

SMALL FRY: (BARKING)

JUNO: Dammit, no, no, no…!

RABBIT: (GROWLS)

THEIA: Come closer. Rabbit.

JUNO: …What?

RABBIT: (GROWL?)

THEIA: Come closer. I will tell you. When. To stop.

SOUND: SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS.

Closer. Just. A little closer. Real close. There.

SMALL FRY: (YIP!)

SOUND: PLOP.

THEIA: Your little one.

SMALL FRY: (BARKS, MEWLS)

RABBIT: (GRRRRRR)

THEIA: Now please leave. And be careful. Bunnies.

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

SOUND: SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS FADE.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The two ran, and Small Fry never looked back. I was proud of her. We may look backward only to ensure we have not walked this path before, right? Wherever those rabbits were going, whatever home awaited them… they’d definitely never been there before.

THEIA: You. Stay there.

SOUND: CREAKING.

JUNO: (HEAVY BREATHING)

SOUND: CREAKING STOPS. HISS OF STEAM.

THEIA: Are you injured. User. Mista Steel.

JUNO: Mista…

(STARTS LAUGHING, OVER THE BELOW)

THEIA: Because. Um. Ramses wants to see you aboveground. And. Somethin’ somethin’. No. Don’t say. Somethin’ somethin’. Say—

JUNO: Rita?!

THEIA: —somethin’, you—

JUNO: Rita, is that really you?

THEIA: No. I’m. Um. What’s this thing called. Tara. Teyona. Let me. Look it up.

JUNO: Rita! God, I am glad to see… whatever the hell robot this is.

THEIA: This is. The Theo’s Spectacles.

JUNO: Wait– you yelled at the bot for saying “somethin’ somethin’,” which means you must be able to hear it.

THEIA: Nuh-uh.

JUNO: Rita…

THEIA: Who’s that. She sounds nice.

JUNO: Just drop the joke, alright? I’ve been looking for you for days, I’m filthy, I’m tired, so just tell me where the hell you are!

THEIA: Oh. Does it make you worried. Not knowing. Where very pretty user. Rita is?

JUNO: Rita, I said—

THEIA: ‘Cause maybe. Then. She should disappear for weeks instead. Not say anything. ‘Cause that would definitely make you. Less worried. And not way more worried. Ain’t that right. Boss?

JUNO: (AFTER A PAUSE) Oh, I…

(QUIETLY) What did I do?

Rita, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

…Rita?

THEIA: The Theia Order. Is shutting. Down.

SOUND: POWERING DOWN.

JUNO: Rita? Rita?!

…No.

Please…

SOUND: THUMPING ON METAL.

No! Damn it, no! No!

I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Rita; and, I know that’s not enough. I know how sour a sorry tastes when it comes from someone who’s apologized before and never changed a thing. I know you’ve got no reason to believe me, but…

SOUND: METAL CLUNK.

Please don’t leave me here, Rita. You’ve got every reason to, but… I’m tryin’ to get better. I really want to get better, maybe for the first time in my life since the HCPD, and… I’m just so scared that it’s too late, and everybody’s already smartened up and gone, and maybe you should, but please, please—

RITA: Hi Mista Steel.

JUNO: (YELPS, PANTING) How long were you behind me?

RITA: Just for the last ‘please please.’ I miss anything you wanna say again?

JUNO: I, uh…

I’m sorry, Rita. I’m just… so sorry. It won’t happen again.

…Rita?

SOUND: THWUMP.

Oof!

RITA: I missed you, boss. I was real worried.

JUNO: I know. I hear you. For once. (DEEP BREATH) And I missed you too, Rita. Really.

RITA: (SNIFFLING)

JUNO: What? What’s the matter?

RITA: (SNIFFING/CHOKING BACK TEARS) We just… ain’t never hugged this long before, boss. (SWALLOWS) It’s nice.

JUNO: Oh. Yeah, it’s…

(CLEARS THROAT) Anyway, uh… I got a map, and it says there should be a way out just over—

RITA: Oh, yeah. The whole system’s bein’ shifted around, boss. None’a your maps are gonna work anymore.

JUNO: Shifted around for what?

RITA: Oldtown, I guess. But anyway, I figured out the way up before I even came down here because you know me, Mista Steel, I’m all for an adventure but as soon as it’s one that might get one’a my three S’s wet, I gotta get in and out. That’s right, my shoes, snacks, and salmon sausage snacks, so—

JUNO: You know a way up?

RITA: I do! Wanna go see? I was hopin’ we’d be able to bring that big puppet I hacked into with us, but it ain’t exactly gonna fit through the manhole. Or up the ladder, which I learned ‘cause at first I had two ways out but then I broke one, you’re never gonna believe how, boss, it was—

JUNO: With the big robot, right. Listen, Rita, I want to hear that whole story, I really do, but can we do it someplace we’re not covered in slime?

RITA: That’s a great idea, boss. This way.

SOUND: SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): (FADING IN) …let’s look at that moment one more time. Opening day at Polaris Park. Moments after Takano’s last employee check-in. The silent, solitary moment in which his departure flipped from an idea to an action.

We can’t know what he was thinking in those moments. And in the end, trying to understand every minute detail of the departed’s psyche tells us more about ourselves, in many ways, than about them. Just ask Lorenzo Vega:

VEGA (FROM COMMS): Jack was… a perfectionist. He’d made so many compromises with his park, had seen his vision so diluted. One can only conclude that the sight of it, his creation so malformed… who wouldn’t leave?

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Or Jocelyn Chen:

CHEN (FROM COMMS): He was a visionary, and that meant he had no idea what he was doing. He could help us up to greatness, but him? His sights were always going to be aimed up about a dozen feet over where he ended up, and he was always going to be bored by whatever he made. Always.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Or Miranda Fairbanks, who wrote in her memoir:

FAIRBANKS ACTOR (FROM COMMS): Humanity needs people like Jack, I think. People who can just see how things should be, without the reality of what they are getting in the way. That’s how progress happens. And so I assume he must have seen the true way forward somewhere other than us… and run towards it.

JUNO: This ladder?

RITA: Mm-hmm.

SOUND: GRUNTS, METAL CLANKING.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): We’ve presented you with theories over these many hours, but we will probably never know why Jack Takano left us behind. The only clue we have is the audio note found in his office, once he was gone. And to conclude our program, we will play it in full.

MUSIC: STARTS (FROM COMMS).

JACK (FROM COMMS): The thing I find most beautiful about Andromeda, in the end, is this: that she can never be satisfied. I wonder now, if Orion’s curse wasn’t really a blessing for our Homeless Hero. He turned her from a protector of one city, to an active force of good the world over.

RITA: (OVERLAPPING WITH THE END OF ABOVE) What’s the holdup, boss?

JUNO: Found the manhole cover.

JACK (FROM COMMS): To find home—

JUNO: (GRUNTS)

SOUND: METAL SCRAPING.

JACK (FROM COMMS): (OVER THE ABOVE) —Andromeda always looks backwards. Polaris. Nostalgia. The paradise left behind. And this works in our stories, when we only show the shining city for a few seconds at a time. But in life, no such place exists.

RITA: Mista Steel?

JACK (FROM COMMS): If it did—

RITA: Mista Steel?

JACK (FROM COMMS): —we would already live there.

JUNO: This… this isn’t Oldtown.

RITA: I’m pretty sure it is, boss. I counted paces an’ everything.

JUNO: No. The map’s right. I’m happy to explain in a minute, Rita, just as soon as I get this cannon out of my face.

THEIA: Remove yourselves. From. The sewer. Help. Is on the way.

JACK (FROM COMMS): But there may yet be such a home. I believe we can find it. But we cannot turn our heads if it is not what we expected, or if we fear what we see when it opens its gates.

RITA: Oh no oh no oh no—

THEIA: Now put your hands up. Please.

JACK (FROM COMMS): Home is not in the past. It can’t be. And that means when we find home, when we find the perfect place we yearn for… I doubt we will even recognize it.

RITA: What is this place? What happened to Oldtown?

JUNO: Says it right there on the sign, Rita.

“Welcome to Newtown: The City of the Future.”

JACK (FROM COMMS): And so now I leave. I go now to seek the true way home, as any hero should. And I urge you to do the same. Or, at least, to accept it when it comes. I look forward to meeting you there. Jack Takano.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

***

SOUND: TRAIN MOVING, MUSIC.

CONDUCTOR: If you’ve enjoyed this tale, please consider donating to The Penumbra on Patreon. Our artists work tirelessly to bring you these stories, and if you have the means, we hope you will support our efforts. Every dollar helps. You can find that page at patreon.com/thepenumbrapodcast. If you support us on Patreon at the $10 level or higher, you’ll receive access to commentary tracks like this one, from actor Matthew Zahnzinger and co-creators Sophie Kaner and Kevin Vibert:

SOUND: TRAIN STOPS, DOOR SLIDES OPEN, RAIN.

SOPHIE: …There’s not anything more to it than it’s like, yeah, well I thought of it, and I’m smart, and how do I know that? Well, ‘cause I’m me, I just know.

KEVIN: Mmhmm.

SOPHIE: And there’s nobody… above him to tell him, y’know. And there’s no way of knowing for sure… what is good.

MATTHEW: Although to that point, and, to get… back on my bandwagon of every commentary complimenting Kevin’s writing, um—

SOPHIE: Could you compliment me a little bit, for once?

MATTHEW: (LAUGHING)

SOPHIE: What is this?!

SOUND: DOOR SLIDES SHUT.

CONDUCTOR: You can also support The Penumbra by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter @thepenumbrapod, following us on Tumblr @thepenumbrapodcast, telling your friends about us, telling your friends to tell their friends about us, and especially by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. Every rating, comment, and kind word spreads our stories further and inspires us to keep creating more and better tales to come.

We would like to give special thanks to all who support us on Patreon, but especially to Minchowski, Camille Blanton, Christine Kim, Rowan Collins, Garrett M, Jay Iannuzzelli, Karin Z-H, Canteloupe, Fiona Parker, Regan, Ko, Kim Zeugin, Atha Lang, Vron, Charlie Spiegel, and Jaimie Gunter for their incredibly generous contributions per episode. Thank you.

Did you know that The Penumbra has merchandise for sale? It’s true! The Penumbra has partnered with DFTBA to bring you the posters, shirts, and pins your heart desires. Just go to dftba.com and search for The Penumbra Podcast.

This tale, Juno Steel and the Long Way Home, was told by the following people: Joshua Ilon as Juno Steel, Matthew Zahnzinger as Jack Takano and Ramses O’Flaherty, Marge Dunn as Hawk Hackett, Bob Mussett as Lorenzo Vega, Melissa Barker as Jocelyn Chen, Allison Choat as the Miranda Fairbanks reader, Sophie Kaner as the Theia and Small Fry, and Kate Jones as Rita.

The Penumbra is created and produced by Sophie Kaner and Kevin Vibert. If you wish to know more about our ever-expanding, infinitely-creative team of artists, musicians, editors, designers, and managers, you can read about them in the show notes of this episode.

I’m afraid this is the end of the line for today, dear Traveler. We hope you will ride with The Penumbra again soon.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

[keepyourpantsongohan]

Ayesha Liveblogs SAO S1

The real question is how no one has arrested this game creator yet 

There are only two types of game players those who create their avatars to look as much like them as possible and those who want to be a pretty princess 

“2,000 people have died so far” well that escalated quickly

Lmao @ Kirito’s group-work anxiety same my guy same

I don’t trust Blue Haired Knight he is hanging back at the rear while everyone else fights 

Well he’s dead now so I suppose it’s irrelevant

I like that Kirito was phased by the fact his partner was a pretty girl for about five seconds before he was calling out battle tactics

Jesus Kirito went from plucky young boy to Edgelord in ten seconds

“Are you talking about suicide?” “That’s not such a bad idea” I mean... u right

I can’t be the only one wondering what’s happening to their bodies while they’re spending literal months in this game unable to eat or defecate

How do u think Kirito’s mum would feel about him sleeping in bed with girls

Kirito made friends and they all died so quickly yikes 

All of Kirito’s decisions are made so abruptly he decided to adopt Silica out of nowhere

Nice to know romance isn’t dead in the virtual reality hellscape

Things are so happy right now I’m sure everything’s about to go terribly fucking awry

Apparently Kirito is a bounty hunter now these time lapses are wild

I can’t believe Asuna is taking Kirito on a date in exchange for letting her nap

Grimlock is a name that screams evil but I’m honestly more suspicious of Yoriko

It seems me being suspicious of someone means they’re immediately going to die lmao

Nope I was correct the first time whoops

“How many times you been married anyway?” Kirito pls 

“I had to kill her while she was still my wife” calm down Othello

Kirito, explaining marriage: “If you marry someone, that means you already like whatever you know about them, doesn’t it? And if you discovered something you didn’t know about them before and fell in love with that too, then that would be awesome?”

Dfghjkfhgkjdhgksd;hf

Lisbeth: Brr it’s cold

Kirito: Well damn Lisbeth I can’t control the weather

But if Asuna has a date and it’s not with Kirito who else are these teens romancing 

“Especially if that someone’s a girl like you, Lis” the biggest recurring trope in this anime is that Kirito is inadvertently romantic 

Lis is such a good friend she sees that Asuna likes Kirito and immediately backs down

“It’s been almost two years since this game of death began” yikes how decrepit must your real body be what about your family what if some of these players have children you are a child

These domestic virtual times are sweet but depressing because their lives are a lie

Sfdjhgdfhgkjh does Asuna’s bodyguard have a titty detector that senses when someone is touching her

“Hey, Klein, still alive huh?” Kirito’s social skill are so great

Lmao @ Kirito punching Klein for trying to hit on Asuna even he seemed surprised by it

I appreciate the plot twist of dual wielding because it’s cool but not like unreasonable within the context of the story

I really do not like that Asuna is basically the prize in this duel 

It’s really zero percent surprising that this event turned to murder so quickly

Literally every choice Kirito makes is so abrupt like I know he likes Asuna but he went from reluctantly joining her guild to kissing her and vowing to stay by her side forever in like a day calm down Romeo 

Gfkhgkjdfhgkfhgkjhfkgj Kirito just wanted to hang but Asuna thought he wanted to bang I’m crying

“And then... we’d get married” I know you’ve been in this game a long time but I feel like you are definitely still minors

This show is the definition of that escalated quickly they decided to get married one minute ago and now they have a house in the woods

“Is he younger than me?!” ASUNA I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU MARRIED HIM WITHOUT KNOWING HIS AGE WHAT IF HE’S 12 AND YOU’RE 17 AND ALSO IF YOU DON’T KNOW HIS AGE WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE BOY YOU JUST MARRIED

They’ve still got separate beds and haven’t seen each other naked but also I don’t know what I expected they’re like 15 

I can’t believe they’ve just adopted a child this is insane they are really embracing the ‘I do what I want’ philosophy

You can never escape the stranglehold of capitalism even in virtual reality

“Your mom’s crazy strong, isn’t she?” they’ve really embraced their roles as Yuhi’s parents huh

“I’d rather trust her and regret it than not trust her and regret it” what a lovely philosophy Kirito

It’s really cute that they’re like this little family and all but also really fucked up and sad because they’re not her parents and who knows if Yuhi’s even real

Oh my goodness their baby is a robot 

“Remember, you’re our child” this is going to be upsetting

Did they just promise to recreate their robot baby christ how do you plan on raising her

“Nice job, honey,” this is so funny he’s so proud of his wife the fish slayer

Finally addressing the reality of their decrepit comatose bodies

I knew we couldn’t trust Captain Cheekbones 

I’ve never heard “I promise I’m gonna end this world” said in such an optimistic tone

Whoa they’re both dead that is not where I thought this was going but I guess they went full Romeo and Juliet huh

Well this plot twist makes a lot more sense also how is no one in this hospital stopping Kazuto from escaping the hospital surely a nurse notice him flatline

Is this intro meant to imply that these guys continue to play MMO games after their extremely traumatic two year comas

How exactly did Kazuto explain his relationship with Asuna to her family

Is Asuna’s father going to marry off his comatose daughter?? Surely there are laws against this 

“If I proposed and she could speak, I’m pretty sure her answer would be no” WHAT THE FUCK 

Kazuto makes it sound like she’s just moving away instead of being married against her will while in a coma 

“In the end your heart belongs to her” Is Suguha in love with Kazuto because even if you’re not siblings you’re still cousins ew pls stop

Robot baby has returned

Kirito does not know the meaning of low profile

I am not okay with this cousin-fucking vibe that’s going on Leafa u need to stop

This dude is a fucking rapist I hate him 

How is Kazuto’s education going I wonder considering he just lost two years of his life 

“Do you feel the same way about him?” Obviously not bc she’s too busy wanting to fuck her cousin

Dickface accidentally giving Asuna hope by confirming that Kirito lives

“Did he.... set you that way?” Leafa is asking if Kirito has a daddy kink

This level of drama and dedication to not letting anyone die must not make sense to someone who does not know he was trapped in a life-or-death game coma

It’s funny to see how quickly Kirito has jumped on the killing train now that there’s no longer a danger of actually killing someone

Although with Asuna there it stands to reason that there is potential to hurt someone because there are still some people whose nervous systems are still tied to the game

I can’t believe that Kirito is delaying stopping his girlfriend’s real-life marriage to deal with in-game politics where are your priorities dude 

Kirito as a news anchor: Violence in video games is ruining this generation

Honestly this boy has never been anything less than 200% Extra a day in his life how does he expect to get Asuna if he is causing a ruckus everywhere he goes

Lmao @ everyone hitting on Kirito while he is lowkey thinking about how he’s married 

I can’t wait for Asuna to murder her forced fiance

“Do I want to be a good sister? Or...” do you want to fuck your cousin? It is the latter and it’s unsettling

“I’m in love with my brother, and that’s something I can’t tell anyone about ever” at least you’ve registered that it’s incest but doesn’t mean it doesn’t give me the heebie jeebies still

Without the context it might just seem like Kazuto and Asuna are a weird couple that calls each other mommy and daddy 

I guess Kirito brought a sword to an arrow fight 

“I can do this on my own,” he said immediately after dying

Leafa tried to give Kirito the Hug of Passionate Restraint but instead gave him the Shoulder Grab of “You’re Making a Poor Decision”

Suguha coming to the realization that her life has twice as much incest as she thought it did

I DON’T KNOW WHO IS MORE UNCOMFORTABLE RN ME OR KAZUTO

“I’m sorry” Don’t apologize Kazuto it’s not your fault your sister/cousin wants to bang you

“Right then and there, I swore to close the gap that had grown between us over the last couple of years” looks like that gap was closed a little too well my guy 

That’s a lot of love confessions in a very short time frame 

What are you apologizing for homie literally all you did was exist and be a good human being 

I fucking hate Sugo he is the worst person alive

I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone assaulted on screen in an anime I feel sick to my stomach

What kind of honourable ass shit is this Kirito just gave his enemy a sword

I guess honour only extends so far when you’re tossing someone’s bisected body into the air to impale them

What the fuck are you gonna kill a teenage boy Sugo 

Well if you’re gonna get stabbed a hospital is the best place for it to happen

THIS IS THE REAL WORLD KAZUTO YOU CAN’T JUST KILL PEOPLE YOU DON’T LIKE 

Kazuto should really get those stab wounds treated

Lmao @ these priorities “well you just woke up from a coma it’s time to meet and make out”

Pretending you have objection to PDA Ms. Let’s Get Married at 16

I like how they all come out of the VR world and they’re all still fuckin nerds

Kirito is such a good big brother to his creepy little sister

[ecotone99]

{TH} Heaven

Whenever my Mom told me not to worry when she died, I never thought too much about it, I always just thought that whenever the time would come, I would be ready or something. But when the day rolled around, it hit me out of nowhere. It was really unexpected since she died of a severe heart attack. I cried whenever I would think about her and there really seemed to be a dark cloud following me around wherever I went. I felt like there was this black hole in my chest that I couldn’t get rid of that, would suck in any kind of happiness that would come my way. Eventually, the funeral came by, it seemed like it breezed by with a lot of apologies.

“I’m so sorry for your loss”

“I'm here for anything you need”

My wife, Andrea helped me through all of the apologies and pain that came with it. Life moved on and I started to learn how to deal with the pain. Weeks went, then months. I came home one day from work when my wife told me to sit down. I didn’t know what to think since she usually is the happiest person that I’d ever met. I was partially expecting her to tell me that she was pregnant or something, but all she could do was cry. I kept asking her what was wrong when she finally blurted it out.

“I'm sick Jack. They found a tumor in my brain. The doctors told me that I only have maybe a month or two left.”

When she said that, it felt like my whole world came crashing down. I didn’t know if I could deal with it again.

“What about removing it?”

“It’s too dangerous to do, they say that it’s on my brain stem and they can’t

Operate.”

It didn’t make any sense. I just lost someone and now I'm going to have to lose another one of the most important people that I have?

“They won’t even try it?”

“If they were to go in and try it, first off it’d be expensive and not even guaranteed that it would work.”

“Let's just try it and see if it works.”

“Jack, I won’t go in and do it. I won’t leave you with all of that debt if it’s not even guaranteed.”

When she said that, it finally hit me what this means. I won’t be able to hear her laugh anymore, see her smile, weird quirks, anything that makes her, her will be gone forever. Then I started to cry. She hugged me which made it feel even worse thinking that in a month or so I won’t ever be able to feel that again.

“What are we gonna do?”

My voice was hoarse from not talking for so long.

“We’ll just have to make the best out everything that we do and make memories while we still can.”

That whole night all we did was spend time together. Watch our favorite movies: Kung Fu Panda, and Transformers. When we woke up in the morning we decided we should probably tell her family and friends. We spent most of the day driving around or on the phone telling everybody. It wasn’t easy since hearing everybody’s reaction solidified it and made it all too real. We ended up going out and picked up some McDonald’s and went back home. Sleeping that night was difficult thinking about it over and over again.

Periodic hospital visits made my life just a drag. It seemed like that was the new thing to think about. I tried to make everything amazing for her and put on a happy face but I feel like she could see through. She seemed happy all things considering, but I could tell sometimes that things weren’t great for her. Then things changed. We both seemingly thought that we won’t have much time left together. There were more genuine smiles, laughter, and hugs. The day that she was put into the hospital was one of the worst days of my life. She had headaches, couldn’t stand and could rarely get out of bed. When she died it felt like it wasn’t real. I'm not going to explain it again but it was a bit worse this time around. Right before she died she told me:

“Y’know these past few weeks have probably been the best of my life, i'm happy to have spent them with you.”

She looked tired and ready to go.

“Andrea, you know this isn’t goodbye, it’s just see you later?”

When she died though, I saw the weirdest thing. There was some black smoke out in the hallway that only I seemed to be able to see. Anyone I asked just said that they didn’t see anything and a few just asked me if I was crazy. Some people I talked to just said that it might be some way of my brain dealing with the death of Andrea but I knew what I saw. It was this black wispy smoke that just sat there. Almost like it was sentient in a way. I didn’t follow it because I wasn’t going to leave yet. When I went home I looked it up on Google but all the things that kept popping up just kept saying the same thing. Ways Your Brain Deals With Stress. I looked through a few articles but nothing helped. I was starting to wonder if I was just imagining it but when I did, Facebook gave me a notification about a post from almost a year ago. It was my post about my Mom’s death. All I could think about was the timing. It was nearly impeccable if you were thinking in a morbid sort of way. My wife died exactly a year after my Mom did. I felt like I should maybe do some research.

I opened a new tab and typed in Black Smoke Death. I was definitely reaching but a part of me thought that there was no way that two of the most important people in my life could die exactly a year apart. Nothing popped up. I wasn’t surprised just figured I should maybe get to bed.

I didn’t talk to people for what felt like maybe months. My friends came over and decided they should probably get me back up and running as a productive member of society. They got me to take a shower, get out of bed and try to get a job as I was fired from my old one because I stopped showing up. I ended up getting a job as a painter just painting the sides of buildings. One day after I got home and took a nap I got a message on my phone. It was my friend Marcus

“Hey Jackson, its Marcus. I-I just don’t know what to do man. Alyssa broke up with me a-and if you could just come over for a bit I just wanna talk to someone for a bit.”

That message was an hour and a half old. My friend Marcus had always had problems with depression and I knew this couldn’t be any good. I decided to take my truck over to his house to see if he was still okay.

Once I got to his apartment, I tried his cell and he wasn’t answering his phone. Fearing the worst, I ran up the stairs and found his apartment then knocked on the door.

“Marcus, it’s Jackson, can you open up the door?’

Nobody answered the door and I didn’t even hear anyone moving around on the inside so I shakily grabbed the keys to his apartment that he gave me a few months ago for playing games in case he was in an important game and didn’t want to get up to interrupt it. He wasn’t in his living room so I walked into his bedroom and that’s when I found it.

He was slumped over in his bed with foam coming out of his mouth. I ran over to see some pills next to his bed and tried to roll him over because that’s what they always say to do in movies so they don’t choke but it seemed like I was too late.

“Marcus! Marcus, wake up, please. Don’t tell me you did something stupid just wake up man.”

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I dialed 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My friend I - I think he overdosed and I don’t know what to do.”

We went through all of the normalities, if that’s what you want to call it because at this point things like this were beginning to feel familiar. He was still breathing but really shallow and seemingly less and less. Ten minutes went by and the paramedics still hadn’t showed up. The next time I checked his pulse and his breathing, there was nothing. My heart sank.

Then something caught my eye. It was something black out in the hallway. I hadn’t closed the door yet since I was in such a hurry. It was the same thing that I saw at the hospital with Andrea. This time, I knew I had to follow it. When I ran out into the hallway, I kept following it until it went into some janitors closet.

When I went in I felt like the thing knew me and knew what I wanted.

“What are you doing this for?”

When I shouted, the smoke thing turned to me but said nothing.

“Why are you hurting these people and all of the people in their lives, and why are you doing this to me?”

The thing just sat there and didn’t move. This made me even more angry. Then the smoke turned around and just dissipated into the wall.

“No!”

Then I ran back to my friends apartment and tried to see if I could do anything but at this point the paramedics were already there. They were doing CPR seeing if they could resuscitate Marcus to no avail. They asked me why I left and I told them seeing my friend dead I couldn’t handle it so went out into the hallway for a second. The cops asked me all of the questions that they normally would and then let me go home.

Once I got home, at this point I just felt so numb and so absolutely crushed. It seemed just unreal. My Mom, My Girlfriend, and now Marcus. Then I got a notification on my phone from Facebook again. Then I realized it had been four months since Andrea’s death and a year and four months since my Mom’s death. Exactly. Same day, just a few months apart. I knew I might be losing it so I decided to try and sleep for the night. It took forever for me to even be able to start to droop to sleep but I finally did.

When I woke up though, I was somewhere different. I was in a cave somewhere that was dark, illuminated only by a few lanterns hanging on the wall. It was extremely hot, the ground almost burning my skin just me laying there. Then that’s when I realized that I was chained to the ground. I looked around the medium sized cave and there was nobody with me.

“Hello?”

When I shouted the sound seemed deafening. The sound reverberated off of the cave walls like daggers coming back at me. Then all of a sudden, something appeared in front of me. The smoke. But this time it spoke.

“Jackson Daniels. Your mom, your wife, and now your best friend. I would say I feel bad but I don’t.”

The way it said this told me that whatever this was meant it and was so confident in the way he said it it sent me into a cower.

“Who are you?”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is where you are.”

“Where am I?

Hearing my voice echo off I could hear how shaky my voice was and it made me try to sound more confident, to no avail.

“You’re in Hell.”

Once the words hit my eardrums my stomach sank, my heart along with it.

“What do you mean, i'm in Hell?”

“Don’t ask me why,everyone’s Hell is different. Some are physical pain, some are mental, et cetera, et cetera, but yours is watching everyone you know and love die over and over again. How charming.”

This thing was taunting me when I just lost my best friend and I don’t even know how I got here.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

I'm guessing my look gave it away.

“This cycle starts every time with your mother dying and ends with your best friend kicking it too, then you’re sent back here for one of us to reset you so you can start all over again with no memory so you can get the full effect.”

Now, things were starting to become clearer. That would explain the smoke.

“So, everyone isn’t actually dead in my real life?”

“Oh yeah, they’re all dead.”

“Is there a way out?”

“Nope. Once you’re here, you’re here for eternity.”

“Who are you?”

What seemed like laughter came from the smoke and made my stomach feel even worse.Things were starting to get darker and darker.

“So i’m in Hell?”

“Your Hell but my Heaven.”

When I got the call that my Mom died, I always thought I would be ready...

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