A\N: Holy crap, I am ansty today. Enjoy.
She is alone.
Everything is real. Too real. She has just escaped Venjix, but she can't think of it anymore, all she sees is the playground.
It's empty. The moon hovers in the sky, illuminating it with silver. The play structure is on an island of wooden chips, and the island is surrounded by grass that is frozen in the cold winter air. Beyond the playground are houses and lights, but all Tenaya can see is the bare emptiness of a dead world.
She steps forward.
The grass crunches slightly under her feet. She is cold. Her breathing sounds almost loud to her, and is like a curling cloud of smoke in the air.
She walks to the play structure and lifts herself up, up, onto a plastic roof where she sits, silently perched. The stars are fading out as the clouds come in, but to Tenaya the scene is...is....
She has no words to describe it.
It is death, she realizes suddenly, the absence of life. She's never died, but this is the closest a human--or hybrid--can come to death without a fatal injury.
It's beautiful.
Something touches her cheek. She frowns, and another wet drop touches the back of her hand.
It's snowing.
Suddenly the snow begins to fall even harder. Tenaya sits up. She didn't know there was snow in the Dome, but she supposes that even in the midst of nuclear winter on the rest of Earth there must be some kind of seasons within the Dome. After all, humans live here, and humans need seasons.
She climbs down. Instinct drives her now, rules she never knew surfacing in her head. Silently she begins to walk away, down a familiar path. She knows this city well. Exploring it is her favorite hobby, because there are just so many nooks and crannies.
This particular nook is one she's only been to a handful of times.
The Garage looms in front of her as she turns a corner, and what little of her mind isn't driven by instinct rebels. What am I doing here? It screams. No, no, they're worse than Venjix--
But it's silenced midscream. Instinct knows she cannot survive in this cold anymore.
She must find warmth.
Tenaya climbs up a tree, watching the window in front of her carefully. No one moves within, so she pulls it up and slips inside.
There. Heat. She is warm. She will live.
Slowly the instinct agrees, allowing her to stay put. Her eyes wander, trying to figure out where she is.
Then she sees him.
Dillon.
He calls himself Dillon now. Who knows what he was called in the past, what even she was called? Her memory is as vanished as his.
She steps closer to his bed, watching, waiting, for who knows what. Within her, a demon snarls. Kill him, it whispers. Kill him and reclaim your place with Venjix!
But she is never going back.
Dillon's eyes fly open.
She strikes unthinkingly, her hate and pain becoming too much to stand, and he catches her wrist and twists it up behind her, wrapping her in his arms and smothering her scream of fury with his hand. She writhes angrily against him, striking with anything she can, but he is part machine too, and where her kicks and struggles would stop a normal human cold, Dillon simply holds her as her anger works itself out.
The first tear falls like the first snowflake, almost unnoticed.
Suddenly she is a person again, she is Tenaya, and the tears come pouring down as her brother lets her turn and bury her face in his shoulder. The embrace turns cautious, loving, protective.
"Shh." Dillon says gently. "Shh. It's okay, Tenaya. You're safe now. It's okay."
"Your fault!" She hisses. "You made me remember!"
"Shh."
"Venjix tried to kill me!"
Dillon has no reply, and Tenaya sobs even harder, because she knows now that she and her brother are truly apart. He does not know betrayal.
She is almost defined by it.
"I'm here." Dillon whispers softly.
Tenaya can't stop crying, but she hears him.
"I'm here, Tenaya." Dillon vows. "Always. I'll take care of you now. I'm your brother. I'll protect you. Promise."
"Promise?" Tenaya whispers in reply.
Dillon's hand reaches up to hers, matching her pinky with his. She remembers, in a flutter of good memory, that it was always their promise.
"I promise."
And then she is no longer alone.