1/

I'm dreaming again. I was in a car, watching the scenery drift pass by me. I just watched, without moving. I talked a lot with the woman in the front seat, driving the car. I don't remember what we talked about. I remember so many rambling, meanigless scenes, but I can't remember this, no matter how many times I reach out for it.

Even if I could remember it, it wouldn't change anything. Things would still be as they were now. But, at least it would have been less painful. I would have at least remember the last moments we had together. Accidents were accidents because they weren't expected to happen. It was normal day, and there was no reason for it to be anything else. But not remembering that time, what they talked about, what I felt made me think I drifted past throught our last day together as I drifted pass the familiar scenery in the car.

It happened in a instant. Not even she had seen it coming. A huge sound of impact, like a explosion. The swinging car, myself shaking back and forth held in place only by the seatbelt, and the heavy crash which seemed to have took her away from the world. After the impact only a vague sense of terror had been squeezing my heart, like keeping my emotions in place, but it was like the crash had broke that barrier and everything came flooding out. I cried and trembled. I heard her moans of pain coming from somewhere that seemed far, far away.

Mom.

I called out to the pain wracked woman, who was not even able to move and could only moan in pain. I called out to her desesperantlyfrom the bottom of my heart, because I believed that she would come from me and could take all my pain away. I could only believe that, because I was hurt and scared and I couldn't really understand what was going on. She didn't come, of course.

Then, something like

a fragmented dream.

I unhooked the seatbelt and crawled towards her. Throught my tears, the word looked like a unesteady illusion and I myself was the only source of definitive reality. The sharp headache made me felt like I was floating. I crawled to her, and when I finally got a good look at her my mind came to a grinding halt.

"Go away."

I do remember her telling me that.

"D-don't look."

I also remember her begging me for that. However, I didn't listen. Something had already happened to my eyes by then, but in my state of shock, I was only vaguely aware of it and it didn't event enter my consideration. She looked bad. She looked so bad even a small child could finally let herself understand how the situation was. Her pale face, the blood dripping from her mouth her gasps on pain and her light trembling. Also, her body was filled with black lines and there was a black point in her chest which was already fading away.

I didn't understand dead, and I couldn't even put words to it… but when I saw it, I understood she was going to die and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

I don't really remember what happened right after. I guess somebody called the ambulance. They got us inside, in the same one. She was begging in a weak voice to let them stay with me, to not take them away. So they put them in the same one. I was not bad, so they could afford to do that. And I wanted to be there, too, even though I didn't want to do it. Because I couldn't leave her. Some part of me insisted that if I left she was going to fade away and never return, and that she couldn't dissapear like that, as if by magic, if I was looking.

I sat there, my hands grasping one of her weaks hands, and crying. She looked at me with those numb eyes whose light had already fading, and a soft smile like having me there was everything she needed. On the way to the hospital, she closed her eyes. I thought she had drifted off to sleep because of the pain and fatigue, but not. She had died. Her outside was not so bad, all things considered, but her internal injuries hadn't even let her last to reach the hospital. The black point and those lines had faded. Even with that in front of my eyes, even with the innate understanding I had about it, my whole self refused to believe what had happened in front of my eyes.

Some doctor separated me from the corpse, and said sweet, empty words in a clumsy attempt to calm me down. That just made me confused. That they had took my hand away from mother was strange, when they had let me do so before. That a adult was speaking to me in such a soft, awkard tone was strange, because there was nothing to speak like that about. After all, she was only dead/asleep.

That was the story of how I, Taylor Hebert, lost my mother at a very young age. It's also the story of how I became a Parahuman, a being not super humans but beyond human limits and reasons weilding powers beyond humanity's understanding. Many children dreamed of becoming one. And many adults, too. To me, it was nothing but a curse. For how I had gained it, and for what I had gained.

Being able to see the death of things meants also being close to death, to the world's uncertainty and fragility. It was to know that I would unravel everything, with my very own hands. Objects, things and… yes, I have never tried but, surely, people too. It was sickening. At that time I could hardly felt anything, so I didn't really affect me, but after that, after the confusion and pain and the tears, I was left with bitter memories and unrealized hopes and with death which envoloped me like it had a physical weight and I began to understand what I had been sattled with.

When we reached the hospital, they took my mother's corpse to the morgue and I was sat outside to wait for father. I just sat with my hands clenching the helt of my skirt, my head down and my vision clouded with tears, wondering, wondering even though I knew, why they didn't let me see my mother anymore and when was father going to arrive.

Some nurse came to awkardly ask me if I needed anything. I answered that I wanted to see my mom, but they couldn't let me. The nurse felt silent, went away and came back with… some sweet. I took it and ate it even though I was not angry, even though everytime I tasted them it felt like I was about to vomit, because I was always taught to be a good girl and it would have been bad to refuse the nurse's kidness. If I did that, when mother came back she was going to be mad with me and that would have been bad.

Really, how stupid…

Father came. I could see his shadow beyond the doors of the room, but I didn't heard as they told him that his wife was dead. He came into the room, and, when he saw me, he started crying. I saw him crying and his pain filled face made me felt horrible, so I started crying too and we hugged each other. Also… that pain in his face was like a confirmation, so I couldn't lie to myself anymore and it came crashing down on me.

Mother was dead.

Mother wouldn't come back anymore.

Everything after that were only formalities. The due the living had to the dead. Mourning, the preparations for the funeral, anger and pain, trying to dealt with the fact that she was not going to be there. Dull days when I felt like I was floating, and they drifted pass me without staying with me. I remember something vividly, though. I remember looking down at the casket where she had been buried. She looked… beatiful, that was the right word for it. She smelled so nice, and there was no trace of the pain and the blood that stained her on that day, also she, really, she looked even more beatiful that she had been in life. It reminded me of a well made doll, or a delicate piece of glasswork. What the living wanted from the dead. Some formalities to try to keep alive the image of those who had departed in their hearts.

It made me felt sick down to my very bones, and even now that was engraved on my heart.

It was painful. It was hard to even keep on living, even though I didn't want to die, either. I had lose something. It was painful because I understood that what was lost wouldn't never return and there couldn't be a replacemente for another. So what was left in my life was a empty spot and the bitterness and pain flowing from it; a unhealeable scar.

Father never recovered from that, and I myself… something broke inside of me that day. Each day was as much work for father as for myself, but while I pretended to keep moving forward, he couldn't even do that. He even forgot to feed me, and it was Emma's father the one who had to give him a woke up call. Those few days, I went to eat with Emma and I pretend that I was no big dealt and I understood. Some part of me did understand, but another part of me refused to and only held resenment for him for forgetting about me when I needed him the most.

Emma was the one who made him bearable, even if only a little. Yes, her. My best friend. She was beatiful, headstrong, outgoing and everything I never was. Sometimes I could hardly remember how such different people became friends, but we were, and she was there to support me and make me felt normal right from the beginning, even when father wasn't.

Really, I didn't know what would have happened if Emma hadn't been there…

I woke up. I could felt the strong sunlight and the wind on my face. I slowly opened my eyes, letting them adjust to the light. I felt groggry and tired, like I hadn't sleep. No wonder, with a dream like that. The memory I most wanted to forget often came back to me in my dreams.

I threw the memory away, like I usually did every morning. Then, I started my morning routine. I told myself why I had to get out of the bed, why I couldn't stay like this, why I couldn't give up on living. I remembered the people that loved me and would be devasted to see me go, I remembered my own pain at losing my mother and I imagened them twisted by that pain, the scar that would left in their hearts. I spend a few minutes like that until I finally gathered the streght to get up of bed. Usually I could forget those things eventually, with Emma or with something else, but in the mornings, with everything fresh in my mind, it was too hard to do anything and I had to drag my body the whole way.

When I went down, I found my father in the kitchen, talking on the phone. I waved at him and he waved back. I didn't say anything, because it was probably somebody from the Dockworker's Association and I didn't want to brother him. I went to make myself a decent breakfast.

"So what's up, Alan?" Dad said. "It's rare for you call this early."

Oh, so it was Alan, Emma's father. I wondered what he wanted. Maybe to invite us to a barbacue or something. That would be nice.

"...What's wrong?" Dad muttered, worried, so I couldn't heard him. But I did. My heart starting beating rapidly, and I told myself it wouldn't happen again, wouldn't happen, wouldn't happen… "Why are you crying? Emma… God."

As soon as I heard her name right after that ominous sentence, the desapair alone almost killed me.

"We will be there. I… I'm sorry..." a few seconds after, he hanged up and turned to me. I got a good look at his face, and his stricken expression made me see him as he had been back then, looking at me at the morgue so many years ago and I… I got a dizzy, and I worried I could faint.

No her, no her, no her, no her, damn, damn, damn, why did it have to be her of all people?! I tried to control my breathing and my heart beat that was as loud as a explosion.

"Sweetie, calm down, she's not dead, just… there was accident, she's fine, she's going to live but it was… I tell you on the way to the hospital, okay?"

I nodded dumbly. The emotions raging around within me were releasedl like a flood, and I started crying. I barely was concious of much of what he said. After hearing that first sentence the only feeling filling my empty chest was relieft that she was not dead and I could still stay with her. We hurriedly went to the car. I didn't even change out of my pajamas, no way I was going to waste time for something dumb like that. I wanted to see her and quickly. That was the only thing I wanted. While the car drifted pass the familiar scenery that looked like another world, Dad started telling me the story.

"She… her father and her were cornered in a alley by… some gang thungs, and she went throught a bad experience, but she doesn't have a serious wound and Miss Militia rescued her in time." Dad said. "She was nearly… you know, she..." he shallowed. "I don't even want to say it."

"Raped." I said that word, as if trying to understand it.

"No, not raped, but they were… they told her that they would take one thing away from her, and that she could chose. One eye, her ears, her hair." His grip tightened on the steering wheel. "I felt sick… damn, I shouldn't have even told you this, but… you deserve to know the truth."

"Yeah. Its better this way." I clenched my head in to fists. Inside of my still half-sleep mind unclear thoughts started to drift and began to solidify, as we made our way to the hospital. By the time we reached it, I had made my decision.

She was in the hospital not for her wounds, which were negligible, but for physicological evaluation. After such a horrible accident, it was only natural. I...I had gone throught it, too. Once. Wasn't pretty. My heart ached. I never wanted her to experience something like that and I didn't want her to go throught all those process. Was it really much to ask that Emma could remain happy? Damn, this world. This damned world. No, not the world. The people. The people were the root of the problems. Damn them.

When we came to Emma's room, her downcast look brightened.

"Taylor!" hearing her call my name with such joy made it harder to hold back my tears, but I somehow held steady. Because it was necessary. Because, in things like this, every person needed someone to depend on and if I could hold a strong front in front of her she couldn't depend on me and forget the bitterness and the pain, if only for a little while.

But, damn, it was so painful to see her like this and all the more so now, when I was hugging her, because I could felt her trembling. Even her bright red hair seemed to have lost her usual candence. What was she feeling now, she wondered? She surely was feeling, even now, the cold steel of a knife against her throat or a gun pointid and her and surely, her mind was full of what happened, what could happened. And I couldn't do a damn thing to help her. It was so frustrating, so very frustrating…

"Taylor..." she muttered, her voice muffled against my shirt. And, finally, she broke

down. "I'm so glad you are here… so glad..."

"That's right." I whispered back to her. "I'm here, and I won't ever leave you. We will get throught this together."

She didn't answer. She just started crying harder, and in response, I just held her more tightly.

She eventually calmed down enough to stop crying, and we had a awkard conversation, the two of us. That was the pain of the pieces trying to fit back in to place, the pieces that had lost the shape they should be able to return to. I had made clear that if she wanted to talk to me about it, she would do it, anywhere, anytime. That I would be there to listent no matter what. But she asked me to put it aside, so we put it aside. I could understand. It truly was not healthy to bottel up those kinds of things inside, but now, so soon after the incidet, it would be hard to anybody. So soon, when their body and their mind could still felt the accident…

Dad got called in the middle of it from work, and he excused himself to whoever called him, saying that now was not the time, that he was busy, a emergency and that they could last a day without him. But a few hours later he had to excuse himself due a emergency. I stayed, though. Nothing could move me from here. We talked and talked and then we stopped.

"I'm sorry. I..." Emma yawned. "I'm a little tired, so I want to sleep."

"Don't worry." I replied. "It's fine. I stay here until you fall asleep."

I squeezed the hand that I had been grabbing for most of the conversation. She gave me a soft smile in response, and close her eyes. She didn't take long in falling asleep. It was only natural. With all that happened, it was a wonder she stayed awake from so long. I slowly took my hand away from hers, and then turned to look at Alan, whose eyes were fixed on his little girl. His stare was distant, and I could easily imagine what those tired eyes were really seeing.

"Alan." I called up to him, softly, so as to not wake him. He didn't heard me. "Alan."

I called up to him, a little louder this time. He finally reacted and looked at me.

"Sorry. I… I was lost in my thoughts." he awkardly muttered. "Taylor, I… I haven't said this yet, so thanks. I appreciate it. That you came here, and that you are such a good friend to Emma. I… it hurts to say, but I wouldn't have know how to calm her down like you did. I would have been utterly lost without you."

"It's fine. She's my friend. That's what friends are for." Yes, that was exactly it. What friends were for. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yes, sure. Shoot."

"Which gang did it?"

"...The Merchants." Alan said. "But why do you want to know that?"

I turned away from him and looked back at Emma.

"No reason at all." I answered. I didn't think it was very convicing, but either way, Alan didn't ask me about it. That was just fine by me. I didn't want to let anybody know. I would tell Emma, when the time was right. But I didn't think I could tell anybody else.

These eyes of mine which I have been living with for years, eyes that see death. When I concentrated really hard I could supress those abominable lines and points. I have been surpresing them for all those years, so I wouldn't be able to see death. I promised myself I wouldn't never use them. I will throw those two promises I have keep for years. For the first time, I would release my eyes and weild them in order to kill.

I would punish them for what they did to my best friend.