Hello there guys! This is a small something (might turn into a big something) that I'm working on, I've been really stressed lately and the muse has been crazy lately, I have writer's block on Original Sin, so this is me trying to break a little out of it, because if I can find it in myself to write for this fandom then I might be able to continue the other story soon.
Anyways, hope you enjoy! (trying a new style too btw!)
Alex.
~ Life is not a love song that we like
We're all broken pieces floating by
Life is not a love song, we can try
To fix our broken pieces one at a time ~
- Broken Like Me, lovelytheband.
This is how it goes…
Five Months Ago.
I looked at the gun barrel in front of me, in the snap of a second I felt pain and nothingness, surprise, anger, regret, several emotions went through my head in that split of a second, and then nothing.
I could hear many sounds and I could almost feel colors, yellow meant warmth, blue meant coldness, red felt good, but black felt sinister. I didn't like it when it was black, black was oblivion. I hung on to red and yellow and made it an orange sky, orange had been the new black once.
The constant beeps kept me going, they were familiar, the smells and sensations were not, I couldn't feel a thing, but I could think, muddled thoughts, not all there, but it was something that I could do, I could think in oranges and blues, lilac was welcomed, while black made the beeps increase.
Time was not important, at least I didn't feel like it was, time was a social construct and I was existing outside of societal norms, I just was, there were familiar noises, memories of silver but no silver linings. Time kept passing and things cleared out.
My lungs were breathing.
In and out, in and out, in an out.
Breathing.
The air was cold and crisp, artificial, breathable, clean, too clean. There was something missing but I couldn't feel anything else, just me.
Then it slowly filtered back, a name. Alexandra, Alex, Al, Aly, Lexi. I didn't like Lexi much, special occasions, yes, Lexi was a special occasion. Indulgent smiles, warm hugs and love, pure unadulterated love. Memories of a childhood soon followed, how Alexandra became Lexi became Aly became Al became Alex. Alex, it made sense to my thoughts, I was Alex, Alex was me.
Pain, pain had started in lieu of blue, instead of the numbness that blue provided pain became a shade of red, vibrant, pain. I didn't like pain, but it was there, holding me back, holding me awake, away from the dreams of silver, explosions and more pain.
So much pain, then nothingness again.
And again.
Once more.
Until.
Just then.
Remembrance.
Fucking finally.
I gasped hard, pushing my body to its limits until I was finally sitting. Wires were covering me, an oxygen mask was covering half of my face and a nurse was quick to run into my room? space? What the actual everliving fuck was going on?
"Miss!" the nurse said, voice full of anxiety, "You shouldn't be sitting"
"What's going on?" I asked, my voice was raspy and my throat hurt, I wanted water, needed it.
The nurse kept staring at me, surprise in her eyes, I keep looking at her confused, she ran off the space and I was left sitting on the hospital bed. By the look of things around me I was in the ICU, there was a heart monitor next to me and an oxygen tank.
I counted one hundred and twenty beeps before the nurse returned followed by two doctors, they looked at me with surprise in their eyes.
"Miss" asked one of them warily "Do you know where you are?"
I furrowed my eyebrows and thought about before answering, "A hospital?" I said tentatively, the doctors exchanged glances.
"Miss, you're in the ICU of the NYU Langone Hospital" the older doctor said and I frowned, New York? What was I doing in New York?
"Uh, Doctor" I squinted to read his name on his robe, "Doctor Johnson, if you'd be so kind to tell me how I, uh, well, why am I in New York?"
Of course Dr. Johnson and Dr. Preston couldn't really tell me, what followed were three days of testing, because I had apparently been in a very bad shape. I had been shot in the head, or at least that was the last thing I remembered, but my head was fine, no bandages nor entry wounds, so either the meds were confusing me, or this was some sort of ruse.
The Doctors asked me about my life, I answered as best as I could, my name was Alexandra Black, born in London, raised in Spain then moved to Miami along with my entire family. My father's name was Alexander, my mom's Rose, Alexander and Rose Black, I had a brother, younger, jealous, kind of an asshole brother, Jacques, Jacques Black, he had been named after my maternal Grandfather, Jacques Foundier, a frenchman who had married Leonor Gouveia from Portugal.
It seemed to please the doctors that I knew, but I heard their whispers, I was far from stupid, whatever had happened to me, nobody thought that I was going to make it, or at least not to 100%. To be honest, I felt fine, the pain had faded and even though I had some bruises, I felt fine, I had felt worse when I had started working back when I had been nineteen.
It was five days after waking up that half of my world shattered.
"Say what again?" I asked shakily.
"We're very sorry Miss Black" the psychologist apologized, I could feel the tears forming in my eyes.
"My, I…" I gasped for air as I tried to get my thoughts in order, "They were home, I was there with them, I…" and then the kicking and screaming came.
My family, my entire family dead at sea, it made no sense, but I had seen the pictures, recognized the bodies, Mom, Dad, Aunt Chrissy, my cousins, Jacques, even little Lottie and baby Marcus, all dead. I couldn't grasp it, my family, my everything dead, and me alive, alone in the world. I couldn't, I just wasn't ready to face an entire life without my family next to me.
A dysfunctional cruise ship, many bodies recovered, not all alive, I had been a survivor… and yet, it didn't make sense.
My mother Rose Black would have never gotten on a cruise ship willingly, and my dad knew not to push her boundaries. But here it seemed to be something we did yearly, yearly family cruises. I flipped the page of the photo album that my lawyer had gotten me. I had been moved to a private room and the family lawyer, a man that I had never seen in my life, but that claimed to know me, visited me.
Elian Denvers, the name rung no bells, but he had been carrying one of my family's photo albums for me to see. He appeared in some of those, next to my dad, and in some next to me and my mom. I had been squinting at him, trying to find something familiar about this man, but there was nothing, nothing but photographs of memories that didn't add up to the life I remembered.
The other half of my life was cracked when I saw Elian's phone and asked why he didn't have a better model, he looked at me confused and told me that it was the latest phone on the market. I had frowned at him, his phone was a Blackberry Storm, apparently the latest thing on the market. He showed me a few of the specs and then I finally saw the date on his phone.
January 15th, 2009.
2009.
2009.
I couldn't stress the year enough, because I'm sure that in 2009 I had been a High School brat, probably a freshman or Junior, I couldn't remember exactly, but I knew that I hadn't been twenty six in 2009.
Three Months Ago.
Getting out of the hospital two months ago had been a hazy experience, I was in 2009, my family was dead and apparently I was now the sole owner of everything my very expansive family had owned. I couldn't care less for the fact that I was filthy rich, I wanted my fucking family back, all of them. But life was a fucking joke.
After Elian had explained everything to me, and had told me that he and his family were going to be there for me back in Florida should I ever needed something was touching. But honestly, I wanted nothing to do with a bunch of strangers. I had almost drowned at sea, I had been one of the few survivors of that fucking cruise, my family was dead, or at least a version of my family was dead.
It had to be, I had somehow time travelled, dimension travelled, I had died and had been reborn into some poor Alexandra's life, because even if everyone looked the same in the pictures, many things were just different. Which probably meant that my family was perfectly fine and I had died, back home, back where I belonged and not in this creepy ass place.
I sold all the Florida properties, that had been my first step, family belongings had gone into storage, and all houses sold. Then I rented myself a one bedroom apartment near central park, it was a lovely thing with a terrace and a balcony. I even bought myself an iPhone 3GS if only to have Elian on speed dial, he was the one after all, dealing with everything back in Florida.
I was not going to Florida, ever, I was not risking meeting up with people who claimed to know me, I couldn't, I couldn't pretend to be this world's Alexandra Black, so staying away was it.
Two Months Ago.
New York was nice, I had adapted, it was all that I needed to do, I had bought myself a samoyed puppy right after renting the apartment, Ghost was my new family, because yes, I still had a sense of humor and Ghost was the best thing to name a samoyed puppy.
But white ball of fluff or not, I was still not 100% okay, and honestly I doubted I was going to be, my world had done a 180, I was a twenty six year old in 2009 when it should have been 2019, ten whole fucking years. I was going to start my mastery in the summer, but damn, straight out of law school and dead and misplaced, life had a horrible sense of humor.
"One sangria please" I told the bartender, the man nodded and turned to prepare my drink, they didn't serve the best sangria, but it was the closest bar open at 10:00am, and it suited my needs just fine.
I closed my eyes as I took a sip of my drink, life was not what it used to be, I didn't have a job anymore, nor the need for one, I had a dog and was in route to alcoholism, all a twenty six. Fantastic, and it was not just the sangria.
I ran my hands through my hair trying to think of something I could do, the sky was a little bit overcast, Ghost was at the groomer's and I had a few hours to kill until I had to pick my fluffy cloud up, hopefully sober.
It was only me and two other guys at the slightly lit bar, I finished my sangria and handed the money to the bartender, leaving a nice tip. I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair and walked outside, zipping it up as I stepped into the sidewalk, I fixed my purse in my hands and started walking without destination.
I lived in a nice place of New York, but New York was still New York, always bustling with people, always busy, the city that never slept indeed. But what happened next in my life was kind of wrong place, awful time kind of thing. Because life was not done with punishing me, oh no, it was just beginning.
My feet pulled me through the city, the warm buzz of alcohol keeping going without a care in the world, but sober enough to actually recognize the place. It was an alley, like the many alleys that littered New York City, this one connected two streets and I was actually trying to get to the other side, perhaps if I had been a couple of minutes later, or maybe if I hadn't stopped at the bar for the sangria I would have been early and not at the same time as him.
One man dressed all in black and wearing a fashionable leather jacket was pinning another guy to a wall, from what I could see kissing or sucking on his neck, I scrunched my nose as I prepared myself to walk by and ignore the weirdo like a good polite New Yorker, of course it wasn't like that, and the leather stud dropped the guy he was holding and turned to me, blood on his mouth, I scrunched my face in disgust.
"I'm not drunk enough for this" I muttered under my breath and that statement seemed to catch the stud's attention.
His expression changed, a grin appearing on his devishly handsome face. If I had been completely sober I would have noticed that there was something extremely wrong with the guy. Or that perhaps he seemed familiar, but no, I was not sober enough to deal with this shit, but I was drunk enough to grumble something to the guy and just keep walking, muttering to myself about weirdoes and the people of New York.