The first time, she was far away.
Haze was all around then. The She that came first was louder. The other was distant, busy with something known especially to herself. If Homura had paused amidst the rewind, she may have noticed the transfer of dispositions between those girls. She may have cared.
She would not have hesitated.
On the once, twice, Homura paid attention to these things; she was driven by their sanctity. Then it was keep her alive, keep her the same. The alterations were discernable between rifts, however slight – was the river there last time, was the church this far fallen? And yet it could have been even. Were her new eyes faulty?
The cat became the cake. Bows were lost, somewhere in a bed or on a floor that wasn't hers. Spectacles were forgotten in a sudden storm of sand, a frenetic and illogical new beginning. The newfound stone at her hand moved, somehow, in a strange and indefinable way. It had frightened her at first, that initial gaze into the violet, one hand trembling above her woken face, the other fingers clutching at bedsheets, digging a stake to keep her from floating or retching or –
This is what she was. No longer who.
She thought that she would feel herself disappear.
Fading was a common feeling, through elementary and middle and meetings and grievings and, once, on the sidewalk home. When the eyes stayed open, however, she remained as – intact? – as before the turn. She was there, or should have been, or apparently was – the struggle to understand the basic notion of existence plagued and festered upon that deeply-buried, taut string within her. She remembered existing, or pretending to exist; she remembered how Her arms felt around her body when she had tossed the bomb and failed to fall. The thought of breathing then was a sole direction of reassurance. Exist, exist now. You once were living; you're walking now.
The city treated fear as truth.
As if jostled by the motion, the background figure stepped forth to claim the mark that sand had buried. The understudy beamed. It had been jarring, at one time, or two times – many times, if Homura would admit it. But she would not.
Had she left the stage too many times? What changed between then and here, now and there, within those seconds folded over like paper during free time with gluesticks and Valentines, smile through the noise, one second her eyes –
She begged herself to take it in stride. Perhaps a mistake had been made in transfer. Time had follied. The next round would bear revisions; it would be righted. Perhaps next time.
Next time.
Next time.
One more time.
Next time.
The drum beat was messy, then low. Steady, occurring, constant. Breathing was easier while moving. She learned how to walk in heels.
Ahead. Forward. Constant.
A pendulum.
How she hated the uninvited.
The place beside Her was hers. Had been. Would be –
would have been?
The place was her.
But something was lost – many things, in the shape of one whole, as a collage. Mosaic. She could not remember what it had been. Time repeated. Walking through walking halls. Shooting through frozen galleries.
Again and again.
Forward.
Once more with feeling.
It was Her that she had lost.
How much sand had been poured into the vase? Surely a quantity had been lost in translation. Did stray grains ever reach her hand? Would they ever find Her again?
She didn't know where to look anymore.
Someone had been dying, many times, and as they fell more came to join them. They all bore the face, that diamond, their air of invisibility. It belonged to them. It became them.
And then they wanted it gone.
Can one kill the void?
One can try, they promised, and fell back into formation.
Just one more time.
This one with the diamond on her hand no longer wished to die. This had already happened, in succession. It had claimed the place of invisibility – had given more than anonymity ever had, even before the start.
A lack of feeling.
The sky was always murky when the laughter rang loudest, storm clouds a decorated theatre ceiling. She had landed here, many times, under the building, the second tower to the right, always caught in some illogical wind of pixie dust mechanics, and each time that she made a promise to forgive the screeching in her leg, she had forgotten how to do so. The blood had no taste.
Fading again. One more time.
Hands.
Throughout all repetitions of this instance, she had only felt Her hands once before. The time when hastiness broke free of its chains and bit at necks. When Her unprocessed words were too easy for strict gods. A plea in favor of greed.
So Her hands left her own. Slipping away. The diamond's closing throat had been neglected for too long to provide proper refusal.
Homura did not stay there. Later, when Her hands had returned to her own, she vaguely wondered how She had died in that place, in that instance. Her wish would be granted, as each time proved. Yet the other palm of the scale could not have held fruit for Her. It never had, for any of them. But perhaps that time, in that instance...
It was gone.
Here She was.
The words were far away. A gleam. The world folded in – colors and shapes and crayon drawings tearing and streaming into obscurity – and then the universe. She lay, not lying, not floating, not existing – waiting?
No. Not anything.
If she could know, she knew that Time did not exist here.
And she at once felt peace, or something very like it.
Another world took it down. And then a universe.
Colors and shapes. Feeling.
She was real.
Feeling.
Hands. Before, at any time, the hands were never real. They could not have been real. But now was not a time, and sensation was no concept. And yet Her hands held her own.
The She before her was not the same. She did not exist before; now she had existed always, and will exist – the last time.
She was not the same.
There was no buzzing in her head. There was no head to hear it.
Nothing.
This She was not the same.
But She promised, just as she had.
So one time at last yawned before her. The only time left. Had this been glass-blown with sand as it escaped from the vase? Colors became colors and shape reassembled and all was the same; different, very different.
The imposter was gone from the stage, having no stolen mark to hold. Homura, one day, would consider with shaking breath, that She knew. She knows. The stand-in would not have lived. Not with this memory.
One Time survived. The diamond had saved Her, and so She let it keep breathing. The drum weighing on Homura's shoulders was different now – lighter in some way.
Emptier.
Welcome to the universe.
She could no longer feel. She had died too many times.
But she lived. Onwards. The pendulum in motion. Constant. Perpetual.
Homura grew to despise this curse.
Why had sand, this precious dust, been molded into a world such as this, the revolting phony showcase? Had cruel gods interfered, had the lost thing been unearthed, had sensation mutated and erred, would blood from that Night break its many dams and drown her from the sky at once where it could find her –
No.
Grace for salvation. Applause. A standing, moving ovation.
Smile for Her. Thank Her every moment.
No.
No She that she knew, She who cried, She with arms that held bodies, would have burdened her in such a way. Those Hands and that feeling were wrong – surreal, in their abstract and repulsive façade. An unwelcome performance.
That She was not the same. Homura remembered.
The glass was to be broken.
Final act.
The survivors, only mannequins, dropped dead once more. No more magic.
Breathing faded. Sands would return to cover the shattered showcase, still beaming falsely, ceaselessly – towards her only, broken chains from the front row, having been upgraded from an incidental. An aria. Unneeded, the still faces and cheap props would stain and rot through their cores. Time would wet the ashes.
Spotlights on.
Until She was right.
One more time.
Until she was right.