What's mine is mine, and what's not is not. There: disclaimed.
What I Bargained For
Part Twelve: Uncertainty
Uncertainty is killing me
And I'm certainly not asleep
Maybe I've gone far too deep
Maybe I'm just far too weak
And that's the last place I want to be
The last place
And there is so much we don't know
So we love and we hope that it holds
Thousands were lost maybe more
The question remains, what is this for?
Maybe it came unexpected
Maybe I'm left unprotected
And that's the last place I want to be
The last place
And there is so much we don't know
So we love and we hope that it holds
And either we say or we show
So I'm going to fight for my own
I'm holding on until the last
I'm holding on until there's nothing left
I'm holding on until the last
I'm holding on until there's nothing left
The Fray
'Finally…' I thought, while the others were fixed in place from the silence that comes with a moment of discovery, of revelation. All eyes were fixed on the pale, skinny boy with long, dark hair, the wild eyes, and the wide smile.
'At last, the other shoe has dropped.'
From this point on, there's no going back, not that there ever was before; but now—now things would start happening, and fast. The initial shock of silence was passing, the moment bursting like a tension-plucked bubble. Al then asked Mason if this boy was someone he'd sent to mess with them, and of course Mason denied, which sparked an argument about the harsh treatment of the boys on the island years before – until an irate Izumi shut them down, returning their attention to the matter at hand. But as she approached the boy, a bloody cough erupted forth, frightening the child. I had a flash of recollection -
'This is where he—should I stop Edward from-?'
But before I had even finished my thought, Wrath had fused the stone to his hand, eliciting disbelief from Ed, who rushed toward the child. I sighed, waiting out the ensuing scuffle as best I could without showing too much impatience, trying to channel it into a look of confusion and anxiety. Feigning the anxiety wasn't hard, by the way.
In the end, Izumi deflected Ed from the boy, wrapping him in her coat, speaking with gentle, comforting words while Edward stood by uneasily.
Needless to say, the boat ride back was unnerving.
Back again at the Curtis residence, my foremost concern – you know, beyond the recent arrival of a soon-to-be unstable homunculus/plot point – was finding Hope. As it was, my worries that she'd lost her fuzzy little kitten mind and started talking to everyone were unfounded. However…
"I simply cannot BELIEVE that you would leave me here for an entire MONTH!" Hope raged in the private confines of our bedroom at me. "How degrading, how infuriating, this was to be left here with these people--!"
"Oh, come on they're not that bad…" I interjected mildly. I was sitting on the floor, my back against the side of the bed while Hope sat upon it by my left shoulder.
"—whilst my charge, whom I'm bound by unbreakable vows to protect, went off gallivanting with some diminutive boy and his tin-can compatriot!" Hope continued.
I imagined Edward sneezing at Hope's mention of him and chuckled. "This is not a laughing matter, 'Clarissa,'" Hope sneered thickly at my pseudonym, and all my humor dried up. "Why you even insisted on being in this place and meddling with the affairs of these people is beyond me, and it is not my place to tell you how you use your gifts or spend your time, but all I see in this endeavour are foolishness and pride."
Ouch; Hope was really going for the throat this time. Her words cut me deeply; it was true - and the truth really does hurt. I had no right to be here and mess things up, and the only thing that was stopping me from leaving with my tail between my legs was stubbornness.
I sat down weakly on the bed, deflated. "You're right," I told her quietly.
Hope's demeanor changed, softened. Her ancient, wise eyes grew sad. "Of course, I'm right: I have the wisdom of thousands of years in my undying soul. You, however, are at a disadvantage, needing to learn everything as you go along, stumbling about over your mistakes when you make them." She sighed; it carried a relenting tone. "But, perhaps you need this… journey of self-discovery." Hope smiled her cat-smile at me, a hint of slyness curling around her whiskered mouth;but more important were her golden eyes: they glowed with warmth and affection, and with them my mood lifted, ever so slightly.
"Oh my, how sage-like indeed," I replied, tentatively poking fun, lightening the mood; asking for forgiveness.
"And don't you soon forget it, you little hellion!" Hope replied proudly, her nose in the air, and I knew I was forgiven. I smiled and scratched her behind the ears, which she allowed with feigned austerity. Then, something seemed to occur to her. "Speaking of the ill-tempered one and his brother, where are they? I would think you'd be clinging to them like a limpet." Hope said wryly.
"Ha-ha, very funny," I replied, tweaking her ear, "I can't monopolize all of their time, don't you know?"
"What is the meaning of that strange child downstairs?" Hope asked suddenly, a cold edge to her tone, "he smells like the ones who injured you."
I frowned. "Yes, him…" I murmured quietly, as the atmosphere had gone dark. "His is an interesting case… he's Izumi's child, or what remained… it's kind of hard to explain, suffice it to say he's rather 'unique'." My frown deepened, becoming a scowl.
"Well, I do not like the smell of him; I'll be keeping an eye on that one…" Hope laid her ears flat to her head, a hard glint in her yellow eyes.
"I assure you there's no need, Ed'll already be watching him like a hawk," I told her, but Hope was still clearly ill at ease. We fell silent.
After a moment of thought, I proposed: "you know what sucks? Knowing what's going to happen, even if it's something bad, and knowing you shouldn't try to change it because it serves a better purpose in the end."
Hope sighed, exasperated, and rolled her eyes, "by the stars, I never had this kind of trouble with any of your ancestors!"
I couldn't help but laugh at her reply, which earned me a quick 'whap!' of her paw on my nose, and fell silent.
"I think I'm going to turn in early tonight, I can't wait to sleep on a real bed after a month of sleeping on the ground!" I proclaimed, and I was genuinely excited; nothing quite like some hardcore camping to make you appreciate the amenities you have. Hope grumbled something about how obnoxiously long a month was and wandered off to another part of the bed to curl up and nap.
'Though, I expect I'll be staying in a place no better than a dungeon before long, when the Colonel catches up to me, I wonder how soon?'
I was able to ponder this question, among others, for a short while before my stomach began to growl, demanding attention. The fever that was blazing just this morning was down to a low simmer at most, and with its retreat, hunger advanced. At least I knew I could still fend off mundane afflictions relatively easy.
It was deep into the evening with night settling in, and I didn't expect anyone else to be about, so I decided to help myself to some food, and made my way downstairs to the kitchen. Upon entering said kitchen, catching me by surprise, I saw Winry sitting at the table, quietly eating what appeared to be a ham sandwich. To her left was a pitcher of what looked like orange juice, and a glass of the same stuff stood next to her plate.
"Oh—hi, I didn't know anyone else was up." I said, trying to elicit a conversation.
"Hi," Winry replied in a clipped manner, perhaps also caught off guard. Her tone relaxed only slightly as she said, "there's sliced meat in the icebox and bread on the counter, if you want to make a sandwich." Obviously my intent was clear.
"Ah, thanks," I murmured, glancing over at the conspicuous cabinet at the far wall. Unfastening the latch, I opened the door to see the inside was lined with metal. On a metal shelf at the top, was a large rectangular block of ice, keeping items on shelves below it cool. I quickly selected the sliced meat in question, wrapped in brown paper, and shut the icebox door.
'How weird it is to think that in this world people are advanced enough to create artificial limbs unlike anything back in my own reality, and use alchemy, yet they still use things like iceboxes!'
While the meat may have been sliced, the bread that I was about to use was not. I picked up the knife that Winry had employed just minutes before and cut two clumsy portions for myself. The dismal hunks of bread reminded me how much I sorely missed pre-sliced bread. Hastily assembling my meager feast on a plate and restoring the meat to its place in the icebox, I proceeded to rummage about for a glass. Once I was able to find one, I sat down at the table to Winry's right.
"Hey…um, Winry, could you pass the—?" I began, gesturing towards the pitcher.
"Right here," She cut in promptly, taking the pitcher and placing it near my left hand with a stout 'clunk'.
'Oh, I see how it is. This will undoubtedly become a problem…'
"Thanks," I said hesitantly, grasping the handle of the pitcher and pouring the beverage into my glass, then setting it back down lightly.
The atmosphere was so thick you could cut it with a knife; the silence was so imposing I was reluctant to chew too loudly, lest I set off Winry's hair-trigger temper. As it was, the vibes she gave off were nothing close to pleasant. I ate quickly, trying to prepare for a shitstorm that I had a feeling was brewing. Several minutes passed while we ate, and the mood continued to darken—until suddenly, the silence was broken.
"So, what happened on the island?" Winry asked abruptly, trying to feign a casual tone. She was staring into her glass, her hand enclosing it loosely.
"I—wait," I began, taken aback, "what do you mean, 'what happened'?" I glanced over at her, having at first raised, then lowered, my eyebrows.
"Don't play stupid, you know exactly what I mean," Winry shot back. She spoke quietly, but there was barely-contained resentment in her voice.
'Shitstorm ahoy.'
"What…you mean—" I spluttered out, realization fully dawning. I went on the defensive, turning to her indignantly. "Whatever may have 'happened'"—here I used air-quotes to emphasize my derision – "what business is it of yours?"
Upon hearing that, Winry seemed at a loss for words — for only a moment. "Wh—I — He doesn't even know you!" She declared furiously, jumping up from her seat. "You just come out of nowhere, saying all these things, tagging along, we don't even know who you are—why does he trust you?" She finished angrily, practically shouting.
During her tirade, I also had risen to my feet, and my anger seethed within me. "You're afraid he might prefer me over you," I began, my voice dangerously calm, "if he does, what could you possibly do about it? To him you're just 'a friend', a repair girl—like a sister a best," I narrowed my eyes at her. "He doesn't see you the way you want him to."
Winry returned my gaze, glaring angrily back at me. Her hands were clenched in tight fists at her sides, but her lower lip trembled, betraying her distress caused by my words. I could see in her eyes she was scrambling for a cutting response, but I was gearing up to beat her to it in a spectacular fashion.
I prepared to drop my final barb, and began my... closing statement.
"It's his decision to make, no one else's, to choose what he wants — or who." I paused for effect, letting it sink in, gaining momentum before I continued. "No matter what you yearn for, or how much you pine, or beg and plead, if he doesn't want you: he doesn't want you." I stated with finality, feeling a cold, dark emotion well up in me.
The look of pain and sadness, overlaid with shock, that played unbidden across her features was perversely satisfying to see; and for a bare second I appraised my work. A moment after she silently dropped back into her seat, like a puppet whose strings were cut, I picked up my bare plate and empty glass and placed them in the sink. Then, not giving her a second glance, I walked out of the room and left her alone in the kitchen, a hideous smile curled at my lips.
While on my way upstairs, I began to think about what I had just done, and the full force of it struck me, stopped me in my tracks. I was awash in horror, repulsed by my ruthlessness, my enjoyment of Winry's suffering. I choked on my own throat, desperate to apologize, though knowing she'd never accept it, would never forgive me. Hope's words rose in my mind again: 'foolishness and pride' — this was something more sinister.
'What the fuck just happened to me? Oh god, what have I done?'
I wondered how I could at least repair some of the fucking-up I'd done; and then it occurred to me. I closed my eyes, seeing Winry behind my lids, a spot of light wavering with anxiety, and I reached toward her, tentatively, with my mind. Hopefully this wouldn't make things worse, I'd never tried anything of the sort before.
Focusing, I thought to her, 'a dream, the conversation was a dream, you fell asleep at the table, and it never really happened.' I stopped there, not wanting to push my luck or psychically lobotomize her. Once I was fairly certain the suggestion had taken root, I withdrew, and broke off the connection — to be rewarded with a splitting headache. I sucked in air between my teeth, bowing my head into my hands. Momentarily, I felt my nose tickle, and I rubbed at it with the back of my hand, which came away bloody. I stared at the red smear for several seconds, my eyes wide.
"Oh. Well, shit. I better not try that again."
Had it worked? Hopefully. The question now was would she act as if nothing happened and continue to be friendly? Even if she thought it was just a dream, I'd most likely be getting the cold shoulder from then on. Passivity was not Winry's style.
I knew even before my head hit the pillow I wouldn't be able to sleep, owing in part to the still-throbbing headache I'd given myself. All night, I had laid awake, eyes closed to feign slumber, Hope curled at my feet, softly snoring her kitten-snore. How long would she stay a kitten anyway?
It wasn't long before my mind wandered to the tougher questions during the night, needling me, keeping me awake. Not to mention the racket from the commotion Ed, Al, and (the kid who would later be known as) Wrath caused later on, in the middle of the night. I was surprised that Sig and Izumi had enough room for all of us, and for that I was glad — I would be horrified to have to share a room with Winry after everything that had gone on between us. Eventually, I was able to doze off, but my sleep was rife with brief but vivid nightmares.
I awoke the next morning to find that Ed and Al were talking with Izumi about the Homunculi and their experiences with Gate. It was only a matter of time until I came up in the conversation. I was apprehensive of what they would say to her; I didn't need any more people to be suspicious, and have them ask prying questions of me. So, at the time, I thought it best to avoid that particular situation altogether. It was cowardly, I know, but if they sat me down and grilled me, what was I going to say? 'Hey guys, I'm just some sort of freaky-magical-semi-immortal-creature and I come from an alternate reality in which you guys are just fictional creations with which we amuse ourselves; ain't no thang.' I didn't think that would go over well, and I didn't have the heart to lie through my teeth — or risk getting tripped up in my own fabrications, which would just make things worse.
As they talked in the downstairs kitchen, I dressed myself in my black slacks, long-sleeved linen shirt, and ubiquitous black boots; I also attempted to brush my ludicrously long hair, but gave up and tied it back. I decided to leave my coat behind — it's called a 'duster', apparently, like what cowboys would wear, oddly enough — seeing as the weather forecast in Dublith usually hovers between warm and face-meltingly hot. I left behind a note with "taking a walk to get fresh air" or something equally vague scrawled on it and quietly slipped out of the house.
I wasn't planning on wandering too far, seeing as I obviously knew jack shit about the area. After all, it would be in my best interest to stick close to the Curtis' meat shop, lest I get myself into some mess of trouble, though I had a feeling that might be inevitable. Regardless, a lot of pivotal things were about to happen, and I wasn't about to miss out on the action.
I recalled that soon after this conversation with the brothers, Izumi would head to Yock Island, to the site where she attempted to resurrect her stillborn son; and during her absence, Ed and Al would make a 'stunning discovery' about the strange boy that would lead to a chase, his capture, a skirmish at the south military headquarters… yeah, I planned to be around for that. I quietly left the house and headed down the street, appreciatively sucking in the warm fresh air; my mind drifted back to the old problems and worries I'd been harbouring.
The question still remained, however: should I try to interfere and change things, hoping for a better outcome? Or would my meddling simply prove disastrous? I decided to hedge my bets, and try to let things play out as they normally would have, unless an opportunity should arrive where I saw no negative consequence. But even that would be difficult; how could I know if one small little act, good or bad, wouldn't influence the course of events in a catastrophically negative way? Quite simply, I couldn't; not without driving myself insane, and that's the last thing I needed.
My contemplations made me frown, and I found myself wishing things could be simpler. I had wished to be able to just swoop in and save the day, do the whole 'hero' thing – prove I could change things, and to be worth remembering. Maybe those were my motives from the beginning: being tired of a painful, unspectacular life full of toil, anonymity, loneliness, and strangeness; craving adventure and excitement; wishing for a more extraordinary existence than my own paltry reality could provide. Selfishness in its purest form, to be sure; before I even gained full awareness of my… powers, I had altered the reality I lived in. Should I have not done that? What if that was like knocking down a load-bearing wall in order to combine two rooms? What if all the alterations I made threatened the integrity of the 'house' of reality?
Sighing, I sat down on a wooden bench crouched near the mouth of an alley between two buildings. My reflections had carried me around the block and two streets away from the Curtis' residence. The streets were, unsurprisingly, not familiar to me, but I remembered the route I had traveled; luckily I wasn't easily lost, especially with the help of my mind's eye, with which I could simply search for a familiar energy, such as Edward or Hope, and head straight for it. I rested my face in my hands, elbows upon my knees; my fingers covered my eyes, blocking out the light of the approaching noon.
I had told Hope to stay behind before departing, asking her to keep an eye on things at the house during my brief jaunt, and to come get me should anything happen. She'd be able to find me easily, she'd told me, due to being bound to me. The thought of that reminded me how much had changed; not long ago, it was just me, my mother, and loneliness pockmarked with strange happenings. Then the first change: the very fabric of reality was rewoven, and I came face-to-face with unbelievable creatures; I was presented with daunting challenges, and either overcame or bypassed them; I gained incredible power, and used it to further bend reality.
I realized then that I enjoyed this power—craved it, even—this power to do absolutely whatever I wanted. The crippling blow dealt to me at the Gate, having part of my power taken, damaged me in many ways; I needed it back, and short of risking the Gate again, one thing might be able to restore it to me:
"The Philosopher's Stone," I whispered to myself, parting my fingers in front of my eyes to peer out at the world around me.
I saw children dashing playfully down the road; people talking together, others carrying parcels, entering and exiting shops, and every so often a car would clunk down the street and the frequent bicycles would weave about the diverse traffic. The combined result was a relaxed bustle of activity; ordinary people going about their daily lives. Oblivious.
I sighed again, closing my eyes. The Stone brought nothing but trouble; to pursue it for my own gain would be the utmost stupidity. There had to be other, better, ways of regaining my full strength.
'Like catching a lightning bolt, for instance. It was good enough for Edison.' I thought to myself wryly. 'Of course, he wasn't conducting millions of volts intentionally and directly through his body in an attempt to "charge his batteries".'
It was something to consider the next time a lightning storm rolled around. With that, I stood up, dusted myself off, and continued down the street. My musings had refreshed my perspective, and left me feeling surer than I had felt in a while. Of course, my fears and uncertainties were still there, the guilt that would never be washed away completely, but I felt a sort of calm acceptance. A small bud of hope swelled in my chest, tenuous and most surprising of all. I allowed a tiny smile to crawl across my features, but tried to remind myself to not to jump the gun.
'Because often once you think things are about to get better, they come around and bite you in the ass.' I thought to myself soberingly, aiming to maintain perspective.
So I continued on down the street, looking around with fresh eyes; I peered into the shop windows though I had not a Sen in my pocket, drinking in all the sights and sounds of this strange and wonderful world so alike and unalike my own. A trio of children danced around me, playing a game of tag; then, amidst cries of "sowwy, lady!" and bright laughter, they darted away. I smiled, waving to them as they went; I surprised myself in this, as I never before liked children very much, and I had never even been a babysitter. I supposed in small doses at the right time, children weren't so bad.
I continued on with my window-gazing and watching the passers-by until flashes of deep blue caught my eye up ahead. Through the weaving crowd, glimpses of the military's blue uniforms appeared, two of them, worn by men unfamiliar to me. Quickly, I turned to face the window display of a bakery, peering at the conspicuous officers with a sidelong gaze. I sized them up, trying to determine their purpose in wandering the streets of Dublith. It was clearly no idle stroll.
I could see them striding down the street, about a couple hundred feet, occasionally stopping a bystander in the crowd to speak with them, producing a small square of something. I could only assume it was a photograph or drawing for the bystander to examine. I didn't have to watch long to understand what was going on; they were looking for someone, and I'll give you one guess who. Or a few, considering the company I kept.
The two officers had a method of carefully scanning the immediate crowd, then, while stopping someone to interrogate, one of them would interact with their victim while the other stood by and scanned the throng of people; a solid system. Perhaps also of note was that the 'scanner' seemed rather stoic and had a hard expression while the other seemed more... charismatic; their demeanors apparently shaped the structure of their hunting technique.
Perhaps I was watching too long, or was being too still in the teeming, ever-moving crowd, and if I was being smart, I would have surreptitiously turned around and walked away long before; but I didn't. Then, Mr. Serious seemed to look in my direction, gazing for a short moment before bending down near his comrade's ear, upon which I turned and calmly walked around the corner of the bakery down another street. Once out of their line of sight, I peeled down the street and skidded into the narrow alley behind the bakery. Then, making a few turns around corners in a general direction away from the officers, I came upon a set of crates stacked against the back wall of a building.
The bottommost crates were large — four feet high and as many deep, with others of varying sized perched atop them. Seizing this fortuitous and strangely well-timed coincidence, I used my running momentum to jump and haul myself onto the outermost four-foot-high crate. Luckily the top of this was not fully covered, offering me a stepping-place. Even though the total height of the stack was maybe fourteen or fifteen feet, the roof of the building was still over five feet from the top of it, and would normally have been out of my reach.
However, the keyword here is 'normally'. With blood pounding I my ears from the activity and the adrenaline rush of being chased, I clambered to the summit of the mountain, topped with boxes barely a cubic foot in their dimensions. Standing precariously on them at tiptoe, I reached my arms upward, tapped into my power and propelled myself upward, bending gravity around me. I overshot the edge a bit too far, and I landed in a crumpled heap upon the flat roof, aching from the expense. Breathing heavily though not winded, I tried to calm myself as, flat upon the roof, I crept toward the edge. Being careful not to peek conspicuously over the edge, I used my ears and my mind's eye to monitor for the officers' presence.
Sure enough, not a minute later, the unhurried clip of hard boots sounded off the uneven, cobbled ground of the alley, and respectively, their blazing white silhouettes flared up on my mind's eye as they came nearer. Instinctively, I shrank back from the edge as quietly as possible, now painfully aware of how distant the masking bustle of the crowded streets had become. I held my breath as they appeared to slowly comb the alley around the corner, trying to calm my racing heart; my impulse to cut and run was warring with the fear of making myself known; I knew that if I was caught, the consequences would be very real, and possibly deadly. After all, it could've been Fuhrer Bradley that was sending men after me. Locked in place by fear, I forced myself to move, crawling along the roof to the far side; I could 'see' them approaching, rounding the corner. They paused slightly upon seeing the crates, and then drew nearer to them to investigate; I crawled a little faster, lifting my belly to crawl on my forearms and knees, closing in on the far edge of the roof.
'Shiiit…' I swore silently to myself, realizing what they might find. I secretly knew the jig was up. Wishing myself to be silent, I hopped to my feet and dashed to the edge of the roof. I tapped into my power once more, and propelled myself in an unrealistic jump across the twelve-foot gap between the buildings. I landed as discreetly as I could, but I still landed with a faint 'thmp'. I hastened as I 'saw' them discover the dirty scuffmarks of boots upon the crates I had left behind as I'd fled.
I knew they'd be upon the roof shortly, having followed my escape route up the precarious crates. I poured more speed into my stride, abandoning a silent retreat almost entirely. I felt like a bird as I flew on fast feet and leapt from roof to roof, sometimes scaling up the brickwork or stone adornments to the tops of higher buildings. I didn't need to glance behind me to see that the soldiers had scaled the first building swiftly, but stopped suddenly and appeared stymied; I could imagine them in their amazement as they saw my adroit figure skipping and leaping and climbing structures seven buildings away across obstacles they could not tackle even at the peak of their fitness. I felt secure with my lead, confident that with my abilities I would evade them easily.
I became even so brash as to laugh uproariously, exhilarated by the chase and besting my pursuers. It was a premature celebration, I then realized: the two hunkered down, like sprinters waiting for the gun; wild cats coiling before setting upon their prey. They ran across the rooftop, propelling their masculine forms across the initial gap I could not ford without supernatural means. They were in shape, good enough to confront the challenge I presented. They gained momentum, using it to traverse a more circuitous but level route, unable to perform the same acrobatics as I. Using this to my advantage, I chose routes that would pose difficulty for them: buildings with three stories or more, buildings with peaked roofs or spires. I progressed to performing acrobatics that would put the best of circus performers in the world to shame, accomplishing feats no normal person could. Way to be suspicious.
The officers were inexorable; not advancing upon me, though not falling behind by far. However, I could see their stamina begin to flag as they faltered in their strides or slowed in their climbs. Owing to my upernatural source, my strength would not wane too soon, but I could not keep it up forever. The sun was nearing the horizon by then; my afternoon browsing windows long since gone. This cat-and-mouse chase had gone on much too long, hours more than I intended; I could only imagine in horror the consequences this would have.
Reaching the next building, a particularly challenging one at that, I scaled to the zenith of its church-like spire. Grasping at the base of the metal edifice that topped it, my boots were planted against the steep, shingled side. Biting into my nine-roof lead, I stopped a moment to appreciate the view of Dublith from five stories up. Why the hell not, right?
The slanting light was casting a glowing, copper shine to everything it touched, and far off in the distance I could see the lake in which Yock Island stood; Kauroy Lake, I think Izumi once said it was called. I sighed, soaking in the peaceful scenery, so at odds with the desperate chase playing out across the rooftops. Hardly anyone had spared an upward glance to the goings-on above their heads — a few children, a scant person whose head was already inclined and tilted towards the direction of the hunters and the prey — the struggle went largely unnoticed by those preoccupied people going about their business.
My pursuers neared, closing the distance to eight, seven, and then six roofs away. Letting out a shaky breath, I looked down the length of the twenty foot spire, the girth of which expanded with proximity to the base, offering a steep slope until leveling off. Or rather: shaped like a ten-foot ice cream cone upturned upon a cylinder, and after another ten feet straight down it met the peaked roof of the main bulk of the building. I considered staying atop the spire, they couldn't possibly scale it; however, they could just hang around and wait, bide their time until I grew tired — or until they got a ladder. So…
Steeling myself, I spaced my feet evenly to keep my balance, and I let go of the edifice anchoring me. I skid down the sheer, shingled slope, sliding with such speed as to be closer to falling with my feet against a rough surface. As the spire expanded, the degree of the slope lessened and my descent stabilized. Just as I gained my steadiness, the edge of the spire roof slid out from under my feet. But I was prepared for this, and braced myself as I hit the slanted roof of the building midway between the peak and the edge.
Luckily for me, the church had a walled courtyard, the majority of which was a well-cultivated garden, and so I would not be landing on paved streets or stone and cracking my head open. And yet my landing would not be as soft as I'd hoped. As I slid down the pitched roof of the church, the tip of my boot caught the edge and I was sent plummeting at an angle. I landed hard, careenling through a flowerbed. I felt the strings of my body being plucked at as if by a ferocious musician until my body unfurled itself and smacked against the trunk of a tree, my spine and back of my head impacting solidly.
Pain sang along my limbs and through my back, exploding behind my eyes, leaving me blind for too many moments beyond the initial impact. My body throbbing, I fell forward onto my hands and knees, crawling in agony through the grass; and though my eyes were wide open, I could see nothing but darkness. Alarm was rising inside me, despite knowing that blows to the back of the head – where the center for vision was housed in the brain – could cause temporary vision loss. I suspected the thing that kept me from blacking out on impact was the adrenaline. So as I gasped, each breath wracking my body with pain, I tried to quell the panic and waited while my vision slowly returned.
Able to see again, I stumbled to my feet, my whole body aching, and confounding my attempts to assess what was bruised, broken, or sprained. One injury I was able to confirm: the warmth and wetness spreading downward from my ribs to my hip established that my wretched wound inflicted by Envy had ripped open once more. And again, without adrenaline, I would have remained a crumpled, battered figure slumped against a tree; a bird that had collided with a windshield.
With an arm wrapped around me, my hand pressing into the wound to stem the bleeding, I limped toward the stone wall of the courtyard. I was barely able to stitch together the torn edges of the wound and slow the bleeding, too exhausted I was to fully repair it; I was spent and beaten. Now, faced with a solid-stone, six-foot stop sign, I was unable to scale it. I rested my forehead and the palm of my free hand on the rough stone and sighed unevenly, closing my eyes. Surrender.
Then, out of nowhere, footsteps and voices. My breath caught momentarily, and my stomach dropped. I was caught, trapped. Where would they take me and what would they do to me once I got there? Fear and exhaustion made me quiver and twitch in turn, but there was nowhere to run.
"Clarissa Tailor, you are under arrest for –" one of the officers began to speak, but stopped short as I turned to face them. I saw the pallor of Mr. Charmer drain from his face, and he stepped back in shock.
'Ah. It must be the blood; it's all down the side of my body. I must look horrific.'
Then, with all the adrenaline gone, the world blurred around me, darkening, and I collapsed to the ground. 'Why does this keep happening to me? I demand to speak… with the… manager…' I thought indignantly as I slipped into unconsciousness for the umpteenth time. Honestly, it was getting ridiculous.
My last thought was about what would greet me when I woke up. Little did I know at the time, several of my worst fears would be realized.
Well, isn't this quite a surprise, hm? Been a while, boys and girls. Not sure if anyone still cares about this, but it seems I couldn't let this die. Hopefully it won't be another few years before the next one, eh?
