I just want to thank you all for reading this though it is kinda depressing and weird. I'm sorry I haven't uploaded anything in a while, but I actually finished writing this story a couple of days ago, there are still a few more chapters to go after this one but the plot is an absolute disaster.
Listen.
She woke to the tolling of a bell, reminiscing about her funeral. Ethel and Edith were buried side by side, both coffins empty and shut during the ceremony. Mia had sat on the railing of the mezzanine that housed the organ, watching her parents shake with tears and hold each other. Her own emotions had been stumbling over themselves for the past week and eventually collapsed in a desperate pile of mush.
She couldn't remember whether she'd cried, just that she wished Ethel had been sitting beside her. It was the same wish that people felt when the Earl appeared to trick them and she could see right then how fucking perfect the system was.
The light was about the same now as it had been that day – bright and horrific – and the flowers on her bedside reminded her of the ones stacked around the coffins. She looked at them thoughtfully for a while, then sat up on her elbows until her head stopped spinning, inspecting her surroundings further.
It was some sort of hospital room, with thin, pale blue curtains and a floor empty of anything beside the nightstand and the bed. She carefully lowered her head below the frame and found no monsters underneath, not even the dust bunnies she was expecting. Grabbing the flowers, Mia stood and drew the curtains which revealed a wide window facing a row of tall, crumbling terraced houses. Their windows looked black in the sunlight, silent compared to the swarming of carts and people below.
Spotting a messenger, Mia tore the head off one of the flowers, and threw it down into his path. The boy looked up at her and met her gaze, too startled to show any expression before he remembered the message and hurried off. She tore the head off another flower, and another until they were all headless, and chucked the whole bouquet off the window ledge, laughing at how they spun and landed in a flurry of surprise. She was about to reach for the vase of water when the door opened.
"Mia?"
She was still laughing when she turned to face Nathanael. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as she dusted the remaining petals off her hands.
"I'm glad you're okay," he just said, like he'd been expecting to find her pale and cold.
"Dom said I would be, so..."
"Dom?" His face betrayed only a little disgust, the rest was impatience. It was the first time that Mia realized that he didn't agree with her and was therefore an enemy.
"I should have known," he spat out each word then repeated, "I should have known that you weren't on our side. It makes perfect sense – I thought it was an act but you really don't care about the fate of this world."
She shook her head, dissapointment sticking to her throat.
"It's not a place worth caring for," she said, surprised at her own words but growing to like them more and more by the second. She grinned, tipping her head to one side and staring at him as he stared at the window, "thanks for saving my life."
He finally met her eyes at the gratitude and chuckled.
"You think I wouldn't have tried even knowing you're a traitor?"
Maybe it was because of the Christianity that so fundamentally defined him, or the fact that she was a useful tool for the Order, but Mia couldn't find an answer. It was obvious that he was sad that she didn't understand the optimistic ideology, and she was disappointed that he believed in it at all.
"Where are they… the Wizards?" she asked instead.
"Well," he sighed, "this is Dr Severin's hospital. She's working now, but I suspect she will want to know you're awake. As for the others I don't know."
He looked at her questioningly, as if expecting that she was one of them now, then left the room without another word.
"I see you think you've recovered well," Dominique tutted, sitting her down in the nearest chair and signalling for her assistant to fetch tea. "How do you feel?"
"I'm fine," she lied immediately, "same as always. What happened to the others?"
She had ambushed the medic in the reception area, demanding attention with a swoon caused by the short walk down the stairs.
"Please sit back down, will you, and here," she handed her a cup of some horrific brew that was certainly not tea, "drink this first."
Mia made a disgusted face that Dom was not unfamiliar with, then sipped at the drink. It tasted sharp, like ginger.
"After I made sure your heart wouldn't stop, your friend and I took you here. The others escaped to one of the hideouts, in case anyone else from the Order shows up. I imagine that he reported everything."
Dom shifted her eyes away from Mia and Mia felt guilt start gnawing at her soul again.
"Why didn't you wear a mask, Dom? They'll come for you… you need to go and join the others in hiding."
"I will.. maybe. I know you have advised us against it, but joining the Order is an option we are considering. It could help a lot of people."
Mia stood, and the dizziness at the sudden motion was dispelled by frustration growing inside her. Here was another optimist, stupidly expecting her to understand.
"Since when do you give a shit about other people?" Purely by accident, the teacup fell out of her hands and smashed on the floor with a crash that accentuated the silence. Dom didn't even flinch. "The Wizards can't abandon this town," Mia continued, unapologetic, "it needs you. You're… you're a doctor! You're already helping people here. Don't sacrifice your freedom, your life, not for anything."
During the next ten seconds of silence, it became clear that the conversation was finished and Mia had crossed some line that she wasn't aware even existed. Dom cleared her throat officially and gave her a smile.
"It's our choice to make, Mia. You should go home."
It was a thoughtless request, Mia thought, and left Hrebenne on the first train to the United States without looking for Nathanael. As he wasn't considered a friend anymore she was at liberty to shelve him with all other Finders and she did not have to care about Finders. In fact, it was better to just ignore the sacrificial lambs if one could.
Until the rain began to fall, she felt nervous. It was uncertain what would happen to the Wizards now, and she couldn't think of any way to solve this problem short of somehow tracking them down and convincing them to run. She imagined that the Order officials would corner Dom and unsuccessfully attempt to bribe her into joining. They'd talk about how great sacrifices have to be made in order to defeat evil, and Dom would listen to them patiently while her heart screamed 'bullshit!'.
And so they would move on to greater promises, and sprinkle them with threats, until Dom politely eviscerated them with a scalpel and made her own way to the Black Order HQ.
"It's our choice to make, Mia."
The rain began to fall and she felt at peace, because water falling in small drops from the sky was a miracle grander than any worry that could ever bother her. It ruled the window in diagonal dotted lines, casting shadows on the walls of her compartment that could be mistaken for spatters of blood. It made no sound greater than the clanking of the train wheels and she wished wistfully for a way to capture the image of silent raindrops splashing into the blur beneath her window.
As the train approached Calgary, Mia's golem fluttered out of her pocket, hitting her in the face with a wing on its way. She opened her eyes wearily then reached for the creature to shut it down, not surprised in the least that it flapped away like it was programmed to.
Damn scientists.
"Fine," she hissed at it and rubbed her eyes, "if it's a call go ahead and connect."
The audio shimmered with glitches. She couldn't make out who the voice belonged to.
"Hello? Hello?"
The scenery outside unsettled her with it's vastness and sharp edges. There was too much space; the air thinned into a suffocating vacuum and yet humans, when stepping out onto the small train platform, did not implode and die.
She shuddered, then answered, "who is it?"
"Where the hell are you, Exorcist?"
Offended, Mia glared at the golem like it was at fault.
"Who is it?"
"Oh for fuck's sake, it's Nathanael, where are you?"
Mia felt an inexplicable desire to apologise and return to Hrebenne. Shutting down a friendship shouldn't be this hard; they were never meant to be friends in the first place.
"My mission was completed, Finder, I'm on my way to the branch."
It was ridiculous to think that she could be friends with anyone, let alone a person as nice as Nathanael.
Apart from a quiet sigh, Nathanael didn't reply for long enough that she could end the call without being offensive. Stuffing the golem back into her pocket, she looked out of the window again to watch the rain but instead saw the landscape in a yellow filter, bright and spiked with long shadows. The sun was setting on the other side and the light had dug through the clouds.
Mia wanted to see it in all it's glory so she stepped out of her compartment and leaned out of the nearest window to glimpse the disorganised rainbow stripes across the sky to either side of the station building. For a moment the grey and vastness of Calgary were a canvas for light instead of fear.
Mia grabbed her bag without much thinking and hopped off the train, chasing the sky and finding the horizon was a zigzag of mountains. It was like home between winter and spring, when nothing was green or white and the sun had little to reflect.
"Ha!" She heard a screech behind her, and something pushed her from behind. Her knees gave way unexpectedly, but she left her body before it hit the ground. Standing behind her was a level-two Akuma, only partially transformed and pointing a cannon still at the space she had stood in a moment ago.
The stars that appeared on her soul were the same black as the ones on her physical skin, but the virus was already failing. Mia cursed the cross on her chest.
"An Exorcist! Master Earl is going to be so impressed." It spoke French.
There was screaming now, but the area was mostly empty. Because she was crying, Mia couldn't see the sunset anymore and was becoming increasingly lost in the darkness behind her eyelids.
"You wretched, horrible monster," she sobbed, "why do you have to exist!" It couldn't hear her anyway, nobody could.
The demon shifted it's cannon to point at the nearest building, probably hoping there were humans behind the wall. Mia heard the sound and her revolver automatically aimed at it's power source, before shifting the target to its tether. It didn't make sense to her that a soul so tortured would not be begging for death, and so she had to wonder whether it would make a difference whether she killed them or set them free.
With her eyes tightly shut, she pressed her chin into her chest and pulled the trigger until the barrel was empty. In her mind, she remembered what the sunset looked like a minute ago and her smile returned allowing tears to seep through her teeth.
Sunsets, unlike demons, would always continue to occur long after there was no-one on the planet to see them. If something like this was achievable – the awe she felt when the clouds reflected different frequencies of photons – then it was entirely possible that other things of such nature existed as well.