Chapter 20: The truth
Takes place before chapter 19
" Tetris? Tetris it's going to be okay." GoGo said trying to get a response from the poor girl. But gets nothing as they ride the helicopter back to the cafe. Tetris is sitting in one of the seats just avoiding eye contact with everyone.
" Tetris what Hiro said was inexcusable. He shouldn't have said that to you. But he was angry. He didn't mean it." Honey said to her.
" My fault." Tetris muttered.
" Callaghan's escape wasn't your fault. Things got out of hand. You had nothing to do with it." Wasabi said.
" It was all my fault." Tetris muttered as she gets up and starts to shake violently.
" But Tadashi wouldn't want this Tetris. He would want you and your brother to be happy." Fred said. Tetris only shakes her head before tears came out of her eyes.
" How could you say that when he's dead because of me!" Tetris screamed in her head.
This question keeps running through her head. Why was she alive? She's nothing compared to Tadashi. He was amazing and she was useless. She only makes a mess out of everything. She has nothing to offer in life. Absolutely nothing.
" How can you guys even be talking to me." She whispered.
" What are you talking about? You're our friend. We never get angry at you." GoGo said.
" Well you shouldn't. I did this to him. To Hiro. To Cass. To you everyone who loved him! Losing an arm is the least that I deserved!" Tetris angrily said.
GoGo takes her chin and gently makes her look at her in the eye as she said."Tetris listen to me. None of it was your fault."
" Yes it was. I should've stopped him, but I didn't for some reason. It was my fault! He's probably not hurting me as a way to laugh at me because I let him get away with it." She sobbed in front of her brother's friends.
" I don't think so Tetris. Callaghan may have another motive not to hurt you. You must've known why. Try to remember." Honey said to her.
Tetris closes her eyes and tries to think back to that fateful night, but she opens her eyes to find herself stuck in her signature nightmare. She's in the hallway. " I can't. Every time I try I get stuck in this nightmare." She said to the group with her eyes closed. In the dream she points to the door ahead. " That door is going to open and it's going to chase me."
GoGo frowns at her as she said. " Ok a door. Tetris what do you do when this happens?"
" I run away from it."
" And has that been successful?"
She gulps." No" She admitted.
" What has Tadashi taught you and Hiro if either you got stuck?" She asks.
Tetris remembers that one easily. " Look for a new angle." She stated.
" Do it. You can do it. You don't need me to tell you how." She tells her.
Tetris looks down the hall at the door and for the briefest second she shifts her eyes to the left. She realizes what she has been overlooking this whole time.
She starts running again but this time she was running towards the fire door. She turns sharply left before it opens. Her change of direction leads her to another door that was hiding right in front her. She opens the door and it sucks her right in as she flashes back once again, but this time it's different.
That night
" Ah that feels better." Tetris said to herself relieved as she came out of the bathroom wearing her shorts and tank top carrying her heavy dress in one hand.
" Now I have to get Hiro's transmitter, which he forgot, and get out of here." She said to herself as she heads towards the empty stage.
She goes around back and searches for her brother's invention. It was then that she notices Callaghan, with his hands in the power source of the entire building.
" Professor Callaghan?" Tetris said getting his attention. She sees the familiar headband on his own head." What are doing?!"
" Tetris I get out of here if I were you." He growled.
" No! Not until you tell me what's going on!" She demanded dropping the dress.
" Remember when I said Krei cut a lot of corners. He created a machine called Silent Sparrow that could transported people in a second! She was his test pilot. Instead of stopping it when it was having malfunctions, he sent her in without hesitation. I lost her because of Silent Sparrow!" He said angrily before he continued. " I'm taking avengence. I won't let him get away with what he did! He's responsible for taking everything away from me!"
" This isn't right! Please! You don't have to do this!" Tetris said trying to talk sense into the man, but he just shook his head.
" I'm sorry Tetris but that's going to happen." He said. He then pulls a switch by the power box and immediately sparks explode in the ceiling of the building causing a fire to start.
Everybody starts screaming and running out of the building as the fire spreads fast.
" Get out of here before you regret it!" Callaghan demands .
" No! Please listen to me!" Tetris begged before she sees a beam falls from the ceiling about to crush an oblivious Callaghan. She runs towards him and shoves him out of the way before she lands on the floor with beam landing on her right arm.
She screams in pain as feels the beam severing her arm. It's horrible. It's like a million knives stabbing her upper arm. She no longer feels her own hand.
Callaghan gets up and looks Tetris in the eye as she cries in pain. His own eyes widen as he surges forward to Tetris.
" Abby!" He screams at her in horror. That's not Tetris' name but she doesn't care. He grabs the beam and with all of his strength he manages to barely get the heavy beam off her.
She just lays there screaming as he rolls her on to her back. He rips off his vest and tightly binds it to her severed arm to stop the bleeding.
She then feels him pull her on to shaking feet. It's pure luck that she's able to stand. She wants to collapse, but Callaghan said," Get out of here now! Go!"
She walks slowly towards the exit, determined now to leave. The fire was surrounding her wanting to kill her. Blood was dripping from her arm. Her vision was getting blurry being flooded with red. But she's refuses to give up.
By the time she was halfway across the building. She saw Tadashi looking frantic. He appears to be looking for something. She smiles widely at seeing her brother. She was dying, but she was happy to see her brother.
" Tetris!" He screamed seeing her as runs towards her.
It was then that the flashback ended and she opens her eyes to find herself back on the helicopter with the group staring at her. GoGo still gripping her shoulders.
" Callaghan saved me." Tetris muttered. "This whole time I was alive because of Callaghan. He pull the beam off of me and fashioned a tourniquet out of his vest. He pulled me to my feet and I walked almost out of the burning building where Tadashi found me. Callaghan started the fire, but he's the reason why I'm alive."
" No Tetris. You're alive because of your determination to live. Even if he got the beam off of you, you would have still died if you hadn't tried to get out of the building. Your strong will saved yourself as much as Callaghan pulled the beam off of you. This is who you are Tetris." GoGo said.
" But he took my place. He had an opportunity to live and he gave it away to me. Why? I have nothing to offer." Tetris said looking down now remembering her near death experience.
" Tetris you know why. He loved you so much not to let you die. You said you have nothing to offer. That's not true. You have so much to offer." Honey said.
" I just hope Hiro will forgive me." Tetris said before she sees the cafe in sight from the window of the helicopter.
Pretty shocking. From the very start, I knew that was how I wanted this story to go. I wanted to put Tetris in this complicated position. Tadashi's dead because of Callaghan, but Tetris is mostly alive because of him. Now she has to decide whether she should be grateful for her life or be hurt by this knowledge. What's her twin going to think when she tells him? Find out next chapter.
I'm going to try to finish my other story, Unknown Child, so don't be surprise if you might not get an update for this story for a bit. I just prefer to finish an earlier story first and Unknown Child is overdue for an update. I'm just going to warn you guys about that.
Please review and PM me on ideas for the one shots.