Chapter 3: Metamorphosis

January 3, 2011

I could breathe, I could finally breathe. I hastily gulped a lungful of air, more than a little hungry for fresh air after having deprived myself for so long. Immediately afterwards, some primal instinct made me brace, pushing me to shut my mouth and tense. As I waited though, the anticipated rank taste didn't materialize. I held on a second longer before exhaling, feeling slightly less taut.

I still didn't dare open my eyes but I drew in more air, only through my nose this time, worried about the taste even as some part of my brain recognized the irrationality. In and out, in and out, rapid and halting at first but gradually at a more natural pace. It took a while but I finally realized that the horrible stench of rot that should have accompanied the taste wasn't assaulting my senses anymore, it was gone.

I stayed immobile as a sense of tranquility slowly washed over me. it wasn't just the smell or the taste that had vanished, but also the horrible clamor of mocking voices, the stiffness in my limbs, the touch of wet sticky things on my skin, the despair, all of it was gone.

As I breathed and calmed more, I felt my awareness heighten as though I had just woken up. The nervous energy slowly drained away from my body. The world felt just a little less off-kilter. This was accompanied by a vague sense of warmth and cosiness, something perhaps faintly resembling the comfort of a bed, the warmth of a blanket enveloping me. Maybe the light breeze of a spring wind sneaking through an open window to brush against my face.

I felt light, an invisible weight had lifted off of my shoulders. I did not move, still not opening my eyes but this time for much different reasons. It had all been a bad dream, of course it had been. I was already forgetting the details of the nightmare and I had no intention to hold on to them. Whatever the specifics of the dream had been, it felt patently ridiculous now, something horrific, a betrayal by a close friend in a fashion that would never occur in real life.

I took another breath, pushing the dream fully into oblivion. I was fine, everything was fine. More relaxed now, I smiled a little and committed to enjoy my stay in bed as long as I could, it was probably early morning and I had woken up before Mom would rouse me for school, I would be fine if I slept a little longer.

At the thought of school though, I felt a jolt of excitement and trepidation. I didn't quite remember the cause but I could barely contain my emotions. I held it in for a while, trying to go back to sleep, but I was failing spectacularly. I groaned to myself before giggling, it seemed I wasn't going to wait for Mom to wake me up after all. With a contented sigh I opened my eyes and—

The sight took the breath out of my lungs, it was Brockton Bay, for it could be nothing else, all of it right there, it was so alive and beautiful I almost burst into tears. Colors swirled in elegant patterns, blue particles circled yellow pillars encased in white spheres, the spheres coming together to form green constructs forming other shapes which formed other shapes. It went on and on until bricks and roads and buildings emerged, until trees and cars and people materialized, until the world unfolded. I saw the smallest particle of dust and the tallest skyscraper at once. I watched as one shape changed color and now yellow circled green inside blue. I watched as the conversion cascaded through the entirety of the visible world, as the universe pulsed. I watched as the fluctuations repeated again and again with a steady rhythm, blue to yellow to white to green to red. miniscule structures danced with fervor, morphing shape and color, changing haphazardly and yet following a logical and orderly flow.

I stared in awe and wonder, almost impulsively I extended an immaterial finger to one such construct, the one closest to me. I drew back immediately as I felt a tiny jolt of energy. The small pattern I had touched unraveled and collapsed into nothingness as I watched, the surrounding patterns slowly filling in the empty place.

I turned in place, looking at my surroundings even as I stood still, observing the entire city concurrently, patterns were everywhere in different stages of metamorphosis, each tugging on some patterns and expelling others. Curiously, there was a short distance between my physical body and the closest ones.

I giggled a little even as my unmoving mouth emitted no sound. I pushed on the patterns again, harder this time as if I was forcing an entire hand into the mix. A few shapes exploded, sending a pleasant jolt of energy through my body. I felt my unembodied eyes widen as I saw other patterns move to fill up the void faster than before, a few more structures erupted before I dragged my touch away. Moments later, the sea of color calmed.

I grinned, I felt alive, energetic, as if I had been a decrepit diseased creature on the verge of death beforehand, and I had just drunk from the fountain of youth. I wanted more. Closing my eyes, I stepped into the sea, the patterns crashed into me, the world tilted and liquified, changing the direction of the entire ocean as if I was a hole through reality. I felt pure euphoria as I breathed the patterns in and breathed them out. The sea accelerated, patterns unraveled with such speed that my body could not keep up with them, the excess forcibly expelling themselves upwards in the form of new structures.

At some point the input equaled the output, from then on, I was just a purifying machine, a tool belonging to the universe itself, a device to make the world right. The sea was mine and I was the sea's, I was nothing more than a set of swirling colors, standing there at the center of the universe in pure bliss, recycling pattern after pattern, form after form. I might have stood there for a minute or a millennium, time losing its tangibility at the center of the world.

Eventually though, my eyes snapped open as I felt the world truly dip toward me, its entire weight pushing at me, it was too fast, too much, way way too much. I knew then that if I stayed there, I would tear myself apart, dissolve and recycle, I would truly be no more than part of the sea. I did not comprehend the magnitude of the issue, still, the feeling nagged hard enough that with a groan I extricated myself, pushing myself into the clearing—

Reality crashed into me. I fell from the sky. Wind rushed into my face as I toppled, plummeting face-first toward the accelerating ground. I didn't have any time to react before I crashed into the earth, my glasses shattered, sending painful shards of glass into my eyes, my neck produced a nasty snapping sound, my ribs cracked as the rest of my body finally caught up—

I opened my eyes. I was lying on my stomach on wet dirt. I pushed myself up on my hands and sat up, dazed and bewildered.

"What the fuck?" I said out loud.

I looked down and groaned when I saw all of my clothes were irredeemably torn and stained.

I closed my eyes and took a breath before shaking my head, trying to reorder my thoughts. Images of strange colorful shapes rushed into my mind. I frowned but before I had the opportunity to make sense of the thought, I heard a thundering sound of rushing water from somewhere above.

My head snapped up and I felt my eyes widen as I saw an entire ocean of water violently moving toward me, I looked around frantically, trying to find a way out, the ground sloped upward on every side, I was at the bottom of a crater, at the exact center of it in fact—

No no no no no no no

I knew I couldn't afford the distraction, I needed to get out of there before losing myself in my imaginations but I still froze in place, Images still flashed through my mind. The city in all its glory, the pretty fluctuating patterns, Emma, Sophia, Madison, my locker, the school principal, Armsmaster, Vista, Kaiser, Skidmark, the shivering drug addict on the bus, Arcadia, Winslow, the stray dog crossing the street, the Boardwalk, the PRT headquarters, hundreds of thousands of people, our run-down house, the Docks, Dad—

The ocean overran me, shattering every bone in my body by its sheer weight and speed. A moment later I was underwater and whole and healthy, I didn't struggle, I didn't mind, letting the water yank me in whichever direction it pleased. My mind worked slowly as if my skull was filled with viscous fluids. I forgot my surroundings, retreating to my mind. I shattered and came together, broke and fused back again and again, I didn't fight back. I felt numb and insensate, the images cycled back through my mind with more details and then with less details, then they came as they normally appeared to the human eye and afterwards as a composite of patterns and nothing more. They cycled and cycled and burned their path.

I tried to push back on their message, I tried to disbelieve, but the images burned, I was aware of every minute detail of the atrocity, of the euphoric disaster, I pushed back and it didn't matter. I saw people, I met people, I talked to them, I lived with them, I went through entire lives, I died and was reborn again and again.

At some point the people in my mind faded away and all I saw were disgusting needlessly complex constructs of meat, lumbering around pointlessly and purposelessly in their little isolated worlds, doomed to repeat their menial tasks until they malfunctioned and disintegrated. I watched them be born, I watched them live entire lives and I watched them die one by one, having left no mark on the universe around them.

There were moments of lucidity in between, where I saw myself floating away in the liquid, just one more piece of debris, they did not last long.

Then came another set where every man, woman and child was nothing but a predatory cannibalistic monster with a face full of teeth constantly eating at another monster's flesh, yet still thin and starving and forever hungry and refusing to eat anything else as though nothing but pieces of their own kind would suffice for the purpose of sustenance.

Then there were angels, beings of pure light and goodness, forgiving, smiling despite inhabiting a cold uncaring universe, happy, docile, subservient to nonsensical worthless ideals, content to pass through their short existences in ignorance rather than face the truth.

Then there were horned demons putting one another through unspeakable atrocities and laughing in sadistic delight as others screamed in pain and horror until their positions reversed and then they were the ones who cried as others laughed.

And then at last, the people were all too human again, simple mundane humans, flawed well-intentioned people, nothing more, nothing supernatural, as unworthy of life as the void between the stars, they talked, they argued, they killed, they loved, they befriended, they betrayed, they cried, they laughed, they prayed, they cursed, they gave up and they persevered. I went through entire millennia of time as I observed.

When I finally emerged from my delirium, I had sunk to the bottom of the water and pure darkness was engulfing me. I understood what I had done, I understood it with all my being. I did not feel guilty, though I should have. It was only through a cold, rational perspective that I knew what I had to do. Here I didn't breathe, but I wasn't dead. I opened my mouth and water rushed into my throat, my body instinctively resisted the flow but I forced myself to breathe, water rushed into my lungs, burning its path, my eyes stung at the pain, a moment later, it was all undone.

I tried again and when it failed, I stubbornly tried another time and again and again. Failure. I futilely punched the seafloor. I had one emotion now, rage. I raged in silence at whatever cruel entity had done this to me. I did not think with words, I just felt. I promised God unspeakable pain. I screamed at being denied the very core choice of every human being. I raged and raged until I felt empty again.

I lay there at the bottom of the pit of water, not miserable, not even sad, just tired beyond reason, just… done. One year and a half of perseverance and this was my reward. I had broken so spectacularly. I lay there, inert. Not closing my eyes, not even blinking, barely thinking. Time passed.

Light was piercing the surface of the water again when, by some miracle of willpower, I started moving again, the vague goal of finding a way to die in my mind.

I moved slowly, first pushing myself off the floor with minimal effort and then by walking, preferring it to any form of swimming. I walked at a snail's pace on the uneven ground. More than walking, I climbed. Obstacle after obstacle, a long laborious process. An eternity passed before my soaked head finally split the surface of the water.

Immediately I could hear the whirr of helicopter rotors. I dragged myself out of the water, excruciatingly slow. My clothes were wet and heavy as I stepped on land.

I looked up, a helicopter flew right above me, I forced my eyes forward and started walking, uncaring of whatever they were doing, hoping that they wouldn't notice a lone figure. I hadn't taken twenty steps before I was catapulted into the air, my ears ringing, bones shattering and fusing.

"Fuck!" I shouted as my body impacted the water's surface. I fell into the water again.

Well, that's just great. I thought bitterly. I decided to move to the other side as I sunk to the bottom again. to walk into the ocean this time. I wanted to leave the water somewhere far from here. So, I walked, slowly, unhurriedly. Eventually I was walking along the coast, northward.

I walked for hours and hours, unthinking, just a machine with a simple set purpose. Still somewhere along the way my mind slowly resumed its working. Inevitably turning to Brockton Bay. I still didn't despair, didn't cry. I didn't feel sad at all. So my mind, logical and unfeeling as it was, preoccupied itself with a problem. A question, a pointless, meaningless question, but a question nonetheless. It was something to keep my mind busied with itself. By considering the question, by trying to find a logical solution for it, it could feel useful. The question was simple "Was there any way to prevent that?"

I thought as I marched at the bottom of eastern U.S.' coastal waters, as close to the coast as to provide easy access and as far as not to be easily noticed. I considered the problem as if a mathematical equation.

I thought as my shoes came apart at the seams. The simplest and most obvious solution would be if I had not touched the shapes, the patterns, if I had not absorbed their energy or whatever. My mind was still addled but I thought long and hard, as focused as I could force myself to be, as I walked ever slowly away from the crater I had left behind. The sun moved in the sky, brightening the world as I thought, the rare fish passing by my face.

Eventually I simply moved on, discarding the solution, not seeing how I could have controlled myself then and not being able to absolve myself of responsibility either.

This was futile, utterly pointless. Still, my addled and dazed brain refused to let it go, so I thought as I marched, having nothing better to do.

The second solution was, of course, somehow stopping the trio from escalating so far. The issue was that I had already considered this before, and I hadn't found any acceptable solution then. I frowned at the thought. Something was missing from that equation. Still, it was evident that the staff wouldn't have intervened and if I had retaliated, they would've escalated even faster.

My mind moved in circles. I explored other avenues I had already gone through, trying to see the problem from a new perspective and failing. The police wouldn't have cared, and if they did, Mr. Barnes was a lawyer and any court case would have just ruined our lives. I didn't want to burden my dad.

I felt a small twinge of pain at the thought of Dad, the thought itched a little, but it passed soon enough. I continued plodding forward, my mind not making any breakthroughs for the problem, frustration built up as I walked, the sun slowly moved to the other side of the sky and then set, again enveloping me in darkness.

Finally, I couldn't bear it any longer, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, I needed to leave the water. I turned to the direction of the coast and I dragged myself forward, until unceremoniously I sauntered out of the ocean.

I could see distant lights from here, intellectually, I knew I needed to keep away from people but I didn't care. With soaked and torn clothes, uncaring of the cold I had barely noticed before, I trudged toward the settlement like a moth drawn to a flame.

As I walked into the settlement, as silently and as discreetly as I could, I could see that there were houses and buildings, not much different from Brockton Bay. There were people too, the city was busy and alive with energy. I kept to the shadows as I walked aimlessly. I dragged myself through the quiet alleys, the places with little light and few people. I still mulled over my problem. I had done everything before, right? I had considered every way to solve the issue and I had decided to stay my hand, so there was nothing I could've done, and yet, and yet…

A stumbling man with dirty clothes emerged from the corner of the alley, he froze in place as he noticed me. We stared at each other for a long moment. The alley was dark and we were alone. I decided to turn back and walk in the other direction.

As I walked however, I could hear the sound of stumbling steps quickening behind me. I felt a surge of irritation but I kept my pace, not bothering to react.

A hand forcefully grabbed my shoulder.

"Hey!" he shouted from behind me.

I winced at the volume and tried unsuccessfully to force his grasp open.

"Look at me." He mumbled.

I struggled a moment more then sighed and turned in place.

"What?" I croaked.

The man had a dirty patchy beard, something caught my eye from the corner of my vision. I turned my head minutely, there was a glint of metal in his right hand. A knife probably. I sighed and looked back at his face.

"Give me your money." he slurred.

"What?" I replied, bemused.

"I said give me your money, I'm gonna kill you if you don't." he said, stumbling through his words, waving his knife around. The smell of alcohol permeated the air.

I stared at him for a moment, then, unbidden, laughter bubbled out of my throat. I stopped myself, putting a hand to my mouth. Then at seeing his confused expression, I burst into laughter again.

After another moment of looking perplexed, the man's face morphed into an enraged expression. He let go of my shoulders and made a motion to grab my face with his left hand.

"Now listen here, you bitch." he said clearer than before as he grabbed my face, sending a faint spike of fear through me, "You—"

The air visibly pulsed, momentarily reshaping everything into patterns like before. A moment everything remained the same, the next, the man had no face, no hands, no stomach either. Entrails poured out. The mutilated body dropped at the same time that five detached fingers hit the ground. The smell of ozone filled the air.

I stared, mesmerized by the scene, not disgusted in the slightest, then as I continued staring at the man's remains, it hit me like a physical force.

"No…" I whispered, stumbling back. My knees gave out and I dropped on the ground.

"No, I didn't…" I choked out. Of course I hadn't done everything I could to stop the trio from escalating, I stared again at the man's remains, the evidence clear.

Hot tears finally streamed down my face, blurring my vision as I stared into the night sky.

Then came crushing guilt and I screamed.