Hey all, writing this just to say, this is a personal project, exclusively as a vent/creative outlet.
SI is me if I was a worse person, but acts as I do. She'll be less knowledgeable about the series and franchises she encounters than I, though she won't be entirely ignorant of culturally relevant properties or her specific special interests, differing from mine whenever I find most interesting tbh.
MC is transfemme, as am I, feedback on this is accepted, but don't expect that to change.
This fic will be self-indulgent, raw, un-edited. Read at your own risk.
I sat on the retaining wall outside our small condo, watching as her taillights faded around the bend and down the hill. Sitting there, time didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. She wasn't coming back, she had made that very clear earlier. Somehow, without deciding to, I found myself in the doorway. Staring at the torn painting in the entrance way, a landscape done in rainbow by my ex that she always thought I talked to too much; it was clear. My life was over.
No resource, no recourse, no remorse. I had torn though life like I was the main character of the story, assuming I had been born for greatness, groomed for it by encouraging parents and extended family, all awaiting the day I became someone notable, grand, worthy of the investment they had committed. It turns out living like that drives anyone who actually cared away and leaves you holding scraps wondering what happened.
The silence was deafening. I always thought that was a cliché, or one of those turns of phrase people use but aren't true, ya know? It felt like a soundless void had formed centered at my feet, nothing penetrating. No ambiance, no microvibrations, nothing. I tried to form words, move my limbs, do anything. I realized, "Oh, I'm having a panic attack.", in that sort of detached way it sometimes happens, where I get it in a rush and things make sense before the coldness of the panic grips my bones and locks them still.
I fall, as I sometimes do when overwhelmed. Hard to stay upright when you lock up so hard. My sister used to call me a goat, actually; between her laughter and antagonizing me till I broke and 'did the funny goat thing' for her. Fuck Animal Planet, only for this, I know it's not rational, but you'll find I'm not rational very often. Oh yeah, falling. Funny enough, this is like my thought process at the time, falling, thinking, too gripped in panic to brace, desperate for a mental hook to focus on that wasn't impending pain.
I was gonna make a bunch of what ifs here, but they're pointless. I fell hard, the snapped frame of the painting entered my throat, and I couldn't move. That's what happened. All I could focus on at first was that it hurt less than I thought it was going to. That I'd felt worse before, I could handle this, right?
I tried to take a breath. It didn't work.
It was like my muscles had cut all ties to my nerves, locked under maximum tension, desperate for release but unable to receive the notification to shut off. I wasn't breathing. I was going to die.
"How did we get here?" I asked nobody, myself maybe. I knew the answer, I used to do this a lot actually; sit and ask myself questions pretending like I hadn't engineered my own downfall though calculated decisions and an utter delusion that I was a person of privilege. I was never prepared for this world, not in the way I needed to be.
My typical solution to stress and anxiety was to escape it through stimulation. First reading fiction and video games, then fanfiction and music, then card games and sex, anything I could devote myself to avoid addressing the things I actually needed to address in my life. Even now, writing this introduction to my story, I'm neglecting doing what I need to right now. If I go do that though, I may not come back alive. Even as I am now, I always wanted to write something. Good, bad, cringe, based, it didn't matter. Just finish one fucking thing in my life for once. Well. Now it's the last thing I have to do.
This is the lasting memoir of a woman who thought she was the main character of her life, having to actually come face to face with what that experience would actually be like. Or, if you prefer, "I'm in an alternate universe and have magic, send help!". God, I miss anime.
This would be a neat place to put a title card actually.