Notes: Little bit of nothing in particular. Emma POV.
*****
Regarding Emma
By Chya
They were there again.
Not together.
Apart.
But still there.
She could see them.
But she couldn't feel them.
She felt as though she were locked away in a clear plastic box, a barrier of indescribably painful nothingness between her and them, doomed never to interact with them ever again.
Which was a truth she wasn't yet ready to face.
She never thought that she'd miss her empathic powers as much as she did with her closest, dearest friends. Friends and colleagues who she hadn't felt in far too long. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd seen them, yet here they were, together yet apart, awaiting her attentions.
She moved first over to see Adam working in his lab, ceaselessly trying to make things better, forever caught up in the throes of guilt, trying to make amends for the mistakes of his arrogant youth. Before her eyes he was wasting away with the knowledge that for most of his mistakes their final mutations meant their deaths, the exceptions few and far between. Long, slow, painful deaths, the type for which euthanasia should be considered legal, where for the lucky ones, the mind thankfully goes before the body.
Turning away from the decaying scientist, she sought out Shalimar, ever bright and lively, who even in her fear, her anger and her depression was always so alive. But now she was fading eyes devoid of sanity or sentience, while atrophied muscles twitched in violent spasms. Dead eyes rejecting the pod in favour of the coffin that would give her a desperately sought release.
Then there was poor Brennan, insane and sick with both grief and more, hands and feet spread wide in his determination to go down fighting to the end, screaming out denial even as he pushed the last vestiges of his own life out in a powerful fury against his creators. Focussing not on Sanctuary, but on Genomex, he burned bright as a star as he sent the vast underground complex erupting through manicured lawns like green boiling oil.
And Jesse, dear Jesse, lost and alone in his bitter rage. A cold rage, hard and long reaching. Rage at himself for being an exception, another privilege he'd been born with. Cold and superficially emotionless he helped Adam care for the sick, uncaring for them, taking his temper out on the proverbial bad guys that insisted on crawling out of the woodwork. By himself, capable now of both devious invisibility and ruthless petrification. They had to get him in the end. Took him down in an agony of immolation, which he gladly embraced as his just desserts.
And finally, herself.
She'd helped Adam and Jesse, but built her shields too high, so she didn't have to deal with the searing mass of fear and grief from the sick, the dying and most of all, the exceptions. So high nothing in the universe could penetrate it, not even herself. And she'd survived. To her everlasting regret she'd survived.
Over time, her shields had only reinforced and her powers developed. She knew what they were all thinking as well as feeling. Could get a glass of water without leaving her seat. But she could not feel a thing. She knew she should have felt grief and sorrow and rage and all the other emotions that everyone else had thrown at her, but she couldn't. And that left her feeling empty and distantly regretful.
She knew when they came, could hear the echo of their words of comfort and could see the remote sincerity behind them.
No change, they said and she could only agree, unable to get past her own shields to project that thought.
Never any change.
Not until the curse of her new mutation was cured.
Precognition.
FINIS
*****
Regarding Emma
By Chya
They were there again.
Not together.
Apart.
But still there.
She could see them.
But she couldn't feel them.
She felt as though she were locked away in a clear plastic box, a barrier of indescribably painful nothingness between her and them, doomed never to interact with them ever again.
Which was a truth she wasn't yet ready to face.
She never thought that she'd miss her empathic powers as much as she did with her closest, dearest friends. Friends and colleagues who she hadn't felt in far too long. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd seen them, yet here they were, together yet apart, awaiting her attentions.
She moved first over to see Adam working in his lab, ceaselessly trying to make things better, forever caught up in the throes of guilt, trying to make amends for the mistakes of his arrogant youth. Before her eyes he was wasting away with the knowledge that for most of his mistakes their final mutations meant their deaths, the exceptions few and far between. Long, slow, painful deaths, the type for which euthanasia should be considered legal, where for the lucky ones, the mind thankfully goes before the body.
Turning away from the decaying scientist, she sought out Shalimar, ever bright and lively, who even in her fear, her anger and her depression was always so alive. But now she was fading eyes devoid of sanity or sentience, while atrophied muscles twitched in violent spasms. Dead eyes rejecting the pod in favour of the coffin that would give her a desperately sought release.
Then there was poor Brennan, insane and sick with both grief and more, hands and feet spread wide in his determination to go down fighting to the end, screaming out denial even as he pushed the last vestiges of his own life out in a powerful fury against his creators. Focussing not on Sanctuary, but on Genomex, he burned bright as a star as he sent the vast underground complex erupting through manicured lawns like green boiling oil.
And Jesse, dear Jesse, lost and alone in his bitter rage. A cold rage, hard and long reaching. Rage at himself for being an exception, another privilege he'd been born with. Cold and superficially emotionless he helped Adam care for the sick, uncaring for them, taking his temper out on the proverbial bad guys that insisted on crawling out of the woodwork. By himself, capable now of both devious invisibility and ruthless petrification. They had to get him in the end. Took him down in an agony of immolation, which he gladly embraced as his just desserts.
And finally, herself.
She'd helped Adam and Jesse, but built her shields too high, so she didn't have to deal with the searing mass of fear and grief from the sick, the dying and most of all, the exceptions. So high nothing in the universe could penetrate it, not even herself. And she'd survived. To her everlasting regret she'd survived.
Over time, her shields had only reinforced and her powers developed. She knew what they were all thinking as well as feeling. Could get a glass of water without leaving her seat. But she could not feel a thing. She knew she should have felt grief and sorrow and rage and all the other emotions that everyone else had thrown at her, but she couldn't. And that left her feeling empty and distantly regretful.
She knew when they came, could hear the echo of their words of comfort and could see the remote sincerity behind them.
No change, they said and she could only agree, unable to get past her own shields to project that thought.
Never any change.
Not until the curse of her new mutation was cured.
Precognition.
FINIS