Sparrow and Leslie appeared in an abandoned and broken building surrounded by a crumbling city. They both walked towards a cracked and cloudy window. Peering through it, they watched as glass and debris seemingly fell from the sky. Suddenly the ground lurched forward, making Leslie cling onto Sparrows arm for balance as the whole building moved forward before crashing into the crust of the earth.
'Why is everything... breaking?' Sparrow wondered as the city continued to crumble.
"Birdy, birdy... birdy" Leslie repeated, making Sparrow turn around and hug him tightly hoping that they wouldn't separate again anytime soon; although she was beginning to think that was impossible in a place like this. Leslie accepted the gentle hug for a time before pulling away, causing Sparrow to express a confused look, "Birdy... teleported?" he asked.
Sparrow smiled slightly before nodding. She waved her hand over to an empty bottle nearby and it began to hover before smashing against the wall, showing Leslie that she could do a lot more now.
Leslie's eyes widened before letting go of Sparrow and backing away from her, afraid that this wasn't Sparrow at all since he had just seen two of them.
Sparrow desperately wished that she could talk to him, anything to tell him he had nothing to be afraid of. She clenched her eyes and tried to project her voice towards Leslie but found some kind of barrier stopping her. Sparrow could only hope that a simple gesture of her open hand inviting him to enclose his within hers was enough to show him that she meant no harm.
Leslie's eyes flickered from her hand to her face trying to decide if this was still the girl who befriended him all those years ago. Seeing someone who looked exactly like her made him think otherwise, but her eyes told him she was his birdy.
Reaching forward Leslie encased her hand with his, making her smile widen in return.
"Other... other other?" Leslie asked as he wrapped himself around her arm as if he was about to be pulled away.
'You mean the other me?' Sparrow thought. Unable to transfer her thoughts to him, she simply gestured to her head before using her fingers to express an explosion- hoping he'd get the message.
"Part... of your mind?" he asked, surprising her with his fluent speaking. Sparrow, still with her surprised expression, nodded and he smiled in return.
Sparrow suddenly remembered that Jimenez had experimented on him moments before and put a hand up to his forehead, inspecting his temperature.
'He seems okay for now,' Sparrow resolved before gently grabbing his hand and leading him outside of the building, hoping they would end up in a safer place.
She went out through a door and realized almost too late that the city below was flooded. Sparrow quickly let go of Leslie and instead clutched onto the swung open door, awkwardly hanging for dear life above the water.
"Birdy's a cat," Leslie giggled before reaching out, grabbing the back of Sparrows collar, pulling her towards him and the door to a close. Sparrow brushed the dust off of her shoulders as if mimicking that it was meant to happen all along.
This time more cautiously, Sparrow opened the door and peered out, observing the flooded street which reminded her of Venice from the pictures she saw in books. Although this was more like a disaster than a paradise. Sparrow gripped her chin in thought, wondering what the best option was to approach this problem before she gestures for Leslie to stay in the room.
"No no... No, Leslie come with... Come with," Leslie repeated in protest. Sparrow smiled gently before ruffling his hair. She held onto the door frame as she dipped her foot into the water, testing to see how deep it was, wondering if they could skim along the edge or something.
'It goes straight down. I'm not even sure there is a bottom,' she thought as the murky water stared back at her. Across the flooded street, there stood a crumbling building along with ways to travel on either side, 'Maybe we should go right...' Sparrow looked back at the swaying Leslie, wondering if he was okay with swimming. Walking up to him, she made a swimming motion before pointing to the water.
Leslie shook his head and repeated, "No... No..."
'I'm not even sure if I can swim,' Sparrow thought, remembering that she hasn't gone swimming once in her life. With nervousness tingling her fingertips, Sparrow held onto the door frame again before dipping her foot further into the water.
Suddenly her grip on the door frame slipped and she fell sideways into the water her head going under the murky water and disappearing from Leslie's sight.
"Birdy!" Leslie yelled after her, going to the edge of the water before crouching down and attempting to see through the murky water, but had no luck locating her. "Birdy... Birdy?"
The water calmed and stood as still as it was moments before. The sound of the water gently colliding with the sunken cars and decrepit buildings dominated the area and if his best friend didn't just drown, then he would have felt quite calm here.
"Get help, get help," Leslie repeated before waddling back inside the building and trying to find someone, wandering from building to building.
Back at the flooded street, the water started pulsing, creating wave after wave of water and spreading throughout the river. The waves became bigger and bigger, splashing the buildings around it before small but rapid bubbles formed in the middle of the pulsing river. Suddenly Sparrow's form lunged from the bubbles as if fired into the air, her limbs flailing around before landing into the room she was in moments before she fell into the water.
Coughing and ridding the water from her lungs, she stood up, swiped the hair from her eyes, and attempted to squeeze the water off her clothes but they still clung to her skin. She essentially looked like a drenched rat.
'What... What happened?' Sparrow pondered as she looked back into the murky water before looking around her and wondering where Leslie went. 'Where did he go?' she wondered.
Suddenly the room started to shake and the far wall across from her started to drag towards her. In a panic she rushed forwards and leaped into the water, making sure she grabbed a hold of a nearby car so that she didn't sink further into the water. She watched with wide eyes as the room she was in just moments before became smaller and smaller until the room didn't exist and the doorway now led to a blank wall. A shiver ran up her spine as the coldness of the water brought her mind back to her current predicament. Lifting herself up onto the car, she stared at the water in thought.
'That bubble around me... what was it?' she wondered as the water dripped down her face and back into the flooded street below. Suddenly deciding it was best to figure out what it was rather than it remain a mystery, Sparrow grabbed onto the edge of the car before lowering herself cautiously into the cloudy water. Again, she made sure she had a firm grip upon the car before sinking further into the water, taking a deep breath before plummeting under.
Like before, she felt the crashing force in her stomach before she felt herself suddenly thrown away from the car by an unknown force. She floated towards the middle of the river. Slowly, she felt the water around her drain and she look a breath once she was able too.
Opening her eyes she discovered that although she was floating around as if she was in water, she in fact was in a bubble of air, a bubble that surrounded her whole being. Sparrow's breathing calmed as she looked around her. Curiously touching the bubble, she found that she couldn't put her hand through it.
The water drifted around her as she tried to figure out what was happening.
'I float like I'm in water, but the feeling is like being on the surface,' she thought as she continued to drift down the flooded street. Suddenly, Sparrow lurched forward and coughed, putting a hand over her mouth as she felt a clot travel up her throat and land onto her hand.
Pulling her hand away, Sparrow's eyes widened as she stared at the blood dribbling down her hand in horror. Her vision began to blur as black dots invaded her vision and she started to panic.
The pressure in her chest that she was not even aware of vanished and the bubble around her collapsed before she was propelled into the air like before- this time landing onto a balcony that hovered a few inches off of the water. Sparrow felt every limb weighing her down, trying to get her to rest before making a move again. She continued to cough violently as the water clung to her lungs.
'I can only hold it for a short time,' Sparrow thought as she rolled onto her back and stared into the distant sky. The buildings around her made her feel insignificant and small. For a while she just lay there, calming herself down and watching the clouds above drift slowly away from her, basking in the quiet atmosphere while it lasts as she knew it was bound to become a nightmare again. 'Is this truly Ruvik's mind? Or is it all our minds?' she asked herself before rolling onto her side and letting the water still soaked into her clothes, dry as much as much as it could.
Clenching her eyes, Sparrow tried to teleport to wherever Leslie had gone but found she couldn't no matter how hard she tried. 'Is it because I'm exhausted?'
"Hey." A woman's voice startled her. She sat up to view the woman who happened to be the same person who saved her from being abandoned all that time ago; Sparrow wondered where she had been all this time, "You're one of the patients from the hospital right? I'm Juli Kidman, a detective- well, junior detective," she introduces herself while helping Sparrow up.
Before Juli could pull away, Sparrow kept a firm grip on her hand before shaking it up and down, the best greeting she could give at the moment. Juli gave the ex-patient a confused expression, expecting a name or at least a title. Sparrow made a gesture of cutting her throat before pointing to her mouth.
"You... can't talk?" Juli asked, getting a nod in response, "Oh, Well have you seen Joseph lately or Sebastian?" Sparrow nodded but before Juli could ask where, Sparrow shrugged. "Right, well, at least I know they're alive for now." Juli said as she reloaded her pistol. "What about your friend Leslie?" Sparrow shrugged, before gesturing that she was looking for him.
"Maybe we can help each other find our friends?" Juli asked and Sparrow nodded in agreement. Juli stopped fiddling with her gun before handing it over to Sparrow who eyed it suspiciously. "I'm not sure how you lasted this long, but have this just in case." Sparrow smiled before accepting the gun. She wasn't sure she had good aim but at least she had a weapon now, just in case her powers failed her at any time since she now knew she had a limit.
Juli smiled in return, not really knowing if giving a mental patient a gun was the best idea but from what she saw, Sparrow wasn't as dysfunctional as Leslie. Juli gestured for Sparrow to follow her before going through a broken window and into another building.
'If Ruvik is the host of all this, maybe I can look into his memories like he could mine,' Sparrow wondered. 'Maybe I can figure out why he was even involved with Jimenez in the first place.' For now Sparrow depended on Juli to help keep her alive, and to find Leslie.
Hey guys I hope you like this chapter! So I actually had quite a few of you apply to be my beta and I thank you for the people who applied and sorry to those who didn't get chosen. Anyway considering I have a beta now you guys can dictate if the chapters have gotten better and whether my choice has been good, after all you are the guys who are reading It :)
Again, I hope you like this chapter!
Reviews, Pms, Favourites and follows are all appreciated.