1.6
(…)
Waking up was something I regretted instantly. I was exhausted. More than that; beyond simple fatigue, there was pure, bone-deep cold. It filled me; chilled me to the core. I tried to curl up to gather some little warmth, but the movement only reminded me of how awful I felt.
Concrete scraped against my cheek, and I opened my eyes. Even doing that much was an effort.
I lay halfway into the gutter, flopped across the sidewalk. Where exactly I was, I couldn't say, but judging from the view I had with my head hanging into the street… it was a bad neighborhood. A really bad neighborhood. The pile of flaming slag in the road, surrounded by an army's worth of swords was a tip off.
For a while, I just lay there, watching the hypnotic red-blue, red-blue of the PRT vans' lights. There were a lot of them. People were rushing around. They all seemed to be very busy and energetic. I envied them for that.
There were things I had to do, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember them at the moment. I was too tired. Even my thoughts were slow and fragmented… Staying awake was too much effort…
After a while, some of the vans left. A tall man and a skinny woman I recognized were herded into the back of one. What were their names again… Squash and Skidder… no. That wasn't right…
Hadn't… someone said they were going to deal with those two? Someone I knew. What was his name though? He was really tall… and he wore armor. …Father? Nah, that wasn't right either. Dad didn't wear armor.
One of the PRT workers walked by. He was carrying an armful of swords. Other workers were cleaning up the battlefield in the street now. They kept walking through me. I'd have been annoyed if it weren't so much work…
The worker fumbled one of the swords, grabbed for it, and lost the entire bundle. The swords clattered to the street, a few narrowly missing me. I could see my reflection in one of the blades.
And I could see the sidewalk behind me.
Through me.
I blinked, forcing myself to focus. And then I looked again. I was lying on the curb outside the Merchant warehouse, looking at myself in one of Allfather's swords, and I was transparent.
Panic gave me the energy I needed to stay focused. I was some weird parahuman equivalent of a ghost, but I hadn't been see-through before. That I was now was a bad sign. I had a feeling that my exhaustion and my transparency were linked. Like I was… lessened in some way. Or was I just too tired to hold it together? If I just flopped out and gave up, would I die?
There was no way I was going out like this. I kept telling myself that whenever I almost died, but I meant it. I had too much to do.
I had to get up, but I needed help. My body felt like frozen lead. I pushed Allfather's shard into action. It was undignified, but if it came down to getting princess-carried by a Nazi vs. dying in the gutter, I knew what I'd pick. Allfather's shard stirred, moving toward the edge of my will and-
Broken.
His shard was shattered. The core of his being was still there, but Allfather as a whole was in pieces. What had happened to him? I remembered him going to fight Squealer and the Merchants, but I'd passed out before I saw what happened. I had plenty of other questions; how had I gotten outside the warehouse, for one? And what had happened to- …oh. Floating next to Allfather was a new presence.
Skidmark's form was degraded; almost like his soul was pitted and damaged in some way. It was different from Allfather's injuries. This felt… inherent? Was Skidmark that messed up as a person, or did it represent the psychological harm all his excesses had done him? And yet, beyond that, Skidmark was injured too. Less than Allfather, but still damaged.
Both my ghosts were unusable, and I was one stiff breeze away from death. Wonderful.
Slowly, with arms that felt like jello, I pushed myself up to a sitting position. Moving that much left the world spinning around me, and I thought I might be a little more transparent.
I was so low on energy that fucking moving could kill me. I wanted to get angry at the situation- at my own weakness, if I wasn't sure that doing so would also kill me. Damned if I did, damned if I didn't…
I ended up sitting on the curb, my arms wrapped around my knees. I drifted in and out of sleep, coming to whenever someone passed by or something loud happened. One moment I'd be watching the PRT workers putting out the flaming wreckage in the street. The next, they'd be sweeping up the last twisted bits of metal.
One of the swords stayed in the gutter for a long time. The PRT guy had just never picked it up. I used the blade to check my transparency whenever I woke. I looked a little better after sitting for a while, but I was still partially see-through. Some of the cold had even receded. It seemed like if I sat there long enough, I'd eventually recover.
Only… I really didn't want to. Sitting alone on curb in a bad part of town, surrounded by trash and broken metal was depressing. Worse than sitting by my grave in some ways. The PRT would leave soon, and then my only company would be the homeless and any of the Merchants who hadn't gotten arrested. Judging by the long line of said Merchants that got led out of the warehouse in handcuffs, I wasn't going to see many of them.
I needed to rest- to recover. And I wasn't going to be able to do either of those things here. I could go back to the Boat Graveyard and find the ship I'd tried to sleep in… had it only been last night? And I'd only known Allfather for about twelve hours. We'd spent a large part of that time talking, but still… This whole ordeal felt like it'd lasted days.
A poetic way of describing the rest of my time on the curb would be that I was 'contemplating my situation.'
I wasn't. I was tired and cold and lonely, and I couldn't leave because I could barely move. My 'contemplation' took the form of sniffling and trying not to get upset because it'd waste more of my energy.
About the only thing being invisible was good for at the moment was that I could be totally miserable and no one would see me.
…just like school.
Okay, fuck it. I was going to cry about that. Even if I didn't have the energy. I was stuck in a shitty neighborhood, my only friend was a Nazi supervillain, and the trio was probably off having the time of their lives.
How had Emma gone from my best friend to my murderer? Sophia played a part there, but there had to be more to it. I was going to get to the bottom of that-
A Protectorate car rolled up alongside me and stopped. The driver's door opened and a man leaned out. I barely looked at him. Without thinking- without considering my energy for a second, I lunged for the car. I went through the door and into the back seat. My hands kept going, poking into the floor before I focused, concentrating on not phasing.
The effort left me panting, and the cold shot up my arms like needles. It didn't matter though, because I was in the car, on a soft seat, and not some desolate curb in skid row.
The driver picked up the sword from the gutter. He examined it, turning it over in his hands before setting it in the passenger's seat.
I closed my eyes as I felt the car start moving again. A stranger's car wasn't a great spot, but it was better than where I was.
The sound of the engine turning off roused me. Just waking up was a lot easier now. That it didn't hurt to be alive was a good sign. The sky outside the car was the mixed orange-blue of oncoming night. I'd slept all day.
The driver was about to get out when his phone rang. He stayed in the driver's seat while he answered.
"Johnson here. Yeah, I saw the tape. You-Know-Who wants a copy." He paused, listening. "Uh-huh, you watched it? How fucked up was that? The way she screamed, and-" he broke off laughing. "Yeah yeah, get me the tape and I'll pass it along to my contact. I think he's got a line straight to the top." The driver made to hang up, and then stopped.
"Shit! I forgot, you still there Jameson? Great. Listen, I forgot to mention it. Besides the tape, I need a complete copy of Shadow Stalker's file. Dunno why, but Coil- fuck, I mean- You know." He hesitated. "This phone is secure, right? He'd have my ass if I blew my cover like that."
The driver listened for a few more moments, and then he hung up. He blew out a deep breath before he got out of the car. It sounded like he was cursing quietly as he vanished into the house. It was a non-descript two-story you'd see in any suburb. The neighborhood looked oddly familiar though…
I ghosted through to the front seat. Moving wasn't effortless, but I didn't feel like my skull was about to explode anymore. I was tempted to go see what the PRT guy was talking about, but I was tired and it wasn't worth the effort.
The sword was still sitting in the passenger's seat. Out of curiosity, I picked it up. It was so heavy I had to use both hands to-
Holy shit.
I was so startled I dropped the sword. The blade sliced a hole in the seat. Little wisps of stuffing poofed out, but I ignored them. I'd just picked something up. I, with my ghost hands, had just physically interacted with, and lifted something.
I hefted Allfather's discarded sword again. The leather grip was smooth against my palms. The rest of the sword was… well, I didn't know much about swords, but I could see that it definitely reflected its owner. Plain, undecorated except for a swastika engraved in the crossguard. It was functional; something made to be used.
Or maybe it was easier for him to create if he kept the design simple. I didn't have any idea. I didn't find swords all that interesting; it's just that I was freaking out a little bit over being able to touch something. I was able to get a feel for things around me through touch, but they were muted- almost distant. Like I was touching something with numb fingers. Allfather's sword wasn't like that. It was real to me.
Was that because Allfather had made it? I could touch ghosts, so I supposed it made sense that I could touch things that ghosts made.
I cradled the sword for a little bit, just enjoying the feeling. It was only when I noticed that I could see the sword's grip through my hand that I remembered why I was there.
I needed to rest. And I had an idea of where I could go now. I recognized the Protectorate worker's neighborhood for a reason. He lived a couple blocks over from my house. I could be home within minutes.
I left the sword in the car. Not for any stealth reasons- it just wouldn't phase through the door with me, so I couldn't get it out.
Getting home was easier said than done though. I'd regained a little energy, but dragging my sorry body across those couple of blocks was like hiking up a mountain. Only the thought of getting home kept me going. It was still my home, regardless of anything that had happened.
Walking home the normal way would take time and energy that I didn't have. I ended up phasing through anything in my path and walking straight toward my house. It cut my travel time big time, but it still took me a conscious effort to walk through things. 'Avoid the obstacle' was so ingrained that I instinctively stopped myself every time I headed for a tree or wall.
My arms and legs were almost fully transparent when my house came into view. The only reason I still knew that I had my limbs was because they were cold. It felt like I was holding them in ice water, and the cold didn't stop there. Each step sent little tendrils of frost further into me.
I stumbled up the back steps and fell through the door.
I was home.
It was dark inside. The only light was the bluish glow of the tv in the living room. I'd planned on sleeping in my own bed, but I could barely walk. I half-crawled, half-dragged myself to the living room. There were boxes all over the hallway. I ignored them, focusing only on moving forward.
Dad would be there. Dad would be there and I would be safe.
He was. I leaned against the doorframe, staring at him. The television was on, but he wasn't watching it. He just stared blankly into the screen; his eyes unseeing.
For a second, I thought that he'd aged; like I'd been gone for years, like some kind of Rip Van Winkle. The tv's light illuminated all the lines in his face, making him look older than he was.
And yet… he looked tired. More tired than I'd ever seen him. Not just tired physically, but spiritually as well. The only time I'd ever seen anything approaching this was when Mom had died.
I was still staring when he turned off the tv and walked out of the room.
"Goodnight Dad." I whispered.
He didn't give any sign that he'd heard me.
I took his spot on the couch. Sleep drifted over me, and I tried not to think about why I felt like a stranger in my own home.