Fragmentation 1.4
(Caroline Claddan)
November 28, 2007
Caroline was tired.
So, so, tired.
It had been two months since her ex-boyfriend ran off with her money, car, and new girl-toy, and she still wasn't used to sleeping in the boatyard.
The cold, grating wind had stuck to her bones, draining her warmth like her ex-boyfriend to her bank account, but at least that was loyally by her side. She could always expect, after a day sitting outside the Boardwalk, to return to her seemingly never-ending companion, the cold.
Even though he ruined her life, she still loved James. She knew he never looked back, but the four years she spent with him were the best in her life. She should have turned her back on him as well, but she couldn't; not when his last words to her were "I'm sorry".
Anyway, back to the cold.
It was cold.
No, really Caroline? It was cold? That's the best you can think up? Where was that creativity when you were evicted? Where was it when your boss fired you for being too mopey at the office? Where was it when supposed 'friends' turned you away after you asked them to use their shower and couch? Nowhere Caroline; because you aren't original enough to be useful without others.
Caroline began to cry again.
She was so cold.
So very, very cold.
It was warm.
Why was it warm?
Caroline hadn't felt this warm since she slept in a bed.
Did someone find her and put her in a bed?
When she opened her eyes she realized that she was very, very wrong.
Emphasis on very.
As in, the type of very that should be put in front of unkind in the sentence, Behemoth is very unkind.
'I am almost 100% certain,' Caroline thought to herself 'that the walls aren't supposed to be glowing.'
And they were. Glowing, that is, with and yellowish/orange light. Along with the other boats that she could see outside. The boats to the right of the one she was in had started to sag with heat, and while she couldn't see the boats to her boat's left, she understood quickly that they were either already completely melted, and she was doomed, or they were beginning to heat up, and she was doomed.
Caroline had known she'd been doomed for a while, ever since she'd been evicted and fired from her job. But she had never been this doomed before. As in the, oh god, I'm probably going to die in the next minute, kind of doom. Now that she thought about it, she really missed the cold.
She had chosen to run for the exit. Well, she'd already decided that once she had woken up and seen the glowing walls, but she hadn't acted upon the thought until the warmth began to burn.
She was running, hoping to make it out of the boat before it melted with her inside, when something dripped on her arm.
"OH FUCK," She screamed out "OH FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUCK!"
Her arm was on fire with pain.
It was on fire for real as well, but the pure PAIN was something she'd never felt before.
It was bad enough to cause her to stumble and fall.
And then something dripped on her left leg.
"AAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGHHHH!"
She would be crying, but the tears were beginning to burn as well. Her body felt like it was melting, and she thought she could hear something outside the boat.
"Oh please," she whimpered "somebody, anybody, help me"
In that instant, she missed her friends. She missed her cat back in New York with her parents. She missed her parents, even if they abandoned her in Brockton Bay. And she somehow, somehow felt something for her boyfriend too… Not really, but a joke was nice for a final thought.
"I just want somebody to help me." She cried out as her vision faded to black.
A campfire flickered in front of her. But instead of the searing heat she expected from a fire so close, all she felt was a calming glow. She was listening to a guitar to her right, and was staring at the odd purple crystal to her left, when a white box with a red light beeped at her from across the fire and pointed at her.
No, not at her.
At the fire.
The sparking, caring, campfire.
As she noticed the sparks float their way into the night sky, she watched mesmerized as they merged with the stars. And then the stars began to dance.
She stared until she and the three other beings began to glow, and then darkness claimed her again.
She wasn't certain of what happened in the boat, but the fading visions of the campfire gave her a feeling that she had at least lived. Maybe. The angelic sounding chattering above her provided some counter-evidence though. Once she opened her eyes to check what was going on, she realized that things were very, very wrong. Wronger than the very describing an unkind Behemoth. She hadn't opened her eyes. She'd opened her eye. And she was seeing everything with a greenish tint. And she was covered in bandages. And there was this creepy little dude about 2 feet tall with a blue backpack chattering away on her stomach. In a language that wasn't English. That she understood.
"RHAӒVE'SHO, NEH?" the bandaged dude said to her.
"Um," she blurted out at the sight of the little guy. But she stopped. That wasn't her voice. It sounded like she'd been smoking for thirty years. She startled, when she remembered why.
The melting, the heat, the burning. The flames had burnt her outside and in, and she was now realizing what happened. The, campfire? The image was fading now, but its warmth and care seemed to stay with her. Whatever it was had given her an ally, to help her? Maybe just to listen to her. But help her it had; patching her up with bandages, pulling her from the melting steel, wrapping her with a strange blue scarf, and sitting by her side until she awoke.
The little dude jumped off her chest when she sat up, looking up at her with a critical stare.
"FLSTH'KHUN?" it asked her
"No, I hope not, anyway." She replied, still reeling at the fact that she understood it.
"KHUNORI" it stated simply, looking in the distance towards something unseen.
"Things are always changing little dude" he looked at her questioningly "But that doesn't mean this is one of those times.
He nodded at her reply, then walked up to her and took her hand.
She winced, expecting intense pain, but all she felt was his warm grip.
"FLӒӦI" he commented and he helped her stand.
"Oh, I never said anything about not trying little dude, just that this might not be a time for change. This could be that time though."
He nodded at her, and then attempted to walk her out of the alley she'd been hiding in.
"Not yet. You need to tell me what you did first." She ordered him after stopping them from walking out.
He sighed deeply, as if expecting to avoid this argument, then plopped down, patting the spot next to him with his hand. So she sat down, and he began to explain.
Apparently when Ally (and he was her ally in every way that an ally truly was) was patching her up, her bandages had fused with her skin. Something about her regeneration being different than usual, leaving her constantly damaged, but able to work at full capacity. Her eye (and she really did only have one eye) glowed a faint green from in between her bandages and her old eye sockets, and gave her perfect 170⁰ vision in front of her, even if something, other than her eyelid, was obstructing her view.
Her Ally was apparently called just that, an Ally. He had explained to her that he was made from her pain, and now that she was seemingly permanently burned, he would be with her until she died. Then he explained the most shocking thing of all.
Ally, as she decided to name him, was from somewhere loosely translated to 'Wastes that would have come to be', which he described as 'much dirtier' and thanked her from taking him from that place.
He also described other Allies that could be summoned, warning her that they would most likely be forced to leave, as her healing method would repair all other wounds. In fact, there had been a second Ally that had been created alongside the little dude, but the second had sacrificed himself to give Caroline a 'boxular healing kit', which repaired all but the scarring wounds and fused her skin to the bandages she had on.
The sun had risen by the time Ally had finished his explanation, and Caroline realized that she had to find someplace new to stay.
"Well little dude, how about you and I go find somewhere to go." She said to Ally, taking his hand.
"YISH, FLӒSHYN." He replied.
For once, Caroline was content with the chilly breeze that blew down the alleyway.
After all, of the powers she could have gotten, she had gotten one of the few that could have given her a friend.
It has been a little over three years since he'd come into this world, into the city of Brockton Bay, and he still didn't completely understand the intricacies of the English language. Caroline, and she wouldn't accept any other name, even though he thought Great One was a perfectly decent name, had started teaching it to him once she had remembered that other people couldn't understand him. Him yelling at the first person that tried to mug their bandaged forms had made her remember that fact, and she had been sure to teach him proper insults first.
Now, he was up to a 7th grader's vocabulary level, and he was proud of this fact. Vocal practice was hard to find with people other than Caroline, as he was clearly disproportionate on this Earth.
He mostly practiced by telling stories of the wastes to Caroline. Of how he and his comrades had banded together under the banner of his old Great One, in search of the Nuclear Throne. He knew it likely didn't exist in this world, even with all the technological wonders that were produced by 'Tinkers' worldwide. Nothing he saw from this world came close to doing what the tales of the Nuclear Throne said it was capable of.
When he wasn't describing the stories of the Throne and the Proto Mutant to her, he tried to tell her of what he remembered Great One doing.
Summoning allies, spreading weapons and her health to her followers, and producing guns, ammo and boxular healing kits from the bodies of her enemies. All abilities the old Great One were capable of. And all things Caroline was capable of as well.
But even with her abilities, Caroline strayed from what the 'fucking gangs' and the 'Protectbullshit' wanted of her. She didn't even do anything like that rogue Parian did in the southern district. Caroline didn't desire money, or power, or drugs, or anything that was offered to her. She wanted someone by her side, and she had him. Sure, calling him Ally was like calling a dog, Dog, but it was the name she called him before she even knew what the wastes were, so he accepted it with joy. He'd never had a name before.
But since she had her companion, her trusty splinter pistol that had come from a killed rapist, her backup energy screwdriver from one of the racists that tried to recruit her, and three years and five months experience of living in the depths of Brockton Bay, she had all she needed.
This was enough for Caroline and Ally. They weren't heroes or villains, rogues or independents.
They were something else.
Rebels.
Translations:
RHAӒVE'SHO – Our lives are hard.
NEH – No
FLSTH'KHUN? – Will it always be this way?
KHUNORI – Something needs to change.
FLӒӦI – We have to try.
YISH – Yes
FLӒSHYN – Let's do this