Then I saw light.
My brain couldn't comprehend what it was processing, until the pain registered.
I was alive.
I was looking at the sky.
I was alive.
A sound I never made before escaped my mouth, a mix between a groan, a choked gasp, a chuckle, a yelp of pain, and a whimper.
As all the pain made itself known, the only relief came from my heart, which was beating at a fast yet steady rate. My lungs would have probably felt good too, but by being associated with my throat, every breath felt like inhaling glass fragments.
My memory from last night was shockingly clear, up to the point where he started to choke me.
I whined and cried as I dug my hand under my shirt and undid my bandage, I pulled it out and pushed through the pain as I wrapped it around my neck, its numbing property activated fast.
I examined my injuries and surroundings, I couldn't bring myself to stand just yet. My shoes and socks were burnt to a crisp, my left glove had melted to my skin, skin which looked red and black, I couldn't move the fingers without crippling pain. My legs were saved from being burnt by my stockings, same for my torso, arms, and right hand. Although my right glove looked like trash, my hoodie had scorch marks on the arms and stomach. I'm assuming my throat and neck was severely bruised.
I noticed I was quite the distance from where I blacked out, based on the pain in my back and shoulders, I'm going to guess Lung tossed me away.
My body laid on the ground in the alley letting time pass by unnoticed, I didn't bother thinking about what I was going to do, just acted. The pain was unbearable, a few more attempts to get up and I finally accomplished my goal, there was more vomit included though.
I emptied my mind, which wasn't an easy task, and focused on my hoodie to make me unnoticeable, every step made me lose focus, but it eventually became every second step, then every third step, and so on until I made it home. I had to focus on climbing the steps, opening and closing the door, then I gently laid on the floor there, and went to sleep.
When I woke up I was still in unbelievable pain, and I had a charge, I sent it to my bandage and got up. I moved the bandage to my burned hand, then stumbled my way up to the second floor and into the bathroom. I searched the medical cabinet for anything that could help, I found some pain relievers, some disinfectant and some burn cream. I had to use my right hand and sore jaw to open all of them, I swallowed four pills, and poured the disinfectant over my burned hand, I screamed before clenching my jaw shut. When the pain lowered I smeared the burn cream on the flat sides of my hand, it would have been too painful to get between the fingers.
I didn't bother putting anything away, I just went to my bed and passed out again, but not before seeing the time on my alarm clock, 10:28 AM.
Like the last two times, I was still in pain when I woke up, but now I was hungry. The pain was still there, but significantly easier to bear with. I swallowed one more pain reliever before going downstairs, I only nearly fell down once. I microwaved whatever I found in the fridge, my sense of taste was completely numbed to what I ate, then I moved to the couch to fall asleep again.
I swallowed another pill and went back to sleep
I was vomiting before I realized I was awake, when I became aware of my body I felt dizzy, I heard a ringing in my ears and my vision was blurry even though I was wearing my glasses, concussion? I was still in pain, I noticed the tiled floor, I was in the bathroom, that would explain why I felt so cold. I stumbled over myself trying to leave, the pain was worse than last time, I saw the open pill bottle on the floor a few inches away from me, I took a few more pills before dragging a towel off a shelf.
I was crying as I curled in on myself, the world twisted and turned, everything burned, this time from the inside out, I couldn't inhale as much as I exhaled. I couldn't exhale as much as I inhaled.
The world was still, my heartbeat seemed to pause after every beat.
I saw darkness.
I was staring at the ceiling. I was in the bathroom. My body was still sore, the pain was now dulled. Sitting up I saw a puddle of vomit, the last thing I remember was being hungry and going to the kitchen, but now my stomach felt numb, my bandage was sloppily wrapped around it. Did I get food poisoning? Great.
My left hand was looking better, with a little effort I was able to remove the glove bits from my flesh.
Standing up I noticed the rest of the mess, the disinfectant and pills were spilled and scattered across the floor and a drenched towel was bundled up where I was laying, my clothes felt drenched with, judging based off of the smell, sweat. I disrobed but kept the bandage on while showered, which felt amazing. While getting dressed in my room I saw the time, 7:43 PM.
I had enough time to clean up my mess before my dad came home. I have no experience in cleaning up vomit, so I just mopped it into the shower and washed it down the drain. I threw away the food I left on the table, drank some water and ate a banana.
Throwing my clothes and towel in the washer, I kept on my bandage because I really needed it.
I cooked myself a big dinner while listening to the television, but I wasn't really paying attention. I had a lot to think about, I didn't have my pants, I'm assuming they were burnt off, which meant I lost my pepper spray and my coin. My legs and feet were protected from the fire by my stockings, but I did suffer some damage, there are some small burn marks on my thighs.
I'm glad I survived.
The fire was-Lung was-I was-Iwas-
Breathe.
In, out.
The feelings and sensations flashed through my mind, my hands were shaking.
The phantom pain flashed through my body, I cried on the kitchen floor.
I could only cry for so long, but by the time I stopped I had developed a killer headache, a quick trip upstairs and I swallowed another pill, I barely realized what I was doing. I was taking pills willingly and without a second thought, I was finally over my fear, or maybe I had been over it for a while but never had a need to take pills. It was a long time ago, before mom…
When I was young I became scared of drugs, young enough to not know the difference between medication and illegal drugs. I was silly to fear them, without them I would have spent an entire day in agonizing pain.
I went back to cooking and thinking, I suddenly recalled the time I went to sleep in my bed, it was ten something, which didn't make sense since I also remember charging my bandage before that and I don't normally get a charge until noon give or take thirty minutes. So either I was remembering wrong or I got my charge early. My memory felt real about that, so I must have got it early, but why and how?
The only thing I did differently was fighting Lung and nearly getting myself killed, I think I remember something about powers acting differently in life or death situation, but it didn't do anything to help me avoiding death, so maybe I'm thinking of something else,
I get one charge every twenty-four hours, but within an hour of difference centered on noon. Let's say I get a charge everyday between 11:30 and 12:30, why would some days be earlier and some be later? If I really think about it, around the weekend is when it's the earliest and it hasn't really been late since I started fighting crime. Did fighting Lung really make me get a charge an hour earlier? Based off my math? Yes.
My food was done by the time I put my load into the dryer, I ate my food in silence.
It didn't really matter if fighting made me recharge faster, if Lung could only make it an hour earlier, then any attempt at making it recharge faster will definitely kill me. I would have to fight someone twenty-four times stronger than Lung, just to get one extra charge. Which I just realized could be Lung if I let him amp up, if I can get over my new fear of him then I can attack him just a little bit more every day before running away to farm the extra time.
The other people I can imagine fighting to get an extra charge would probably be any member of the Triumvirate, or the Slaughterhouse 9, or the Endbringers. If I fought Scion I might get an extra two charges. Oh how tempting.
Realistically, I would probably die before being able to use any charges against any of them.
I don't want to die.
I don't want to die,
I don't want to die.
In, out, in, out.
While doing focused breathing, my throat was bugging me, so I wrapped my bandage around it. Dad was due home in a few minutes so I covered the bandage with a scarf I rarely used. When my dad came home, what was I going to do?
My nighttime routine wasn't usable after the first half, my body was still sore, but the first half of my new routine was just the old routine with a heroic twist. Do I just say goodnight and go to sleep? Sounds… good.
The only problem was that even if I wasn't sore, I wouldn't want to go back out, I didn't want to fight injustice anymore.
Lung wasn't the only one who could kill me, anyone could do it, I wasn't invincible. I only made it this far by going for cheap shots, I wasn't being a hero. Real heroes risked dying everyday just to save strangers, they didn't let anything stop them, they faced villains and Endbringers and they kept going strong.
I was just a human.
Right now, I was a human, with all that entailed, selfish, scared, and sad.
I was washing my tears away in the bathroom when I heard the door open, I dried my face and made sure my eyes weren't too red before going to greet my dad. "Hey Dad, how was work?" I asked him casually.
My dad looked at me with a small smile as he answered. "Good, how was school, Taylor?"
Right, I had school today. "Good." I lied. "Oh, Dad, I made you dinner as an apology for skipping breakfast." Another lie, I had cooked too much and lost my appetite.
"Thanks Taylor, you didn't have to do that." He talked and walked to the kitchen. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah, I just woke up early and wanted to run. I went a little bit further than Intended."
My dad looked at me.
"Won't happen again, I promise to stay aware of my surroundings and to keep my pepper spray at the ready." That promise was broken while it was spoken, but I couldn't exactly tell him how I lost my pepper spray.
As my dad warmed up his food, he hummed something, a mix between approval and defeated acceptance, he couldn't bring himself to say what he really thought, so he changed the subject. Just like I did when he mentioned school. "Do you remember Gerry? You met him a few times at work." He asked.
I shook my head. "Not really, why?"
"Some guys are saying he's working for Über and Leet now."
Where gangs had gangsters, Uber and Leet had henchmen. Uber and Leet treated the entire world as one big video game, where they were the only players and they didn't care about the consequences of their actions or collateral damage they caused, they were definitely human, but they had powers. They could do things a normal person could only dream of, and yet they squandered their powers on petty crimes and joyrides. Instead of helping the world be a better place, they make it worse.
That was a problem everywhere, a lot of people actively made the rest of the world a worst place just so that they felt better, and most people didn't care as long as they weren't affected, but heroes were different, they tried to make the world a better place.
What was I going to do?
Make other people feel what I felt?
Ignore the problem if it didn't affect me?
Try to be a hero?
"You okay Taylor?"
"Yeah, yeah just a little under the weather, I already took some medicine, so don't worry, Thanks for asking."
After he finished his dinner, showered and we said our goodnights, I walked down to the basement. My clothes still looked damaged, but in the dark of the night, who was going to pay attention to that, after a little digging through my closet I found a spare glove and a pair of shoes that still fit, and was ready to go.
I put two pain relievers in a small plastic bag just in case I strained myself. I planned to retrieve my bat, hopefully it was still there and Lung wasn't lurking around.
Focusing on sneaking out was the hardest it's ever been, for the past few weeks it's been as simple as flicking a switch, now it felt like I was holding down a button. The problem extended to sneaking in general, every dozen feet or so I had to find cover to take a breather. It took about twice as long to reach the same area from yesterday, no one was grouping up so that was good. As I walked down the same street my attention was caught by the new things, the warped holes in the road, the gaping holes in the buildings, and the rubble that littered the road.
The location where I shot Lung was a bit further ahead, I reached the car, with a new coat of dust and smoke along the hood, and thankfully found my bat still under it.
Now I only lost my coin and the pepper spray, there was no chance the spray survived, however there was a chance the coin survived, heck the surviving glove had two less charges and it did okay. Step by step I got closer, it felt so different, right now I'm scared of an empty spot, but yesterday I walked right up to Lung without a care.
I stopped on the scorched sidewalk, the darkest marks were in an upside down 'Y' shape, but the area around it was cleaned up, I did my best to avoid looking at the vaguely human outlines, the ground acting like some screwed up rorschach test, one I didn't want to answer.
I looked to the left, the alleyway I woke up in. It was definitely in view of this location, I could see my vomit puddle, whoever cleaned up here, the PRT or the ABB, ignored me. Did my hoodie hide me, while I was unconscious? It would explain why I was ignored, but it raised the question as to how? I had to focus on keeping myself hidden, which was something I wasn't doing.
I quickly walked out of sight so I could think and breathe, maybe my hoodie just naturally hid me but thinking about anything else lessened the effect. It was some sort of backwards logic, but it was an acceptable answer for now.
It wasn't until my trek back did I realize it was even more quiet than yesterday, even the sounds of the city were silent, the realization made my footsteps sound even louder.
When I finally reached the border street I lowered my guard, not entirely, but now I wasn't looking at every stray gust of wind with suspicion.
I got back into my role of crime fighter with little difficulty, I stopped muggings and assaults, and even a drunk guy kicking a dog, the differences in my performance were obvious, for me that meant I couldn't sprint everywhere, hit as hard or dodge as neatly, for my audience that meant I didn't speak or spend anytime with anyone once I was done.
A glance at someone's phone revealed the time, 2:03 AM, I continued to fight crime on my way home, I felt I was only half as productive compared to usual, and I was already done with my pills so the stress was stacking up.
When I got home I made myself a snack and threw my clothes in the washer, I went to the bathroom to examine my injuries, my neck bruise was nearly completely gone, the burned hand was pinker and softer than normal, and I couldn't find any major injuries I didn't know about, I was slightly bruised and burned in multiple non vital places. I chose to wrap my hand for the night, and took a quick shower before going to sleep.
My 5:30 alarm woke me up from my dreamless sleep, I forced myself out of bed, did a quick stretch to wake my body and checked my hand. It was completely normal now, aside from a slight discoloration. I wrapped the bandage across the small bruises I had and went downstairs, dad would be asleep for half an hour longer, I threw my clothes into the dryer and started cooking breakfast. I am normally supposed to be running right now, but since I'm still recovering I decided to take it easy.
I studied until I had to get ready for school. I wrapped my bandage around both my shoulders, by looping it around a few times on one shoulder before going across my back to loop around the other shoulder, as long as I didn't pull any weird poses or stretch too far it should be fine.
School was fine, after finishing my computer assignment I decided to check PHO, it's not something I did often, there wasn't really a reason to check everyday, I only used it to get a grasp about the cape scene and events.
My browsing on the wiki did reveal some new information on the ABB, there were a few edits to Oni Lee's wiki, and a new entry about a bomb Tinker, Bakuda.
I left the wiki and searched the event boards, hoping someone saw what happened after my fight with Lung, there were a few new posts with Lung as the topic, I clicked the one with the most replies.
According to the poster, the Undersiders had been pushing into Lung's territory for a while, but they always fled before he could get them. Last night, Lung had decided to take the fight to them, but he was ambushed while still on his turf, the fight was really just between Hellhound's Minions and a powered up Lung, a cloud of Darkness was seen but it didn't affect the fight much. The fight had gone on for about five minutes before Armsmaster and Miss Militia showed up, the Undersiders fled and the heroes led Lung away from public property before attempting and failing to subdue him, the fight ended not long after with both sides retreating. The poster left a comment under his report about poking sleeping dragons, they left a few links to what he called his sources, and some related images and videos.
I felt… disconnected.
I nearly died because of some thieves.
Who were either stupid enough to not know this was going to happen, or they simply didn't care.
I had to focus on my breathing again, this time to control my anger. I wanted to scream and shout or break something, preferably the faces of the Undersiders.
In order to distract myself, I searched some vague phrases that one could associate with my cape persona, I limited the search to Brockton Bay and the time to posts made within the last week, then sorted by relevance
There weren't a lot of posts, but I did learn a few things, apparently one poster was saved by me twice, once in March and the other on Saturday, when I introduced myself to them as Shade. They went off on constructing a portfolio of all my sightings and escapades, they linked old posts made by people in March and a few quotes from the Connections board. Then they described their meeting with me, which they said was premeditated, as they had been walking around at night hoping to be saved by me again.
In the section they called appearance and abilities, they described my appearance with weirdly flowery details, stuff like 'a face obscured from reality but with eyes that rejected light, and an ethereal body the mind couldn't comprehend.' Which was just an odd way to say unrecognizable.
Under abilities, they wrote down various interpretations but listed me as a Breaker/Mover and slight Thinker.
Then they moved on to my Personality. I was painted as a shy but brave girl in March, who had finally worked up the courage to introduce myself as Shade in April. They said I was awkward but well meaning, and that I was very considerate and cheerful, then they called me reckless and impulsive.
Near the end they said they were hopeful for my future as a hero, and then they asked if anyone could help set up a wiki page.
It was a new feeling, seeing myself from someone's else's side, even if they were wrong and I lied to them.
The comments on the post didn't have anything else to offer me, but someone did compare me to Shadow Stalker, to which someone else apparently found out I was the aforementioned girl but was just pretending to be someone else.
While I was searching for more posts, I found a few that were asking who I was, but when the page reloaded, I saw a new post, made by the same person who I met twice.
Their topic was 'What happened to Shade?' They went on to discuss what they gathered from Monday night, by checking the Connections board they noticed something was off from the way a person I saved described me, they PM'd the person to ask some questions and then went to ask other people who I probably saved. When morning came they finally got some replies, apparently people noticed I was moving oddly and the poster noticed I wasn't acting normal either, by inquiring further they revealed some people could recall the smell of something burnt when I was there. That was all they could gather but they wanted to know if anyone had any information to share.
I wanted to let them know I was safe, if only to lessen the feeling in my gut, but I knew I couldn't. In a few days they would probably notice I was all better anyways.
I went to the home page, with the intention of reading up on more current cape events, but then the bell rang.
Sometime during class, I had gained one charge. I was stuck for a moment, I didn't know where to put the charge, my first thought was my glove, but then I remembered how my bandage had saved my life. What if I needed to heal faster or better next time? After a while I was able to rationalize the importance of charging my attack item, my glove, so I didn't need to heal, instead I'll win.
Between classes, I looped my bandage around my neck twice, then wrapped it around my chest and back. My bandage works better if it isn't stretched out, but I didn't need any major healing, just soreness relief and to get rid of the markings on my neck, I should probably start carrying pills from now on, they made dealing with pain easy.
School ended without trouble, I'm pretty sure Emma and Sophia forgot about me by now. I didn't bother going home, I had to let out some steam.
I stopped a few crimes along my way to the library, I switched it up today by kicking them until they stayed down.
The library was as empty as always, but I didn't come to enjoy the quiet, I came to use the computer. I planned on tracking down the Undersiders, I nearly died and I lost my Coin because of them, and I wasn't going against Lung anytime soon, so they needed to pay.
Their wiki page was nearly empty, I already knew about Hellhound from my previous research into finding out if her monsters were actually dogs, and I had skimmed through Grue's page, there wasn't much after that. The boards had better information, the Undersiders were a group of minor supervillains who can be seen harassing other gangs and committing robberies, there was a whole snippet about a casino they stole from. The boards didn't know the name of the other two members, but they think at least one of them can trip people. I had to do a few more searches until I could put together a map of their sightings, which didn't reveal anything other than they knew how to run.
There was one lead I had, I knew they were teenagers, 'kids', and rich, considering they stole from a casino, and where do rich teenagers gather? Not the mall because they were villains, so that left the boardwalk, mainly because they have expensive coffee, and costly dresses.
A quick jog later and I was moving undetected through the crowd of people who shopped at the boardwalk, I didn't see anything that screamed I'm a villain who deserved to have my face caved in, so I walked a little further and into the market. Stalls filled with old junk and knickknacks lined the edges of the market, a few things caught my eye, mainly jewelry and knives, after all, gems and metals had spiritual meanings. I tested the materials in my hand to see if I felt a special connection, but nope, a gold ring felt the same as an antique pen. I spent an hour walking around, before going down alleyways to stop crime.
I ended up going to the better part of town to punch nazis, mainly because punching nazis just felt better.
Just as the sun started to set, I came across an example of what it meant to be human, a group of nazis were beating up a black couple, I didn't really know or care about the circumstances, all that really matter was that there was a crime going on and someone had to stop it.
As I crept closer, I was reminded of Sunday night, my 'fight' with Lung, my fear of death, but right now I didn't really care.
There were six nazis, two were holding up the guy while the third punched him in the face, the fourth was driving his knee into the back of the girl, pinning her to the ground, the fifth was recording on his phone, and the sixth was reciting nazi some bullshit.
The criminals laughed and shouted while the victims cried and screamed.
I decided to chastise myself later for not bringing my bat, I didn't have time to waste.
I brought my foot down hard from an angle on the third guy's knee, the sound of a snap was barely registered, drowned out by the pained screams that echoed, I didn't waste time admiring my work. I lunged with a punch to the right nazi's gut, I made sure to put my back in it, he collapsed with a yelp, and the left nazi had shoved their victim towards me, I made sure he fell gently.
Then I jumped away, two out of six were down, only three fighters unless the fourth got off the lady, the fifth and six were grouped up, so I decided to go after the left nazi. I closed my eyes and forgot about the battle, the only thing that mattered was my hoodie, I dashed forward and opened my eyes, the nazi took a startled step backwards, I swung my fist with my entire weight and punched him in the chest.
I pivoted on the ball of my foot and towards the remaining nazis, the sixth one had pulled out a gun and fired at me. The gunshot echoed, in the alley, in my head.
I froze in place, but I wasn't dead. It felt like I was stabbed in the stomach, but I wasn't dead, I felt the area where I was shot, and found nothing, no wound. I looked at the nazi who shot me and took another step towards him, he shot again and again, but I didn't stop.
There was so much pain, but it was overshadowed by the rage I felt.
He emptied his entire clip into my hoodie but he was apparently uninformed as he kept trying to shoot me, I decked him across the jaw, blood and teeth flew in an arc before landing near the fifth nazi, who saw still filming. He seemed to snap back to reality when I looked in his direction, he took a few steps back before running away. I considered chasing him but I dismissed it since I was aching. It was in my pained state I realized there was still the fourth nazi, who had let go of the girl and was also running away.
The girl crawled over to her partner and was whispering words, I wondered why she wasn't calling for an ambulance before I noticed two smashed phones a little distance away, I bore through the pain and rummaged through the pocket of the sixth nazi, I tossed the phone I found to the girl.
Then I walked down the alley, two nazis had ran away, three were incapacitated, and one was limping away on a broken leg, I caught up to him in no time. He was shouting into a phone, about what? I didn't care, I kicked the back of his broken knee and watched as he fell, he cussed and screamed, then I stomped on his knee.
He screamed louder and begged me to stop, it was funny how little his brain seemed to work, I was in so much pain, he was beating a man to death while laughing yet he wanted me to stop? I had to wonder what backwards logic he worked on.
"Pain doesn't feel good." I told him, and stomped harder, he screamed and cried.
"Inflicting pain for fun is bad!" I shouted and stomped harder, there was a squelch, crack and a scream that echoed through the night.
I made sure he was still breathing before dragging him back to the crime scene.
I leaned against the wall in the alley to catch my breath. I wanted to be sure the cops arrived before I left. I was still in pain, but the rage had faded. I moved my bandage down to numb the area I was shot, and waited.
It didn't take long for the capes to arrive, I hoped the heroes had been as fast as the Empire.
Abandoned!
I'll probably get around to a rewrite someday.