In The Clear: Introductions IX
Bowen "Bowie" Bridges, 18, Quebec City QC
Seconds before Bowie can even register the front door opening, they're already attempting to wipe the stray tears from their cheeks. Their mother's loud footsteps approach the kitchen and there's no time to move from their position on the floor. The damp sleeves of their hoodie leave behind a coolness to their cheeks that Bowie hopes won't be noticed.
"Bowie?" They try not to squeeze their eyes shut, knowing it won't help them to disappear.
"You're home early," Bowie says warmly. "I haven't started dinner yet."
Their mother's eyes gradually find them sitting against the kitchen cabinets. Bowie raises their hand in a pitiful wave and the tears start to resurface near-instantaneously. They feel pathetic sitting here, but these days it's been hard not to feel that way. Everything about this school year's been harder than the last. Bowie doesn't know how much longer they can keep hoping for something to be different.
Finally, the first few weeks of grade ten found them sitting at a lunch table with more than a shadow for company. Haileigh was new to their school and on the same schedule. It seemed like, for once, something was changing. They had a friend, or maybe a future-friend. The high school walls saw Bowie smile for the first time in two years.
"Careful, you might catch something." The remarks started small, a passing phrase in the hallway that Haileigh pretended not to notice. "Nice of you to help our local charity case."
Bowie always noticed. Their ears were primed for every insult from years of the same. Bowie's been in this school system since kindergarten; they know these kids. Years of taunting for tattered hoodies and unwashed hair has followed Bowie through every classroom.
Nowadays, with more kids in their grade to take the attention away, they're largely invisible. They don't raise their hand in class or stay late for study groups. They've become a master of keeping their head down and pretending they don't exist.
How dare they, just once, wish for anything else.
It was never going to last.
Today, they've cycled through bursts of tears and ripping up pages of study notes that aren't going to help them anyways. It felt good, like Bowie was finally giving some of the weight on their shoulders to this apartment. Now, with their mom crouching to sit beside them, the only thing Bowie feels is humiliated.
"You're okay, Bug," she whispers, leaning her head on their shoulder. Bowie near-crumbles at the nickname and bites down hard on their cheeks. The last thing they want to do is cry in front of her. They know she doesn't want to see it.
I'm not. The admission hurts as much as if they'd said it aloud. "Mom-"
They stop before another word arrives behind their teeth. Bowie isn't even certain she heard them.
"Where's my smiley baby?" They try to hide their tear-dampened sleeves as they turn towards her. The smile doesn't come easily. Bowie's certain that even she knows it's not real. Smile in the face of hardship, you don't know how strong you truly are. They hear the phrase so often it seems to have permanent residence in the back of their brain.
I'm not strong like you.
Their mom smiles back at them and cups their cheek in her hand. She pauses and looks so deeply into Bowie's eyes that it'd be impossible for her not to see the red along their lash line. Bowie wants so badly to look away. "There they are."
Bowie steps quietly through the city streets along a route they've half-memorized by now. The trees have just begun to change, their leaves a mishmashed array of oranges and yellows. They pull the strings of their hoodie more tightly at their chin, but one snaps as they try to tie it. A taunting breeze is enough to make them shiver.
Still, they press on. Bowie's fingertips trace along the fence outside the local graveyard, but their eyes don't stray inside. They know exactly where he's going, but each time it's impossible to tear their gaze away. It's him - those are words Bowie never thought they'd be entitled to think. It's actually him.
For years, Bowie wondered about the other half of themself. It's always been just them and their mom, but there had to be more. When they were younger they would fantasize about him. Is their father wealthy? Handsome? A successful actor or the heir to some faraway throne? Bowie used to believe he would show up, that he would take them and their mom away from this life to a brilliant other.
The first memory of his name is from preschool, their mother had never hid it from them - Nicolas Paul Raymond. Still, for years Bowie was afraid. It wasn't until mere months ago that they entered the name into Facebook and found him.
As it turns out, he was always right here in Quebec City. Their father had been halfway across town, a forty minute walk, for their entire life. In all the years of wondering, that had never felt like an option. It didn't make sense.
Now, Bowie's seen it. Their father has an entire life here - a job selling cars for Chevrolet, a condo in a fancy uptown building - a life that was never meant to include Bowie. They've followed him between coffee shops and his office, to the gate of his condo building. They've seen him smile as people passed him by and stop to pet a grinning labrador outside the grocery store.
Bowie's hand absentmindedly touches the top of their chest. As they have everyday, they try to physically push the feeling down. Still, at the base of their throat it festers. The lump grows so large that with every new memory they see - every carefree step without them - it feels like they can't breathe.
He left us behind.
Bowie takes a slow inhale and blows it out between pursed lips. Their fingers still tremble against their chest. Their eyes refuse to leave their father as he continues towards his building's entrance. He walks without a care, without a child in tow that would've killed just to know him. A tear starts down their cheek but Bowie wipes it quickly away.
They shouldn't cry. Smile in the face of hardship-
The statement stops there, or if it continues Bowie doesn't hear it. They're too busy running to catch the door as it closes behind their father. They swallow thickly as their muddied shoes step across the pristine floors. Even just the entryway is nicer than any home Bowie's ever seen. The immediate feeling of alienation is overshadowed by the ding of the elevator.
They don't think. Perhaps if they had, they wouldn't have run to catch it. Maybe they wouldn't have followed their father to his door or listened to the keys fumbling inside the lock. It's possible they never would've found out the colour of his walls or the sound of his voice.
More than likely, Bowie wouldn't have spent the next hours peeling the image of his nose hitting the baseboards from their memory.
Bowie doesn't remember leaving the condo building.
They can't recall what the stairways they ran down look like. If forced to recollect the sound of the emergency alarm sounding when they tore through the back door, Bowie could not. Nothing about the sprint down the street feels real. Their legs slam against a trash can and leave them on the ground while the metal bin is still upright. The trickle of blood from their palm might as well be rain water.
Bowie pushes themself back up to standing, unable to feel the trembling in their legs. Memories return to them in fragments - a scream they don't recognize, bloodied teeth that belong to no one they know. It doesn't matter how far they run. They don't know where they're going. Yet, what else are they to do?
Their hands land against the glass side of a bus shelter and their eyes lock on their reflection. Scrapes litter the side of their nose and splatters of blood lay along their jawline. Their pupils have grown so large they've all but overtaken the rest. Bowie stares, red-rimmed eyes wide, but the outline doesn't look like them.
In fact, it scares them.
The cold sits against their palms as the trembling makes its way quickly up their arms. Bowie gasps in a breath but it quenches nothing. They pull in another, and then another, yet still it feels like their lungs are collapsing against their rib cage.
"Who are-"
Bowie didn't wait for the rest.
Breathe.
You left us - you left me.
"Get out or I'm calling the police!" Bowie watched their fist swing out in front of them.
The audible crack. They hear it so many times, one after the other. It plays like a song in their mind, one that won't be blocked by simply covering their ears. Crack! Blood sits against the baseboards. Crack! Bowie pries their father's fingers from their arm. Crack! Again. Again.
Again.
"Hey, kid, are you alright?" The voice plays within their fractured memories. Bowie grasps onto it, but it slips away alongside a slew of other sounds. They watch themself in their reflection but that body doesn't flinch. Bowie can't move. They want to cover their ears. Breathe. They can't move.
"Kid?"
Another reflection joins theirs but Bowie can't focus on it. It sways behind them like a misted shadow, barely a figure and more ghost than human. Did I kill him? Bowie tries to push the thought away. I didn't do anything.
They want so badly for that to be true.
"Unit 4331 requesting backup." Air flows all at once down Bowie's throat, filling their lungs until they push away from the bus shelter. They don't remember turning around, but suddenly they're staring at an older man's concerned expression. The man moves quickly towards them, but Bowie pushes them away.
They try to run. Their feet only manage a single step before pain explodes across their back. Bowie's limbs jump against the sidewalk. The taste of iron fills their mouth but their scream is blocked by clenched teeth.
And still, none of it feels real.
Shane Kilrory, 18, Whitehorse YK
Shane watches the circle he traces around the next dinner plate. The sponge leaves behind a sudsy residue; one swipe, then another. He dips it back into the water, examining it for half a second before his hands automatically lift it to the drying rack. He grabs another. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
The thoughts that play as he washes the morning's dishes aren't thoughts at all. Shane focuses only as much as he has to on the current task, but there's nothing else. There's never anything else.
He doesn't question it.
Shane lifts the towel from the counter and wipes both hands before hanging it to dry. He turns to the rest of the kitchen, taking it in as though it's his first time seeing it. To him, all kitchens look the same just as all bedrooms do. He's never gotten used to either of them.
He stares at the calendar on the fridge for one cycle of the thin hand around the clock. Shane isn't sure how long that is. Time doesn't mean all that much to him. The sun shines through the window and thus it's still day time. When it no longer does so, it will be night and he'll be expected to sleep. While many of his foster parents thought the silence of their suburb or condo building would allow him to dream more steadily, Shane finds the opposite.
Without the sounds of the forest to coax him to sleep, he spends as much time awake in his bed as he does asleep.
Those memories are as hazy as the rest, yet comforting. According to his foster record, Shane is now fifteen years old. In a few months, that number will change on the date that his sister gave them. When he and Teagan were pulled from Forty Mile nearly four years ago, Shane realized his sister knew much more than she'd ever told him. He had a birthday. She had one too.
Shane remembers nothing before the forests of Forty Mile.
He knew little of towns or houses until the officers cornered them in the abandoned chapel and brought them both to Whitehorse. The Feral Children of Forty Mile. That was Shane's introduction to life here. He used to see his picture in the newspapers that arrived each week on whatever doorstep he resides behind. Shane wishes that he'd asked someone what the articles said. At the same time, he suspects he doesn't want to know.
Life in Whitehorse is different. Life without Teagan after she was sent to prison last year is different. Life trying to adjust to a world he never knew existed is different.
Even four years later, everything is.
Shane turns as the back door opens. His mind expects one thing but finds another - something he's nearly gotten used to over the years. He expects to see one of his foster parents, but the person who steps inside is far more familiar.
Teagan wordlessly wraps her arms around him and Shane rests his head lightly on her shoulder. They don't smile or even speak. She squeezes his arm and he brings his hand up to cover hers. Shane hasn't seen her since she was taken away. He's been moved around more times than he can count since then.
Teagan grips his wrist so tightly that his fingers begin to numb, but Shane only stares. She's the only family he knows, though he's been told every set of people he's been placed with are family. He honestly didn't believe she'd be able to find him again.
When she pulls him out the back door, he doesn't even blink. Shane follows without bothering to ask where they're going. He doesn't grab any of the meager belongings he keeps wrapped in a trash bag. He simply follows.
Everything's different, even Teagan looks different, yet nothing between the Kilroy children has changed.
Shane was never supposed to see Teagan again, yet here he stays.
It feels little different than their first years together in Whitehorse. They were dropped off to two smiling adults calling themself 'Mom' and 'Dad', but whom Shane had never met. They were brought to school and taught to ski, their new 'parents' saying they'd love it. All the first steps the Kilroy children took in this strange world were together.
Shane learned to adjust; Teagan couldn't. Their various sets of parents blamed her age, said she was less adaptable than Shane because of it. Many times she stopped going to school. Often, the pair were moved to a new house shortly after this pattern restarted.
Repeat. Repeat-
Teagan made friends. Shane didn't. She left at odd hours of the morning and came home when the moon had risen fully in the sky or as the sun peeked across the town. She looked different; he didn't understand. Eventually Shane met these friends and he started to; they all looked the same way.
He did things that made him different too. Shane took white powder up his nose that made him feel light as a feather. He drank stinging water that left him gagging. Teagan and her friends laughed. Shane didn't like the way it felt, but he often came back to the drugs. He came back for Teagan.
Then, she left in handcuffs and Shane was told he wouldn't be allowed to see her again. He moved houses many times after that. He wondered where she was, the word 'prison' a foreign threat he'd heard many times during his run-ins with police. He began to believe what the adults told him; his sister's absence felt as permanent as if she'd died.
Now, things are different again.
Since the day she arrived to take him from his foster family, Shane hasn't left this apartment. Teagan comes and goes without a word. He doesn't question her. Shane merely moves to make room for her on the mattress they have to share. She doesn't smell like alcohol anymore, but the skin under her eyes remains a deep purple colour.
She's different, but this is a change Shane welcomes. It feels like the forest. It feels like family, the one he's used to even if their surroundings couldn't be more different. Teagan protects him and he follows her lead. In their new world, this is the safest Shane's ever felt.
He's wondered for a long time if any of what he remembers is true. His memories are fragmented, a mix of this world and his last. They've been like that since arriving in Whitehorse, but here it no longer matters.
His memories can't betray him. Teagan is his memories.
She will keep them both together even as more pieces of him unravel each day.
Even if Shane doesn't truly exist.
Shane stares into the plastic mirror, a toothbrush unmoving in his numb grip. He paints the features in front of him - the half-closed eyes, the clenched jaw. They, at least, must be real. Yet, when he looks away towards the muggy bathroom, he can easily convince himself that his reflection was never there.
Shane knocked softly on the bathroom door of their apartment. Instead of a hollow sound, he heard nothing as the door swung inward. He whispered her name, the only volume his lips were capable of producing. No one answered.
The loud bang that'd brought him there played over and over in his mind. Shane's thundering heart knew that something was wrong. He stepped into the bathroom and all he heard was the rain of the showerhead.
All he saw was blood.
Shane dropped to his knees beside his sister. He turned her face towards him, the gasped breaths similar to a fish on dry land. His hair dampened as he grabbed for the gun still firm in her grip. Even in death's clutches, Teagan held it as far away from him as possible. He threw the gun behind him. He searched her body but all he found was blood. Her hair, neck, chest were all coated in it. As quickly as Shane could wipe it away with his shirt sleeves, it would return.
She stopped moving. Shane never did.
When the bathroom was invaded by people in familiar uniforms, Shane tilted his head towards them. Tears, rain, and blood smeared down his cheeks. He watched the barrel of a similar gun as it pointed between his eyes.
The only part that's real - the only part Shane knows for sure - are the words he whispered. He can still feel their tingle on his lips. They're the only part of him he can touch, when even his own reflection is out of reach once past his view.
"Please help."
They brought him here. There's more to the story, more words that Shane can't catch, but he knows that much. He recalls a strict building with people in stiff clothing. His mind brings forth more statements, more wonderings as even his name was called into question during the trial. None of it feels any more real than the forest, than the foster homes, than school or anything in between.
"There's no record of any Shane or Teagan Kilroy in the Yukon."
I don't exist. Shane turns back to the reflection and holds it between his eyes until a rigid voice forces it away. The hallway, the never ending hallway lined with metal bars, welcomes him back to what might be a dream-state or his reality. The questions flood back without answers; a tsunami that overtakes him every day.
Did I kill her?
Did she even exist?
He wants to believe that she must have, that his fragmented memories wouldn't make up someone whose name was enough to bring him to tears. But if she existed, then he killed her. And if she didn't exist, then why does every positive thought come from her? Is she merely a part of him, the sunrise to the spiralling darkness he's now become?
Did he kill the only part of him that deserved to live?
Is any piece of him still alive? Was he ever alive?
"There's no record of any Shane Kilroy-"
He doesn't know the answer. As prison bars close behind him, Shane's left in the clutches of his roaring thoughts. He's powerless to stop them. Perhaps, this is all he's ever been - a storm of broken memories that are both truth and lie. Then the question becomes, should he beg the winds for forgiveness, drop to his knees in hope that it will tear every darkness from his skull?
Or is it already too late?
… Please don't be too late.
A/N: And that concludes our introductory chapters. I hope you've enjoyed meeting our wonderful cast as much as I've enjoyed writing them. If you have the time, I'd love to hear what you think of Bowie & Shane!
Next chapter will be a shift back towards the subplot with the first interlude as well as the start of weekly (likely Wednesday) updates. Following this, we'll dive right into pre-games. Each contestant will be featured twice before the games portion begins. For those of you unfamiliar with my previous two stories, expect pre-games to be a lot different than what you're used to.
Until next time!
~ Olive