The world was simply not comprehensible to me or to my senses, but it wasn't just the world, I couldn't comprehend myself either.
Taylor Hebert was dead, or rather her being had died. The common person could hardly be summed up in a few words. A name, their biology and spirituality, these all refer to the state of a person, and they could all change, names ever so easily, cells over time, and beliefs slowly adapting.
Memories and experiences, a personal record of their being, a constantly shifting self-record that could be forgotten or mistaken.
To describe the death of Taylor Hebert required defining who she was first. As humans grow, they naturally and organically change with time, both their sense of self and their being, but certain events could alter that growth dramatically.
A person, humans and beings, didn't exist in a vacuum. Society and civilization didn't exist independently of its residents and citizens. With people, a person was perceived, then they were compared and contrasted with other people.
Humans didn't exist as a singular collective, but rather as an umbrella term for divided 'tribes'. As times changed, humans grew from caves and huts to kingdoms and nations.
Nationality, that had been more important early on, but that changed as nations mingled. Race had been next, when passage to other continents became available and humans met their kind with different skin tones, and again the importance waned as humans mingled.
Gender, a distinction between humans to denote their biology, and closely associated with that were Roles, caregiver and foodbringer. As humans evolved, they started to provide for more than just them and theirs, and Jobs came next, a personal role in society.
Status, the state of being inside society, from ruler to beggar. Religion was another great divide between humans, though as with every thing mentioned so far, it wasn't important.
Taylor Hebert didn't define her being as: Human, American, White, Female, Student, Middle Class and Agnostic, those were all simply terms and labels that could be applied to her personal self, but not her being.
Her being, the essence of herself at its core, was a happy child. Her world, her life so far, it had been small, and she hadn't thought too much about the grand scale. The happy child had wavered after her mother died, but her friend had kept her going.
Her friend had betrayed her, the foundation of the happy child was gone, and only by the remnants of memories did she remain. Taylor couldn't form a new being, not when her old one was dying slow death, murdered with each insult from her friend.
A locker.
A metal door closing, sealing her in a metal box, snapping the lingering threads of friendship and finally ending her being.
A happy child no more.
Taylor was happy because she had the greatest friend in the world, not anymore.
Taylor Hebert was the child to Annette Hebert and Danny Hebert, her mother was dead and her father wasn't the same anymore. Her child self wouldn't, couldn't, recognize her own family.
A happy child no more, Taylor Hebert's being had died and yet I was alive.
Most people grow slowly, adapt over time, change gradually, they turn from a child to an adult over years, unless events interfere. The clear separation between a person's child and adult self couldn't be observed by most people, but she had clung to her childhood, and it shattered without anything to gather the pieces.
I had lost my being, I died and remained living.
I remember panicking desperately as tears rolled down my face, as vomit rolled down my chin, and as my mind broke and my heart shattered.
Then I had forgotten Taylor's troubles, and stumbled forth, onto a ground of shattered tile and filth. I didn't recognize my surroundings, or who I was, then an explanation unraveled in my thoughts.
It was… the hallway to Winslow High, it wasn't recognizable, but the sparse lockers lining the ruined walls allowed me to make an assumption.
I wanted to leave, but to my confusion I had no form. I tried describing what I appeared as but found no frame of reference. Clearly, I was the remains of Taylor's being after it broke, so her labels should also apply to me as well.
Human, American, White, Female, Student, Middle Class and Agnostic. My hands and knees materialized on the ground, and I could feel what Taylor had felt, that none of those labels truly mattered, but that didn't matter, I wasn't defining myself, merely constructing a shell to hold my being.
I wasn't sure what or who I was down to my core, but I doubt that it mattered at the moment.
As I stood up, I heard glass shards being displaced by my movements. Looking down I found a colorful collection of shattered stained glass, looking closer I could see smiling faces inside the shards.
The corpse of the happy child was shattered at my feet. I knelt down, the hollowness inside me ached as I saw my previous being, it had been so intrinsic to my sense of self that I felt lost without it.
I don't know what came over me, but I grabbed a handful of glass shards and swallowed them. Cuts opened up along my lips, cheeks, tongue and esophagus, as I kept gulping down handfuls, I didn't stop until the corpse was completely gone.
Memories, thoughts, emotions, and experiences had slotted themselves into my mind and I felt more complete. I didn't feel whole yet, but more filled out. And with this advancement, I felt confusion and fear regarding my current circumstances.
The sound of banging metal echoed behind me, I swirled around on a heel and stared at the ugly locker embedded into the wall.
If this really was Winslow, I had to wonder what could turn this place into something resembling a dilapidated ruin. Though oddly, the other lockers were in varying conditions, ranging from pristine to normal. However, I think even the normal ones stood out when paired next to gray rusty lumps and empty spaces.
The ugly locker wasn't in the worst state of repair, but it was warped unnaturally as dark red — almost brown — blood spilled from the gaps. A banging echoed from within, a desperate wild banging accompanied by faint wails and screams.
"Let me out…" A hoarse voice croaked just below the screaming and shouting. "Let me out…" It whined as metal screamed and twisted as blood squirted out.
I took a step back, this was Taylor's locker, where everything had come to an end for her. As I gained distance, the ugly locker faded, it became transparent and wispy.
"Don't leave me inside here…" It cried in a whimper as its request was also repeated as fading yell. It flickered like a glitching video, or old film roll skipping, and blood disappeared as metal un-warped. "Let me out…" It echoed in a hoarse tone.
I don't know how I knew, but I was certain the thing inside the locker wouldn't last. Its being was fragile, it had no real sense of self, it was just a momentary imprint of trauma. It would be forgotten soon, erased soon, it was going to disappear soon.
I almost stumbled as my own body, my shell, flickered in and out of existence. I had no true being nor self, and not even something to anchor me here, I would probably disappear first.
"Gigigihihihihi!"
Down the hall, a gaggle of naked misshapen ugly midgets hobbled forth. They hurt to look at, and not just their lack of decency or aesthetically, but rather a physical — for as much as I could use that word - pain assaulted my eyes. My vision blurred and shook, so I had to squint to see anything.
Closer than the hideous creatures, small motes of dim lights swam through my skin, my shell. As I looked around, I noticed the motes were following a stream directly into my shell, this was where my inexplicable knowledge came from.
Like the shards of the happy child, which gave me Taylor's childhood, these lights were giving me their experiences as otherworldly beings. Imprints of grudges and enmity, of negative emotions and painful experiences. They didn't give me information, but rather it allowed me to form my own from what they've experienced.
It wasn't anything solid, but I was certain nothing had misled me so far, so I would trust my instincts regarding those monsters.
Those things brought ruin and chaos, not overtly but in subtle ways. I couldn't think of examples without actually knowing anything, but I imagined it was stuff like making you lose your lucky pencil before a big test. Whatever they were or possibly did, just by looking at them I felt sick and worse off.
They jostled each other, pushing and shoving as they argued in high-pitched grunts. Then one of them, the second tallest and most compactly built, shouted as it shoved a small one over, and licked its own jagged yellow teeth as it crawled in my direction.
It wasn't fear that first came to mind, but rather revulsion and a desire for that thing to never come near me. It would consume me, other motes had been partially eaten before. These monsters caused grief, and when that manifested as these motes they consumed it.
I didn't want to be eaten. It was smaller than a child, a normal teenager would probably have no trouble handling it, but my shell was fragile like thin glass.
More banging echoed. "Let me out…" The voice contained a freezing anger, a burning grudge, against tormentors.
I knew I probably shouldn't, but that fact was that I didn't know much else. I had suddenly found myself here, after the death of Taylor's being. If I wanted answers or explanations, I would only get those if I survived, so I couldn't die here.
Slowly I moved, my body shivering as I held back the urge to vomit as the creature's reek invaded my nose. It swaggered over to me without a care, a leisurely pace without any urgency or worries.
It was a few feet away now, I moved over to the empty side of the locker, and I waited.
It was almost within arms reach, even more hideous than I thought possible, I yanked open the locker door from the side, using it to shield my body.
Silence reigned for an instant, and then yelps and tiles being scratched and shattered echoed. The locker door ripped itself from my grasp as it slammed shut. More echoes of screams and banging were emitted from the locker.
I hadn't expected that, I mean the things that had happened in the way that they did, I had assumed opening the door would release something, but not that the creature would be dragged in. A memory of hands pushing against my back made me correct myself, the creature wasn't dragged in, it had been shoved in.
The remaining monsters scampered away, and I had gone in the opposite direction, I needed to find some answers.
…
…
I stumbled, my thoughts stuttered and I barely caught myself from falling down, my memories had holes. I had searched the school, finding rubble and not much else, and as I exited, I noticed my shell's memory was full. So I had dumped the unimportant details of my unfruitful search.
I lost more than I expected and barely had enough to grasp what had happened. Damn it, thinking about pointless things would just waste time and memory, so I had to push past it.
The world outside of Winslow wasn't much better, the streets and buildings were in ruins. And it seemed to be dawn and dusk at opposing horizons, as day and night stretched across the sky. Clouds didn't seem right, it was as if they were gashes peering into an ashen plane.
"—" I tried screaming a hello, to voice my presence, but no sound escaped my throat. I felt a brief moment of déjà vu as I realized I couldn't speak, I had probably noticed earlier and had forgotten about it.
I saw hazy figures off in the distance, but I couldn't focus on them. I tried squinting, shifting my vision, recalling how I had seen the motes after I saw the monsters, but they didn't become clearer in the slightest.
Though I did spot something, faint wavering lines flowing off of me like ribbons, they weren't visible after a few feet but I undoubtedly saw them.
Danny Hebert. Emma Barnes. Sophia Hess. Madison Clements. Students of Winslow High. Staff of Winslow High. Names made themselves known to me as I gazed at the faint ribbons, there were a few more but nothing as clear and strong as these ones were.
On my part, the ribbons only reached my shell, they hadn't truly reached my core. Oddly, although most of the ribbons flowed outwards on a horizontal axis around me, there was a ribbon flowing upwards. It was fainter than most, and yet it didn't look frail, it didn't waver in the least, as if the ribbon was pulled taut.
I don't know what compelled me, but I reached out and plucked it as if it was a guitar chord. My body, my shell and core, trembled as vibrations made me sick.
The world around me melted, the cityscape in ruin vanished.
Indescribable.
My thoughts couldn't handle the new scenery, and any attempt to try would drive me mad.
"Hmm? Ah, Hebert's kin had turned this feeble has it? No matter, our pact still stands. What do you request of me? What do you want?"
What did I want? Although I would've said answers, I couldn't speak and was probably going to vanish soon, more importantly finding answers was just a means to an end. I want to live.
"It's been almost a millennium since I've received such an honest and straightforward request, especially since I can tell you aren't talking about immortality. You want me to stitch you back into your mortal frame, correct?"
It wasn't really, but if that was a method to live then I wouldn't complain. Before I could nod, I felt my thoughts and senses turn to mush.
"Take heed, Hebert, you are weak and my mark shall attract the attention of the strong, if you wish to continue living, regain your family's power. I bless you by my dominion as Queen, you shall become a better pawn or perish."