Antecedent 0.3
My mind wanders as I fill up my backpack. It's still hard to wrap my head around the fact that I have virtually half a Medhall executives monthly paycheck sitting under my bed right now. Though, there was still something keeping me from internally celebrating.
My memory of that night is blurry, but only in some places. I remember stalking up to a house, the summoning of my bugs, the miscellaneous gathering of items. Everything up to being unable to open a safe only comes to me in flashes, and not even visual flashes, mostly of what I was "feeling" at the moment.
Calm. Annoyance. Frustration. Reprieval of frustration. Surprise. Mild desperation. Fatigue.
And then I was home.
The rest is very clear to me.
So, how did I get to the money?
And who put it there to begin with?
I sigh as I grab my water bottle, shoving it in with the rest of my things. I probably used the revolver to shoot the lock open. I zip up the zipper. I got out quickly, I'm sure. I stand up. That lady most probably was saving up for a while. I put the backpack over my shoulder. My memory's shoddy as it is; I don't need to think about it anymore. Everything's been resolved either way. Satisfied with my logical conclusion, I walk out of my room and down the stairs to the first floor.
For the special day it is, my father really pulled out all the stops. He is in the kitchen, in the middle of cooking a full breakfast. This catches my attention for the rare event I am witnessing.
"G'morning, little owl." I stop on the stairs for a moment. Was I really being that loud? My lips purse at the slight annoyance in myself, but I make it down the rest of the stairs before I can embarrass myself in front of myself further. Seeing as my father has breakfast under control, I take a seat at the dining table. I do not know how long it takes him to finish, but he eventually does, and I am broken out of my blank stare by a plate of two pancakes and a few strips of bacon.
My father has a concerned look on his face as I take a few bites from my dish. He looks as if he wants to ask me something, but hasn't found the words. It takes me three bacon strips and one and a half pancakes before he seems to have organized his thoughts.
"Taylor…are you okay?" I blow some air out of my nose in amusement.
"Yes, I'm quite alright, father. Why wouldn't I be?" The little crease in his forehead only wrinkles more as I eat a bacon strip.
"...Well, first of all, I would guess that being less than a week out from the hospital might be a bit detrimental to that." Oh, right. That.
"I don't think I should linger on those sorts of events for too long. If I stay stuck to something like that for long enough, something that should be moved on from, I might eat myself whole…" I make a pointed look at him as I finish another bacon strip. "...wouldn't I?" The look did not go unnoticed, but he seemed more confused than offended. Maybe it was my point-blank delivery.
"...*Ahem* Second, and I'm not saying that you used to be…stupid or anything, but your way of speaking is a bit more…" He pauses, clearly trying to find the correct, yet not too insulting word choice. I, meanwhile, finish the last bacon strip and go to work on the half-pancake. "...Advanced?" Ah. Well, he deserves an explanation.
"Brain chemistry." I finish the last bite of my pancake. My father stares at me, as if he is waiting for the next part of the story. He groans in entertaining frustration as I stand up and walk to the sink.
"Okay, third, why are you acting like this?" This makes me stop. "Is it because of me? Is it because of the hospital? What happened to my little girl?" I stay still for a few moments. "You've been cold, distant. It's like you're not yourself; it's like I'm not even your father anymore. You said that you moved on from the hospital, okay, but then why are you still like this?" I stand frozen in the middle of the kitchen. A flurry of confusing things roil in my stomach.
"...I'll be taking the bus to school. Thank you for breakfast." I drop off my plate in the sink and ignore what the man at the kitchen table says as I leave. It's not important.
The bus, if I remember correctly, is quite slow, usually taking almost half an hour to get to school; in between waiting for it, getting on, and getting off. This gave me a while with my thoughts. This was something I had been hoping to avoid.
The questions that rattled around my head were not easy ones to answer.
Am I still me? I am very aware that I have changed. It would take a blind stranger who had never met me before not to notice that. I have accepted that, time and time again. But no matter who I become, I'm quite sure I'll still be me.
Am I a different person now? To a point, yes, I am. I don't see how that's unusual, however. I know that I was changed through unnatural means, though I still don't know if it's thanks to my powers or not, but everyone changes. How could I be the strange one for that?
Can I ever return to my old self?
I scoff loudly. I feel people's eyes on me. Apparently, I'm now sitting on the bus.
I force a fake chuckle, along with a smile. Everyone looks away. I assume they got the message.
Back to the question, I scoff again, inwardly this time. Why would I want to? Sure, I had more concrete morals then, but, respectfully, I was weak. The old me wouldn't have gotten out of bed. The old me wouldn't have the strength to get on this bus. The old me wouldn't have been going to face the place that killed me. The old me…
The old me couldn't have done what I did two nights ago.
I would never become that whelp again.
I'd rather die.
…
Oh, wait, I did.
The rest of the ride is uneventful. A few stares fall my way, and I respond with a toothy smile and wide eyes. It reassures them that I am definitely a normal, sane girl and makes them turn away uncomfortably. When the bus stops, I am quite relieved I don't have to face these people anymore and walk out. I take a breath. The building in front of me might not mean too much to me anymore in terms of eliciting emotion, but it still makes me feel weird in my stomach. My hesitation only lasts for a minute or two before I ball my left hand into a fist and walk forward.
I don't know if I expected anything to change in my week-long absence, but I'm taken aback when I see that nothing has. The walls are still peeling. The ceiling still drips with a brownish liquid. That smell wafting through the halls still hasn't gone away. Truly, this place is a shithole.
As I walk down the hallway, I get a few funny looks my way. I activate my smile, making it extra toothy for good measure. It seems to work, as most of the kids go back to their own business, albeit with a few distressed faces here and there. I do not know why, but the distasteful expressions make the weird stomach feeling go away.
I eventually arrive at my locker. For a while, I just stand and stare at it. It's nothing too special. A tall metal box with rust covering most of the left half, sandwiched in between two other boxes. My sarcophagus stares back. There are no words for what I felt.
Fortunately, our time is cut short. Unfortunately, it is cut by the last people I wanted to see today.
"Oh, you're back." I side-eye the source, seeing three girls approach. My head follows, allowing me a better view. My body follows, allowing me to face them. Perhaps if I smile, they will leave. I do so.
"What are you doing, freak?" It does not work. I let go of the smile.
"Hello, Emma. How are you today?" A smirk grows in her face.
"Oh, Taylor. You're not dead. How sad." Hm, she ignored my question. I cannot help analyzing her face, her voice, her tone. To my ears, it feels forced. To my eyes, it looks strained. She is clearly worried about something, but I cannot pinpoint the exact reason. Unfortunately, my analyzing ceases when Sophia steps in front of me, boring a hole directly into the space between my eyes.
"Let's cut to the chase, Hebert." Sophia. It's a surname, not a slur-name. "You're not telling a soul about that night, okay? No one knows about it now, those that do are shutting up about it, and we're keeping it that way. Got it?" There is a beat of silence as we stare at each other. The other two girls nervously wait to the side, possibly out of sorts given my un-reaction to Sophia's threat. It gives me an idea.
"Hm. Are you asking me to break the law?" She stares back at me in confusion.
"What?" My entertainment begins.
"Well, not breaking it, per se, but I would be withholding information on a serious crime. First-degree murder is quite a step above shoplifting, isn't it, Emma?" My pointed question elicits a small, almost invisible flinch. I focus back on Sophia. "Of course, you were the person who did it in the first place; you would get the worst sentence for the fact you also coerced two accomplices to join you." Some anxious twitches from Emma and Madison. Sophia was stoic as ever. Perfect, pristine porcelain. If I could just…
"Have you perhaps done it before?"
Crack.
"Maybe under different circumstances."
Crevice.
"An act of violence you thought was correct, simply because you convinced yourself it was."
Fissure.
"But then a feeling washed over you."
Fracture.
"You wanted to do it again, didn't y-"
Break.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
I narrowly dodge to the side of her fist, causing her to fall forward. I hum amusedly before electing to walk away. I had gotten what I wanted. I was halfway down the hallway when I heard her voice again.
"Oh, Hebert. I bet you think you're better than me. I bet you think you're so high and mighty just 'cause you survived me once." I stop. "I'm not going to fucking stop until you're buried under the ground like the worm you are." I hear a slightly deranged chuckle. "And I know for a fact that I'm better than you!" This makes me turn around, the same expression on my face. I take a few moments before responding.
"I'm sorry, but you are incorrect. You know for a fact you're better than who I used to be." I turn away again, but keep a side-eye on her. "Good to see you never change, Sophia. I hope it stays that way." I focus my attention back in front of me, as I walk to my first class of the day. "There's a difference between stubborn and stagnant. I recommend you learn it." I activate my smile, even though she can't see it. "It might save your life." With that, I disappear behind the nearest corner, satisfied with my morning doll destruction.
The rest of the day is wholly uneventful. During my classes with any one of the Trio, they usually just ignore me or, in Sophia's case, glare at me unsubtly from their seats. I am now in my final class of the day, being a good student and paying attention to the pop quiz. I scan the paper. If I put my full focus on this, I will get a neat one hundred. As I put pencil to paper, I immediately split my focus to the vents in the ceiling. A little lost moth stops its meandering as soon as I take control. With a bit of maneuvering and luck, I eventually find a class at the other end. I camp the moth on the edge of the vent. Wrong class. I repeat the princess a few times. I'm almost halfway done with the test when the moth finally gets to the class I'm looking for. Moths don't really have the best vision unless it's for tracking fast movements, but they have quite good hearing, and I can confirm which room it's in when I hear a familiar voice, whispering in a hushed tone.
"-nd what did they find?" Perfect. I start to fly the moth to a bookcase near the table where my targets are. They are in the middle of art class, or to Sophia and Emma's ears, talk-time. What I'm doing could be considered juvenile, but I want to have some fun that isn't related to burglaries. As I get the moth ready to zoom out from its hiding place, the moth hears something interesting.
"Well, don't ask how I know this-"
"It's kinda obvious how yo-"
"Shush. They checked the guy's safe the next day and found a false floor."
"Jesus. What was so important to have two layers of secrecy?"
"Swastikas, apparently."
"WHAT!?" The room turns to them in confusion, but a snarl from Sophia gives them motivation to continue their classwork. "Sorry."
"Don't worry. It's weird. A Medhall guy, especially an executive, being found with those doesn't bode well for his company. Probably why he was killed, though." The closest equal motion I can describe with moth biology is to strain its ears.
"Where was this? If there's a murderer skulking around, I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight."
"Hey. I'll never let anything happen to you. Besides, it wasn't even near your neighborhood. It was some place in, uh, Downtown, I think." That's the side of the city I went to. "Yeller Street, with all those houses you see in the ads." That was the street the house was on. "It was one of those houses, actually, now that I think about it. The fancy two-floor ones." Hm. "Everyone's assuming it's some cape and are on the hunt for him, but I don't really see why. It's someone who's willing to do some real justice for this city instead of whatever Piggy's plan is." …Interesting. "Well, anyway, that stuff's boring. What do you think of Hebert coming back?"
I release control of the moth; I'm not interested in their long repeated opinion of me. The moth might cause some ruckus now that I'm not in control, but that isn't important now.
Everything Sophia just said lined up almost exactly with what I did two nights ago. I don't remember killing a person, but everything else was the same. I should be horrified by my actions, turning myself in with a weepy confession to serve the time I have to. I instead decide to finish the last question, fifteen, on the quiz. The bell rings with almost perfect timing as a fellow student walks through the desks to pick up all the papers.
Walking through the halls, I can't help but think about what Sophia said. About how I'd delivered justice in a way that this 'Piggy' hadn't. Perhaps she was referring to the police department, but I could not confirm that with the limited information I have. That, however, is not the important thing to me, and neither is the source of Sophia's knowledge. The only important thing is the fact that she indirectly commended me for murder. Of course, this could have simply been her bloodlust talking, it made me think.
What if that was my purpose? To help others. Save others. Fix the city and world around me instead of break it further. Was it why I had lived, why I had my powers to begin with? I definitely didn't get them to mess around or play juvenile pranks on my enemies.
I find myself on the bus, too deep in my own thoughts again to see where I was going. It doesn't bother me too much the second time. I disappear in my own head again, formulating a sort of plan. A plan that started with one question.
Who helps the city the most?
An answer comes back almost instantly. My lower lip twitches. I make a mental note for later; my father is about to have quite the shock.