Jackie saw things within the darkness.

And she knew it wasn’t her eyes adjusting to it or catching something prowling within. Her eyes were simply gone, because her mind was gone, before all of this happened.

Another flashback occurring in the present before her. She along with the other girls were slumped against each other, in an abandoned bus stop with scuffed glass walls. Tired. Covered in Nulgarrt goo.

Behind this scene, was an unstable still collage of their moment in the Metroplex all those months ago. They were stranded, they walked for miles for shelter within Maddie affectionately called “the concrete wasteland”. And they arrived only to find out that it was a Nulgarrt stew in the making, hiding and fighting for their lives against an enemy that held every advantage. But they managed to escape that time, they managed to make some difference.

“…And yet it didn’t matter, did it?”

Her sleeping self spoke to her, her eyes closed not because she’s keeping them so. But her Mindscape rendering her as such, her eyes merged shut.

“It didn’t matter because something else came along, and put us back square one…”

Jackie shook her head, and her mind focused towards another memory, of them running in a daze within the dead streets of a neighborhood, running towards Extant’s headquarters. Clothes ruined, bruised and battered.

They bought time for everyone, it was their first encounter with N’atural. Maybe it was the Nulgarrt encounter from before, but they managed to trap her and lived to tell the tale, if not barely. Newly documented Trend or not, they survived against one. They did it and they won.

“And yet, that wasn’t enough.”

Her past self, yet again, taken out of the story, just standing with her back against her “real” counterpart.

“If we actually made a difference, then why is she still around? Why are people still getting hurt? All it did was bought us time for what happened next, something others didn’t get. That’s what we gave people in need. Something else to fear, to go crazy over? I guess I know all about that, at least.”

Jackie swiped forward, not a well-countered, well-thought-out response, as she continued to attack the air as she jerked forward fervently.

She found herself on a day she could never forget if she tried, siVis-induced or not.

What people deemed “the N’atural-Mayhem incident”, two Trends causing so much havoc, they triggered a new Shift type in their clashes. The first recorded “superpowered conflict”. That was all meaningless for the people on the ground, who had the first-hand experience, of reality finally going wrong.

They were of both worlds, like everything regarding this stupid shit. They tried to help as they ran towards the epicenter but lacked the agency to make any of it stick—as the Shifts the Trends created sent waves to not only trap people within existential agony in the stilled air—but cause them to Shatter. Maybe those people were the ones after them, the Shattered at the Mall.

But they still tried. And they did survive. And they did do go.

Jackie warmly watched as they were on the ruined streets, together, hugging and sobbing at how despite the odds, they survived their terrible mistake in getting siVis, surviving Nulgarrt, surviving a Trend—all in that order, back to back, and they did it. They’re survivors.

“And how many didn’t?”

The scared girl turned, and saw every version of herself from each vision.

The shared trait, no matter the context. Broken and beaten, in various ways.

“I’m scared to look at the statistics, I’ve always put it off,” they said in union and yet one voice instead of layered multiple. “What makes them different? If anything, why aren’t we dead? People that constantly push and push. Never leaving anything alone. Can’t I understand, that once in my miserable life, that it doesn’t fucking work…?”

Jackie was backed into a corner, as she continued to walk forward, scrutinizing her.

But that makeshift wall had to break sometime, and she flipped backward as it did.

She landed face-first again, this time on tiled floor. Familiar tilted floor.

Her old tacky high school’s tiled floor.

Lifting herself up, she was just in time to realize one of the most shameful moments in her life.

Somehow being able to peer through the crowd that gathered, including the team. She was in the front, being too ashamed to call her “past”—it’s still her, only a year or so younger.

Jackie was grabbing her own hand, rubbing slowly and softly on her red knuckles having the gall to cry as she did. She started this mess. Why did Scarlett get the security guards called on her?

But she watched, her now-former best friend and partner on this basketball time—the one who was actually hurt, being carried away by the school’s security guards out of the locker room.

Jackie was the one that started the fight. Jackie was the one that snapped, all because Scarlett was the one trying to make her see sense—the one that was basically telling her to live in the moment, enjoy it. Fuck whatever these Shifts are gonna do to us, not to play superhero and fail miserably. What could’ve just been a sad loss at their last ever game, the last day of school—the last day of living in her old home of Quadale due to these stupid fucking Shifts… Final day of normalcy.

But she had to ruin that too.

Everything fell apart, as she found herself within the epicenter of a Shift, turning her quiet normal town in America into a literally twisted caricature of itself. Something that her parents wanted her to never see, but unfortunately did eventually. A memory she now constantly avoids.

…

It was in that heavy moment, that it all clicked, how much of a hypocrite she ended up being.

Striking so hard, it plunged her back to reality.

“—Someone better tell me how and why we were crawling up, and yet we’ve circled back to where we started?!”

Plunged back into a sealed, metal pocket with nowhere out. With a dim green light source, but clearly steeped in darkness.

“You know what?! Fuck it, I don’t care!” Tracy continued on, her eyes open, pointed, wild. Desperate. “There isn’t an answer because it’s the same fucking one we can’t accept! There’s nothing and it’s pointless!”

“We cannot keep doing this!” Aiko pounded her hands repeatedly with every syllable against the smooth walls. She quickly put each hand against each side shakenly. A sense of control she doesn’t really have. “Not now! Please, not now, not now--!”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“You could’ve left me! All of you!” Tracy screamed now. Somehow such a light and at times shrill voice finding such bass and venom, as if she’s screaming herself raw. Her echoes bouncing from the walls adding to the effect.

“For once in my pathetic life, I finally accepted it! That I ruined everything, that I burnt all of my bridges and now I can just go away—people can just forget me! But no, you had to give me this false hope from your collective asses! FUCK—ALL OF YOU!”

“Th-this isn’t about us, an-anymore…” River mumbled out. “Maddie’s going to die, d-d-d—”

“Oh, the fine, upstanding girl that we clearly love and value?! Who cares! Why should we?! There are no good reasons other than nebulous ‘right thing to do’ to help her—she’s been awful to each and every one of you and guess what?! If we did get out of here—she’ll continue to be awful! Fuck it! Fuck this!”

“If ‘Maddie’ is the one that is with me at this moment, then she is reaching urgent levels of sickness and fast—” the Davenboy chimed in.

“SHUT UP! SHUTUPSHUTSHUITUPSTHUPSHUTP!” Jackie roared.

There was nothing after that, but Jackie was going to keep going regardless if there wasn’t an opening or not.

“YOU stay here and die, fine! But you’re not gonna get in MY way in saving others! SO get OUT of MY WAY!”

There was no authority in these shouts, just panicked, loud noises to reassert lost or decaying dominance and presence.

She knew that she was losing again.

“Me, me, me, my—notice at how she didn’t remotely say ‘our’, you two-bit fake hero!” Tracy responded.

“WE CAN’T BE DOING THIS NOW,” Aiko was helplessly repeating again to boiling, deaf ears.

River reached inaudible levels at this point.

Jackie felt her mind crackling from the inside, and squeezed her eyes shut to withstand it all.

Only for her eyes to shoot open, flicking with white over and over, and slowly hearing the screams of the others become muted.

She was looking up towards a “sky”. A “sky” made up of connecting, wispy veins that were cracking visibly in the spaces where the veins gathered the least, which had glimpses of a distant void.

Each of these veins held events that Jackie did not have. Playing like TV.

First even was a freak car wreck, in the pouring rain with a small, gray car slammed against a mountain ridge.

The family inside was miraculously only scrapped up with some lesions. The two, clearly and understandably distraught parents, trying to get out of the car, to get to their three children.

The eldest was against the door, the least hurt out of the unit.

At least physically.

Aiko just sat there. As her brothers cried, as her parents scrambled and panicked. Aiko just looked on, at her twitching hands. Letting her mortality sink in.

Another scene. River, younger and more put together, becoming undone in real-time.

She was in the doorway, with a bunch of papers in her hands, with markings that indicated that she aced her written exams. Not only that, but papers under this exam that jutted out, implied that she made advanced class due to it, or at least considered. And judging by the various bandages on her fingers, and the sweat still being present on her forehead, this took a lot out of her.

Too bad what she was seeing was taking more.

Her mother collapsed on the floor, with her older brother Roland helping her up as she was heaving with pain.

“Don’t just stand there, River, help out!” Roland shouted at her, without meaning to.

Shaken, River rushed over, and then scene continued as Roland was racing them to the hospital as their mother tried to kept from wailing.

“I hope that our plan covers this…” Roland lamented, mostly to himself as he massaged his forehead.

River was in the back, still clutching at her papers that didn’t matter anymore.

“I-I’m sorry, honey…” their Ma began, struggling. “I was trying… To surprise River for the grades she’s been making and… My legs gave out…”

“It’s fine, Ma, it’s fine,” Roland tried to reassure. He always had tangible stress to him that undermined everything he said.

“…I, uh…” River began, more lively but still so small. “I did it. I made… The program and I’ll be transferred in a week…”

“Th-that’s good, honey!” Ma exclaimed.

“Yeah, but don’t get it in your head that this is the end, or this is it, okay sis?”

River’s stomach was brimming with anxiety, at that.

“This right here? This is why you have to keep good grades and get good connections and get great experience 24/7, 365 days a week, none stop. And maybe, maybe you’ll be in a better place than any of us, and if not hey. You’re getting a better headstart than any of us had.”

Every word hit. Every word added the pressure.

Every word added to the tiredness she felt.

The final scene that was broadcasted was now Tracy’s. She dressed vain, more open clothing.

But her face, rattled with fear and desperation, was 100% the same.

“You all just can’t leave! Leave me!”

It was the dead of night, as a number of her family was piling into a service vehicle, with her mother—too dark for Jackie to completely gather the details for, being the last outside, looking at her daughter with legitimate scorn.

“The court that you sicked us on tells us otherwise!” her mother yelled at her, as if she wasn’t a daughter. Her daughter.

“You can’t just blame this on me!” Tracy was on her knees, her eyes somehow getting bigger. “I was doing what I thought I was right! You’re overreacting, just get back in the house!”

Her mother just turned her back on her, putting her suitcase in the vehicle.

Tracy balled her fists, to signal that she was getting angry. But they shook, to give away how scared she was.

“This is your fault, too! You can’t just pin this on me! Leave me alone and stuff, you wanted to guide me and parent me, fine! Tell me what I did!”

The mother moved to the door, and opened it.

“TELL ME, TELL ME PLEASE!” Tracy started to tear up, and wail. “TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”

And then the visions ended, causing Jackie to pant and heave.

She looked back, and from what she could see, the others had flashing eyes that soon faded as well. They saw it. All of it.

“Who did that…?” Tracy was low. “How dare you, for doing that—”

“Who knows,” Jackie was groggy. “Another siVis glitch thing, something we can’t control, another thing—”

“Oh suuuure,” Tracy countered. “I’m sure this was another example of being nosy and tempting things.”

Jackie just stared, that wavered into tears.

“Don’t you dare…” she sounded so broken.

“At least you don’t hit us when you drag us down…” Tracy darkly snarked, confirming things for her.

Jackie went still. Tears rolling down her eyes. siVis pieces beginning to pop, in and out.

“WHY ARE YOU DRAGGING US WITH YOU?!”

Jackie quickly snapped out of it, as she looked down at Aiko who was a boxed in animal.

“You want someone to tell you want to do, huh?! Then fine, actually accept that you’ve fucked up your life! You’re the one looking for ways out! You’re the one that does this! You! You you you you you!”

Tracy was paused. Her eyes turning back into dough, her anger turned sadness.

“You’re right. You’re—”

Within moments, she sunk into the metal. Swallowed whole.

“TRACY--!” Jackie screamed. “TRACY, NO!”

Aiko was just wide-eyed. Looking at the spot where Tracy was. River started to slide down before gripping herself up again.

Jackie panted, looking around, only to feel Maddie twitch again.

“We have to go! Now! We’ll drop Maddie off and—and then we dive back in! We have to do it quick--!”

“We’re going to die…” Aiko said, dejected. “We’re actually going to die…”

Instantly, the metal swallowed Aiko whole.

“Move, River, move!” Jackie started to crawl up, with Maddie in tow, audibly struggling.

The struggling girl was climbing against a steep hill, her panting clouding her hearing.

A chill crept on her spine, and she clamped her mouth shut.

She didn’t hear River at all.

She didn’t hear anyone anymore.

“No…!” Jackie whined. “No!”

She bashed her fists against the ground. “No no nono no no no no no no!”

There was enough flicker in her eyes. Way slower than the first time.

She was in someone’s backyard, on the grass.

A smaller, grinning Maddie ran past her.

The lawn was unkempt and spotty, a gate that should’ve protected the home, but had a massive gap. Her house, Maddie’s house, was white and leaned into the neighbor’s fence, with the lawn being in the front and mostly on its left.

“Marri~!” Maddie chirped. “C’mon, we don’t have time to plaaay! Come out already, I’m the one watching you, remember?!”

She continued to run and search, until she was hit with something that stopped her in her tracks.

A distinct, sharp, and pungent wave of smell overwhelmed her to the core.

Maddie followed it, her energy dwindling as she got closer. “M-marri…? Marigold…?”

And as she turned around, deep in the tall grass in the pit of the yard, she found her.

On the ground. Still smoking, and yet the body was obscured within the grass, with her legs out.

Unresponsive.

Maddie didn’t understand it, and yet was taking everything in all at once. Because she had to.

“M-mamma…! D-dadda!” Maddie screamed out with tears streaming down.

Jackie was instantly taken out of the vision, harrowed. Hallow.

She felt an arm wrap around her neck, but it was weak. And despite Maddie trying to strangle her, she was still weak, only causing Jackie to cough, somehow felt more uncomfortable than she did.

“K-kill me… Kill me…” Maddie said with a crackling voice, soft. “I’… I’ll kill you if you don’t kill me…”

“M-maddie…” Jackie struggled. “I’m… Sorry… Please…”

“Just kill me… I refuse… To go out like… This… She doesn’t… Deserve… For me to... Go like... This...”

The girl let go.

And fell off Jackie’s back as a result.

Getting swallowed easily, and before Jackie could dive in, solidified the moment she banged against the metal. She shot up, clawed, fumbled, and then pathetically punch at the material until she screamed. But nothing came out. She had nothing left to give.

She flopped to the ground. For the final time, in her mind.

So, the metal took her in last. Swallowing her up.