Chapter Text
The sloshing of liquid made her laugh. The glares of the public made her scowl.
The general public looked past the drunk eighteen year old and carried on their days as normal, not worrying about the mental state of the girl they had just past. They didn’t even care as she so carelessly threw herself onto the bench dropping the bottle from her hands. They didn’t care when she passed out on that very bench.
Zoey didn’t sleep much anymore, but that had slowly become normal; her eyes closing whenever there was a possibility but she couldn’t sleep this was all her fault. She passed out more than she slept, the smell of alcohol always apparent in her breath and on her shirts. It was easier to forget than remember.
But everyone lost.
Everyone had their own battles to fight, so no-one really worried about anyone else. Everyone had no-one. She wasn’t alone but she felt it. The way she woke up to silence, ate dinner on her bed staring at the wall, walked for miles each day not wanting anything. She didn’t feel anything anymore.
‘it’s okay, I’m not going to leave you.’ She remembered the nightmares every night when she was younger, the ways her mind wanted her to relive the trauma. She remembered how Tony would run in, panicked. She remembered how much he cared but they she remembered that he did leave. And he was gone.
’Nothing’s going to happen I’m going on a field trip, I’ll see you later.’ But there was no later. She knew he was gone, she saw it happen, but she didn’t try to stop it.
Zoey had enough of losing. She lost her family, she lost Tony, she lost Peter. And recently she lost her power. Maybe she deserved it, someone else should have it, someone who will actually use it. It was more of a curse than a power. She still had the other power but it was pretty much useless now, she never did anything with it. Only to fix herself when it was her own fault.
The sound of an old radio wrung through Zoey’s ears, it was just like that night nine years ago. However the people inside of the car was replaced with a broken man, someone who also lost too many times. A tired man.
He looked her way acknowledging that she was awake then turned his head back to the road without speaking, he didn’t speak much anymore. No-one did. The world was silent, everyone thrown into the unknown, dealt with grief in their own way. And some didn’t deal at all.
The world lost half of its population on that day and it was slowly losing the other half. The rise in suicide rates was disturbing. People didn’t see a way out because even the hero’s didn’t know a way out. They were all alone, family, friends gone. It was easier to be dead than have to deal with the pain.
The population was losing against itself, and there was no way to stop it.
”You have to stop this. You’re going to kill yourself.” Steve kept on driving, he couldn’t look at Zoey anymore; she was lost and broken and there was no way out.
“I could think of worse outcomes.”
“Like what?”
”Living.”
Luckily they were at the compound because Steve nearly cried when Zoey spoke, she used to be better. She was never a completely happy kid, always underlying negative emotion. But there used to be some positives. Now she was just broken and empty.
She no longer tried to hide the way that she felt. She was depressed and needed help but the few people that couldn’t help were either gone or fractured as well. Stuck in a cycle, there was no way out.
It had been three weeks but it felt like a year. Zoey celebrated her eighteenth birthday alone. It didn’t really phase her, nor effect her; it didn’t seem like a big deal. Probably because she was so tired.
Her mind constantly drifted to better times, as she walked around the compound all she saw was memories of Tony and Peter. She no longer could walk past either of their rooms, nor could she sit near their seats. They were everywhere that she looked but at the same time they were nowhere.
“Don’t talk like that. You’re lucky to be alive, most people no longer have that privilege.”
”How on earth am I lucky? Do you feel lucky? Or do you envy the fallen? Because I sure as hell wish I was one of the lost ones, I wish I had died. I’ve lost everything. I have no-one. There is no reason to be alive.”
”We can get them back.”
”Steve it’s been three weeks. No-one has any idea how, people are giving up left right and centre. Just take it that these people are gone, life happened, you cannot change the past. No-one can.” Slowly Zoey left the car leaving a hopeless Steve just staring.
He acted like there was another way, a way out of this. But there wasn’t. He acted like he didn’t see scars on Zoey’s wrist. He acted like there was a future. But there wasn’t. He shared the view of the wider society, there was no way out, no way back. This had happened. They couldn’t change that.