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He awakens in the ashes of the city.
Soot, the name springs to mind. That's him. General Soot.
No, wait. Wilbur. He is Wilbur. That's the name that pops up the most.
Pops up the most in what?
He is Wilbur when he sees a blue-eyed child on his lap and when he sees a clapping blonde man as he stands panting on a stage and when he sees a fox boy swinging a sword at an armour stand. He is only General Soot when he's at the bottom of a dark ravine and when he's being stabbed twice in the chest because
He awakens in the ashes of the city.
Soot, the name springs to mind, and he pushes it down.
His name is Wilbur, because that's the only name he can think of that doesn't make his arms go cold and weak.
He looks down at his hands and they are grey. Grey like a ghost, he knows. Then he looks a little further and he sees the gaping, bloody hole in his chest and
He awakens in the ashes of the city.
His name is Wilbur and his hands are grey and he cannot look at them and he does not know why. His eyes simply won't track down.
Instead he sees the wide black open sky before him, sparse, pretty clouds, green hills in the far distance, crumbling roofs. Water floods the crater that he's standing on the edge of. He can't look down, so he looks up and counts the stars, coming up with constellations. It's nice and peaceful. Nobody's here, nobody's talking. It's the kind of night that needs a Chinese lantern to set the sky ablaze.
He remembers, then, something clearly. Because they used to make those, together, didn't they? Him and the faceless ones he loved. Pink and blonde and green. Green, Phil, his dad. His father. His father who stabbed him twice in the
He awakens in the ashes of the city.
His name is Wilbur and he cannot look down and he cannot look up so he stares stock straight forward into the carnage of the place he's been reborn. He doesn't recognise it, however much he knows he should. It's been blocked from him, somehow. A stronger part of him than this is keeping him… safe, maybe? He's not sure.
He tries to remember and it's painful.
Slower, then. Start from the start. Childhood and playing the piano with somebody he can't see the face of, somebody green. Childhood and bouncing a baby on his lap, bright blue eyes that used to mean the world to him, he feels it deep in his bones. Childhood and sparring with Techno - Techno! Pink and red and gold and laughing quietly in a dark ravine, ready to enact destruction that General Soot had formally approved and
He awakens in the ashes of the city.
His name is Wilbur Soot and he cannot look down and he cannot look up and he cannot remember his childhood any more, so he stares stock straight forward into the carnage of the place he's been reborn. He doesn't recognise it.
He stands like that until the sunrise breaks, stock still, unmoving, grey. He can't risk anything. Nobody's here, nobody's talking. It's just Wilbur staring stock straight forward until his eyes burn.
He remembers the burn of the explosions singeing his hair, heating his coat, watering his eyes, and then two stabs to the chest and
He awakens in the ashes of the city.
His name is Wilbur and he can't risk anything and he has to close his eyes.
Nobody's here, nobody's talking.
He can't be hurt by memories if he does nothing and sees nothing at all.
Maybe he'll be strong enough to face it later, but for now the city is dawning and all Wilbur can do is stand and let the gentle sun warm him.
Whose city is it, anyway?