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Bea put the bottle of water down on the table, her hand shaking. What was happening to her? She had no idea, but it really hard to ignore the cold sweat on her palms, as much as she tried to tell herself it was just the condensation on the water bottle...
“Are ya feeling any better?”
Bea frowned, trying to breathe deeply - it was a little bit easier now, though it still felt shallow somehow, as if she couldn’t quite take in enough air at any point. She was always just a little bit shy, and it left her lightheaded.
“I’m fine,” she said instead. “I’m so sorry, Rosa. I - I didn’t mean-” she hesitated, looking away from the kitchen counter she was currently leaning on at the lovely little dinner that Rosa had brought home for them from the restaurant. It was supposed to be a special night, the first time they went on a date proper - except without the ‘going’ anywhere, since neither of them really enjoyed anyplace so much as the greenhouse. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it!” Rosa was enthusiastic, perhaps overly so. “It’s fine. It happens. Do you think it’s serious?”
She was so concerned and not at all bothered about their missed opportunity that it rather made Bea sad, but in a strange sort of good way… a way that was so grateful to that it was just Rosa right now and not the crowds on crowds of children who surrounded her at work.
“I don’t know,” Bea replied eventually. “One moment I was perfectly fine and the next, it was like - I don’t even know what it was like. God.”
It was hard to describe exactly what had happened, especially now that the heat of the moment had passed. Bea had been sitting at the table, smiling at Rosa. She’d been thinking that she was actually really lucky to have had someone like Rosa so close to her (it couldn’t be much closer, actually, given that they were roommates) - she’d been wondering how she didn’t realize before how much their relationship meant to her - how normal and natural and special it felt.
And her heart was beating quickly and blood rushed up into her brain and all of the sudden happened - a sudden sensation of intensest panic, like she was fighting to breathe from beneath a heavy blanket and she somehow sensed a heavy metal presence looming above her, a flash of light and pressure on her skull that bore down like it was trying to crush her - she could feel it, the weight on her brain, something pulling her apart from the inside out and it knocked her breathe clean out of her chest and just - her skin was crawling with fear and dread more intense than anything she’d ever experienced in memory.
But Rosa was here. She’d be okay. It was over now. It would be okay. That was what she told herself. “Thank you,” she said softly, again. It had to be the third time.
“It’s okay,” Rosa said brightly. “Anything for ya, anything if I can help it.” She hesitated slightly. “Is this somethin’ we oughtta be doing something about? Like, I don’ know - the familiar woman or whatever her name is? She’s the one who knows ‘bout this sort of thing, isn’t she?”
“Maybe?” Bea drank more of the water, deeply, trying to banish her thoughts. “I don’t know. It didn’t feel like a dream or something. It was like - like a flashback, somehow.”
“Are they even different?”
Bea didn’t know. “Fine, I’ll go talk to her.” Tara was the only one in the little town who really did anything at all even vaguely related to… seeing things. Or feeling things. Or, well, she said she did. Told the future, said she could see things no one else could - Bea really wasn’t one to buy into such utter bollocks, but… there was no one else with a better plan, and maybe it could have some kind of placebo affect on her anyway.
She would perhaps have been better served by simply forgetting the strange waking nightmare, but… it simply wasn’t possible. It was just impossible to forget the terror, even over the days that passed afterwards. It clung to Bea heavily like mold onto a wall, dragging down her interactions with children and dampening what were supposed to be the happiest days of her budding romance with Rosa. It just… kept her on her toes way too much, afraid that at any moment it might happen again - at work or at home - and that thought alone was too much to just ignore .
Rosa sat on the couch and held her some nights. This made it a little better, though not enough - it was never enough - she never could quite rest as easy after that one particular night. Even on the nights when nothing happened, she worried that something might. And on other nights, well... daydreams turned to waking nightmares and she couldn’t find escape in the job she loved so much, or the person she loved so much, and there was nothing else she knew to do.
One night, she finally found time. Made time, more like it. Set out for Tara’s after work was done and the sun was starting to set... Rosa agreed to sweep out greenhouse for her so she would have time to make it there and back before dark. Bea appreciated it - Rosa was many things, but mainly those things that were loud, bombastic - well-meaning - but not exactly … well, it was why Bea loved her so much (all that wonderful energy!) But it made it hard to do more than just maybe temporarily forget about the images stuck in her head. And every time they came back, they were worse.
It was getting to the point where she almost felt physically ill, some nights.
Tara regarded her carefully, silently, when she showed up.
“You do the things with the dreams, right?” Bea said. Her helmet itched - she shifted awkwardly in place, trying to reach up and wriggle a finger between it and her head to scratch at her scalp. “Can I talk to you… it’s not really a dream, it’s just... I don’t know. A feeling.”
God, she just wanted to be happy. She should’ve been happy. Job she loved, roommate slash girlfriend maybe (possibly?), and, uh, well, there wasn’t much else. But those two things were really good, and they were the most important things in Bea’s life. She loved working in the greenhouse, talking to the kids...
Tara was spreading cards on the ground and mumbling over them. Bea held her own hands, watching nervously, unsure what was happening but willing to give her a chance regardless. She looked up at Bea, pointing at her.
“Mmmm.”
“What?”
Tara pantomimed with her hands in front of her mouth. Bea cringed slightly as she realized what she meant.
“Oh… okay. I guess I can tell you, yeah.” She swallowed. “I just. I barely know myself right proper.” She laughed nervously. The helmet was sitting heavily on her head, so she took it off and wiped her forehead with her sleeve. Was it really hot in this room or was that just her? “It’s like… pressure,” she said, sitting down awkwardly criss-cross on the floor. Tara’s eyes were shut and her hands were on the cards scattered across the floor, but she nodded for Bea to continue.
So she did. “Okay. Um. Metal. There was like. Metal pressing against my head. I felt like it was gonna crush me. It felt... it was weird, it felt like the pressure was from the inside somehow, though. Like it was pulling me apart. And I got this sense, like-”
Tara’s eyes opened all of the sudden, staring at her piercingly in the gathering gloom. “Mmm?”
“What?” Bea grimaced. “Is something wrong?”
“Mmm - mmmmm - mmm.” Tara stood up, grabbing Bea by the shoulder - hastily gesturing her towards the door. “Mmmm.”
“Is - is something - what’s -” Bea was growing increasingly distressed by the medium’s sudden change of temperament. “I’m sorry? Did I say something wrong?”
Tara’s hand was on the doorknob but it didn’t budge. “Mmmm!”
The door was sealed. Bea noticed that there was not even any light creeping in around the edges from the sunset outside. “Wh-what’s going on? T-tara?” She clenched her fists. “Let go of me! Explain yourself!”
“MMmm.” Tara let go of her and backed away. She sighed heavily. “Mmmm mm mm mmmm m.”
“Wh-” The air around them became thick and heavy. Bea coughed violently, waving away the dense smoke that curled in wisps around them. It was heavy with the stench of fertilizer and freshly-cut grass, a smell that she recognized well. “What is happening?!”
Tara just stared at her.
The day was like any other. By that standard, then, it should have been as easy as any other. Bea remembered getting up, going to work, going to the small living space attached in back of the greenhouse... well, she’d made dinner because of course she had and she and Rosa ate and now it was bed.
The next day she rose and did the same thing.
It was all very normal - supremely familiar - and yet something ached in Bea’s chest, a hollow hole that felt… wrong, somehow. “How was today?” she asked Rosa.
Rosa stared at her. “Gardening,” she said softly.
Bea nodded. “Yes. Of course.” Rosa didn’t work with the children and families at the greenhouse like Bea did. Rosa maintained the plants and here and… actually, most places around. All the shrubbery and greenery was taken care of by her. Bea thought it all looked wonderful, too, but it was difficult to find a way to tell her that. “Do you want to hear something funny that happened at work today?”
Rosa blinked slowly without answering.
Bea nodded. “Okay.”
She told the story - dinner came and went - but something about just felt… wrong. Bea couldn’t put her finger on it, exactly, but it unsettled her.
“Goodnight, Rosa,” she said when they went to bed that night. Rosa didn’t answer and Bea rolled over and pushed the unease out of her mind, trying to get to sleep.
Unfortunately, the next day wasn’t much better - nor the next, nor the day after that. Days turned into weeks and Bea could never quite give words to what she was feeling, as much as she tried - it frustrated her and made her feel stupid but it was like there was some sort of mental block in her head preventing her words from ever forming.
So she went to work instead. She did enjoy her work. And she talked to Rosa at night, but Rosa was nothing if not quiet and still and only occasionally speaking about gardening. That was all she really talked about, but Bea didn’t mind. She was glad that Rosa had found her passions - that she seemed more at peace than Bea in any case.
Still, it was frustrating. Because she could feel that something was wrong , somehow. Like she was missing something inside. Her temper could already be short at times and now it often burned closer and closer to the edge at any given times - it was hard to relax when she came home from work and just wanted to relax and unwind and be casual for once but Rosa made the atmosphere awkward - there was no one to talk to and Bea wanted to respect Rosa’s preference for silence, really she did, but there were times when she went into the bathroom and cried because she really needed someone to just… talk to her.
So she tried to find people outside their shared home. That was difficult - the greenhouse was kinda by itself, in this whole garden-area, and it took a good few minutes to reach anywhere else at nights after work, but even when she tried to make time to leave and socialize, there were… well, no one seemed to have much time for her anyway.
Colt was polite but always said he had patrolling to do. Most of the storefront owners were busy stocking or cleaning - talking to Amber was awkward - Shelly was in jail and told her to get lost (in less polite terms) on the time she’d tried to speak to her through the bars. Tara stared at her so much that Bea was uncomfortable and usually hurried away - it was as if Tara was expecting her to... understand something, or whatever. Bea didn’t like her very much.
In short, no one was … looking for a friend. They had each other - people they lived near or even with - and Bea had Rosa but ...
She wanted to tear her hair out.
One night she was dejectedly trudging home and ran into Colette on the dark street, nearly knocking the both of them over. Colette blinked at her. “Oh… s-sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Bea returned. “I’m not going anywhere anyway. Home, I guess.”
“Home,” Colette muttered. “Yes. Going home. I - I am looking for Piper.” She coughed raspily. “I want to think about her. It makes - it makes my head hurt less.” She smiled, moonlight gleaming off her razor sharp teeth in the early night. “My head hurts when I think of… think.”
“Join the club,” Bea muttered. “No one around here wants to talk about anything anyway.”
“They don’t?” Colette seemed surprised. “They talk… to me, though. Sometimes. Or…” she frowned. “I don’t know. I draw them in my book. I hear... uh-” she grimaced, the sentence trailing off.
“I don’t know!” Bea threw up her arms. “Maybe they do and it’s just me. I just can’t seem to click because none of them… we don’t have anything in common. None of them are… Rosa. I want to talk to Rosa , you know? I feel like I should, but I just… I can’t. Or I shouldn’t. I hate it.”
Colette stared at her. “Does it make your head hurt?” she asked. “When my head hurts, I - I draw in the book.” She looked back and forth furtively. “W-would you like to draw in the book?”
Bea wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “No, it’s fine. I - I have to get home anyway. It’s late. Thanks, though.”
Colette said nothing else to her, only staring down at her scrapbook as Bea walked away.
She returned home and Rosa was sitting on the couch and staring into space.
“Hi, Rosa,” Bea said listlessly.
“Bea,” Rosa smiled softly. “I… have been busy today. The weather is great for plants… I love them. I think about them a lot.”
“That’s nice.” Bea sighed heavily and went to bed.
Somehow it only got worse as time passed. Winter came, and with it, the inability to go outside nearly as much to escape the mostly silent house. Bea could barely stand it. Rosa talked to her about gardening sometimes and that was it . She complained of headaches and Bea got her medicine and made her food and generally tried her bloody best to be the best roommate a person could be, but it was… hard.
She was just… she was always giving - and giving - and giving - at work, at home, anywhere else. She begged Rosa to contribute more, but… nothing ever came of it. Bea felt like her entire personality was fraying. Maybe she should just find someone else, somewhere, somehow - but she kept coming back to Rosa because it felt right despite the fact that it so clearly wasn’t and it was seriously messing her over.
She wasn’t getting enough sleep and it was affecting her work. She snapped at a child once for touching her, cut a tour short because she was getting annoyed, and after closing, threw a trowel at the wall because she just wanted to hear something happen in response to her effort.
Because nothing else did. No matter much of herself she spent trying to move things, it was like she was just wasting her time and it was positively exhausting.
And then everything came to a head - one day, a busier work day than usual, when she was already running back and forth trying to accommodate the crowds of visitors to her greenhouse - and a child was running past her where he shouldn’t have been and he knocked a potted plant from the shelf where it fell - dagger-like shards of ceramic flying in every direction, including into his legs and Bea’s too, little points of white-hot pain and Bea lost her temper and yelled at him...
...well, by the time she was done, she didn’t feel any better, but the kid felt a lot worse, because he started crying and also everyone was staring at her in dead, shocked silence and Bea threw up her hands.
“We’re closed!” she said. “Please! Just - just give me a few minutes! I need to clean this up and - and - just - everybody out!”
The silence when the greenhouse was emptied wasn’t doing her any favors either. Bea just wanted to sit down and cry her fucking eyes out but she couldn’t - she didn’t - she had a job to do and she ought to try and do it, it was just...
She still cried as she retrieved the broom and dustpan from the closet, knowing this was just one more thing she was never going to be able to talk to Rosa about.
The door opened. Bea looked up blearily. “We’re closed right now,” she said.
“No, you’re not. That’s the problem. You’re coming with me.”
The man was tall, wearing dark sunglasses, and his heavy dark cargo vest read PARK SECURITY in bold white letters. He grabbed Bea by the arm so suddenly she dropped her broom.
“H-Hey!” she stammered. “L-let go of me!”
The man ignored her, speaking into his radio instead. “We’re go for extraction. Will be there in a minute.”
“LET GO!” Bea tried to pull away but he was strong and there was little chance of success. “Wh-what is happening right now?!”
“You’re being arrested,” the man said, as if he was talking to a toddler. “You yelled at a child. That is not allowed.”
Bea blanched. “I thought Colt-”
“No.”
Bea was walked out of the greenhouse and away down the alleys behind it. She never went this way anywhere - it led nowhere except tall fences with harsh red signs that read EMPLOYEES ONLY and, well, that was it. There was nothing else. But now… now this man opened the fence gate and marched Bea through it, into a plain-looking building behind it. It was only bright white lights and concrete halls inside, also white - humming of distant machinery, muffled voices, a mechanical whine...
She was pointed into a room - pushed inside, almost - she stumbled, but caught herself on the wall, only to realize that the only reason she’d been able to do so was that the wall was right there and she was in a tiny room with barely a foot on each wall… a closet, a cubbyhole - the door hissed and sealed behind her and she turned around in a panick.
“Please! I’m sorry! I didn’t - don’t - let me - I just -”
She coughed, her eyelids feeling heavy as hazy green clouds drifted into her field of vision. It was Rosa’s smell. Not even that pleasant but Bea sobbed against the door as she stumbled and collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Pressure.
Unable to move.
Bea wasn’t even fully conscious, not really, it was all a little… hazy.
Metal whirred in her face.
Unable to move.
It pressed against her forehead, pushing down.
Something inside her screamed - a pull - tearing her brain apart from the inside out.
Unable to move.
Cold.
Bea woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, panting heavily, panicked, desperately flailing. Her hand found the bedroom light switch and warm orange light filled the small room with a friendly glow.
The light chased away the darkness and shadows of her dreams. She blinked, unable to remember what had frightened her so badly, but her heart slowly calmed the longer she stared down at her hands.
Rosa’s still, slumbering form lay next to her, all but unmoving.
Everything was normal - Bea was fine. It had just been a bad dream. On the nightstand next to the bed, Bea suddenly realized there was a potted plant - no, a face - watching eyes - she started slightly, the name suddenly popping into her brain as if it had always been there… because, well, of course it had.
“Sprout?” she said. It felt odd on her tongue, despite how familiar she knew it had to be.
Sprout spoke to her… talked to her in a way that Rosa wouldn’t. Because Rosa was quiet but Sprout was friendly and she picked it up and patted its leaves.
“I’m so glad I’ve someone to talk to these days, buddy,” she said, smiling. “I don’t know how I could do it without you.”
And everything was normal. Everything was fine.