Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thunder lies in the air heavy, and high up, far above even the storm, a louder sound makes itself known to the world. It’s a sort of roar, slowly building up into a full screech. Lightning splinters a bright white pattern across the wine-dark sky, and then something plummets from the heavens. 

Three figures gather around the anomaly that has crashed just off the coast of their headquarters, a secret base of operations set up on a remote island nearby Italy. The base rises like a black needle into the skyline. Nearby, the ocean is roiling in agitation, a white chalk-line of crashing waves. Around them, agents gawk in awe at the sight set out before them.

  “It finally came back,” the masked figure rumbles, his voice as deep as the thunder.  

The figure right beside him, a woman with a strange purplish coloration to her skin, cranes her neck sideways to look at him curiously. “You know about this hunk of garbage?”

  “It isn’t a hunk of garbage,” the masked figure says, a slight bite to his words.

The figure to his left, a behemoth of a man, raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?” he says. He then begins to approach the wreckage of the jet that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

However, his stride is stopped short by a strange, resonating sensation that begins to pulsate through the air once he’s close enough, as though the biological material of his being triggered something in the wreckage, seeing as the jet seems to be the beacon for this occurrence. The atmosphere itself grows thick, almost physically tangible, like if one were to reach their hand out, they could swipe a swath right into their grasp. Something unnatural is twisting and bending through the air, rending reality in a way that’s quite horrifying. 

It’s painful, too. The trio of figures are able to keep themselves from reacting, but they can all feel it: the sheer abnormality of something far beyond their level of comprehension trying to chip away at their human minds. 

The large figure backs away from the wreckage with a soft grunt. There’s a thin line of blood trickling out from his left eye, and he swiftly swipes it away without mentioning it. 

  “Still think it’s not a hunk of garbage?” the large figure asks the masked figure.

  “It’s not,” the masked figure answers, steadfast in what he believes. “You’ll see.” He turns and begins to walk back to the large building looming over the steaming ocean. “Inform Sombra. This could be ground-breaking for us.”

An ugly, twisted hunk of metal is dropped without warning onto Sombra’s table, startling her. She immediately jerks away with a hissed, “Mierda! Watch it!” 

Above her, a red-haired, malignant woman stares. She seems to be the reason for this unceremonious delivery.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Sombra says. “I guess you have a long-winded explanation prepared for why you just dumped an aborted Omnic baby on my stuff?”

  “Do you know what this is?” Moira asks her.

  “Yeah,” Sombra answers. “It’s junk.”

  “No, you idiot!” Moira snaps. “It’s a piece of the Slipstream!”

  “What?” Sombra exclaims. “No way! Really?”

  “Yes, really! Do you understand how ground-breaking this i—” Moira then stops and narrows her eyes at Sombra. “You are messing with me, aren’t you?”

  “I think it’s very obvious that I am, yes,” Sombra nods, grinning toothily.

Moira looks irritated, and Sombra half-expects her to storm off in a flurry of exasperation (she does that a lot), but she doesn’t. Instead, she jabs a finger at the piece of metal and says, “The OWX-01 Slipstream was a teleporting fighter jet designed by Overwatch. During the very first test flight, its teleportation system malfunctioned, and both the jet and its pilot were lost to time itself.”

  “And the plane just reappeared?” Sombra asks.

  “Precisely.”

  “What about the pilot?”

  “No sign of her. Though, there is blood in the cockpit. But she hasn’t been seen for over ten years since the accident, so she’s probably dead.”

Sombra grimaces. “What an awful way to go, don’t you think? Dying all alone in some, I don’t know, abyss.”

  “Yes, yes, very sad,” Moira says with a roll to her eyes, earning a glower from Sombra. “She’s unnecessary now. What is important is this.” She looks down at the scrap metal as though it were a rare dragon egg. 

  “And how is it important exactly? It’s just trash.” Sombra gives the scrap metal a little poke. When she makes contact with it, a weird shocking sensation sprints up her arm, and she yanks it back with an alarmed hiss. Over her head, Moira is wearing a wide smirk.

  “That’s how it’s important,” Moira says. “You feel it, don’t you? The energy it holds?”

Sombra rubs her arm uncomfortably. “Yeah. What the hell?”

  “It’s like it’s almost radiated,” Moira says. “The wreckage is worse. It’s practically impossible to get near it without feeling like your very mind is being torn in two. It was hard enough to get this piece. Pretty sure a few of our agents may be permanently scarred psychologically, but that’s neither here nor there. The thing is, whatever is charged in the Slipstream, it’s not a normal kind of energy. It seems to take the form of electrical power, but it’s not electricity. Electricity doesn’t target the very psyche of a human being.”

  “You’re saying a lot of words,” Sombra says. “What does any of this mean? What does it have to do with me? Because I assume you’ve brought this to my attention for a reason.”

  “Reaper wants you to extract the energy of this piece of the plane,” Moira says. “It’s an engine fragment. If you can learn about even a fraction of what is charged within the Slipstream, then perhaps we can harness it and bring new life to the jet.”

Sombra stares at her. “You’re joking, right?”

  “I am not.”

  “You’re telling me to extract some kind of inhuman energy from a piece of metal,” Sombra says. “I don’t even think that’s possible.”

  “You know more about tech than any of us,” Moira says. “Reaper trusts you to figure out a way to do it.”

  “Of course he does,” Sombra says with a sigh. She looks at the engine fragment with a frown. “Seems like I don’t have much of a choice. I’ll see what I can do.”

There’s already someone admiring the wreckage when Sombra goes out to see the Slipstream that evening. 

  “Hey,” she says, alerting the other spectator of her presence.

The man peering at the wreckage turns, and his entire face lights up when he sees her approaching. “Oh, liefje! Hello!”

  “How are you doing today?” Sombra asks him.

  “Quite well,” Sigma answers. “You?”

  “I’m doing good,” Sombra says.

  “Wonderful!” His eyes then shift back over to the wreckage, and Sombra can see the awe in his gaze. Not even the drizzling rain can put out that fire of amazement. “Isn’t it incredible?”

Sombra looks at the Slipstream. 

She’s sure it used to be an impressive piece of machinery back when it was first made, but she can’t say she sees it the same way Sigma does. Crashed on the beach just below the Talon base, the jet has certainly seen better days. The glass canopy has been ripped off entirely, exposing the smoldered, blood-splattered cockpit to the elements. The right wing is missing, while the left is streaked with garish burn marks. Several metal panels are gone, the rudder is broken at an angle, and whatever is left of the engine crackles with strange blue electricity every few minutes. Charred debris litters the sand. 

It must have been one hell of an impact.

  “That’s one way to put it,” Sombra says in response to what Sigma had said. 

  “I remember hearing about the Slipstream project,” Sigma says. “Oh, what a remarkable leap in technology! It’s a shame what ended up happening. I hope the poor pilot is resting easy now.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little weird that they’re not here, too?” Sombra asks. “I mean, the plane made it back. But where’s the pilot?”

Sigma thinks about it. “I am unsure,” he says. “An excellent question! As morbid as it may sound, the best-case scenario is that they died. The worst case scenario is that they’re still lost in time somewhere.”

Sombra shudders at the thought. “Yeah, I can see how death is the better option.”

  “Being stuck in suspension between life and death for all eternity is not a fate I believe any creature capable of sentience deserves,” Sigma says. “It’s not living. It’s merely existing.”

  “Gah, stop that! You’re making my skin crawl!” 

Sigma laughs. “My apologies, liefje! I realize I am rambling.”

  “No, it’s alright,” Sombra assures him. “I like hearing you talk. I actually have another question, if you’d like to try and answer.” 

Sigma looks radiant. It’s obvious that this is a topic of interest for him. “Of course! Ask away!”

  “Why did it—the plane—come back in the first place? An abyss doesn’t seem like an easy thing to escape.”

  “Great minds think alike, as I, too, have considered this!” Sigma says. He then squints closely at the Slipstream. “It’s an anomaly, that’s for sure. I have no confirmation on my theory, but my current hypothesis is that the storm, stay with me here, somehow managed to affect the veil between our reality and the void. A rift was formed, and from that rift, the Slipstream emerged back into real life.” He pauses, then scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “It’s just a possibility. I do not know for sure.”

  “I think it’s a good possibility!” Sombra says. “Better than anything I could come up with.”

  “I’m sure that isn’t true,” Sigma says. “You are very intelligent, Sombra!”

  “Not in this department, but I appreciate your kindness,” Sombra says, patting his arm. “Have you heard about what people are saying about the thing? That it’s ‘radiated’ or something?”

Sigma nods. “I have heard about that, yes.”

  “Well, I wanna see for myself,” Sombra says. She then strides forward to the Slipstream. Sigma fidgets nervously behind her, not following.

  “Please be careful, Sombra!” Sigma says. 

  “It’s just a plane, abuelito,” Sombra says back. “It’s not going to—”

With impeccable comedic timing, Sombra feels a sort of shift in the atmosphere when she’s only ten feet away from the Slipstream, as though she had passed through an electromagnetic field. A thick band of tension wraps itself around her skull, and her lungs grow thick with an unknown pressure. It makes her stop dead in her tracks, and she stares at the wrecked jet in awe. 

  “Dios mío,” Sombra murmurs. It seems like it wasn’t an over-exaggeration after all. There’s something really wrong with this plane.

And Sombra is hungry to know more.

  “Sombra…” Sigma says worriedly.

Ignoring his concerns, Sombra continues forward. The closer she gets, the tighter the tension around her skull becomes. She can feel something unnatural prodding at her mind, trying to worm its way inside, and she does her best not to bring attention to it because she doesn’t know if processing it will make it worse. 

By the time she’s directly in front of the Slipstream, she’s sure she’s having some kind of brain aneurysm. The pain is unbearable. There’s blood coming from her eyes. The world around her is shifting and bending abnormally, as though everything is an illusion, and nothing is real. She can’t take this.

And still, she reaches out her hand and touches the nose of the Slipstream.

There’s a POP! in reality itself. Thousands of images flood through Sombra’s brain, and she realizes these are all alternate realities. She sees herself in so many different forms, and she watches herself die over and over and over and over again. 

The entire world blurs. The sky splits open, electric blue and blood red, and there is a looming shadow contorting in the rift, glowing eyes and nothing else to mark it as something that used to be alive, something that used to be human. But she sees it, and it sees her, and the suffering that bleeds into her is too intense for her to properly comprehend.

Her head arches back, and a pain too unimaginable to describe burrows its way into her chest. There is a sudden flash behind her eyes like the sun going off, and she can’t see anything aside from the hurricane of memories and fates that are not her own, but they’re all being backlit by the glow of those somber, shadowy eyes. Something that can’t be there and should never be there tears its way into her very soul, and she can’t stop herself when she starts to—

  “SOMBRA!”

—scream.

Sombra awakens a few minutes later, though she hadn’t realized she even blacked out. She’s still on the beach, and the sharp smell of saltwater stings her nose. Cold rain drizzles down onto her face; she’s lying in the sand, she notices, and she’ll have to take a shower to wash it out of her hair. Above her, Sigma is fretting worriedly.

  “Sombra? Sombra, are you with me?”

Sombra groans. Her eyes hurt. “I probably shouldn’t have touched it…”

There’s a light chuckle from Sigma. “That would have been the smarter decision, yes. Are you alright?”

  “I feel like I just ate a tree,” Sombra says, scrunching her face up in disgust. Her entire body feels as though it’s withering under the assault of some virulent disease, and she needs to throw up, so she hauls herself up and does so in the sand beside her. 

The bile stings her mouth in a way bile usually doesn’t. It burns, yes, but not like it should. It’s like regurgitating a star, maybe. She can’t explain it.

Sombra spits out the last of the disgusting vomit, then flops back down, groaning loudly again. 

Sigma looks even more concerned, if that’s even possible, and Sombra feels bad for making him stress over her so much.

  “Should I get the Doctor?” he asks her. 

  “No,” Sombra answers. “She’ll probably run tests on me if she heard I touched the damn plane.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” Sigma says. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m alive,” Sombra says. “Let’s start with that.”

  “Alright,” Sigma says. “We shall.”

He sits beside her in the sand, and they both remain there for a few minutes. The ocean waves splash off to their side. Overhead, the storm begins to pick up. They’ll have to get back inside soon. 

Eventually, Sombra sits up. Her equilibrium feels offset, like everything has been rotated slightly to the left. Her skin feels as though it doesn’t fit anymore. She really needs that shower right about now.

  “Feeling better?” Sigma asks.

  “A little,” Sombra answers. “Eugh. That was awful.”

  “I can tell!” Sigma says. “You had me so worried, Sombra! Do not do that again, please. For my sake.”

  “Oh, trust me, I don’t want to go anywhere near that thing again,” Sombra says, knowing full well she has a piece of the death ship waiting for her to experiment on it back in her bedroom.

A hot shower helps Sombra feel like herself again. She spends a little over an hour standing under the spray of liquid flame, letting it wash her body clean of the Slipstream’s influence. By the time she’s done, the storm has picked up outside, and she’s sure she’s used most of the hot water in the whole Talon base.

On her desk, the engine fragment of the Slipstream leers at her.

  “Good grief,” Sombra mutters.

She won’t deny that she’s extremely curious about the technology and science behind the Slipstream. It truly is an anomaly, and she’d love to learn more about it. 

But she also can’t deny the unstable nature of the metal. There’s something not right about the plane, and she had felt it firsthand. Just one touch was enough to knock her out for several minutes. Is that really something she wants Talon to get their hands on? 

Well…there’s no reason she has to share anything she finds out about the Slipstream…

Sombra strides across the open space of her room. She quite likes the quarters Talon gave her- it’s a large workshop on one of the upper floors of the base that’s overlooking the ocean thanks to the panel of floor-to-ceiling windows covering one wall. There’s a bathroom and a small side room that she’s turned into her bedroom. Several monitors are set up around the main room, each of them displaying something different on their screen. The engine fragment of the Slipstream is lying on one of her desks, and she hovers above it, staring intently. 

  “What is wrong with you?” she says to it, as though she’s expecting it to actually speak to her. 

Spreading her fingers, Sombra pulls up her hacking interface on the scrap metal to try and get some readings off of it, but the second she does, an uncomfortable electrical sensation shivers up the cybernetic graft implanted in her spine, shuddering all the way into her brain, and she shudders with it. She clenches her fist, and the purple interface disappears, but the electric feeling lingers in her nerves. More than that: there’s this weird fluctuating pressure in her head, almost like an alarm going off. It isn’t anything natural, that’s for sure.

Outside the paneled windows, lightning strikes, torching the dark sky in a bright flash of white. Thunder comes sprinting behind it, and Sombra’s cyber-graft hums with the deep rumbling sound.

She remembers what Sigma had said out on the beach. The theory about the thunder somehow affecting the veil between reality and the world beyond. It is, admittedly, a rather far-fetched hypothesis, but it’s something, and Sombra has nothing better to do than to test to see if it is plausible in any sort of way.

Sombra picks up the engine fragment, trying to ignore the voltaic bolts of pain that shoot up her arms from prolonged contact (how Moira managed to carry the thing all the way up to her room, she doesn’t know), and walks over to the windows. She sits down and sets the metal in front of her.

Lightning splinters across the horizon. Sombra brings up her hacking interface on the piece of metal again.

  “What are you hiding?” she says as thunder rolls through her bones.

  “I need better resources.”

Solemn expressions stare ice at Sombra from across the council table. 

  “Excuse me?” Doomfist says slowly.

  “I need better resources,” Sombra repeats herself. “For ‘Project Slipstream,’ or whatever we’re gonna call it. I was tinkering with the scrap Moira gave me all night, I literally didn’t get a wink of sleep, and I have no idea what any of you expect me to do with it. You can’t hack a piece of metal. There’s no hardware, no memory files, no secret photo albums I can steal risque pictures from and use as blackmail against someone. It’s just a hunk of steel. But I will say that there’s something really weird with it, and if you can maybe get me some better resources or tech or something like that, I may be able to figure out what’s up with the entire plane.”

The cold stares of the council linger. Sombra stares back with her chin raised, defiant in the face of a hulking, hypothermic glacier. 

  “You have enough computers to start your own store, and you want us to get you more tech?” Widowmaker scoffs.

Moira holds up a hand, silencing the sniper. She’s the only one who doesn’t look disgruntled by Sombra’s request, rather intrigued.

  “What would you need?” the doctor asks.

  “Well, after having to take a short break after basically ALL the blood vessels in my face burst open and started leaking out through every available opening in my head—that metal does some WEIRD stuff to your body, by the way—I started to do a little research into the Slipstream incident,” Sombra says. “Apparently, a year-long effort was made by lead scientist Dr. Winston to try and recover the Slipstream and its pilot from…wherever they went.” 

  “We already know this,” Reaper grunts.

Sombra raises her eyebrows at him. “Really? Oh, wait, you were with Overwatch at the time, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Reaper replies. “I’m the one who shut the project down.”

That takes Sombra by complete surprise. It feels like a punch straight to the gut by Doomfist, but she doesn’t really know why. 

  “What?” she says.

  “I still think that was the most foolish decision you have ever made,” Moira says to Reaper, shaking her head. “You never close such an incredible investigation.”

  “You do when it costs you millions of dollars you don’t have,” Reaper says back.

  “Wait, you really stopped Overwatch from searching for the Slipstream?” Sombra asks. “Are you serious?”

Reaper’s gaze centers back on Sombra, and although his face is concealed by his deathly mask, she can still feel his eyes burning into her. She’s spent enough time around this man not to waver beneath his smoldering scowl, but his hostility is undeniable. 

  “Yes,” Reaper says, low and slow, like the hiss of a snake.

  “Why?” Sombra has to know. Such a thing seems entirely barbaric to her, especially knowing that Reaper had yet to take up his dark persona at the time. Wasn’t he, at some point, merciful? “The pilot was still missing. Didn’t you owe her the effort of trying to bring her back, since it was Overwatch’s fault she went missing in the first place?”

Reaper snarls low like some kind of feral beast. “We owed her nothing,” he seethes, his temper something fierce. “She was a lost cause from the very beginning. I knew, from the moment she disappeared, and we lost all contact with her, that there was no hope left for her. The others should have realized it, too, but they were all optimistic fools. They thought they could bring her back, but with every failed test, and every unsuccessful experiment, I was proven right more and more. My one regret is letting it go on for as long as it did. That pilot’s glorified carcass put us deep in debt, and none of it ever paid off.”

Sombra’s expression twists into one of disgust. “How can you say that?” she says without thinking, momentarily forgetting who she’s speaking to (not that Reaper scares her. is he intimidating? certainly. but scary? no way. however, he’s still one of her supervisors, and she’s not an idiot. she knows when to hold her tongue…this instance just isn’t one of those times). “She is— WAS still a person!”

  “She was expendable,” Reaper says. “As people are. Her use to us was all dried up once she disappeared. I do wish the other vermins back then could have seen that. You truly have no idea how difficult it is to be the most intelligent person in an organization of agonizing optimists.”

Sombra snorts. “What could you possibly know, Reaper?”

  “I know you, Sombra, are a free-willed weasel, an annoyance, a lunatic, a narcissist…”

  “I am not a narcissist,” Sombra cuts him off. “And considering the situation of our literal terrorist organization, I think ‘lunatic’ is also crossed out of that list.”

  “What are you in Talon for?”

  “Resources, mainly. But why would you equalize my skill with narcissism? They are entirely different things, believe me. My talent is worth better. Everyone must learn to be proud of things they’re good at, right?”

  “I do not care.”

  “I’m trying to convince you with facts, but it seems you find the rock you’ve been living under quite comfortable…”

Widowmaker stifles a laugh. Moira doesn’t even try. Doomfist remains as silent as he has been throughout the entire conversation. Reaper rumbles another great growl, his fury building.

  “Where did you learn to mock so well?” Windowmaker asks in faint amusement.

Sombra jabs a finger at Moira.

  “Guilty,” Moira says, raising a hand. 

  “Enough of this ridicule,” Doomfist finally speaks up, his voice akin to that of an erupting volcano. “What do you want from us, Sombra?”

Suddenly jarred back into the main focus of why she’s there in the first place, Sombra says outright, “Dr. Winston’s notes on the Slipstream incident.”

  “What for?” Doomfist asks.

  “He worked on the Slipstream for a year,” Sombra explains. “He knows way more about it than I do. I’ve already tried to find files on the research he’s conducted on it, but they’re either hidden on his computer or written down somewhere and, from what I know about the guy, I have a sneaking suspicion it may be the latter.”

  “And what do you expect to do with this research?” Reaper questions her, his skepticism palpable. “The ape slaved over it for a year, and he had nothing to show for it. That’s why it got shut down.”

  “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Moira hums. 

  “There is a very big difference between an ancient city and one singular child,” Reaper says bitterly. 

  “That is very true, Reyes! How wise of you!” Moira says, smirking at the resulting grumble from Reaper. “However, not everything will be interpreted in the same way by different people. Perhaps an outside perspective, one not from the gaze of a proper scientist, is just what we need to unlock the secrets of the Slipstream.”

  “Exactly,” Sombra nods. “Maybe I can use some of what he learned about the Slipstream to try and make it work to our advantage. This is a big job you asked of me, so I can use all the help I can get.”

  “But—”

  “This is not about the pilot, if that’s what you’re caught up on,” Moira cuts Reaper off. “This is about an incredible scientific discovery and the power we can gain from figuring it out. Wouldn’t you want us to have something like that?”

Surely glowering at the doctor from beneath his mask, Reaper says, “Yes.”

  “Wonderful! Then it’s settled!” Moira says. 

  “It seems as though it is,” Doomfist says. “Doctor, since you are so vocal about this, you will oversee the recovery mission to retrieve this research. Sombra, you will go with her.”

  “Fine by me,” Sombra says.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Moira smirks.

Later that same day, a team is sent out via jet to obtain Dr. Winston’s research on the Slipstream incident. A part of the team is Sombra, Moira, Sigma, and Widowmaker. It’s meant to be a quiet mission, an in-and-out kind of job. 

  “I am so very thrilled that you are taking this project seriously, Sombra,” Moira says to Sombra during the fly. 

Sombra shrugs her shoulders casually. “Eh. It’s something to do.”

Truthfully, she doesn’t know why she’s so interested in the Slipstream. Ever since she touched it the day before, it’s all she can think about. She’s hungry to know more.

Eventually, under the shroud of late night darkness, they arrive at their destination: Watchpoint: Gibraltar. The jet hovers just off the coast of the base, far enough for them to get a view of the structure but not close enough for them to be caught by any agent that may still be awake. 

  “So, what’s your grand plan to find the research?” Widowmaker asks Sombra as she’s gazing out at the base.

  “Uhh… I didn’t really get that far,” Sombra admits with a sheepish smile.

Widowmaker gives her a sharp look. “You idiot,” she hisses.

  “Easy,” Moira says, stepping up to them. “The notes will most likely be in Dr. Winston’s room somewhere.”

  “You mean the room where the giant, sentient gorilla with a gun sleeps?” Widowmaker laughs mirthlessly. “Wonderful.”

A wicked smirk stretches across Moira’s face. “You just leave getting him away to us. Sigma, you’re with me.”

  “Alright, Doctor!” Sigma says.

The jet begins to close in on Watchpoint: Gibraltar. Moira, Sigma, and Widowmaker all exit into the base, and, after dropping her translocator beacon on the ship, Sombra does the same. She follows Widowmaker across various structures under the invisibility of her stealth cloak, while Moira and Sigma go in the opposite direction. She soon comes to a halt on a rooftop overlooking a bedroom, where Widowmaker is currently perched, peering in through the window with the scope of her sniper rifle. 

  “Do you see him?” Sombra asks her in a whisper.

Widowmaker slowly pulls away from her scope to stare blankly at Sombra. “Yes,” she says and then goes back to watching. 

Taking the hint, Sombra falls silent.

Roosted like gargoyles, Sombra and Widowmaker wait quietly. After a few minutes, the sound of an alarm shatters the silence, and a moment later, Moira’s voice comes through an earpiece Sombra has on, “You’re all good.”

  “The monkey has left the jungle!” Sigma’s voice says cheerily.

  “We did NOT agree on that call sign,” Moira barks.

Sombra laughs softly at Sigma’s babbling. Widowmaker doesn’t seem nearly as amused as she is, as she merely replies, “We’re going in.”

Widowmaker then stands up, sends out her grappling hook into the space just above the window to Winston’s bedroom, wraps one arm around Sombra’s waist, and then swings. Sombra yelps and clings onto Widowmaker as they both go flying through the air, smashing right through the glass of Winston’s window. It’s not the stealthiest approach, but at least they’re in.

  “Alright, what are we looking for?” Widowmaker asks.

  “Uhh… A journal? A notebook? Preferably something that says ‘Slipstream Research!’ in glittery letters on the front of it?” Sombra answers. “Just something Slipstream-related!”

Widowmaker groans in annoyance. She mutters something in French, shakes her head, then starts searching, tearing apart the tidy room to try and find a collection of research that may or may not even exist. Sombra winces.

  “I guess we aren’t being stealthy anymore, huh?” she says.

Widowmaker gives her a dangerous look. Sombra shuts up and starts to help her search.

Somewhere within the base, gunfire can be heard. The alarm is still going off. In Sombra’s earpiece, Sigma is whooping and hollering, having a whale of a time, it seems, while Moira occasionally will mutter something under the din of all the noise. Inside Winston’s room, Sombra and Widowmaker are making a giant ruckus.

Sombra almost feels bad for the huge mess she and her comrade are creating. She’s never been one for destructive missions that leave chaos in their wake, but it’s a necessary evil to do what they’re there for. 

  “Ugh, where is it?” Widowmaker carps. “He’s a gorilla! How secretive can he possibly be with his belongings?”

  “Well, he’s also a scientist,” Sombra points out. “I’d probably hide my research, too. Plus, this project has been shut down for years, I doubt he’d just have it out in the open.”

As she’s saying that, Sombra goes over to a large desk with several monitors glowing around it. Several sticky notes are stuck to the computers, each with small doodles and text scrawled on them. On the desktop, there are even more papers. Among them, a spiral journal is sitting open. 

  “I stand corrected,” Sombra says, noticing the word ‘Slipstream’ written on the open pages. She looks to Widowmaker. “I found it!”

  “She found it,” Widowmaker then says into her earpiece. 

  “Wonderful!” Moira says. “Get out of there! We’ll meet you back at the jet!”

  “Got it,” Widowmaker says. She turns to Sombra. “Grab it, and let’s go.”

  “On it,” Sombra says, scooping up the journal, along with the loose pieces of paper and the sticky notes for good measure. She’s heading for the window when the bedroom door suddenly opens; Winston is there, and his face is a picture of pure rage.

  “Hola,” Sombra says awkwardly, lifting up a hand to wave.

Having a giant, genetically engineered, 700lbs gorilla hurtle straight toward you with the speed and strength of a meteor falling to Earth is a rather disconcerting experience, and, for a moment, Sombra is completely petrified, half accepting her fate, her life flashing before her eyes (death by monkey. what a way to go!). 

But then she feels something lash around her waist, and suddenly, she’s being yanked backward out of the broken window just behind her. She goes swinging through the air and collides hard with a building, knocking her breath away. She dangles there weightlessly for a second, feeling for all the world like a fish on the end of a fishing pole.

  “What are you doing?!” a voice shouts from above her head. “Climb up!”

Sombra looks up. In the dark, she can see the silhouette of Widowmaker peering down at her from atop a roof. Widowmaker seems to have already evacuated the room way before her. It’s her grappling hook that saved Sombra from being smashed into a pulp under Winston’s fists and is currently suspending her twenty-five feet in the air. 

Before Sombra can inform Widowmaker that she doesn’t exactly have the available hands to climb, seeing as her arms are full of research and papers, there’s a deep, rumbling growl from the right. Turning her head, Sombra sees Winston standing in the broken window. She thinks he’s about to lunge at her again, but then he brandishes a large, bulky weapon, and she feels her heart drop into her stomach.

  “Hijo de puta!” Sombra hisses right before Winston’s tesla cannon goes off, and she’s encompassed by a sun of bright blue electricity. 

At the last second, Sombra is able to wrench her body to the side to avoid total annihilation under the assault of 1.3 million volts of electricity coming directly at her fragile, unprotected body, but that doesn’t mean she’s out of the woods yet. She’s caught in the shoulder by a stray bolt of energy, and she cries out at the pain of it searing its way through her clothes and into her skin, so hot it cauterizes the wound instantly. Her body instinctively spasms in reaction to being electrocuted, her cyber-grafts pulsating uncomfortably against her nerves, and she feels her connection with her translocator beacon cut off. Damnit. She needs to get out of here another way.

The grappling hook snagged around her abdomen tugs fruitlessly. Widowmaker seems to be attempting to pull her up, but her jarring movements throw the sniper off, and the next thing Sombra knows, the restraint around her middle slips away, and she’s plummeting 

down,

down, 

down. 

The roar of Winston’s tesla cannon makes Widowmaker’s shout of panic sound so distant.

Sombra braces herself for impact. She doesn’t think the fall will be fatal, but it will sure as hell hurt, and she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to walk after, which poses another problem. She hopes her comrades will come by and pick her up so she won’t become a prisoner of Overwatch. 

However, just before she can potentially break all of her bones on the cement of Watchpoint: Gibraltar’s foundation, she feels herself go completely weightless.

  “I’ve got you, my friend!” a familiar voice bellows. 

Cracking open one of her eyes, which she had squeezed shut in preparation for the rough landing, she sees Sigma hovering there, smiling widely. She then notices that she’s suspended in the air, held there by the old man’s gravitational powers. Sigma carefully places her on the ground, and she feels a bit woozy at first, but she quickly regains her bearings. 

  “Thanks,” Sombra says to him. Any further expressions of gratitude are postponed when she hears the behemoth weight of a very pissed off gorilla thumping down behind them. “We gotta go!”

She and Sigma take off through Watchpoint: Gibraltar, which has become a sort of beacon in the night, as several buildings now have their lights turned on. Just behind him, a bestial roar shakes the entire base.

  “Did you know that gorillas can run at speeds reaching up to 25mph?” Sigma says to Sombra casually.

  “I can believe it,” Sombra says wearily, hearing the thunder of footsteps flanking them. Over those footsteps, she hears a mechanical whirl, and then Winston is barreling through the air above their heads, landing directly in a small crater in front of them like a furry comet with anger issues. Sombra skids to a halt, sliding across the ground like she’s on ice, and Winston rears his crackling tesla cannon. The blue light illuminates his eyes behind his glasses, and his gaze finds the research clutched securely in Sombra’s arms. The animosity on his expression then falters, morphing into what almost looks like worry and even fear, and his mouth yawns open to say something, but before those words can be heard, a chunk of tarmac comes hurling through the air and smashes into his head.     

  “Bullseye!” Sigma cheers. “Err— Gorillaseye?”

Winston isn’t knocked out by the blow, but it does seem to stun him, which is enough for Sombra and Sigma to run. All around them, Overwatch agents are emerging from the buildings of Watchpoint: Gibraltar like bees from a hive, and Sombra thinks that this may be the finest example of the phrase “whacking a hornet’s nest with a baseball bat.” Up ahead, the jet is humming, awaiting the two of them. 

  “Wait!” Sombra hears Winston yell, and there’s a strange sort of desperation in his voice.

  “Think you can make the jump?” Sigma asks Sombra, nodding to the hovering jet. They’ll have to leap off the edge of Watchpoint: Gibraltar to make it into the open side doors. 

  “Unsure,” Sombra answers.

  “Not a problem!” Sigma says. “I’ve got you, my friend. Prepare for launch!”

  “Prepare for— oh god—” The ground disappears out from under Sombra’s feet as she’s telekinetically lifted into the air. She nearly drops all the research as her hands instinctively claw for a hold that isn’t there, and her legs continue to move as though she’s still on solid earth. 

  “Wait, please!” Winston cries. “Don’t take it!”

That’s the last Sombra hears of him before she’s thrown through the air toward the jet like an American football. 

  “OH DIOS MÍOOOOO!” Sombra screams.

Moira and Widowmaker, who were standing at the edge of the open side door of the ship, see her coming at them like a torpedo. Moira leaps out of the way in time, but Widowmaker isn’t as lucky, and Sombra crashes hard into the sniper, sending them both sprawling across the floor of the jet. An explosion of white goes up around them as the papers and research come loose from Sombra’s arms. A moment later, Sigma joins them, and the plane quickly takes off immediately after. 

Sombra groans, her whole body aching. So much for an injury-free mission.

  “Get off of me,” a voice snarls from beneath her, and she realizes she’s slouched across Widowmaker. She quickly scrambles off of her. 

  “Sorry about that,” Sombra says. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Widowmaker replies curtly, dusting herself off. 

  “Oh, and thanks for trying to get me out of there earlier,” Sombra adds. 

Widowmaker simply nods her head once in response. 

  “You’ve got it!” Moira says, eyeing the fallen research with greed. 

  “Not without damage, though, unfortunately,” Sombra grunts as she’s collecting the papers and journal. Now that adrenaline is filtering out of her, she can feel her shoulder burning in intense pain. “God, whose idea was it to give the gorilla a giant gun that shoots lightning?”

Moira chuckles lightly. “Who knows,” she says. “I can take a look at the injury, if you wish.”

Sombra has always been wary of Moira doing any kind of medical assessment on her, but, at the end of the day, she is a doctor, and her shoulder does hurt like a bitch. So, she surrenders herself to the whims of the woman, saying, “Sure. But don’t try anything shady.”

  “Ye of little faith,” Moira tuts, shaking her head. She glides over and kneels beside Sombra. Her clawed fingers push back Sombra’s sleeve, which had been singed open when she was hit by Winston’s tesla cannon, and Sombra flinches in pain.

  “Ow!” Sombra yelps.

  “I’ve barely touched you yet,” Moira says dryly, though there is a hint of amusement in her voice. “Now this may hurt a little. Hold still.” She then tears away Sombra’s sleeve to get a better look at the injury, sending jagged lightning bolts shooting through Sombra’s arm, as though her skin is still charged with electricity.

  “Ow, OW!” Sombra bleats. “You owe me a new shirt, I hope you know.”

  “Of course, dear,” Moira says, inspecting the injury.

It’s an ugly red blemish that swathes the curve of Sombra’s left shoulder, burning intensely every time she moves her arm. Faint blisters have already started to form across her skin. It still holds the smell of electricity and seared flesh.

Using the medical kit kept inside the jet, Moira wipes the burn down with a damp cloth, applies some skin-soothing cream, and then wraps it with bandages. The entire time, Sombra hisses and twitches in reaction to the pain. 

  “Are you enjoying this? My suffering?” Sombra asks Widowmaker, who has been watching in amusement the entire time.

  “I most certainly am,” Widowmaker replies. 

  “Do not fret, liefje!” Sigma says, thumping down beside Sombra. “I am sure you will make a full recovery! Isn’t that right, Doctor?” He looks up to Moira.

  “It’s just a minor electrical burn,” Moira says. “She’ll be just fine after it heals.”

  “See!” Sigma beams at Sombra. “This is wonderful news!”

  “Yeah, I’m glad my arm wasn’t completely fried,” Sombra says. She rolls her injured shoulder, then winces when it stings in pain. She gives Moira an indignant look.

Moira sighs in exasperation. “Don’t do that, if you don’t want it to hurt.” She presses her claws to her forehead. “Sometimes I worry for you. For all of you.”

Sombra titters, then looks back at Sigma. “I never thanked you for helping me out back there. So, thank you!”

Sigma smiles. “Well, I wasn’t going to just leave you there alone! It is always my pleasure to help you, my friend! And look, it all paid off perfectly! We have what we came for!”

He’s right. The research has been obtained with minimal damage. Now Sombra can work to unlock the mysteries that the Slipstream holds.

Still, she can’t help but wonder why all the research was just out in the open like it was…

Oh well. It’s probably nothing!

Back at Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Winston is on the brink of a complete meltdown. His bedroom has been torn apart, and he only rips it to pieces further, desperately searching the space. 

  “No, no, no, no—” he mutters again and again. 

His head throbs in pain, blood matted in his dark fur, but it does not rival the pain aching in his heart. His fervor fed by anguish, he looks and looks, but the things he is seeking do not come up. 

Crack, goes something in Winston’s chest, and he slams his fists onto the ground with a roar of rage. The anger then subsides into torment, and he slumps to the floor, burying his face into his furry arms as he weeps. 

It’s over. It’s all over.

The door to his room opens with a mechanical hiss, and someone enters.

  “Winston? Winston!”

The hands of Mercy gently touch his shoulder, and without even raising his pounding head to look at her, he can feel her worried gaze bearing through his fur. 

  “Winston, what’s wrong?” Mercy asks. “Oh, your head…”

  “It’s over, Angela,” Winston croaks.

  “What?” Mercy says.

Winston lifts his head to finally meet her eyes. “They took it. The research on the Slipstream. It’s gone.” His voice breaks as he speaks his next words: “We’re not getting her back.”

For a gorilla with giant hands, Winston has exceptionally good handwriting. 

Over the past week, Sombra has been thoroughly reading the research conducted on the Slipstream from front to back, back to front. It’s all fascinating, and even though she doesn’t know what a good chunk of the words used in the writing mean, it’s nothing a simple Google search can’t fix. 

Although this sort of sciencey stuff isn’t really her cup of tea, she can’t deny that the whole thing is incredibly intriguing. So, she dives right into her own tests, scans, and experiments. She writes her own notes on the Slipstream, paces around her room, pondering what she can do to harness the jet’s power, and she’s sure this is the closest she’s ever gotten to feeling like a proper scientist.

Among all the writing in the journal, there are pictures. Pictures of the Slipstream and its blueprints, pictures of various pieces of the jet (which have been labeled and noted with black Sharpie), and pictures of the pilot. She was a young, skinny girl with scruffy brown hair and deep amber eyes. She looked so happy in the photos.

Poor kid.

One day, a terrible storm wraths against the Talon base. It’s similar to the tempest that brought the Slipstream back to reality, hissing and furious.

Late that night, Sombra is working away on her computer when the power goes out. In an instant, her room plunges into complete darkness as all her monitors shut off, and she stares in dismay at the now-black screen in front of her.

  “Mierda,” Sombra spits in annoyance. 

Well, she guesses she’s done for the night.

She stands up from the desk. Thunder roars across the sky when her feet touch the ground, and she can feel the very foundation of the tower quaking beneath the force of the noise. She wonders if it will collapse. She hopes not. That’ll be a huge inconvenience.

Blindly, Sombra makes her way across the space of her room, using her hands to guide her. She ends up stubbing her toe against something and hisses in pain, crow-hopping for a moment before she finds the door to her bedroom. She’s about to go inside when something stops her.

A noise.

It sounds like garbled static, almost. Turning, Sombra notices that one of her monitors has turned back on. It’s the one that has the Slipstream’s engine fragment hooked up to by cables. On its screen, it’s displaying a sea of weird, bluish static. The sound is coming out from its speakers.

The really strange thing, though, is the engine fragment. It’s…glowing. The markings carved through the metal surface are shedding a faint blue light—the same shade of blue as the static, Sombra notes.

  “What the hell…?” Sombra mutters to herself. She approaches the monitor and engine fragment, and as she gets closer, she realizes that, under the sound of static, the engine fragment seems to be whirring. A mechanical purring sound emits from the thing, like it’s trying to bring full power back to the computer, but that doesn’t make any sense. First of all, it’s broken, she only has half of the engine, and second of all, there’s no way it should be ‘on.’ Or even functional, for that matter. 

And yet, it’s definitely making noises, and it’s definitely lighting up.

When she’s only five feet away, she feels the air shift. The sensation that she had felt back at the Slipstream a week ago washes over her, except it somehow feels more intense in an enclosed space. She winces, a writhing, nauseating sensation settling itself inside of her stomach. She pushes through it and closes the distance between herself and the malfunctioning tech.

If she can even classify this as a ‘malfunction.’ Frankly, she doesn’t know what this is. She just knows it isn’t right. 

Sombra looks at the monitor closely. Thunder crashes, and the static shudders. Sombra thinks she can see something inside of it.

Compelled by some kind of unnatural urge, Sombra extends a hand and delicately touches the screen. Upon making contact, a painless electrical shock zigzags up her arm and into her brain. The cyber-graft in her head begins to pulsate, and she swears that it’s pounding to the rhythm of a heartbeat.

But not her heartbeat.

In reaction to her touch, the static on the screen clears up slightly (this computer isn’t a touch-screen. she has no idea how this is possible). Within it, she sees some kind of undulating blob. The heartbeat in her head becomes more intense when she focuses on it.

Is that…a person?

  “Hello?” Sombra calls out warily.

There’s no response. 

What the hell is going on?

Sombra looks at the engine fragment, still humming away, and then at the weird blob on the static-filled monitor, and then back at the engine fragment. And then she extends her other hand to the engine fragment and splays her fingers out.

She hesitates.

She has no idea what’s going to happen if she does this—if anything happens at all. She doesn’t know. Is that really a risk she wants to make?

Ha. When has she ever been careful?

So, throwing caution to the wind, Sombra brings up her hacking interface on the engine fragment. 

Before she can even get a reading on the thing, the blue light of the engine fragment bleeds into the same shade of purple that has become sort of a trademark for her. The static on the monitor does the same. 

Then, the engine roars with sudden vigor, shaking the entire table it’s sitting upon as it starts to vibrate with energy, and sparks begin to shoot out from it wildly. Sombra yanks her hands back, but it’s too late. The damage has been done.

Thunder screams through the sky. There’s a distinct tear in the veil of reality, and blood fills Sombra’s eyes. The Slipstream’s engine fragment explodes in a blue-purple light that scorches Sombra’s corneas, and then the actual detonation punches her hard in the ribs, knocking her back. 

She doesn’t remember hitting the floor.

What’s even more concerning, though, is that, for a brief moment, she can’t even remember her own name.

her mind is in pieces, and the pieces spiral as she plummets, sharp and spinning. seconds come unmoored from seconds. shards catch and reflect images of a once-familiar life: her past, her many, many, many pasts, all of them spinning out of reach.

she has to do something. she has to fly the plane. she has to defend the base. she has to get back to Emily.

…who? 

so hard to think. her head hurts so bad. what does thinking mean, anyway, outside of time?

she scrambles amid the shattered, jagged facets of her sense of self. they slice her fingers to ribbons, and blood flows, bright red within empty black.

she must remember. she must fight. she is…

wait. who is she? what’s her name? 

she can’t… she can’t seem to recall it…

but everyone has a name, don’t they? surely she has one! there must be an answer here.

she looks around the glasswork memories, and everything they reflect seems so familiar to her, even the ones that overlap in ways that aren’t possible. these are her experiences, she knows, but who is she?

she still can’t remember. it hurts to remember. she remembers too much.

she knows her mind is as bad as her body.

the feeling of being stuck in a loop is one thing, and the driving desire to use her mind is another.

it isn’t just a lack of desire, either.

it is a void.

her whole being is a void.

her existence, at least, doesn’t feel real.

but her body is real, and it makes sense, because she has to have a body, right?

that makes her real.

but.

it doesn’t mean she is real.

she doesn’t know what to make of any of it.

it makes her feel quite insane. 

though, then again, there are many things in this universe that are difficult to make anything of. 

suffering is one of them, she thinks. such a bestial concept that has no other purpose other than to stir the boiling pot of the human condition. snd for what? righteousness for overcoming such torment? everlasting depression when you don’t?

heaven and hell may be nothing but hallucinations for the souls of the damned, but many good people from the secular world now fall victim to what seems like a never-ending punishment of pain.

the seemingly endless quagmire of the human mind provides countless ways to torture one another through prolonged separation, seemingly meaningless tasks, and by forcing painful emotions on one another.

through a maze of strange feelings, feelings that a person may have no choice but to accept for the sake of their own humanity, other unfortunate souls will endure an eternity of misery and pain.

many never attain peace of mind.

some succumb to debilitating mental anguish.

others are forced to cope with an existence of endless loneliness.

she, however, as biased as it may seem, believes she lives with the ultimate hell. a punishment so exquisite in its suffering that it has transcended past the level of human comprehension. 

this is not a brag. not a way to undermine the anguish that anyone else may be going through. not a way to make her feel better about her pitiful, painful existence.

it is merely a glimpse into the depths of a soul who has reached the end of her endurance.

the hopelessly dead await the redemption of the living.

why do people think that the dead should never complain?

doesn’t a man have a right to speak, if he can possibly speak at all?

death is a cruel torture that no one can escape, unless he or she has the strength to reach the ultimate state of denial.

some might call it intellectual suicide, but she refuses to accept that she will never have any more peace. optimism means very little in the Void. that’s one of the first things that will go. 

however, there are worse fates than death. much worse fates. 

in a similar vein, immortality is not the blessing people often make it out to be. she knows that now. 

the embrace of the Void is worse than any torture she has ever known.

it is a torture that seems to prolong life to such a degree that one cannot even believe that they are dying. because they aren’t. they’ll watch themselves die, certainly, they’ll watch themselves die a thousand times over in every way they can possibly think of, but they will never truly achieve death. their body will yearn for it, though, and soon, their mind will, too.

her body and mind are far past the yearning stage. it’s been so long that she has finally just accepted that she will never be free. 

there is no peace in immortality, and so it is that she will go into the darkness forever.

it is just that she has no choice.

she has no other choice.

she has no alternative, except to accept the never-ending pain in which she now finds herself trapped.

the silent torment has crept into every corner of her life—if she can even call it that anymore.

so, she closes her eyes, and she sees the world beneath the world, her home: a vast web of vibrant memories and alternate universes and fluctuating timelines, a pulsing network of emotion and story and pain and bloodshed. when she looks at her hands, she can see shimmering threads attached to her fingers. so many threads. they’re around her legs and arms and chest and stomach. they’re around her throat. 

then, before her eyes, she watches as the glass shards of memory come together to form another teardrop on the colossal web of life. a thread— a lifeline shoots out from the teardrop and lashes around her left wrist, burning through her flesh and branding itself into her very soul with the heat of a dying star. like that, her horribly fractured mind illuminates with fresh memories, fresh experiences, fresh adventures before she even enters the new timeline, and that light bleeds through the cracked cavities where her psyche used to be. she’s reeled toward the timeline, and she goes without fighting. there’s no use in fighting, not anymore.

this is her life now.

the other timelines echo their memories when she passes by them. she hears her own voice a thousand times, sees her own life flicker by a thousand more, and yet she still cannot remember her name.

not that it matters anymore, really. 

the newest timeline glimmers in the vacant darkness. there is nothing beyond the web of life. the Void is the end of everything, and there is simply emptiness beyond the edge of reality.

she lifts a hand to the teardrop. her fingers are quaking. her skin is a scorched ruin. she’s so tired.

maybe this time will be different.

she’s about to touch the teardrop, melt away into the memories and take shape inside of them, when something happens. a noise shatters the deafening silence of the Void, and she reels in pain when she hears it. there are no sounds in the Void. not when you’re this far down. so this intrusion of noise is an intense agony on her body and mind.

this is all so new and unfamiliar and alien. new things are scary. new things are not a part of the script. 

what is going on? 

the teardrop timelines shiver on the web, rattling like orbs of glass. high, high above, light is spilling in, and she lets out a muted scream of pain. it hurts so bad she can’t bear it. she feels like she’s withering away.

then, something emerges from the light and streaks straight toward her. it sinks into her like serrated claws, and it burns. she’s died over a million times, but this hurts worse than any bloody fate she has ever met before. she begins to sob in agony and terror, struggling against whatever has grasped onto her, but she cannot get free.

she’s dragged through the Void, toward the gash blazing up above. the heat is too much. she can’t handle it. she won’t survive this.

the Void screams in fury. it tangles itself around her legs, trying to pull her back in, and she feels as though she’s about to be ripped in two. her body can’t take all this stress. she’s going to die.

but then, the light flashes—deep purple mixed with bright blue—and she feels herself slip through the gash. instantly, the pain assaults her, and even when she blacks out, she can’t escape it. she can still feel it, festering all over her existence. 

she’s so scared.

When Sombra comes to, her eyes feel like they’re on fire. She immediately groans, pressing a hand to her face. She has to take a moment to regain her bearings, lying flat on her back, and then she slowly sits up to examine the damage.

The Slipstream’s engine fragment is cracked open like a dinosaur egg and smoking. The computer hooked up to it is glitching out of control. All the other monitors are back on and seemingly functioning normally. There’s a girl on the floor. The storm is still raging outside.

Wait—

Sombra does a double take. Then, she rubs her eyes. And then she blinks. And then she rubs her eyes again. 

She’s not seeing things.

There’s a girl in Sombra’s room, curled up limply on the floor, crackling blue pulses of electricity, and Sombra has no idea how the fuck she got there.

Chapter Text

There is a girl. On Sombra’s floor.

What the fuck.

Sombra can’t tell if she’s alive. Or even human, for that matter. Her skin is a faint blue color and transparent, as though she’s a ghost, making Sombra wonder if she’s actually a hologram of some sort. She’s dressed in what seems to be a flight uniform, and she appears to be eighteen or nineteen by the looks of it. She’s curled limply on the floor, which somehow makes her even more out of place compared to if she had appeared standing up on her feet.

Sombra stays very still, almost like a deer that had been caught in a semi-truck’s headlights, staring at the girl, waiting for her to move, but she doesn’t. The girl remains on the floor, and Sombra is actually concerned that she may have somehow summoned a dead body into her room.

Sombra grabs a chair and slowly creeps over to the girl. She tries to poke the girl with the chair, but it phases right through her.

Sombra blinks. 

That’s…weird.

She sets the chair aside and tries to touch the girl with her hand, but that doesn’t work, either. Maybe she really is a hologram…

The girl then twitches, and Sombra watches in interest as she seems to come to. Or “power on,” if she is an actual hologram like Sombra is assuming. 

The girl’s eyes flutter open behind the goggles on her face. She stares at the floor for a very long time (she’s probably buffering), and then her head cranes around slowly to look around. Her gaze then falls upon Sombra, and she freezes again.

The technology on this thing is horrendous.

  “Hello?” Sombra says.

In a flash, the girl is moving. She scoots back hastily across the floor and tries to brace herself against the wall, but when she places her hands upon the surface, they seem to phase right through it. This catches the girl’s attention, and she stares down at herself in visible horror.

Now that she’s upright, though, Sombra can get a better look at her. She’s a lithe little thing, reminding Sombra of a ferret in a way, especially with the tufts of dark hair sticking out from under her helmet. A giant swath has been torn out of her left side, revealing mangled flesh underneath the ripped cloth of her outfit. There’s another giant gash on her upper right arm. Electrical burns mar the expanse of her tarnished flight uniform. 

The weird thing is, aside from blue, there’s no other color on her body. Sombra can’t tell what color her hair, skin, or eyes are. It’s so strange.

  “Woah, woah, woah!” Sombra says. She holds her hands up. “Calm down! I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The girl doesn’t look any less frightened. Sombra doesn’t think she’s a hologram. 

  “Who are you?” Sombra asks.

The girl stares at her, not answering.

  “What’s your name?”

Silence. The girl shrugs.

  “You don’t know your name?”

Silence. The girl nods unsurely. 

  “Can you talk?”

Silence. Another nod, slowly this time, even more unsure.

  “Do you know what’s going on?”

Silence. She shakes her head.

How peculiar. Sombra isn’t sure what to make of this girl. Should she tell someone? She doesn’t know yet. 

Sombra sits down in front of the girl. Getting close to her is like getting close to a ball of electricity. She can feel her cybernetic grafts buzzing in her skin.

  “I hope you know that I’m just as confused as you are,” Sombra says to the girl. “I mean, I was just trying to run some tests on this piece of a plane, and then you appeared out of nowhere, and—”

Sombra stops.

  “Wait…”

As fast as lightning, Sombra darts over to one of her computers, startling the girl. Her fingers are a whirl of movement as she types on her keyboard, searching for something.

“who flew the Slipstream jet”

The result makes Sombra’s eyes widen. Slowly, she turns her head to the girl, who is still pressed against the wall, her form flickering unsteadily. Suddenly, her outfit makes so much sense.

  “Are you Lena Oxton?” Sombra asks her. “The pilot of the Slipstream?”

  “Lena Oxton,” the girl mouths, though she doesn’t actually speak it. “Slipstream…”

Sombra goes to images, then looks back at the girl, then back at the computer screen.

It’s a perfect match.

After all this time, the pilot of the Slipstream has finally returned to reality.

  “What year is it?” the girl asks softly. Her voice is high-pitched, youthful, and very hoarse. She has a British accent.

  “2081,” Sombra tells her.

Something crackling streaks down the girl’s face. She’s crying, Sombra realizes. 

  “Oh god,” the girl whispers.

she doesn’t know why she’s here. the light burns. her body feels feather-light, and yet there are stones weighing in her stomach. the threads are still tangled around her limbs, stinging her skin, but she can’t see them anymore. 

there’s someone here, standing before her. she looks…familiar.

she isn’t sure. 

The girl is an anomaly, to say the least. Both a mind-breaking and ground-breaking aberration of abnormality, to say the most. She’s not much of a human, not anymore. She’s more like a living ghost, if anything. She can’t touch anything at all (it’s a miracle that she doesn’t phase straight through the floor), and she often doesn’t stick around for very long, fading out of existence for several hours or even days at a time before coming back. And every time she does, she’s muddled and confused all over again.

Sombra knows her name is “Lena Oxton,” but the girl doesn’t react to it when she’s referred to as such. There’s always a flash of recognition in her eyes when it’s said, but no response, like a dog that got called the wrong name in the same tone its name is usually spoken in. Truthfully, Sombra doesn’t think “Lena Oxton” even exists anymore. Twelve years spent lost inside time itself has destroyed who she used to be, replacing her with the girl she is now. 

A shell.

So, Sombra takes to calling her different nicknames for the time being. They’re no real names, but they’re good enough until they can figure out a real title for her. 

There is very little cohesion in the girl’s existence. Her mind is scrambled, making her awkward and disoriented. Speaking with her is rather difficult. She talks in shaky sentences, negating herself several times and constantly going back on the things she said, and she often says the most random, off-the-wall things from out of nowhere, only to forget she even said them seconds later when Sombra brings attention to them. Some may find it frustrating, but Sombra, surprisingly, doesn’t really mind. Even with her oddity, the girl is good company. 

Which is exactly why Sombra decides to keep her as her little secret.

there is something electric under her skin. 

she wants to say that it’s a hum, but no, it isn’t a hum. not really. humming would be less distracting than what it actually is. this is more like an itch. a scratch. like her body is an ant farm, and a whole colony of ants are constantly marching up and down her muscles, making her skin tingle and tickle and prickle and—

it’s like that.

there is an infestation under her skin. 

it’s making her heart beat too fast sometimes, even though she doesn’t even think she has a pulse anymore. it’s making her leg shake and her fingers twist and her voice leave her throat too loud. it’s making her words shake and shiver, it’s making her cling, it’s making her—

it’s making her too much.

she tries, she does, she tries, she tries. she tries so hard to modulate, to concentrate, to listen, to stop, to stop, to stop.

but there is something wild under her skin, and it hurts so bad sometimes to sit and listen and focus. 

it just hurts.

it makes something in her stomach contort and loop and ache. it makes her head squeeze. it makes her leg bounce in distress when there is absolutely nothing to be distressed about. 

she tries.

but sometimes things are too fast or too slow or too loud or too quiet. sometimes things are too—

sometimes there are details.

she gets too lost in details, she knows she does, or sometimes she skips over them completely, or sometimes she bleeds several together to form one obscure statement, or—

her head is like a camera, she thinks, except the camera only zooms in way too close or zooms out way too far, and she can’t—

she can’t get to that middle setting.

there’s just so much in her head. too much in her head. and she doesn’t know how to release all of it.

the threads twist and knot and tangle. down in the Void, they rarely ever intertwined in such a chaotic way, but now that she’s Above, now that She Has Returned (as unstable as her form may be), they’re all snarling together in a labyrinth of pure disorder, and she can’t unravel them no matter what she does. 

she’s just so confused.

The girl doesn’t appear to sleep. Sombra will go to bed, and when she wakes up the next morning, she’ll see the void child sitting in the same spot she had been in the evening before, staring blankly at the floor. She’ll always light up when she sees Sombra in the morning, probably happy to have some company.

  “Don’t you get tired?” Sombra asks her.

  “No,” the girl answers. “I can’t get tired.”

Sombra tilts her head at her. “Really?”

The girl nods. “I can’t feel the effects of ‘tired’ anymore. I physically can’t sleep. Can’t eat or drink anything either, which is a bummer. I could really go for a biscuit right about now.”

  “Do your senses work at all?” Sombra is suddenly starving for more information.

  “I can see and hear,” the girl tells her. “But I can’t feel, I can’t smell, and I can’t taste. Even seeing and hearing is kinda weird. Everything is kind of a bluey-grey. All desaturated and depressing. And it’s hard to hear sometimes. You’ve gotta be close by for me to hear you clearly.” 

  “Wow,” Sombra says. “That’s fascinating.”

The girl smiles wryly. “That’s one way to describe it.”

her human body is long ruined, a shriveled husk battered and beaten by the Descent which had ended her normal life.

the only thing that remains human within her is the immaterial spirit that is the soul.

once, she was one among many.

now, she is simply one, completely alone, forever stalwart and unchanging amidst the ravages of time.

the image is more a statement of reality than of a thought. there is no room for thought in the face of that final eternity of utter loneliness. no room in the Void for anything except death and self-pity. she thinks this, and she believes it even more, even as she exists in the world above her prison. or, half-exists, really. and it’s that reason, that half-existence that is no more structural than a sandcastle against a rising tide, that keeps her hope depleted. 

she still doesn’t know if any of this is real. many times has she been fooled by alternate realities. this can easily be no different. so what’s the point in holding out hope when she can so easily plummet from the heavens once again?

The girl’s disappearances always startle Sombra, even as she gets used to her ghostly presence around her room. One moment, she’ll be there. The next, she won’t. It’s that simple.

The girl’s reactions to her own disappearances fluctuate. Sometimes she doesn’t even notice, babbling away as her body fades like the setting sun. Sometimes she does notice, and those are the worst times.

She always looks so scared when she realizes what’s happening to her. Tears flood her eyes, and she weeps in terror, in dismay, maybe even in pain. She beseeches Sombra, begging her for help, saying again and again that she doesn’t want to go back, don’t let me go back, i don’t wanna go back, but there is never anything Sombra can do except watch helplessly as she dissolves out of reality, and it’s always like she was never there to begin with afterward. 

Sombra wishes she could do more for the poor kid. She really does.

she is always to return to the Void. she should have known better than to think that she will ever truly escape its grasp. 

she is never to go back to her home. the home before the Void. but even as she thinks about it, she cannot seem to visualize where she once lived. she cannot recall her childhood house, her bedroom, her neighborhood street. it is hard to believe she ever had a life outside this empty nothingness when she can’t even remember the color of her front door. 

over time, other things start to slip, too. 

her mother. what was her name? did she get her laugh from her? did they have the same eyes? did she have a mother at all?

her father. what was his name? what color was his hair? did her bright determination come from him? did he ever exist in the first place?

the name of her primary school. the faces of her childhood friends. her favorite TV shows growing up. 

it’s all slipping away. she can’t remember a single thing. 

Sombra sets up an alarm system along the hallway leading to her room. Whenever someone is detected approaching, she’ll hide the girl so she won’t get caught and potentially taken away. She’s taught the girl to hide herself, too, if she’s never there when someone comes by. 

One week after the girl’s arrival, an alert goes off on one of Sombra’s monitors, telling her that someone is approaching. 

  “Alright, time to get in the closet,” Sombra says to her scruffy stowaway, who had been sitting in front of the windows, gazing out at the ocean.

The girl doesn’t look happy. “Why do I always have to hide? It’s not very fun.”

  “I know, but you’re my little secret right now, so it’s the way things have to be,” Sombra says, then tosses a blanket over the girl—

—only for it to phase straight through her because, right, she’s a ghost.

  “Just get in the closet,” Sombra says.

The girl sighs and hauls herself up to her feet. “This isn’t even a closet, it’s a bathroom,” she mumbles before passing through the bathroom door and disappearing inside.

Sombra frowns. She knows the girl isn’t happy with her situation. She would compare her to an animal in a zoo, but animals in zoos are bred into their enclosures, and they’re (usually) treated like royalty by their keepers. Those pens are the only thing zoo animals know, and they respect their homes.

The ex-Slipstream pilot most certainly does not respect her pen. That pen being, of course, Sombra’s room.

But there’s nothing she can do at the moment, so, for now, she focuses on whoever is coming to see her.

The door opens, and Widowmaker enters.

  “Hey, Widow,” Sombra says. “What can I do for you?”

  “Maximilien is here,” Widowmaker says in her typical clipped, unfriendly voice. 

Right. There was a council meeting planned to discuss the Slipstream, and she was expected to put in a few words as the head of “Project Slipstream.”

  “Gotcha,” Sombra says. She stands up, grabs Winston’s journal with all the research on the Slipstream, and then leaves her room, heading down to the beach with Widowmaker at her side.

For a moment, they just walk in silence. Then, while in the elevator, Sombra can’t take the quiet anymore.

  “So…” Sombra says, and Widowmaker immediately gives her a sharp look, a silent warning to not say something stupid. “I never got your opinion on the Slipstream. What do you think about us possibly using the jet again?”

  “I have no opinion,” Widowmaker says, looking forward again. Her voice is as cold and bored as it usually is. 

  “Really?” Sombra raises an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Widowmaker says. “It’s not me who will be flying it, so I have no reason to give any input on it. If Talon wishes to use the jet, then we will use the jet. I simply do not care about what we end up doing.”

  “Ah,” Sombra nods. “Got it.”

They make their way down to the beach, where the wreckage of the Slipstream is still lying in the sand. Around it, a group of people is standing, including Moira, Reaper, Doomfist, a few dark-suited agents, and an Omnic.

Sombra has never met anyone more ridiculously opulent than Maximilien. Flashy and ornate, he has all the pomp and circumstance to show for a rich man and the streak of money laundering to give way to his position in Talon. However, he’s mousy and a coward. He loves to flaunt his wealth, much of it earned from the popular casinos he runs, and today is no different, as he is clad in an incredibly expensive-looking suit and adorned in several golden accessories that look like they’re worth more than all of Sombra’s computers combined. If someone were to string him up from the ceiling, shine a light on him, and spin him around, Sombra is sure he would make a perfect disco ball. 

  “Ah, there you two are,” Moira says, spotting Sombra and Widowmaker. “Come, join us.”

  “Greetings, Maximilien,” Widowmaker says to the Omnic, who looks like he belongs in a dragon’s hoard. She dips her head to him respectfully.

  “Heya, Max,” Sombra says, waving.

  “Hello, Widowmaker. Hello, Sombra,” Maximilien says back, nodding to each of them. 

  “I see you’ve brought your posse,” Sombra says, looking at the two large, muscular men standing at either side of Maximilien.

  “I’m rich, Sombra,” Maximilien says. “I never leave home without them.” His bright red, glowing eyes then focus on her. “Speaking of you… You’re the one who has been chosen to work on the Slipstream? I mean no offense to you, my dear, but what do you know about planes?”

  “Not much,” Sombra says. “But they’re like flying cars, so how hard can it be?”

  “They, most definitely, are not,” Widowmaker mutters at her side. “Do you even know how to drive?”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’”

  “Can it even fly?” Maximilien asks dubiously, eyeing the Slipstream with wary suspicion. 

Moira looks at the Slipstream’s missing right wing, then looks at Maximilien. “I’ll give you three guesses.”

If Maxilmilien had been capable of proper facial expressions, Sombra is sure he would be scowling. “I’m just being cautious,” he says. He’s regarding the jet as though it’s a giant human heart. “It malfunctioned once, did it not? On the very first flight, correct? What makes you think it won’t happen again?”

  “Well, this time, it’ll have someone competent working on it,” Moira answers, setting a clawed hand on Sombra’s shoulder.

Sombra is flattered by the praise, but she literally has no idea what the hell she’s doing.

She doesn’t tell the others this, of course. 

  “Sombra’s job isn’t to fix the plane,” Moira continues. “We have others who will be doing that. Actual engineers. Her job is to unlock the power of its teleportation abilities.”

  “I see,” Maximilien says. His gaze shifts back over to Sombra. “What will you tell us about these ‘teleportation abilities,’ Sombra?”

Alongside Maximilien’s glowing red eyes, everyone is looking at her now, expectant. She’s almost a touch nervous at first, but then she straightens herself up and says, “Well, I’ve been going through Winston’s notes, and I’ll admit that I don’t have much to show yet. This isn’t really my area of expertise. But with some more time, I’m sure I can uncover something.”

Maximilien slumps. It’s clear he was hoping for something more exciting. “Oh,” he says. “Though, that is unsurprising, I suppose. I mean, it won’t be easy to figure out something as abnormal as the Slipstream.” He pauses, then goes on, “Speaking of… I know we’re planning on using the Slipstream as a proper weapon again, restoring it back to its glory and whatnot, and I’m not saying I’m against that plan, I’m just…”

  “Spit it out, Maximilien,” Doomfist grunts, speaking for the first time since Sombra got down to the beach.

  “I’m only trying to say that this is a priceless artifact,” Maximilien says. “There has never been another like it made in the entire world. Don’t you think it should be preserved?”

  “It’s not a piece of art, Maximilien,” Reaper rumbles. “It’s a war machine.”

  “I know, I know,” Maximilien says. “But…” He’s now looking upon the Slipstream with a new light in his eyes: greed. “I’m just concerned that working on it may destroy it further or worse: cause it to disappear again. It would be a shame if it were to be lost again after it finally returned from…wherever it went.”

  “So your idea to ‘preserve it’ is to, let me guess, display it in one of your casinos?” Widowmaker says, one eyebrow raised. 

  “Well, since you brought the idea up…”

Sombra snorts. “I don’t think that’s the best idea, amigo. You have no idea what’s wrong with this thing.”

Maximilien looks at her, slightly alarmed. “What do you mean?”

Moira seems to catch on to what Sombra is alluding to because she then says, “If you want it so badly, go see for yourself. Up close.”

Maximilien appears confused, glancing between each of them, trying to figure out what is being kept from him. When he can’t decipher what it is, he turns to the Slipstream and begins walking toward it.

Sombra braces herself. 

Sombra has seen several Omnics bug out before, but never like this. When Maximilien is close enough, the Slipstream reacts to his presence instantly, sending out a ripple of unreal energy that washes over the beach like the wave of a tsunami. Upon getting hit with it, Maximilien’s body is seized with spasms, like his soul is trying to wriggle out of his metal casing. The markings on his forehead blink wildly and, for a moment, his eyes flash to a very familiar shade of blue. 

The entire time, Sombra, Moira, Widowmaker, Reaper, and Doomfist watch in silence, enduring the abnormal sensation assaulting them.

Maximilien’s two guards can’t even keep up their tough facade when faced with so much pain, their expressions twisted up in discomfort and fear, but they still manage to retrieve Maximilien and haul him away from the Slipstream. After a few seconds, the radiation fades away, as though it was never there to begin with. On his hands and knees in the sand, completely dirtying his fancy suit, Maximilien is heaving for air like he was just suffocated, despite not having lungs or a mouth.

  “What— what was that?” Maximilien asks, horror evident in his voice.

  “The reason why you shouldn’t put the jet in your casino like it’s a piece of art,” Widowmaker answers.

Maximilien takes another moment to contain himself, and then he stands up, dusting himself off. “What is wrong with it? Why does it do that?”

  “It’s, like, ‘infused’ with the energy of the existence it disappeared into,” Sombra says. “I think it’s been cut off from anything ‘real’ for so long that just about everything in our world causes it to discharge, almost. Like some kind of chemical reaction.”

Maximilien looks profoundly frightened at that. “And you all want to harness that?”

  “Yes,” Reaper says.

  “Preferably,” Moira nods. 

  “Is it even safe?”

  “With luck, Sombra’s research will make it usable,” Doomfist says. “Until then, that is debatable.”

Sombra grins at Maximilien. “Still want it as an art piece?”

Maximilien groans wearily.

The meeting continues for another hour before Sombra’s presence is no longer needed and she can leave.

When Sombra walks through the door to her room, there’s a screeching battle cry, and then a flickering figure is slewing straight toward her. It’s the void child, and her face is all rage and madness. She swings her fists at Sombra, but they go straight through her, doing no damage, though it does make Sombra’s skin become uncomfortably cold.

  “Woah, woah, woah!” Sombra shouts. Her own hands fling out to try and push the girl away, but they phase through her, too. It’s rather difficult to protect yourself from someone who you can’t even touch. Fending off the girl will be about as successful as swatting an annoying fly out of the air. 

  “I know who you are!” the girl is screaming. “I know what you’ve all done! I had my suspicions, but now I KNOW! I KNOW! You’re all MONSTERS!”

  “Híjole! Calm down!” Sombra yells. “Back UP!”

To her surprise, the girl actually listens, backpedaling away from her swiftly. Her usually soft features are eroded away by an expression of distrust and hatred. 

  “My god,” Sombra says. She shakes herself out; now her skin feels all tingly and weird. “What is up with you?”

  “This is the Talon base, isn’t it?” 

Sombra stops. She blinks at the girl. “How… how did you know that?”

Sombra has been very secretive with the organization she works for in regards to the girl, making sure never to say its name around her, just as a precautionary measure. But even if she had mentioned it in some way, there’s no way the girl should know what Talon is, as it hadn’t been around at the time of the Slipstream’s launch. 

So how…?

  “How would I not know what Talon is?” the girl says, and Sombra has never heard so much vitriol in someone’s voice before. Honestly, she didn’t even think this sweet, ferret-faced teenager was capable of being mean. “You’re all monsters! All of you!”

  “Stop shouting,” Sombra says, afraid of someone overhearing them. “I’m going to need you to explain right now. How do you know what Talon is?”

  “I need to explain?” the girl yelps. “YOU need to explain! Why am I here? What do you want with me?”

  “I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Sombra says. 

  “How can you say that when you work with Widowmaker?” the girl spits. 

  “Mija,” Sombra sighs.

  “Don’t try to defend her or tell me she doesn’t exist! I heard you talking to her! I know what she did to Mondatta!” the girl yowls.

Sombra freezes. “How do you…?”

  “—know about that?” the girl finishes for her, almost scoffing. “Who DOESN’T know about the peace leader being murdered in cold blood? He was going to be the change we needed! And that monster KILLED HIM!”

  “That doesn’t explain how you know about him,” Sombra says. “You’ve been missing for twelve years. How would you—?”

  “Because I was there!” the girl says. “I was at his rally when Widowmaker attacked, and I just barely managed to save him! Wait, no— I didn’t save him. He died. Widowmaker assassinated him! No— no, I did save him because I remember killing Widowmaker. But I heard her speaking earlier? So did I not kill her? No, no, no, no! Windowmaker is dead! No— Mondatta is dead! I— I don’t…”

The fire in the girl’s eyes dies away into embers, and she slumps down to her knees, staring numbly at nothing. 

  “I don’t… I don’t know…” she croaks.

Sombra kneels in front of her. “We’ll figure this out. It’s going to be okay, mija.”

The girl looks up at her, and the expression in her faded eyes says she doesn’t believe her.

Sombra doesn’t even know if she believes herself either.

she remembers the rally, how Mondatta’s words were like the preachings from an angel, all soft kindness and bright hope. 

she remembers the fight on the rooftop, the roaring of bullets whizzing through the air, the pain of poison festering in her airways. 

she remembers broken ribs crunching into her lungs, electrical burns all over her aching body from her damaged [REDACTED], but it wasn’t those injuries that kept her grounded like a weak, wounded animal, but the weight of the anguish placed upon her shoulders and soul from the unjust murder of Mondatta…alongside the infectious guilt that consumed her for being the reason he died in the first place.

she remembers being the reason Mondatta never died, awarded a medal for her accomplishment and a standing ovation from the crowd. 

she remembers her accidental manslaughter of Mondatta, a Pulse Bomb thrown too far, blowing him to pieces, along with several innocent bystanders (“TWENTY-THREE DEAD, FOURTEEN INJURED IN KING’S ROW BOMBING, INCLUDING SHAMBALI LEADER, TEKHARTHA MONDATTA!” the news reports had cried).

she remembers killing the sniper, tearing the monster’s foul body to bloody bits with the bullets of her pistols. 

she remembers working alongside the sniper, acting as her eyes in the crowd, smirking in sadistic glory as Mondatta’s head was blown right off his shoulders.

she remembers limping home to the worried face of a pretty red-haired woman, sobbing, saying again and again how it should have been her who was killed that night. 

she remembers dying.

(she died a lot, actually. a bullet through her [REDACTED], bleeding out from gunfire shredding her abdomen, a broken neck after falling from a roof, her own gun in her mouth because the guilt from Mondatta’s death was too much to bear. the first death is always the easiest. after that, it just gets harder.)

she remembers.

she remembers. 

she remembers.

and then, all at once, she doesn’t remember at all.

what kind of name is “Widowmaker” anyway?

It seems like Sombra’s anomalous void child can see into the future.

Or, well, she experienced the future. Several futures, at that. It’s the only logical explanation Sombra can come up with to explain how she knows about Talon and Mondatta’s assassination. 

The next day, after letting the girl cool down, Sombra decides to run a little test. The girl seems to be in better spirits, but that’s only because she appears to have completely forgotten about what had transpired the day before. Perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing.

  “Hey, Skippy,” Sombra says, using one of her many nicknames for the void child. “Do you mind doing something with me real quick?”

  “Sure!” the girl says, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She trots over to where Sombra is sitting and plops down in front of her (she can sit on the floor, but nothing else. when she attempted to sit in a chair, she just fell through it). She seems more than happy to have some sort of stimulation. 

  “I’m just going to show you some pictures of different people, and I want you to tell me if you know them or not,” Sombra explains.

The girl nods. “Easy peasy!”

Sombra hopes.

  “Okay, here’s the first one,” Sombra says. She twists around her monitor to show the girl a picture of Doomfist.

The girl’s eyes widen, and Sombra thinks she may have something useful, but then she says, “Woah! Look at that fist! That’s SO COOL!”

  “Do you know who this is?” Sombra asks.

  “No, but he looks like quite the lad!” the girl answers. 

  “This is Doomfist,” Sombra tells her.

  “Doomfist!” the girl cries, suddenly surging up to her feet. “That slippery bloke! Do you know what he did to me?! I fell back in! I— I—” She clutches desperately at her chest, as though she’s trying to hold onto something, but when she notices that there’s nothing there, she looks terrified. “Oh no.”

  “So you do know him?” Sombra presses.

The girl looks up. “Know who?” 

  “Doomfist.” Sombra points to the picture.

The girl turns her head to it. Her eyes widened again. “Woah! Look at that fist!”

Sombra sighs. “Moving on…” She searches for a different person. “Do you know her?”

On the screen is a picture of a pretty blonde lady in an outfit similar to that of an angel.

  “Angie?” the girl whispers. 

Sombra says nothing. Telling her the name seems to send the girl into a spiral. She wants to see if she can figure it out herself.

  “She looks familiar…” the girl says. “Oh! I know! She was there before my flight on the Slipstream! She did my health evaluation!”

Sombra furrows her eyebrows. That sounds true, but the girl had called the woman “Angie,” which seemed a little too personal of a nickname for a doctor to be given by a one-time patient.

Unless this girl wasn’t a one-time patient to Angela “Mercy” Ziegler, of course. 

  “Am I right?” the girl looks up at her.

Sombra wordlessly moves to someone else. 

  “Oh, okay,” the girl says. 

The third photo is of a man who seems to be the epitome of the term “cowboy.” 

  “Isn’t he one of the actors in one of those old wild west movies?” the girl says, squinting at the picture. 

Sombra waits a minute longer, but the girl doesn’t say anything else about the man, so she goes to the next person.

The fourth photo is of a very tall young woman wielding a glowing shield.

The girl gasps. “Brigitte!” she squeals. “Oh, look at her! She’s gotten SO BIG! I should go visit her and— and—” She blinks. “What’s her pops’ name again? I can’t seem to remember…” She thinks about it for a few seconds, then looks back at the photo. “Woah! That girl is HUGE! She looks like she can break me in half like a stick of celery! And is that a SHIELD? I want one of those!”

Sombra furrows her eyebrows. It’s like the void child is constantly being pulled in two different directions, one of recognition and one of unawareness. The constant changes in her memory are enough to induce whiplash.

She goes to the next image.

The fifth photo is of an old woman holding a sniper rifle.

  “Woah-oah–oah! Who gave Granny a GUN?” the girl says. “Wait…” She looks closer at the picture. “I know that Granny with a gun! Her name is… is… Gah, I can’t remember her name, but I swear I know her! I’ve seen her before! I’ve— I’ve interacted with her, haven’t I? I used to work with her, didn’t I? But I was just a pilot before my first flight, I was never in any battles, though I did have combat training…and yet I remember fighting alongside this woman…” She clutches at her head tightly. “Urrg, I’m so confused!”

This is how the test continues. Sombra shows the girl a picture of a hero from Overwatch, the girl will either have no idea who they are or recognize them in vivid detail (though, she’ll usually immediately forget everything she said about them seconds later). Occasionally, Sombra will show someone she already put on screen, just to see how the girl will react. When she displays a different photo of the man who looked like a cowboy, the girl calls him out as “Cole Cassidy” this time, but when she shows Angela “Mercy” Ziegler again, the girl has no idea who she is at all, not even as the doctor who examined her before her flight on the Slipstream.  

Finally, Sombra shows a photo of a gorilla wearing thick-plated armor.

The girl instantly perks up, jumping to her feet. “Winston!” she chirps! “Oh, that’s my best friend! I wonder how he’s doing. It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve seen him. I could really go for one of his silly jokes right now!” She reaches out to touch the picture, but her hand passes right through the monitor, causing the screen to bug out for a moment. She pulls her arm back, then blinks at the photo. “Is that gorilla wearing armor?”

  “How strange,” Sombra murmurs.

The girl tilts her head at her. “What?”

  “You,” Sombra says. “You’re just— I mean this affectionately, but you’re so weird.”

The girl gives a small, ghostly smile. “Yeah. I suppose I am.”

she can’t say she “remembers” her friends—she doesn’t “remember” anything, not anymore—but she can certainly conjure up the image of them. Hiroshima shadows burned blue in her mind, she knows who they are, even when she’s viewing them through stained, distorted glass.

the screech of Junkrat’s voice. the smell of Mei’s flowery perfume. the hum of Lucio’s speakers vibrating through the entire base when he plays his music far too loud.

yes, she knows these people. she knows so much about them. more than anyone will ever know.

like how they laugh. Genji lets out huffing breaths from behind his mask when he attempts to keep himself from laughing at something ridiculously stupid. Roadhog and the Junker Queen both have loud, uncontrolled, braying laughter that they don’t try to keep bridled. Symmetra covers her mouth when she laughs. Mercy’s laugh sounds like a crop duster trying to take off, the complete opposite of her angelic persona, and it always gets everyone laughing even more than what initially made them all laugh in the first place. 

or how they all react to music. Torbjörn insists on singing obnoxiously loud to every song he recognizes, and Reinhardt will usually end up joining in with him. Soldier: 76 will pretend like he isn’t listening, but a sharp eye will notice the way his foot is tapping to the beat of the song that’s playing. Bastion will beep-boop along to the song. D.Va will sometimes break out into a full, improvised dance routine if the music is good enough.

or what their sleeping patterns are like. Wrecking Ball will simply snooze in his mech, no matter where he may be. Hanzo can sleep standing up. Kiriko will sleep anywhere, if given the chance. Orisa will quite literally loaf like a cat when she lays down. Pharah snores like some kind of eldritch monster, to the point where nobody wants to room with her whenever they stay in different places for missions, and she always insists that she doesn’t when morning comes and everyone complains about it (even when she’s given video proof of her doing so). 

or just small habits that they do that someone might not even notice if they’re not specifically looking for them. Zarya will run her hands through her hair as a sort of nervous tick. Brigitte makes over-exaggerated faces at foods she doesn’t like. Zenyatta is always looking over people’s shoulders. Ashe calls everyone and anyone younger than her “kid,” and those who get annoyed with it will only be referred to as such even more. 

she knows them. she does. she knows she does.

so why can’t she seem to remember them?

Scruffy, Skippy, Teacup, Fuzzy, Shorty, British, Fluffy…

Sombra goes through a myriad of nicknames for the void child, but she still cannot seem to come up with one name for her.

Until one day.

  “It’s like you can pass through these other realities without leaving a trace that you were ever there,” Sombra comments at one point. She then perks up, something dawning upon her. “Trace, trace, trace…”

The girl tilts her head at her. “What?”

Sombra smiles. “You still need a name. How’s Tracer for one, eh?”

  “Tracer,” the girl echoes, something bright flickering in her eyes. It almost looks like recognition. She returns Sombra’s smile. “I like Tracer!”

she never doubted that she had a soul. that was one thing she knew she had, even when everything else started to slip from her. but oh how she wishes she could trade that soul for a proper identity.

she had one hope, one dream, for the future. one hope for a world that would recognize her as more of an entity than merely a being among animals. some might even try to name her. as the saying goes, there is no such thing as a good name.

there are many names that have been given to her in her lives, some of which are more poetic than others. as with any creature of this nature, all are good, and all have their strengths and flaws. the problem is that she can never remember any of them when she slips out of the timelines and returns to the Void, and there is always the trickling dread of knowing that she will just lose everything all over again when a fresh life starts anew. that there will be another name to which she is not entitled, only for it to leave her in the very end, as though it never meant anything at all.

seeing as she can never recall them, perhaps they actually were not as important as she made them out to be.

she quite likes “Tracer,” though.

it’s weird. it sounds so…familiar. 

she doesn’t know why.

oh well. it’s probably nothing.

Sombra’s cyber-grafts will tingle when the newly-named Tracer is close to her. It’s helpful, she thinks. Almost like a tracking device that she can possibly use if the kid ever gets lost somehow. Not that she thinks that’ll happen. 

Tracer is tired of staying in this room.

it’s better than the Void, sure, simply because it’s not an empty abyss, but it’s no greater than the Void when it comes to what she can do. she’s still restrained to one space, the same space, with nothing else for her to do. she’s bored and lonely. 

so, one day, against Sombra’s specific instructions to never leave the room, she decides to go on a little stroll.

stepping out of the room, Tracer gets her first glimpse of the world outside her second prison: a hallway. a rather dim hallway, what with the blackened walls and floor, but a hallway nonetheless. 

huh. she had been expecting something a little more exciting. 

she then reminds her this is only one corridor in a seemingly giant building. she’s seen how high up they are through the window in Sombra’s room (her only other access to the outside world); the place definitely has other fun secrets to see!

she decides to go to the right. slinking through the hallway as though she’s a shadow (and given her ghostly form, she may as well actually be one), she begins to explore the building. she has no goal in mind, she’s just desperate to ward off her boredom.

that’s when she spots something moving behind a corner. a flash of red hair. 

tug.

like a hanging light switch in a dingy closet, several threads from the web of life (they’re always present, even if she doesn’t see them when in this world) yank on her mind, illuminating something inside her faded memory, and she feels compelled by an unnatural urge to follow it.

it can’t be…

she rounds the corner.

it can be.

  “Emily?!”

a pretty, red-haired young woman, around her age, maybe a little bit older, is standing there. she turns in reaction to the name being called, and her eyebrows furrow together at the sight of Tracer.

  “what?” Emily says in confusion.

Tracer skitters up to her eagerly. “Emily, it’s me!” she says. “It’s— it’s…” 

she stops. what’s her name again? her real one? the one Emily would know her by.

wait.

who’s Emily? what is she talking about? and, more importantly, who’s this woman in front of her? she’s really pretty! 

  “woah,” the redhead says, getting a good look at her. she’s got an Irish accent, Tracer notes. “aren’t you strange-looking? are you one of my aunts’ experiments?”

  “what? no!” Tracer says. tug. she then warily asks, “are you this timeline’s Emily?” 

Emily blinks at her. “‘this timeline?’” she echoes.

Tracer nods. “yeah. you know, the different timelines and stuff. like that!” she says. “anyway, what’s your name?”

again, the redhead blinks. she looks confused. “you just said my name? i was about to ask how you know who i am. do i know you from somewhere? have we met before?”

tug. “of course we’ve met before!”

  “from where?”

  “what do you mean?”

  “where have we met before?”

  “uhh, we haven’t? i don’t know who you are?”

the redhead stares at her, baffled. Tracer stares back, equally as baffled. why does she seem so familiar?

the redhead’s brown eyes then narrow, and she looks at Tracer suspiciously. “are you messing with me?”

  “no, i swear, i’m not!” Tracer insists.

she’s looked up and down by the redhead. “what’s your name?”

  “Tracer.”

  “Tracer?”

  “yup!”

  “weird name,” the redhead says. “though, given that this place is run by a man literally named ‘Doomfist,’ i suppose it could be worse. personally, i think i could give way better names, but i don’t exactly have that kind of power here.”

tug. “i agree. you’ve always been good at naming things, Em!” Tracer says. “remember when we got a Roomba, and i wanted to name it Croc, but you said absolutely not! so we ended up naming it Beep, and—” she notices the redhead’s puzzled expression and, this time, she hears her insane babbling. she slaps her hands over her mouth. “oh. i’m so sorry. i hear myself. i’m sorry. i’m not right anymore. i’m kinda, umm…broken.”

  “that’s okay,” the redhead says. “i don’t mind. i think you’re interesting.”

Tracer lights up. “really?”

the redhead nods, smiling. “really. oh, and i’m Emily, by the way. but it seems you already know that. somehow.”

  “yeah,” Tracer says uneasily. the threads are itching her skin like caterpillars crawling all over her body. “somehow.”

  “now,” Emily says, and she begins circling Tracer like how a fox would to its prey, though she seems much more intrigued than predatory. “mind explaining to me what you are? are you a ghost?”

  “i’m not sure,” Tracer tells her honestly. “your guess is as good as mine.”

  “and you’re not one of my aunts’ experiments?”

  “i don’t know who your aunt is.”

  “Dr. Moira O’Deorain?”

  “doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “hmm.” Emily extends a hand to her. “can i touch you?”

Tracer shrugs. “you can certainly try.”

Emily does so. but, like everything else that attempts to touch her in this world, her hand passes right through Tracer. she jerks her arm back, amazement lit up in her eyes.

  “woah,” she says in awe.

  “yeah,” Tracer says back.

  “so, you’re untouchable, you don’t know what you are, and you somehow knew what my name was,” Emily says. 

  “you forgot one thing.”

  “what?”

  “i’m very, very funny.”

Emily’s face wrinkles up in amusement. “what is up with you, Tracer? i’ve just met you, but there’s something about you. i can’t put my finger on it. why does it feel like we’ve known each other forever?”

you have no idea

  “i can tell you why. but it’s top secret. you can’t tell another soul.”

Emily looks interested at that. “i won’t.”

Tracer looks around suspiciously, making sure nobody else is around, then leans into Emily. Emily leans into her, too, and although Tracer isn’t capable of feeling anything in her ghostly form, she still somehow feels warmth radiating from the redhead’s body. she wants to curl into it and never leave.

  “i can see into the future,” Tracer whispers.

Emily’s eyes go wide. “really? no way! wait— okay, if you can see into the future, what am i about to say?”

Tracer squints at her closely. “that there’s no way that i actually foretell the future?”

Emily gasps. “are you a mind reader, too?!”

Tracer laughs. “what can i say? i’m sort of a multi-talented— AAH!!” 

she had been trying to casually lean against the wall in an attempt to look even cooler to Emily, hoping to impress her with her amazingness, only to fall straight through it when she remembers, right, she can’t touch anything other than the floor. she sprawls on her back half-into some room that looks like a small meeting space of sorts, while her other half sticks out into the hallway, and she can hear Emily howling with laughter from outside the wall.

Tracer woozily gets back up, dusts herself off, then says, “i meant to do that.”

now that she’s not wedged through two different spaces, she can hear Emily’s laughter much clearer, and it causes several threads all along her body to light up like fire. in an instant, her mind is blazing with memories, so many memories, all of them bright and brutal and intense. 

her and Emily, living together in King’s Row.

waking up from a horrific nightmare to warm arms wound around her trembling frame.

a scarf the color of emeralds.

clutching desperately to Emily’s hand as blue electricity crackles wildly from something bound to her chest, her entire body wracked with agony.

a ride on a motorcycle to make her feel like she’s flying again.

golden sunlight streaming in through a window, bathing the embracing bodies of her and Emily, both of them much older.

a shining ring.

Tracer never really believed in soulmates before, but staring into the glowing kaleidoscope of so many futures, she knows that Emily is her person. there are very few timelines where she and Emily don’t get together, and even fewer where they don’t meet at all, and they’re all dark and dim, fading away into fog before Tracer can get a good idea of what they might lead into. for the first time, the web of life is almost completely illuminated in radiant gold, and the power this single woman has over her entire existence scares Tracer in a way she can’t explain—but it also makes her feel so warm, so damn warm, and she wants to wrap herself up in all of those blazing threads and hold them as close to her as possible so she can relish the happiness and joy they bring to her soul.

but, at the same time, a deep sadness settles itself inside of her chest. she has met Emily so many different times, seen her in so many different ways, experienced so many different memories with her, but none of them matter now. not anymore. this Emily has no recollection of who they have been to one another, which means that Tracer has to start all over again, building their relationship up from scratch. 

that isn’t to say that she doesn’t want to try, she most certainly will, but there’s one thing that terrifies her the most about this: she does not know how this timeline ends up, and she can’t tell if she’s walking on the tightrope that glows fire-orange or the one that leads into the fog. 

  “Tracer? Tracer, are you okay?”

Tracer blinks, spiraling back to the present. the light of the threads dim until they’re no longer shining, and with that incandescence gone, she can see Emily in front of her, her eyebrows knitted together and her face a picture of concern.

  “Tracer?” Emily says. 

  “sorry,” Tracer says, shaking her head, ridding her mind of the remaining clinging threads of memory. 

  “are you alright?” Emily asks, her worry not yet waning. she extends a hand to touch Tracer’s shoulder, but it just passes through her, and she pulls her arm back to her side with a light grimace. it gets a giggle out of Tracer.

  “yeah, luv, i’m fine,” Tracer answers. “i just bugged out there a little bit, sorry. my mind— it doesn’t work the same way as it used to.”

  “oh,” Emily says. “got it.”

  “i didn’t mean to scare you,” Tracer says. “now where were we? oh, yes! you were laughing at my brilliant display of pure amazingness!”

  “is that what you call falling through a wall?” Emily titters.

  “meh. falling through a wall, brilliant display of pure amazingness. brilliant display of pure amazingness, falling through a wall. potato, potahto.”

Emily laughs, and the threads glow again. it feels so nice to be warm after so much cold darkness. 

and then, the painless, silken fire is stamped out because, suddenly, someone is charging over.

  “Tracer!”

Sombra is there, as though materializing straight from the shadows themselves. she looks both angry and fearful at once, and she keeps glancing anxiously at Emily. 

  “what are you doing?” Sombra hisses.

  “talking with Emily!” Tracer says, shooting a grin to the redhead over Sombra’s shoulder. before she can see if Emily smiles back, Sombra shifts over to be directly in her line of sight.

  “you know you’re not allowed to leave the room,” Sombra says. she’s trying to stay quiet, but Emily still hears.

  “what?” Emily says. “are you imprisoning her or something?”

  “huh? No!” Sombra shoots a glare at Emily. then, back to Tracer, “we’re going back to the room. Emily, stay here. i need to speak to you after.”

  “but—” Tracer tries to protest, but Sombra gives her a firm look, and she falls silent. she waves goodbye to Emily, who has her arms crossed with a look on her face that says she doesn’t like this one bit, then follows Sombra back to the room.

  “stay put,” Sombra says once Tracer is back inside the room, and Tracer feels like she’s a disobedient dog or something. “don’t run off again. please. i’ll be back.”

then, she closes the door and departs, presumably to go threaten Emily into staying silent about Tracer’s existence, leaving Tracer alone. always alone.

Tracer broods angrily, stomping back and forth through the room while grumbling to herself, then finally resigns herself to sitting in front of the window and staring dejectedly out of the glass.

the sun is starting to set, bathing the sky in heavenly hues of red and orange. it reminds her of the light shed on the web of life from the memories about Emily. if she focuses hard enough, she can almost feel the lingering warmth of those happy futures. 

she wants to be warm again so bad.

after fifteen minutes, the alarm on one of the monitors goes off, meaning someone is approaching. a moment later, Sombra enters. 

  “if i had been anyone else, you would have been caught,” Sombra says.

  “i don’t care,” Tracer says back.

Sombra sighs. she doesn’t seem angry, which is nice, but she is most definitely disappointed, which is, decidedly, much worse.

  “what were you thinking?” Sombra says. “you know you’re not allowed to leave the room.”

  “so, what, am i supposed to spend the rest of my existence locked in here with absolutely nothing to do?” Tracer spits bitterly. “i don’t wanna be stuck in here forever! i wanna live again! i wanna talk to people! i wanna do stuff!”

  “i know you do, cariño,” Sombra says. “but, right now— it’s just not safe for you to come out. i’m sorry.”

Tracer hugs her knees to her chest. Sombra comes to sit next to her. 

  “i’m not doing this to be mean,” Sombra says. “it really is for your safety.”

Tracer looks at her. Sombra is frowning, but the look in her eyes says she’s being completely genuine.

but would it really even matter if she wasn’t being genuine? it seems like there’s nothing for Tracer in this world anymore.

  “okay.”

  “Sombra?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did you bring me back?”

  “I wasn’t trying to. It was an accident.”

  “Oh.”

…

  “Sombra?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t think I want to exist anymore.”

Sombra turns away from her computer sharply to look at the ghostly girl huddled in the corner of her room, alarmed.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know if I want to exist anymore,” Tracer repeats. “I wish I could say I don’t want to be alive anymore, but I’m not alive. I’m not living. I’m just…here. Hell, I’m barely even human! I’m just a husk of broken memories.”

  “No,” Sombra says, but even as she speaks that word, she doesn’t believe it. She hates to admit that Tracer is right; her mind has been horribly broken by twelve years—potentially longer for the girl herself—stuck in time. Sombra worries if she’ll ever be able to recover psychologically.

  “You know, I’ve always dreamed of this day,” Tracer says. “Well, this experience. Coming back to the real world, I mean. Getting free from the Void. Having my life back. It’s all I ever wanted. But now that it’s actually happened…I wish it never did. This is nothing like what I was hoping for. It’s just a cruel mockery of the thing I wanted the most. Because I’m not— I’m not me. Not anymore.”

Sombra’s breath catches in her throat. Her lungs suddenly feel as tight as a noose. The kind of pain that happens when you swallow too much water at once, and it stretches and gouges all the way down through your chest like a burrowing, hungry worm.

  “When I first appeared, you called me Lena. Lena Oxton,” Tracer says. “And that name is really familiar to me, and on some level, I know that that is me, but at the same time, it feels like we’re two separate entities. I don’t feel like Lena Oxton anymore. But this life I’m living—if I can even call it a life—isn’t mine. It’s Lena’s. All my friends know Lena. All my family knows Lena. Everyone wants Lena back. Not me. Not Tracer. And yet, I’m here, and I feel like I stepped on Lena while trying to get out. Or maybe I killed her. I don’t really know anymore. Sometimes I even wonder if she was ever there to begin with.”

  “She’s still there, Tracer,” Sombra says. “You’re still you.”

  “You have no idea how badly I want to believe you,” Tracer says ruefully, cracking a weak smile. “But I just…can’t.”

Sombra goes over to Tracer and sits in front of her. Tracer looks so sad, and it pulls painfully at her heartstrings. 

  “I used to think that I was free,” Tracer says, her voice thick with emotion. There are tears in her eyes. “But now I know that I’m not. I’m still as stuck as I have been for the past twelve years. Except this is somehow worse because everything I’ve ever wanted and everything I’ve been dreaming of is being dangled in front of me, taunting me, but every time I reach out to try and grab it…” She extends a quivering hand to Sombra, and it goes straight through her. The tears spill over, and Tracer lets out a tiny sob. “I just get reminded that I can never have it. That I don’t belong here anymore.”

Sombra’s heart aches intensely, as though claws are wrapped around it, squeezing it until it feels like it’s going to burst. 

This is her fault. She pulled Tracer back to reality, and now Tracer lives in a state of everlasting suffering, wavering in between the lines of salvation and damnation.

Sombra would never have fiddled with that stupid engine fragment if she had known it would bring back someone so completely broken.

The immaterial soul cannot live this way forever.

For a moment, she wonders if it’s possible to send Tracer back. Back to the abyss she was so viciously clawed out of. Perhaps it was better for the girl to live in endless torment than to be alive (or half-alive) at all.

But even as she thinks this, Sombra feels an instant burst of disgust for herself, for she cannot fathom the idea of casting the kid back into a realm that she can only picture being something far worse than Hell from the small details Tracer has slipped out about it. She cannot force her to return to so much agony and anguish. Although watching Tracer exist in a world she clearly does not belong in is terribly painful, she will never forgive herself if she sends her back to the abyss.

Still, she can’t just do nothing. Tracer can’t keep living like this. 

An idea comes to her then. The idea has always been there, really, brewing like a witch’s potion in the back of her mind, but this time, it’s finally overflowing from its cauldron to be heard.

  “I’m going to bring you back,” Sombra says fiercely.

Tracer looks up at her in shock. She blinks. “Wh-what?” she whispers hoarsely.

  “I’m going to bring you back,” Sombra repeats, and this time, she feels more confident. “I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to bring you back to the way you used to be. Human. Whole. You won’t be like this forever.”

Tracer stares at her. Tears start to run faster. “Really?” she squeaks.

  “Really,” Sombra says. “I’ll give you a life that’s worth living, cariño. I promise.”

Chapter Text

To the surprise of absolutely no one, stabilizing a girl is more like a ghost than a human being is a lot harder than it seems. It’s a wonderful idea on paper, but actually making the attempt to go through with it is anything but simple, and Sombra feels awful for promising Tracer such a thing when she doesn’t even know how to start working toward her restoration. She can’t go back on her word now, though. She has to at least try. 

The entire life of a girl is now resting on her shoulders.

But she won’t deny that this sort of thing is far out of her level of expertise. She can’t do this alone.

She needs help.

The observatory is an enigmatic space that Sombra can rarely ever make heads or tails of. Passing through a pair of sliding metal doors that release a mechanical hiss when opened, she’s faced with a large, vaulted room that’s practically charged with energy. Gravity is highly offset in here, and the tips of her hair float up around her neck a few inches. 

The entrance leads to a balcony that overlooks the circular space. There are two levels: one up above, one down below. The top level has a floor made entirely from refined, tempered glass, with a circle hatch at the very center of it that is currently open. The bottom level is full of various lab equipment, chalkboards scrawled with scientific theories, and tables neatly adorned with strange apparatuses. A large window peers into a test chamber, from which a faint humming sound is coming from. On the middle level, a catwalk curves around the wall, where several bookshelves stuffed with tomes, textbooks, and journals are standing like suits of armor.

Sombra looks around the room, but it doesn’t take her long to find the person she’s searching for: a blur of movement whizzes past her, followed by the unmistakable tug of gravitational energy. 

Darting and bobbing, Sigma flits weightlessly like a hummingbird in the air. He dashes between cubbies carved out in the wall, each of them holding different contraptions, murmuring to himself in thought. There are even perches set up, which he will roost himself on for just a few seconds before taking off again. A myriad of tools whirl around his head, suspended there until he needs them. He doesn’t even seem to realize Sombra is there.

But then she loudly clears her throat, and he twists around midair to face her. His expression instantly lights up when he sees that she’s come to visit him. 

  “Ah, hello, my friend!” Sigma greets her, his jubilant voice booming through the space. 

  “Hello, Sigma,” Sombra greets him back.

Sigma swoops down to her, landing on the guard rail built around the edge of the balcony and catwalk. “How are you doing on this fine day?”

  “I’m doing good,” Sombra says. “You?”

  “I, too, am doing quite good!” Sigma says. His cheer is infectious; Sombra can’t help but smile as she speaks to him.

  “What are you working on?” Sombra asks. She knows how important Sigma’s experiments are to him, and she’d hate to interrupt him with her little ‘dilemma’ if he’s in the middle of something critical.

  “Oh, something marvelous!” Sigma answers, excited to be able to talk to someone about his current project. “Here, let me show you!”

He then hooks his hands underneath her arms and flies her down to the bottom level of the lab before she can even reply. The sudden weightlessness makes Sombra’s stomach flip inside of her. The mere idea of anyone using stairs isn’t a concept Sigma is familiar with anymore. 

He sets her down in front of a table, which has an array of science equipment set up on it. He shows her a pair of Petri dishes. There’s something weird and blobby in each of them.

  “Do you know what these are?” Sigma asks her.

  “Snot?” Sombra guesses.

Sigma laughs loudly. “Not quite!” he says. “These are sheep embryos!”

Sombra peers at them. “What, is Talon making sheep soldiers now?”

Again, Sigma laughs. “No. But wouldn’t that be a funny sight?” He shakes his head. “Nay, these sheep are going to be used as test subjects for a potentially ground-breaking experiment! You see, my powers have not gone unnoticed, and the boss has expressed interest in others possibly gaining the same abilities, as it could make our organization that much more strong! However, I became the way I am now because of exposure to a black hole, as you know, and I told the boss this, that gaining such powers in that way is much too dangerous. So, Dr. Moira and I have come up with a new solution: rearing proper gravity manipulators from scratch using my very own DNA! However, we couldn’t begin human testing, not yet, so we have decided to start using animals first. In this instance, sheep. But you may be wondering: why are there two? Wouldn’t you only need one? Technically, yes, but we don’t know how strenuous the DNA-engineering will be, so we have created two identical subjects so that one may be the actual ‘subject’ and the other may be the ‘donor’ that supplies the ‘subject’ with everything it may need, such as blood.”

  “How’d you manage to get two identical fetuses?” Sombra asks. “Were they twins?”

  “Not originally,” Sigma answers. “Dr. Moira took the initial embryo we had and performed something called ‘embryo splitting’ on it. Embryo splitting is the artificial microsurgical twinning of an embryo at the cleavage or blastocyst stage. At the earliest stage of embryogenesis, the cleavage stage, the single cells of the embryo, the blastomeres, are still totipotent. This property is presupposed in the blastomere biopsy procedure, where single blastomeres are removed from the embryo, which under suitable conditions, continue to develop like undivided embryos. The technique of blastocyst bisection involves the separation of the embryo in the later blastocyst stage into two equal halves. After separation, the genetically identical embryos can continue to develop as though they were natural twins.” A stick of chalk telekinetically lifts up and begins to draw something on an empty chalkboard as Sigma continues to speak. “From there, once they are fully formed and properly living, we will perform gene-splicing and DNA engineering experiments to potentially implant gravitational abilities into them and further develop the ‘subjects’ body, going into the depths of its cells to modify them the way we want.” He then presents the drawing on the chalkboard, which is of a cartoonish sheep wielding gravity at its disposal. “Thus, creating gravity-manipulating sheep!”

Sombra blinks in enthrallment.

  “I apologize for rambling,” Sigma then says.

Sombra quickly waves her hands. “Don’t be! It’s interesting! I can see why you’re so excited about it.”

Sigma nods his head avidly. “If it works, and we can move to human test subjects, it’ll be truly a marvel! Ah, but I do not think you have come here to listen to me ramble about telekinetic sheep. What has brought you to my observatory today, liefje?”

  “Oh, you know,” Sombra says vaguely. “I just had a little question to ask you.”

Sigma perks up, always eager to answer inquiries. “Ask away!”

  “How does gravity affect time?”

Sigma blinks. It’s obvious he hadn’t been expecting that of all things.

  “A very intriguing questionnaire, my friend!” he says, then lifts off into the air. He continues to speak as he buzzes back and forth between the bookshelves on the middle level, picking out different books as he goes along, “You wouldn’t think that gravity and time have anything to do with each other, as they are two entirely different concepts. Gravity is a condition of physicality, a corporeal force that is always with us, although we don’t usually notice it. Time is a state of being that does not necessarily infest humans themselves but rather the world itself, and it merely bleeds into our lives as a result. It is a continuous progression of our existence that never truly stops. So gravity is physical, while time is, well, metaphysical. However, they affect each other more than you would initially think.”

Sigma lands in front of her again with a hurricane of books gyrating around him like the rings of Saturn. Several of them open to pages full of diagrams and text that Sombra can understand very little of. Just trying to make sense of them is giving her a headache.

  “Albert Einstein had a theory on this, actually!” Sigma says. “It’s called ‘time dilation,’ which states that where gravity is stronger, time passes more slowly than it usually would where gravity is normal or even weaker. If this is true, it would mean that time would move slower near the center of the Earth, as the gravitational pull there is much stronger than it is anywhere above the crust. That’s also why things seem to move ‘slower’ as they approach black holes and appear frozen at its edge. The flow of time around something with such a strong gravitational pull, such as a black hole, is proportional to the proximity from the center of gravity. And technically, all gravity affects time, but even in the instance of Earth, gravity would only be affected to the billionth of a second, making it functionally unnoticeable. Einstein’s theory of gravity even suggests that time is destroyed in the center of a black hole, which is quite the thing to think about!”

  “So time can stop,” Sombra says. “A moment ago, you said it couldn’t.”

Sigma ponders it. “You are correct! I was so caught up in my explanation that it slipped my mind until just now. But yes! Time can completely cease to exist altogether—but to be timeless is to be, well, not alive. Or, at the very least, not human. Time furthers our existence, so a complete halt in time would mean something akin to immortality, almost. Maybe not death, but something far beyond the laws of nature. This is why black holes are so dangerous.”

  “Is that…what happened to you?” Sombra asks tentatively. 

  “Precisely,” Sigma answers. “For just a brief moment, I was timeless, and it changed me permanently. So you see, we need time to exist, and time needs gravity to keep it running.”

  “Alright, so if you can be timeless, is there a way someone can be, I don’t know, time…ful?” Sombra says.

  “Timeful?” Sigma echoes.

  “Yeah, like—” Sombra makes a vague gesture with her hands, though she doesn’t really know what it’s supposed to mean. “Can someone exist with too much time? If you’ve been exposed to a state where time stopped altogether, is it possible for someone to be exposed to a state where time is way faster than it should be?”

Sigma blinks, then starts to scour through his books. After a moment, he looks up and says, “I am…unsure. That is an excellent question, Sombra! Unfortunately, I have to say that I am stumped on how to answer it.”

  “Alright, how about this: if time moves slower where gravity is stronger, will time move faster where gravity is weaker?”

  “Indeed, it will.”

  “So what if there’s no gravity somewhere altogether? What will happen to time itself?”

Sigma thinks about it, then goes over to another chalkboard. He begins to scribble formulas and equations on it, occasionally stopping to look at the books he has floating around him. 

  “If there was no gravity altogether, let’s say on Earth, things would no longer be bound to the planet, and we would begin to drift off with no way of anchoring ourselves,” Sigma says. 

That sparks something in Sombra’s mind. “Can I have some paper to write this on?”

  “Certainly!” Sigma says. A small notepad and a pen are telekinetically pulled from a shelf and delivered to her. She takes them and sits down at the table next to the chalkboard Sigma is working at, for all the world feeling like a college student taking notes during a physics lecture. 

  “You can continue now,” Sombra says.

Sigma nods, then does so: “With the absence of gravity, we would become massless. Our particles get their mass from something called the Higgs field, which is a field that gives mass to fundamental particles such as electrons, so the removal of this field could remove gravity altogether. If that were to happen, alongside us simply floating off into nothingness, our particles would start moving at the speed of light, ditching the other particles they used to hang out with inside atoms. On top of all of that, this is also a question of how space-time is affected. You see, gravity really is just the curvature of space-time. It is the presence of matter and energy that causes space-time to curve. So, if the universe can’t curve—because gravity doesn’t exist—then there can be no matter or energy within it. However, just because gravity affects time, doesn’t mean it creates it. That being said, time can continue to exist even if gravity isn’t present. You see, time is not a commodity or resource that can be used up or replenished, at least not within the context of its physics. Time is a dimension connected to every part of space that allows for movement, change, vibration, etc. Without time, nothing in space could move, and the universe would be static and frozen.”

  “So existence isn’t possible without time?” Sombra says. “But I thought you said— earlier, you said that time can stop.” She scratches her head. “I’m so confused!”

Sigma laughs. “Physics is indeed a confusing mistress, liefje,” he says. “But yes, technically, it is impossible for time to not exist, but that is because you, too, will not exist without it. Life cannot be sustained without time, hence why I was damaged so severely when exposed to the power of a black hole. If I spent any longer in subjection to it, I would not be here talking to you today.”

Sombra shivers at the thought.

  “But back to the question at hand!” Sigma says. “We have discussed what would happen to us if there is no gravity, but what will happen to time? Well, by my estimation, time would be, in simplistic terms, a complete and utter mess. I think our concept of time would be completely destroyed and replaced by one that is far beyond our level of human comprehension, one that moves much faster than it normally could.” He looks at his equations on the chalkboard and nods proudly. “That is what I believe, anyway. Is that helpful?”

  “Yes, very much so,” Sombra says. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure!” Sigma says. “I must ask, though. These are all very specific questions. Are you working on something, by any chance?”

  “Nothing gets by you, abuelo,” Sombra says with a light chuckle. “Remember the Slipstream Project? I’m actually using this for that.”

Sigma gasps, lifting a few inches off the ground. “The Slipstream Project!” he parrots in amazement. “Oh, I have been so very enthralled since I heard the news of it happening! I was hoping to help you work on it, but I did not want to accidentally intrude.”

  “You wouldn’t be intruding at all!” Sombra says. “You know I love your company!”

Sigma looks ecstatic at that. “I’m so happy to hear that, my friend! Now, what part of the project are you asking these questions for?”

At that moment, Sombra gets cold feet—and not just because she rarely ever wears real shoes and the floor of this observatory is freezing. She begins to fiddle with the pen in her hand, sketching out sugar skulls in the margin of her notes, and she knows that this sheepishness is odd behavior for her. Sigma makes sure to bring light to it.

  “Is everything alright, liefje?” he asks gently.

  “Yeah, everything’s fine,” Sombra assures him. “I just have one more question, if that’s okay?”

  “Of course!”

  “Alright, so, in a completely hypothetical situation, if someone were to fall into a space-time abyss and remain there for several years, then suddenly come back to reality but still occasionally fall back into the space-time abyss, as their body is more like that of a ghost’s, how do you think they would be stabilized so they could have a solid form again? Just curious!”

Sigma blinks at her. “I’m sorry?”

Sombra takes a deep breath. “There’s something I need to show you, Sigma.”

Sigma can hardly contain his curiosity as he follows Sombra through the Talon base, and Sombra knows it. She also knows that he’s the best person to go to about this problem, but even as she thinks this, she wonders if telling more people about her anomaly’s existence is the best decision. Emily already knows, and although Sombra doesn’t think she’ll tell anyone, it’s risky to let others in on the secret.

Too late now. 

Sombra stops in front of her room’s door, setting her hand on the handle but not turning it just yet. She looks to Sigma, who is hovering there, radiating interest.

  “Alright, before I show you, I need to make one thing perfectly clear, so listen up,” she says. “You cannot, and I mean CANNOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE , tell ANYONE about this. Not unless I give you the word or specific instructions to do so. Okay? This MUST remain our secret. Nobody else can know.” She pauses briefly, then continues, “Okay, slight change to that. Emily already knows, purely by accident, not because I told her, but aside from her and us, NOBODY ELSE CAN KNOW. Understood?”

  “Understood,” Sigma nods. 

  “Good.” Sombra grips the doorknob tightly, takes a deep breath, then pushes the door open. “Alright. Come on in.”

Sigma follows her into the room, immediately scanning the space for any kind of oddity or peculiarity, but there isn’t one present inside. His gaze focuses on Sombra, his eyebrows furrowed.

  “What am I meant to be keeping a secret?” he asks.

Sombra holds up a hand, then looks around. “You can come out,” she says, seemingly to nothing. “Don’t worry, he’s here to help. He’s a friend. He won’t hurt you, I promise. I won’t let him.”

There’s a beat of silence where nothing happens.

Sigma looks like he’s about to question Sombra again, but then a hazy blue form pushes out through the door to Sombra’s bedroom, tentative and slow, like a bunny rabbit peeking out of its burrow for fear of being snatched up by a fox. Sigma stares at her in shock.

  “Sigma,” Sombra says. “This is Tracer.”

Chapter Text

Sigma is looking at Tracer as though she’s a brand new planet that just appeared in the solar system. Tracer, on the other hand, is looking at Sigma as though he’s got a gun pointed in her face, decidedly much warier. 

Finally, Sigma pulls his gaze away to look at Sombra, his eyes shimmering with intrigue. “What is she?” he asks.

  “I don’t really know, honestly,” Sombra answers, crossing over to Tracer, who seems to shrink behind her.

You weren’t this wary when you were acting all buddy-buddy with Moira’s niece, Sombra thinks at her, and Tracer blinks at the look she’s getting, as though she can read her mind. 

Ah, yes. That conversation. Sombra remembers it quite vividly.

After delivering Tracer back to the room, Sombra had whirled back over to Emily, who was still in the same spot where she was left, though much more suspicious and cynical. Her arms were crossed, an expression of “EXPLAIN NOW” written all over her face.

  “Before I tell you anything,” Sombra had said, “you cannot speak A WORD to anyone about her.” 

  “Why?” Emily had challenged her. She certainly was her aunt’s niece, alright. “So you can keep her all to yourself, exploiting her future sight for your own bidding?”

  “What? No!” Sombra said. “Tracer doesn’t even have future sight. What are you talking about?”

Now Emily looked confused. “She told me she can see into the future.”

  “Oh. That.” Sombra nodded. “Yeah, well, let’s just say she’s gone through some stuff, and it may or may not have exposed her to thousands of futures. She can’t really see into the future, but she has seen the future. Wait— Why am I telling you this?!”

  “Because I deserve to know,” Emily said. 

  “No, you don’t.”

  “She seems to like me. And I like her.”

  “She’s…fragile. And she’s supposed to remain a secret.”

  “Not so much of a secret now, is she? Seeing as we literally just spoke to each other and everything.”

  “Yes, I know that, zorra. Thanks for pointing out the obvious. But seriously, you can’t tell ANYONE that you saw her. Or know about her. I’m trying to keep her hidden for her own safety. Who knows what Talon will do if they find out about her.”

Emily’s dubious expression softened at that. “Oh. You’re trying to keep her away from the rest of Talon.”

  “Yeah. So, please, please, don’t tell anyone. I’m not going to lose her.”

Back to the present, Sigma is still staring at Tracer in wonder. “So you don’t know what she is?”

  “I mean, she’s a person…kinda,” Sombra says. “Or, well, used to be. She’s in some kind of ghostly state, but she’s not a ghost. She’s not dead.” She hesitates just a moment, then continues, “She’s the pilot of the Slipstream.”

Sigma’s eyes nearly pop out of his head at that. “Really?”

Sombra nods. “Really.”

Sigma hovers forward a little but stops when Tracer edges back slightly. She’s still uncertain, afraid. Sombra tilts her head at her.

What have you seen? What futures have you glimpsed with him in them?

What have you seen about me?

It’s something she regrets not asking sooner- the futures that she appeared in within Tracer’s messy collage of timelines. What she did, what she was like, what her life ended up being like… She wanted to know it all. But now that she’s seen how damaging the futures are to Tracer’s mental state, she’s been too nervous to talk to her about it. Still, the curiosity is killing her.

Maybe one day.

  “It’s incredible to meet you, Miss Lena Oxton,” Sigma says, as respectful and kind as ever. He may be a living weapon for a literal terrorist organization, but Sombra doesn’t think he has a single mean bone in his whole body. 

Tracer grimaces at the use of ‘Lena Oxton.’

  “She doesn’t really like that name anymore,” Sombra says quickly, noticing Sigma’s concerned-puzzled expression in reaction to the face Tracer made. “Just call her Tracer.”

Sigma nods. “I see. My apologies, Tracer.”

  “It’s alright,” Tracer says, finally speaking up.

  “What happened to you… I cannot begin to fathom how awful it must have been,” Sigma says sympathetically. “You have my deepest condolences, zoetie.”

  “Likewise,” Tracer murmurs.

Sigma furrows his eyebrows, cocking his head to the side. “Excuse me?”

Tracer inches out from behind Sombra; she’s looking at Sigma in a new way now. Her eyes are wide open, glazed like crystal balls. And, like crystal balls, she seems to be glimpsing deep into several different futures.

  “Why do you stay here?” she asks, and she almost sounds like she’s hypnotized, her voice detached and so very somber. “Don’t you know what they’re doing to you? What they’re going to do to you?”

This time, it’s Sigma’s turn to look a touch unnerved, but his unwavering curiosity seems to smother most of the unease. Still, he moves backward a little, bemused, and his gaze darts over to Sombra for a moment, gauging if she’s equally as confounded as he is. 

And she is. She’s had Tracer around for a little over a month, and she’s never done something like this before. 

It’s like she’s in a trance, maybe. Sombra has seen this happen with characters that have the power of future sight in different types of media, but she never thought any of it was actually true. Is Tracer about to deliver a prophecy or something?

  “Whatever do you mean, my dear?” Sigma asks.

Tracer shakes her head, looking grim. “It doesn’t matter. It’s already happened. Nothing anyone can do now.” Then, a moment later, she raises her head again, and her eyes widen, back to normal. “WOAH! Are you FLOATING?! How are you DOING THAT?!”

Sigma seems baffled by her whiplash-inducing shift in mood. Again, he glances at Sombra for insight and, this time, she can lend it to him.

  “Tracer’s a bit…odd,” Sombra says. Tracer scrunches her nose up at her at that. “You know I mean that affectionately, conejito.” Tracer nods once. Back to Sigma, “Her memory— it doesn’t work the way it used to.”

  “I see,” Sigma says. “Well, you certainly are strange, Tracer, and I mean that with no offense. I’ve never seen anything or anyone like you before.”

  “What can I say? I’m a rare species,” Tracer says. Her friendliness is starting to trickle in, weathering away her nerves. 

  “Most definitely,” Sigma agrees. “I hope this doesn’t come off as inappropriate, but may I try touching you?”

  “You can try, but I don’t think it’ll work too well,” Tracer says. She then lowers her head to Sigma, and Sigma extends a hand to touch her.

Sombra expects nothing to happen, like usual. She’s ready to watch Sigma’s hand go straight through Tracer’s body.

But instead, for the first time since Tracer’s reappearance in the real world, something new happens.

Sigma’s fingers brush the crown of Tracer’s head, and Tracer’s entire body seems to visibly shift. The unstable outline of her translucent form pulls together slightly, like someone is tightening the loose seams of her physical existence, and, despite the blue color tinged in her skin, she almost looks a little more whole. 

The atmosphere itself grows thick, heavy, like the ozone layer is about to come crashing down on them. Sigma yanks his arm away, while Tracer totters backward. They both look absolutely mystified as they stare at each other, wide-eyed. 

Then, Sigma turns to Sombra sharply. “We must go to my observatory. We need to discuss this more in detail.”

The top level of Sigma’s lab has a glass dome that opens to the sky, with a giant telescope peering out of it. Tracer looks out at the horizon with the same longing as a bird trapped in a cage. Beams of sunlight slice into her like a knife through water, making her look even more unstable in her physical appearance.

Except, it hadn’t been that way a little while ago. For a brief moment, back in Sombra’s room, she was whole. 

There’s still hope for her.

Sigma is buzzing all around the upper level, darting in between tables and chalkboards. Then, he whirls around to Sombra and Tracer, wielding a brand new stick of chalk. 

  “Alright, Sombra,” he says. “Start from the very beginning. How did she first appear? How is she here? Don’t leave out a single detail.”

  “Well, she first showed up a little over a month ago, during that big storm that hit the base,” Sombra begins, and Sigma starts to scribble notes on the chalkboards. “During a power outage, all my monitors turned off—except the one I had the Slipstream’s engine fragment hooked up to. It started to static and buzz, and the engine fragment was literally glowing. I tried to use my hacking interface on the fragment, I don’t know why, maybe to get some kind of reading off of it somehow, and then this sort of detonation happened. I passed out, and when I woke up, she was here.” She nods to Tracer.

  “How strange,” Sigma comments. “I have no idea how something like that can happen.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “The Slipstream is back?” Tracer asks softly.

  “Oh, right, I never told you,” Sombra says. “Yeah, it came back, like, a week before you showed up.”

Tracer looks disgruntled at that, wrinkling her nose like a ferret. “That doesn’t seem like something that should have been withheld from me for this long,” she mumbles grumpily. Her mood swings are completely and utterly sporadic. For someone who doesn’t seem to have any biological functions anymore, she sure is hormonal.

  “I didn’t know how you would react to it being here, seeing as it literally ruined your entire life,” Sombra says. “You might have had a traumatic meltdown or something like that.”

  “That—is true. That is true,” Tracer says. “Fair enough.”

  “Her form,” Sigma says, having patiently waited until their conversation was over to continue his questions. “It’s clearly unstable. Barely physical. What do you know about that?”

  “Nothing, really,” Sombra admits. “She’s always been like this. You’re the first person who was able to kinda touch her.”

Sigma jots something down on the chalkboard. “And her memory. What can you tell me about that?”

  “It’s like she has future sight or something,” Sombra says. “Except not really. I don’t think she can predict the future, but she has seen the future.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Tracer speaks, catching the attention of both Sombra and Sigma. They look over at her. She’s gazing up at the glass dome overhead, tracking a soaring bird with her eyes. “It’s not, ‘Here’s your life, that’s the way it’s gonna be.’ It’s every possible life, all the things that could happen to me or the people around me. But they’re all different. No two timelines are the same. Like snowflakes, almost. Or maybe fingerprints. Those are all different, aren’t they?” She splays open her flickering blue hands and stares at them with a frown. “There’s so many, too. I can’t keep track of them, not anymore. I tried to, I think, once a long time ago, but…” She clenches her fists and shakes her head. “I can’t keep up. The threads get all tangled when I try.”

  “The threads?” Sigma echoes.

Tracer nods. “That’s what the Void is made of. Or, that’s what the timelines in the Void are made of.”

  “The Void?” Sombra parrots her this time.

Again, Tracer nods. “That’s where I went. After the accident. The Void.”

Sombra shivers. Just hearing the name of Tracer’s prison being spoken out loud makes her stomach turn with dread.

Sigma, on the other hand, appears fascinated. He telekinetically draws over another chalkboard, then looks at Tracer avidly. “What can you tell me about the Void? If you’re alright about sharing, of course. I apologize for my intrigue; I can be a little much at times. If you do not wish to speak of this place, you do not have to.”

Tracer blinks at him in shocked delight, bewildered at the mere concept of being able to have a choice. Then, she stammers out, “N-no, I don’t mind talking about it. Let’s see…” She thinks for a moment. “It’s…really hard to explain, but the Void is sort of this endless abyss outside of the fabric of reality itself. It’s infinite and has no spatial boundaries, to my knowledge. It can go down forever, up forever, side to side forever… It’s utter nothingness, and yet it’s the container for everything at the same time. There’s no matter, no reason, no gravity, no light, no sound, no smell, no color. I wouldn’t even describe it as ‘black.’ It’s not black. It’s not any color I’ve ever seen before. Everything is dark, sure, but not dark in a way that makes it hard to see. You can see perfectly fine. It’s more like standing in a room that’s painted all black but again, remember, it’s not black.”

Sombra listens to her speak, but she can’t wrap her head around the description of the Void at all, nor can she come up with a visualization in her head—though, she supposes that’s the point. This place clearly isn’t meant to be glimpsed by humans.

  “There was only one other thing in the Void with me,” Tracer goes on. “That was the Web of Life.”

  “The Web of Life?” Sigma repeats.

Tracer nods. “Mhm. It’s, like— do you guys know what a fractal is?”

Sigma nods, while Sombra shakes her head.

  “A fractal is a never-ending pattern,” Sigma informs her. “They are created by repeating a simple process over and over again in an everlasting loop.”

Tracer smiles wryly at that. “That describes the Web of Life pretty well,” she says. “But it’s like a fractal, this GIANT shape that seemed to curve around me like a water slide tunnel, almost. But the walls of the water slide are made up of this giant web made of shiny thread. And on each part of the threads, there are these little droplets, like a drop of morning dew or a teardrop. And they all show you a different future, so maybe they’re more like a bunch of crystal balls. And you think there’s no way the Web should be able to hold all that weight, cause there’s so many crystal balls present, but it just grows bigger and bigger, going deeper and deeper into the Void. The whole thing is impossibly huge, but because the Void has no boundaries, it can stretch on forever. And it will.”

  “Is there any differentiation in the placements of the ‘droplets’?” Sigma asks.

Tracer nods. “The ones at the very ‘top’ are the oldest. The ones at the ‘bottom’ are the newest. There’s been so many new timelines that I can’t even remember the oldest ones anymore. It’s been so long since I’ve been to the ‘top’ of the Web.”

  “How many timelines have you seen?” Sombra asks. 

Immediately after she says this, however, she realizes how stupid a question it is. Surely there’s no way Tracer has remembered all the lives she has lived.

But then, as though possessed, Tracer says, “Two million, eight hundred and seventy-four thousand, seven hundred and ten.”

Sombra and Sigma stare at her, shocked.

Tracer stares back, exhausted. 

Sombra’s stomach turns again. Almost three million different lives… She can’t even begin to fathom the psychological stress simply one hundred timelines would cause on the fragile human psyche, let alone over a million. 

No wonder Tracer is the way she is now.

  “Oh my,” Sigma gasps softly “How do you even remember such a large amount?” 

  “I don’t remember,” Tracer says. “I just know. I know things, I don’t remember things.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sigma says, his face crinkled with sympathy. “That you had to go through that, I mean.”

  “Don’t be,” Tracer says. “Apologies don’t mean much. Besides, it’s not like you sent me there.”

  “Don’t worry, Tracer,” Sombra says. “We’re going to fix you.” She looks at Sigma. “That’s why I’m telling you about her. I want to stabilize her, make her ‘whole’ again. But I’m no scientist, I don’t know where to start. I really, really need your help.”

Sigma doesn’t even hesitate: “I am happy to lend my assistance wherever I can.” He smiles warmly at Tracer. “Do not worry, zoetie. You’re in good hands.”

The very next day, Sigma calls Sombra and Tracer into his lab to run the first test. When they arrive, he’s bursting with energy, despite Sombra’s assumption that he hadn’t slept at all since they last spoke.

  “Ah, welcome, welcome!” Sigma calls. He’s ducked into a bookshelf and bumps his head onto the upper shelf. “Ow!”

Tracer giggles into her hand. 

Sigma pulls back, rubbing his head. “I am okay! Come, come, join me!” He swoops down to the lowest level of his lab. Sombra and Tracer take the spiral staircase curving around the wall.

Sigma is hovering in front of a test chamber of sorts. His excited grin is absolutely radiant.

  “What do you got, abuelo?” Sombra asks him.

  “Well, I have been thinking nonstop since our conversation yesterday,” Sigma answers. “And I think I may have something! Well, the start of something. I doubt our little problem will be fixed that easily, unfortunately. But my discovery! You see, there is something called ‘quantum tunneling’ in physics. Quantum tunneling is a phenomenon where an atom or a subatomic particle can appear on the opposite side of a barrier that should be impossible for the particle to penetrate. It happens when the potential barrier is higher in energy than the particle’s kinetic energy, allowing the particles to pass through the potential barrier. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there exists a theory that if you hit a table enough times, your hand will phase straight through it. And while it is very, very, very, very, VERY unlikely, it is plausible, technically, though your hand will probably not be a ‘hand’ anymore, as it will most likely get stuck inside the table itself. Got that? Good, now put a pin in it, we’ll come back to it shortly. Next, we’re going to talk about something called the Pauli Exclusion Principle, which states that no two electrons in an atom can have identical quantum numbers. This is what makes objects solid and, as a result, impossible for us to phase through.” He knocks his hand on the wall for emphasis; it doesn’t go through. “Because, in order to pass through another atom, the electrons of the first atom would have to exist in the same atomic space as the electrons of the second atom. But again, that is impossible…in most cases, of course, our anomalous friend here being one of the very few exceptions. What does any of this mean, though? Well, here’s what I think: Tracer doesn’t have any atoms.”

He pauses for dramatic effect. Sombra blinks. Tracer looks warily at her hands.

  “It is a truly wild theory, but hear me out,” Sigma goes on. “Unless her atoms are constantly coexisting in the same space as everything around her, which allows her to pass through objects without issue, then there is a very good chance that she lacks atoms altogether. After all, things cannot exist without atoms, and she barely exists in our reality, though she still seems to retain the echo of the form she once had. So perhaps her atoms are still present in her body, they’re just ‘dead.’ One thing’s for certain, though: the very matter of her being is extremely unstable. It seems that this instability causes small sections of surfaces to temporarily lose their physical boundaries when she interacts with them, allowing her to pass through them unimpeded.”

As if to test this, Tracer places her hand against the wall. It goes right through, per usual.

  “But that brings me to something else,” Sigma says. “Why doesn’t she fall straight through the floor? After all, she can pass through everything else. Well, here’s my theory: it’s all because of gravity. She is, mostly speaking, a being without gravity. However, now that she’s here, in reality, gravity has partially returned to her, anchoring her to the floor, which keeps her from going right through it—and potentially through the crust of Earth itself. So, here’s what I intend to test today: I want to see if ‘giving’ her more gravity will stabilize her. After all, yesterday, her form almost seemed to level out when we touched. Perhaps gravity is what she needs to become whole again!”

Sombra is a tad bit skeptical about the logistics of that, but she doesn’t have the knowledge to challenge Sigma on his belief, so she keeps quiet.

Tracer, on the other hand, looks rather excited, reinvigorated by the mere idea of a way she could become fully human again. 

  “This, Tracer,” Sigma gestures for the chamber, “is my gravity chamber! I am able to contort the power and pull of gravity within it. It’s where I run several of my tests, and it is where I will attempt to stabilize you.”

  “Sounds good, Doc!” Tracer chirps.

  “Wonderful! Now, step inside.” Sigma opens the heavy metal door to the chamber.

At the same time, Tracer phases through the glass wall of the chamber.

Sigma blinks. “Right. You don’t need doors anymore.” He chuckles, then closes the door and crosses into a cubby-like space punched out in the wall, where a control board is set up. There’s another wide window peering into the test chamber. Sombra follows him. 

He leans into a mic and says, “Tracer, can you hear me?”

  “Loud and clear, Doc!” Tracer’s voice chimes back through a speaker. 

  “Very good,” Sigma says. “Alright, I’m going to start the test now, okay? You may feel a slight ‘pull.’ Just remain calm.”

  “Got it!” Tracer says.

Sigma does something on a bright monitor beside the control board, and then he pulls a lever. 

There’s an electrical whirring sound from inside the chamber, and the lights seem to intensify in a strange sort of way. Sombra can’t see any visible change, no pulsing energy, no discernible wavelengths, but from within the room, Tracer’s form does shudder. Similar to the day before, the flickering outline of her form starts to pull together like the thread on an elaborate tapestry. 

And then, suddenly, Tracer doubles over, clutching at her head with a groan of pain that can barely be heard over a hiss of static through the speaker. That thread of the embroidery of her being is starting to be pulled apart, and her form begins to waver, as though she’s made from rippling water. Her body fades in and out, and her eyes go wide with fright. 

  “No, not again!” Tracer wails.

Just a moment later, she’s gone, fizzling out of existence. Sigma scrambles to turn off the chamber.

  “What— what happened?!” he cries. “Did I kill her?!”

  “No,” Sombra sighs. She frowns at the place where Tracer used to be. “That just happens sometimes.”

Chapter Text

The Slipstream has been transported from the beach and into a warehouse in the Talon base, where work on its repair has begun. 

Sombra watches from a gangway, wincing lightly at the headache throbbing in her temples. Because of the constant interaction from people, the Slipstream seems to be in a perpetual state of ‘reaction,’ where its unnatural radiation is continually ‘beaming out.’ Workers often have to be swapped out to avoid permanent damage from being exposed to so much anomalous power for so long.

There’s a noise from behind; Sigma hovers up beside her. 

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Get what, my dear?”

  “How it’s ‘here.’” Sombra squints at the Slipstream. “Aside from the weird, reality-bending thing, it seems to be perfectly stable. It doesn’t glitch out or phase through anything. It can be touched. So why can’t she?”

  “That is an excellent question,” Sigma says. “It’s very strange, indeed. I was wondering the same thing.”

They watch in silence for a moment. A sinewy worker down below flinches back at seemingly nothing, then tentatively touches one of their ears; their fingers come back red.

  “She’s getting worse,” Sombra says softly.

A frown etches itself on Sigma’s lips. “She is,” he says back.

Tracer’s disappearances have become more and more abundant. The longest she’s been gone so far is 68 hours. 

At approximately 5:36 in the morning, Sigma had barged into Sombra’s room unannounced. When the door to her sleeping quarters was thrown open, she stirred awake, squinting bleary eyes at the man hovering in the doorway. 

  “Sigma?” she had croaked. “It’s, like, five in the morning. What do you want?”

Sigma had said just one thing to her: “She’s back.”

Sombra hadn’t needed any more context; in an instant, she was up on her feet and striding up to Sigma’s lab while still in her pajamas. 

True to Sigma’s word, the void child was there.

She was in the gravitational chamber, huddled up in the far corner with her face in her knees, arms over her head like she was trying to protect her skull from damage. The thick walls of the chamber muffled the sound of her anguish, but Sombra could tell she was crying just from the way her shoulders were heaving up and down. 

  “I haven’t spoken to her yet,” Sigma had said softly, even though Sombra was sure Tracer couldn’t hear them speaking through the walls. Even if she could, she was clearly too distracted with her own despair to care about anything they were murmuring about. “I felt like that was more your territory than mine.”

Sombra nodded. “I’ll check on her. Thanks for letting me know so quickly.”

  “Of course.”

Sombra walked over to the chamber and slipped inside.

Heartbreaking sobs rebounded through the enclosed space like the echo of thunder in a cave. Tracer didn’t look up or even react to the presence of Sombra, too consumed in grief. 

  “Tracer?” Sombra called out.

The only answer she got was in the form of gut-wrenching cries. 

Sombra sat in front of Tracer. “Tracer. Cariño. Are you alright?”

  “I looped again,” Tracer croaked, her voice barely a whisper.

  “What?” Sombra said.

  “I looped again,” Tracer repeated. “More lives. More timelines. I went through them all over again.”

  “But you were only gone for a few days,” Sombra said.

  “‘A few days’ for you is an entire year for me,” Tracer said. “And in that time, the Web of Life grows larger and larger. More timelines are created for me to live through. I keep looping. Over and over, and it’s never really over, Sombra.” She raised her head, and translucent tears glittered on translucent cheeks. “You know, I’ve… I’ve seen Mondatta alive again, and Overwatch gone completely, and me happy, but, sometimes, everyone I’ve ever loved is nothing but a distant figure I never truly got to know. And I’ve looped, and I’ve looped, and I’ve looped.” She was almost back to sobbing now. “I don’t know if I’ve made it this time, if I’m safe. I can never really remember after it ends, but it all feels so real. Too real. It’s real, Sombra, it’s real—” She choked hard. “I’m tired. I’m so tired, Sombra.”

  “It’s okay,” Sombra said, but even those words felt as breakable as glass because she didn’t know if they were true or not. She wanted to reach out and hold Tracer, but her touch would mean nothing, she knew. “It’s okay, now. You’re here.”

  “Am I?” Tracer asked her desperately, and Sombra felt her heart shatter at that.

Even now, back in the future, those two simple words stick with Sombra, replaying in her head.

Am I?

Am I?

Am I?

Is she?

Whatever power is allowing Tracer to appear in reality seems to be starting to weaken, and Sombra worries that it won’t be long until she doesn’t come back at all.  

As a child, nobody at school ever believed Emily when she bragged about how her aunt was a mad scientist. Well, look at her now! She’s surely showing all of them! Especially you, Timothy. 

Moira’s laboratory is something of wonder. Filled to the brim with medical tools and apparatuses of science, it’s entirely dedicated to discovery—at any cost.

Whiteboards with biological formulas, diagrams, and observations scrawled on them are spread out across the floor, each detailing a different project Moira is working on. A shiny operating table dominates the center of the space, clean of any blood…for now. Beside it is a table full of tools separated into three distinct categories: Electronic-  electric meters, forceps, soldering tools, tweezers, wires, wire cutters, wire strippers; mechanical- files, hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches, saws, tweezers; and medical- bone saws, forceps, hypodermic needles, scalpels, sewing needles, tweezers. Several flasks and beakers filled with various labeled liquids, a large cabinet full of blood samples of seemingly everyone in Talon (plus some others from elsewhere), large anatomical diagrams adorning the walls, a framed photo of her and Moira at Christmas—this place is her aunt’s oasis.  

Emily is helping tidy up the lab when the doors burst open with force. Moira, who had been writing something on one of her many chalkboards, jolts at the unannounced interruption, causing her to drag her stick of chalk across the board with a screech. She glowers at the stray mark, then cranes her head around to turn that glower on the intruders.

  “Yes?” she hisses. Emily knows better than anyone that her aunt hates being interrupted when she’s focused on her work. 

There are two people standing in the lab, a pair of agents far beneath Moira’s status. Emily notices why they’re there instantly: one of them is bleeding. Heavily.

  “I’m so sorry to interrupt, ma’am,” says the uninjured agent, a thin, nervous-looking person. Emily believes their name is Rowan. They’re trying to hold up the other agent, who is hunched over, moaning lowly in pain. “But we— he’s—”

Moira spots the blood with a hawk’s eye. “Bring him here.”

Rowan hauls the wounded man forward. A human brain in a jar watches with unblinking eyeballs as Emily goes over to help. Together, the two of them manage to get the man onto the operating table. 

A giant swath of red has been torn through the man’s flesh, starting from the left side of his hip, reaching all the way up to his ribs. Had it not been for the dark material of the Talon uniform, his entire torso would have been dyed a deep crimson color.

Moira takes one look at the gash, then says, “It must be sutured. Emily—”

  “Already on it,” Emily says, sweeping over to the cabinets that hold the medical supplies.

  “Atta girl,” Moira says, and Emily can hear the smile in her voice without even looking at her. 

Emily retrieves a syringe and fills it with a translucent, strong-smelling liquid from a vial. When she returns to the operating table, Moira has already started staunching the large wound’s blood flow with gauze.

  “I don’t wanna die,” the man is moaning wretchedly, tears clouding his glassy hazel eyes.

  “Then don’t give me a reason to let you bleed out,” Moira says. “Emily, the syringe.”

Emily gives it to her, and Moira wastes no time jabbing it right into the man’s neck. The man gasps in shock. Rowan, standing nearby, jolts in fright, winding their quivering, blood-smeared arms around themselves. 

  “What are you doing?” Rowan asks, wide-eyed.

  “Saving him,” Moira replies tersely. She notices Rowan’s fearful expression and sighs. “Calm yourself. This concoction will merely slow his heartbeat and blood flow. It’ll keep him from bleeding out faster.”

  “Oh,” Rowan says softly. Their tense shoulders relax slightly. “Okay.”

Moira picks up a pair of wicked-looking metal scissors from the array of tools set up beside the operating table and begins to cut away the man’s black, blood-stained uniform, revealing the full wound to open air. It’s an ugly crimson thing with jagged, frayed edges. Rowan coughs in disgust and reels away. Emily and Moira are both undeterred. 

Moira starts the process of suturing immediately. She’s not a surgeon, but with the number of bodies she’s cut open and all the anatomical knowledge she holds on humans, she may as well be one. Her sewing is precise and perfect, and slowly, the gaping maw of the wound is closed up.

Emily stands by, aiding wherever she can, wiping away blood and pinching the flaps of the gash shut so the needle and thread can tug the sides back together. At one point, she catches the nervous eye of Rowan and asks, “How did this happen?”

  “We were working on the Slipstream,” Rowan tells her, their words quaking slightly. “He— Marcus, he slipped and cut himself on a piece of metal.”

  “‘Cut’ may be a bit of an understatement,” Emily says, eyeing the length of the wound stretching across Marcus’ flesh.

Rowan grimaces. “Right,” they say. Then, muttering beneath their breath, “This Slipstream project is doing more harm than good…”

Their words are caught by Moira, who looks up at them. “Come again?”

Rowan jumps a little. “I-I mean—”

  “Come now,” Moira says. “You made the decision to open your mouth, so now you must speak. What did you say?”

Rowan shuffles their feet nervously, avoiding Moira’s eyes. “I-I just— I’m worried all of this is going to be for nothing. What we’re doing on the Slipstream. It seems like it’s getting us nowhere, and people are only getting hurt by it. Is it really worth the risk?”

  “It most certainly is,” Moira says. “Though, I cannot expect someone as weak-willed as yourself to understand. Perhaps you should bite your tongue next time you want to speak.”

Rowan shrinks in on themselves, falling silent.

Moira cleans up the blood and then dresses the wound on Marcus’ torso. By now, Marcus has fallen unconscious, though his heartbeat is still thumping steadily. His body is transported onto a gurney, and then Moira looks to Emily and says, “Take him to the infirmary. Explain to them what happened. He’s their problem now.”

Emily nods. “Got it.”

She does so, wheeling the gurney down to the infirmary with Rowan trailing by her side. 

  “What do you think about the Slipstream Project?” Rowan asks her at one point.

Emily raises an eyebrow at them. “You’re playing a dangerous game asking me, the niece of the woman who just put you in your place, that.”

  “I know,” Rowan says, their gaze downcast, looking for all the world like a dog that just got berated for chewing up its owner’s shoes. “I was just curious…”

Emily sighs at their pitiful appearance. “I have no real opinion, truthfully,” she tells them. “I can recognize that it’s dangerous, though.”

Rowan perks up. “Yes! It is!” they nod in agreement, their mood lifted despite her rather plain response. “People are getting hurt, I swear some are going mad, and there’s even talk of an actual ghost around the base now.”

Emily snorts, giving them an amused look. “A ghost? Really?”

Rowan ruffles at her reaction. “Yes, a ghost! I’ve seen it! Her. At least, I think it’s a her.”

  “Alright then,” Emily says, humoring them. “Tell me about this ghost.”

  “Well, I don’t know much about it,” Rowan says. “I’ve only seen it once. It’s all blue and stuff, kinda transparent. Some people are saying she’s the spirit of the pilot who rode the Slipstream, still connected to the plane that killed her.”

Emily stops dead in her tracks at that, slightly jostling Marcus on the gurney. “What?”

Rowan jumps. “Huh?”

  “What did you say? About the ghost?”

  “I said people think she’s the ghost of the Slipstream’s pilot.”

  “And what does she look like?”

  “Blue and transparent. Why?”

There’s no question: Talon’s alleged “ghost” is most certainly Tracer.

It’s been a while since Emily has last spoken to Tracer, let alone seen her, but she thinks about the strange girl constantly. She doesn’t know what it is about her, but she’s drawn to Tracer like a piece of metal to a magnet. 

  “Have you seen her, too?” Rowan then asks, wide-eyed.

  “Maybe,” Emily answers.

  “See! See! I told you!”

  “Alright, keep it down. Also maybe keep this to yourself. You sounded insane at first.”

  “Oh. Right. Got it.”

They soon arrive at the infirmary, and Emily passes the care of Marcus over to the nurses. With one final glance at Rowan, she walks out and returns to her aunt’s lab. Tracer continues to fester in her thoughts as she works. She wonders when she can see the girl again.

Soon, it seems, because as she’s returning to her quarters after Moira said she was done for the day, she spots a flash of blue in the stairwell she’s walking up through. 

There she is. 

She’s crouched awkwardly in the corner, balancing on the balls of her feet, holding her head in her hands. She’s shaking, too, causing her entire form to flicker treacherously. Even through the blue hue her entire body is tainted by, her eyes look haunted, her gaze far away. She’s crying, Emily realizes.

  “Tracer?” Emily calls out to her. 

Tracer doesn’t answer. She simply stares blankly at the floor. If she’s even seeing the floor at all.

The lights are on, but nobody’s home.

Emily kneels before the girl, though she keeps her distance. She isn’t worried about Tracer attacking her—even if she did, her state of being completely untouchable would mean that Emily would remain unharmed—but the space between them is more for Tracer’s sake, a way for her to not feel more caged than she probably already is.

  “Tracer,” Emily tries again, putting an emphasis on her name, hoping to strike at some core sense of self that the girl may still be holding onto. “It’s me, Emily. Do you remember me?”

Saying her name seems to stir something in Tracer’s fractured mind. Her eyes drag up slowly to meet Emily’s.

Emily smiles warmly at her. “There you are.”

  “Emily?” Tracer husks, her voice a mere rustle of dead leaves against asphalt.

  “That’s right,” Emily nods. “It’s me. It’s Emily. You remembered.”

  “I remembered,” Tracer echoes, and her eyes grow glassy again, something about that sending her into a spiral. Emily is quick to catch her before she can spin away too far.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Emily says, waving a hand, and that catches Tracer’s attention, so much so that she flinches back a little. Emily immediately regrets accidentally startling her, but at least she’s ‘awake.’ “Stay with me, honey. Just try to focus on me.”

  “Okay,” Tracer says softly. “I’m… I’m sorry…” Each word comes harder than the last, as if snared at the bottom of a dark lake.

  “It’s alright,” Emily assures her. “Are you okay?”

Tracer stares at her, then shakes her head, whimpering. Fresh tears gather in her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. Emily has the unbearable urge to reach out and wipe them away, but she knows it will do very little.

  “What’s wrong?” Emily asks her.

  “I keep— I keep disappearing,” Tracer answers. “It keeps happening more and more. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

  “Disappearing?” Emily repeats, tilting her head slightly.

Tracer looks miserable. “I’m not— I’m not stable in this world. That’s why I can’t touch anything. Sometimes I fade right out of it and fall back into the Void.”

The Void. Something about that makes Emily shudder.

  “I’m so sorry,” Emily says.

Tracer sniffles. “Not your fault.”

  “I know, but still,” Emily says. “This must be so scary for you.”

Tracer gives a little nod. “I-it is. I just— I just wanna be normal again.” She then dips her head and sobs softly to herself.

It’s painful to listen to. Even worse to watch. Emily hates that she can’t comfort her beyond spoken words. The poor girl seems like she’s in desperate need of a good hug. 

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Emily asks.

Tracer shrugs numbly. “I dunno… Probably not, unless you know a way to stabilize me.”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t,” Emily says. An idea then sparks in her mind. “But…I think I know something we can do to distract you. Get your mind off of everything. If you want to do it, that is.”

Tracer lifts her head, curious despite her grief. “What is it?”

Emily smiles at her. “When’s the last time you saw a movie?” 

The last thing Sombra expects to see when she enters her room is Moira’s niece and her void child sitting on the floor, watching a movie together, but that’s what she’s met with that evening. The three of them stare at each other like a trio of deer caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler, but then a smile dawns to Tracer’s lips, and she chirps, “Hiya, Sombra!”

  “Hey, Tracer,” Sombra says. “Hello, Emily.”

  “Hello, Sombra,” Emily says back.

Tracer looks between the two of them, blinking, unsure as to why they’re regarding each other so coldly.

  “What are you guys doing?” Sombra asks.

  “Just watching a movie,” Emily answers, gesturing to the laptop in front of her and Tracer. 

  “So many shows have come out since I’ve been gone!” Tracer says.

Sombra nods. “Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Tracer. Emily, mind if I talk with you outside for a moment?”

  “Sure,” Emily says. She looks at Tracer. “Let me know what I miss, okay?”

  “Okay!” Tracer says back.

Emily then stands up and follows Sombra out into the hallway. Once the door is shut, Sombra immediately starts drilling into Emily.

  “What are you getting at?” she asks.

Emily blinks at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Is there some kind of ulterior motive you’re keeping hidden?” 

  “What are you talking about? No! We’re just hanging out. She’s lonely, you know? So I’m keeping her company. Why are you so paranoid?”

  “Paranoid?” Sombra echoes. “I’m not paranoid.”

Emily snorts. “Yeah, and I’m not a ginger. Okay.”

Sombra narrows her eyes at her. “I’m not paranoid. I’m just trying to make sure you don’t do anything sneaky.”

  “‘Sneaky’?” Emily repeats, scoffing. “God, what kind of demon do you take me for, Sombra? I’m not going to do anything. Again, we’re only hanging out.”

  “Well, sorry for being cautious. I just don’t want anything to happen to her.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to her.” An impish light then dawns in Emily’s eyes, and her lips twist up into a fiendish grin. “But… Wouldn’t it be a grand shame if the rest of Talon found out about her? If only there were some way for you to keep that from happening…”

Sombra stares at Emily. “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “Just letting you have a taste of your own medicine,” Emily says, flashing a smirk with all her teeth, looking for all the world like a conniving vixen. 

  “Oh, you haughty bitch.”

  “I’m just saying, Sombra. Your secret is safe with me, so long as I get to spend some time with Tracer without you nagging us. As I said, she’s lonely. She needs a friend. She needs stimulation. We’re only watching movies. No need to get so worked up.”

Sombra glowers at her. She’s unused to being in this sort of predicament, being on the other end of a blackmailing threat. It’s like being backed into a corner with her secret being dangled in front of her on the end of a fishing hook. 

It’s not that she doesn’t trust Emily. Truthfully, she has no issue with the girl. She’s just worried about what may happen the more other people know about Tracer.

But Tracer did look happy to have something to do and someone else to talk to… And her contentment is important to Sombra, especially when there isn’t a lot she’s capable of doing in her current state…

Sombra sighs. “Fine. But keep your little meetings on the down-low. Seriously.”

  “Thank you,” Emily says.

Sombra hopes she won’t regret this. 

  “I think I’ve finally figured it out!”

Sombra and Tracer both look over at Sigma. He’s radiating pride.

  “What do you mean?” Sombra asks.

  “Tracer is highly unstable in this world, that we know without question,” Sigma says. “What she needs is a proper anchor. Something that will bind her to reality.” He calls over a chalkboard with his gravitational powers. Upon it, a sketch of some kind of harness-like device is drawn, fit with little notes from Sigma about how it would work. “Thus, I propose this wondrous creation! I call it the chronal accelerator!”

  “The chronal accelerator?” Sombra echoes, a tiny bit skeptical.

Tracer, on the other hand, is wide-eyed. She approaches the whiteboard slowly and stares at the drawing in a strange sort of awe.

  “No way…” she murmurs.

Sombra gives her a curious look. “What’s up?” she asks. 

Sigma’s eyebrows raise up. “Have you seen this before, Tracer? In the other timelines?”

  “I— I think so,” Tracer says. “A lot of things aren’t… aren’t… what’s the word? Oh! Recurring! A lot of things aren’t recurring in the timelines, but this… this is. I’ve seen this a lot. And it helps.” She looks up at Sigma. “Can you really make it?”

  “We’re going to try, zoetie,” Sigma says to her. He then looks at Sombra, a firm look in his eyes.

  “Already on board,” Sombra says. “How do we start?”

It’s autumn now, and a bone-biting chill has crept over the entire island. Even still, the cold weather does not deter Sombra and Sigma.

The two of them have spent the last three months testing and tinkering on the chronal accelerator. Or, what will be the chronal accelerator.

Turns out, when neither of you are proper inventors or welders, creating something like a harness that anchors someone to reality is a lot harder than it seems. Sombra and Sigma have gone through dozens of blueprints, notes, and prototypes, spent several long hours hunched over sketches and papers full of far-fetched ideas while nursing many cups of coffee to keep them awake. By day, they brainstorm, and by night, they use scraps of metal from the Slipstream to create the harness of the chronal accelerator. It’s incredibly hard work, and even when it seems like the task is impossible, Sombra and Sigma don’t give up.

Meanwhile, Tracer continues to fluctuate between reality and the Void. In between work on the chronal accelerator, Sigma runs more gravitational tests on her, and he’s managed to make it to that whenever she fades out of existence, she will always reappear back in the test chamber. Something about the pull of gravity latched onto her body, tugging her back to the real world, he had explained. This, of course, means that she’s now restrained to that one room and can no longer leave, and although she doesn’t seem too happy about having even more limitations to where she can go and what she can do, the advancement in her state seems to keep her morale out of the mud.

Emily comes by often to spend time with Tracer, keeping her company, and Sombra can tell there’s something sparking between them. The way Tracer looks at Emily… She and the redhead must have been something special in past timelines. 

Sombra spends a lot of time with Tracer, too, but when she and Sigma slowly start to get somewhere with their project, she sees the girl less and less, too busy with the creation of the chronal accelerator to stop and chat. Though, she will say that her room is awfully quiet with the cheeky pilot no longer stowed inside of it. 

Time moves on. More tests. More blueprints. More hypotheses. More lives for Tracer to suffer through each time she fades away.

And then, finally, finally, there’s a breakthrough. 

One frigid November day, Sigma wakes Sombra up at three in the morning, apologizing for the intrusion but saying that he may have come up with something brilliant. Sombra wastes no time getting out of bed and following him to his observatory. 

Tracer is awake when they both enter, as she always is. Sombra reminds herself that the girl can’t sleep. She’s lying flat on her back in the middle of the chamber, staring listlessly at the ceiling, but when Sombra and Sigma come inside, she perks up immediately, her expression brightening. She waves. Sombra waves back, then follows Sigma up to the top level of the observatory.

There, their research is spread out across tables and scrawled on chalkboards. Sigma hovers over to a chest beneath one of the tables and delicately takes out the fruit of all their labor: the chronal accelerator.

Made from the warped metal of the Slipstream’s engine, the chronal accelerator is the only hope to restore Tracer to her former glory. It’s a sort of harness, rigged with straps that will bind the device to Tracer’s chest when it’s put on. If they’ll ever be able to get it on her. 

  “So, what’s up?” Sombra asks. “What have you figured out?”

  “As you know, we’ve been struggling to figure out a way to make it to where the accelerator will anchor Tracer to reality,” Sigma answers. “We’ve gone through a ton of different ideas, when the solution has been here with us this whole time.”

Sombra furrows her eyebrows, giving her head a little tilt. “It has?”

Sigma nods. “Indeed, it has. It’s the Slipstream!”

  “The Slipstream?” Sombra echoes.

  “That is correct! I feel like such a fool for not realizing this sooner, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve realized it now, and we can finally do something.” Sigma draws over a chalkboard with his telekinesis. On the chalkboard, the blueprints of the Slipstream have been sketched out in extreme detail. “The Slipstream was able to teleport due to a high-tech teleportation matrix built into the jet itself. It’s placed among the rest of the controls so the pilot could wield it at will. But we both know that the matrix malfunctioned during the first flight. However, that just shows how unbelievably powerful this matrix is, as it was able to send an entire jet and human being beyond our reality and into the Void underneath.”

  “Are you implying that we use the teleportation matrix?” Sombra asks.

  “Precisely,” Sigma replies. A pointing stick is lifted and circles around the sketch of the Slipstream, where the teleportation matrix is said to be. “The matrix is built into the cockpit, in the form of an energy core. If we can retrieve it, I may be able to manipulate it into a proper stabilizer for Tracer.”

Sombra’s eyes light up. “That’s brilliant, Sigma! This may be what we need to finally bring her back!”

Sigma smiles sheepishly at the praise. The smile then fades away rather quickly, until he looks a touch nervous. “There is just…one problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “One part of the teleportation matrix will go into the chronal accelerator, which will give it power. However, Tracer cannot live the rest of her life with a harness strapped to her chest. It would be very uncomfortable for her. She needs to be able to take it on and off without worrying about disappearing again. So, the anchor—the chronal accelerator itself—will need something to ‘attach’ to. Think of it like Bluetooth in a way. It won’t be a physical attachment but rather a ‘wireless’ one. What we will need to do is embed the other piece of the teleportation matrix, which I will hopefully have turned into a proper energy nucleus, into Tracer’s chest, which will be known as the “Core” from here on out for simplicity’s sake. With the Core in place, the piece in the chronal accelerator will be able to ‘connect’ to it through electromagnetic waves, therefore binding her to the anchor and stabilizing her in reality. So long as she stays in range of the chronicle accelerator when she takes it off, she’ll be fine not to wear it.”

  “That all sounds really good to me. What’s the problem?”

  “Sombra, to get the Core into Tracer, it must be implanted surgically.”

Chapter Text

  “What happened to you not wanting me involved?”

Sombra shoots a sideways glare at Emily’s foxish grin. “Hush up,” she hisses. 

  “Sombra, be nice,” Sigma scolds lightly, causing Emily to titter behind her hand.

Sombra sighs. “Alright, alright,” she says. “We need your help with something. We think we’ve figured out a way to finally stabilize Tracer and make her whole again.”

Emily perks up. “Really?”

Sigma nods. “Really.”

  “How?”

Sombra and Sigma exchange looks, and then Sombra says to Emily, “How do you feel about a stealth mission?”

  “Woo! We’re awesome!”

  “Yeah, we are!”

Sombra and Emily share a moment of mutual victory, high-fiving each other. At their side, Sigma chuckles in amusement. In his hands, he holds the Slipstream’s teleportation matrix, a glowing blue power cell that pulses like a heartbeat that never dies. 

Stealing from Talon was a giant risk, and Sombra knew it, but it was a giant risk she was willing to take. It was for Tracer. 

Actually getting their hands on the teleportation matrix hadn’t been easy. It was in the middle of the night so as to avoid being caught by anyone, but intervention with other people was the least of their problems in retrieving the matrix. Cameras were set up around the warehouse the Slipstream sat in, which meant Sombra had to hack all of them without being detected by a single one. Emily kept watch, while Sigma had to use his gravitational powers to extract the matrix from the cockpit, which was no simple feat, seeing as the Slipstream’s weird, unnatural radiation went off like a fire alarm the moment it was interacted with. But that was over now. They did it. The teleportation matrix was theirs.

Of course, this doesn’t go unnoticed.

The very next day, a sudden meeting is called by Doomfist. In the council room, several Talon agents are assembled, whispering and murmuring to one another. Sombra stands among them, already knowing what this gathering is about. Across the room, she exchanges a knowing look with Emily.

Doomfist stands up from his seat, commanding silence throughout the space. It falls instantly.

  “I’m not sure how many of you are aware, but it seems as though we have a thief walking among us,” he says, his voice like rumbling thunder. “Some time between yesterday evening and this morning, the Slipstream’s teleportation matrix was stolen from its console. Now, this teleportation matrix is a very vital part of the jet, which allows it to, as one could assume, teleport. Without it, the entire jet is nothing more than a radiated hunk of metal. It is useless to us. This is why we believe that whoever took the matrix has taken it with the intention of sabotaging our plan of bringing new life to the Slipstream.” His eyes scan the crowd, looking for any signs of suspicious behavior in the gathered agents, and several people struggle not to squirm under his gaze. “Now… If you are the thief, I suggest you come forward now, for your own sake, as an immediate confession and explanation for your foolish actions will be easier on you. If you choose not to and we later figure out you were the one to take the teleportation matrix, well… We cannot promise you will have all your fingernails by the end of it.”

The crowd shudders collectively.

Doomfist lets the threat of denailing hang in the air, scanning the agents once again, but still, no one comes forward. 

Sombra keeps her head held high, shoulders back, showing no sign of guilt. She doesn’t avoid eye contact, as avoiding eye contact could very easily be seen as an indication of culpability. 

Even still, her name is called out.

  “Sombra,” Doomfist says. “Come forward.”

Sombra does so. Unwavering. Unshaking. She won’t get caught now. She won’t let all her hard work go down the drain. 

She won’t let Tracer down.

  “Yes?” Sombra says.

  “We have cameras set up around the warehouse where the Slipstream is,” Doomfist says. “It seems they have all been interfered with somehow, meaning we can’t see who exactly took the teleportation matrix. I won’t say they’ve been hacked, but there is definitely some kind of foul play in place. Do you know anything about this?”

  “No,” Sombra says.

  “Do you know who might have been able to compromise the cameras?”

  “No.”

  “I only ask because anyone could have simply broken the cameras. That would have been the easiest solution. But the thief seems to have gone out of their way to interfere with the technology of the cameras themselves.”

  “Are you trying to accuse me of something, jefe? Because if you are, just spit it out already.”

  “Very well. Did you take the teleportation matrix, Sombra?”

  “No.”

  “Is that the truth?”

  “Yes.”

Doomfist stares at her, scrutinizing every aspect of her being, searching for any kind of weakness to prove his suspicions. Sombra stares back, unbreaking. 

  “Am I allowed to speak?” she asks.

  “You may.”

  “What would I gain from stealing something from the jet? Why would I purposefully get myself into shit with you guys?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Reaper rumbles.

  “Well, I didn’t do anything. I haven’t even gone near the Slipstream lately.”

  “And what exactly were you doing last night?” Widowmaker questions her, one eyebrow raised. “What’s your alibi?”

  “My alibi is that I was sleeping,” Sombra says. “Like any normal person should.”

  “Hm.” Doomfist considers her for a moment longer, then relents. “Alright. You’re off the hook. For now. But let this be a lesson to you all: when we figure out who stole the teleportation matrix, there will be hell to pay.”

Sombra doesn’t doubt that.

Sigma gets to work on harnessing the power of the matrix immediately, undeterred by the fiery point of the council’s ire toward the theft of the device. In the meantime, Sombra has been looking into human anatomy, as the task of actually implanting the Core into Tracer has fallen into her hands, a duty that she is, admittedly, not very thrilled about. 

Of all people, she knows it’s best that she does it, and she certainly doesn’t want anyone else to have the job, but at the same time, she knows nothing about surgery. She’s a hacker, not a doctor! 

  “Think of it like getting past a firewall,” Emily said at one point. “The skin on Tracer’s chest is the firewall, and your scalpel is the, uh, hacking tool!”

  “You have no idea how hacking works, do you?”

  “I do not.”

  “Also that is a TERRIBLE example!”

Emily provides a lot of help, surprisingly. She’s not as knowledgeable on surgery as her aunt is, but she knows a lot, certainly a lot more than Sombra does, and she acts as a sort of professor in a way, lecturing Sombra on what she needs to know. 

Slowly but surely, they get closer and closer to finally finishing. 

While on the last legs of the project, Sombra, Sigma, and Emily get together to discuss the upcoming surgery. 

  “I have figured out a way to half stabilize Tracer by centering all gravitational force on her,” Sigma says. “She’s not completely whole, but she doesn’t phase through objects. That should make her ‘solid’ enough for the implantation to take place.”

  “Does this mean we can give her proper anesthetics?” Emily asks. “Or at least tranquilize her?”

Sigma shakes his head with a grim frown. “Unfortunately, I think it’s best that this is done without sedation, as reluctant as I am to say it. Her immune system is essentially ‘dead.’ Even half stabilization will ‘repower’ it, and after twelve years of not needing to work, medicine of any kind could quite literally kill her outright.”

Sombra and Emily both grimace. 

Sigma notices these expressions and says, “My apologies for frightening you both, but I think it may be best to keep this conversation as real as possible. And that means discussing rather undesirable topics. The fact of the matter is that she isn’t used to anything anymore, not medicine and certainly not feeling. I’m already worried about how the scalpel itself will feel against her skin. A scalpel against flesh without proper anesthetics is painful enough to us, but for her, it will be amplified by a million.”

Sombra’s grimace tightens. “Good lord. And here I thought I couldn’t get any more nervous.”

Sigma gives her a small, rueful smile. “I’m sorry, liefje.”

  “It’s alright,” Sombra assures him. “There’s no going back now. We won’t go back now. I’m gonna go let Tracer know the plan. We’ve been keeping it from her for long enough.”

what she would do for an assurance. a simple assurance of her existence. how far does this torment extend? how much longer will she have to endure life like this? how much longer does she have to suffer?

a soul seared to a ‘thing.’

yet a ‘thing’ is all that’s left.

a jet. a candle. an ache.

…and some other fires. not enough to spread.

unhappy skies. a departure. a fall from grace.

electrical burns branded upon frail flesh. sharp metal sinking into unresisting skin.

just because you may be able to fight,

does not mean you should fight.

what she would do for an assurance. a simple assurance of her existence. how far does this torment extend? how much longer will she have to endure life like this? how much longer does she have to suffer?

wait! it isn’t all hopeless!

the light! remember the light!

gonna be alright!

this is not the end

every step she takes, every day she lives.

this is not the end

every step she takes, every life she lives.

this is not the end...

one. the Void.

two. the agony.

three. the departure.

four. the Web of Life.

five. six. the escape.

seven. the light.

eight. the sky.

nine. ten. the shadows.

i don’t think i can do this anymore

we know

shit. she’s such a coward. the flight and escape of fear. running from what she fears. it doesn’t work like that. the other-her lost. the other-her dead again. or the other-her messed up beyond complete recognition. fear will not stop the storms. it doesn’t keep the monsters away. it certainly doesn’t keep the Void out.

all she can do is hope and pray for a new beginning. and pray for a new life. a better life. a free life.

[[keep running]]

…she doesn’t know what it means to find hope in the blackness. there can be no diamonds in a situation as rough as this. even still, she finds herself trying to believe that maybe there will be some kind of salvation.

not that it will work. not that she can help it. but she will.

[[wipe away the tears]]

…there's nothing she can do but look up.

“climb up!”

“grab my hand!”

“jump in and pretend that everything is alright.”

[[stay down and look at the ground]]

“you’ve got to let go”

“don’t try to make things better. they’ll never be the same. find the world and be everything that you are. become a dark part of that world. for the world will never be whole.”

[[hopeful|hopeful]]

someday

[[get your hopes up]]

everything is looping, as it should.

[[[stay down]]]]

[[[take the the back]]]]

nobody ever told her how it would be.

she wonders how many stories she will have to hear.

[[look up]]

maybe someday

she’ll find a reason to live.

[[if not, then [[don’t]]]]

[[[[[try]]]]]

[[[[[[[keep going]]]]]]

[[[[[show up]]]]

[[[[[[[[tell yourself again it’s going to be okay]]]]]]

[[[[[look up]]]]

this is the end this time.

[[...|end]]

[[[run]]

[[[[hopefully|hopefully]]]]

[[[look up]]]]

[[[hopefully|hopefully]]]]

this is the end this time.

[[...|end]]

[[...|end]]

[[...|end]]

this is the end this time.

[[...|end]]

[[...|end]]

[[...|end]]

this is the end this time.

[[...|end]]

[[...|end]]

the glittering thread holds her down. the blade stings. the glittering thread holds her back. the hand that creates ends. the heartbeat of hope. the hand that holds the blade. the hand that creates ends. the blood. the hands. the skin. the mouth. the heart. the mind. the cry. the crying eyes. the blood.

and the fear. the fear.

[[keep looking.]]

no.

[[keep looking.]]

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

[[...|end]]

the beast in its dark prison keeps turning. it keeps turning, staring at the nothing that oozes in from the open abyss. and it keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

[[look up.]]

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

[[...|end]]

[[...|end]]

[[...|end]]

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

[[...|end]]

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

[[...|end]]

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

[[...|end]]

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

…she’s never going to escape the Void, is she?

…there is no way out, is there?

there is no way out.

she is always one step ahead, but she never makes it out.

her skin is a shell, she is steel.

she is always one step ahead, but she will never make it out.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

[[don’t forget]]

no.

[[don’t forget]]

[[don’t forget]]

[[don’t forget]]

[[don’t forget]]

[[don’t forget]]

[[don’t forget]]

she cries.

[[[[what does this world want me to do]]]]

she doesn’t feel so confident anymore.

she doesn’t really feel anything anymore.

[[look up.]]

[[look up.]]

there’s nothing inside of her. nothing left. never truly whole.

you were never truly whole

[[look up.]]

[[look up.]]

[[look up.]]

she’s terrified. she’s hopeless. the dark Void grows darker. she feels the blood on her hands. it’s the only thing she feels.

[[look up.]]

she is always one step ahead, but she never makes it out.

she’s never going to escape the Void, is she?

[[look up.]]

the beast in its dark prison keeps turning. it keeps turning, staring at the nothing that oozes in from the open abyss. and it keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

[[look up.]]

she’s terrified. she’s hopeless. the dark Void grows darker. she feels their blood on her hands. it’s the only thing she feels.

[[look up.]]

she cries.

[[[[what do you expect me to do]]]]

she doesn’t feel so confident anymore.

[[look up.]]

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

she cries.

[[[[JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO]]]]

she doesn’t feel so confident anymore.

she can’t recall the last time she felt anything at all.

[[look up.]]

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

(stop)

(just stop trying)

(there is nothing else)

[[stay here]]

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

[[leave them there]]

[[come with me]]

[[run. leave them there.]]

[[leave them there]]

[they are not worth it]]

[[leave them there]]]

[[[you do not belong up there, and you know it]]

[[leave them there]]]

[[leave them there]])

and her eyes are dark. no light. but something has to get in there, it has to.

her skin is a shell, she is steel.

it is always one step ahead, so she never makes it out.

(stop)

(just stop trying)

(there is nothing else)

[[stay here]]

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

(look up)

[[look up]].

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up.]]

and she keeps staring.

[[look up]

there’s nothing left for her now.

[[look up]]]]

(stop)

(just stop trying)

(there is nothing else)

[[stay here]].

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

she hears someone speak.

(stop)

she hears someone speak.

(there is someone else speaking)

she hears someone else speak.

(someone else is speaking)

(there’s someone else speaking)

she can tell that it’s not coming from down in the Void.

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

she’s scared, but she’s not sure why.

(stop)

(just stop trying)

(there is nothing else)

[[stay here]]

[[look up]]

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

this is the end this time.

[[look up]]

she sees.

(stop)

(just stop trying)

(there is nothing else)

[[stay here]]

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

this is the end this time.

[[look up]]

[[look up]]

this is the end this time.

(there is someone here)

  “Hey, Tracer? Are you with me?”

she blinks once. twice. three times.

she looks up.

there is someone here. half-smiling. head tilted to the left a little. expression slightly concerned. 

Sombra.

  “huh?” she says.

  “did you hear me?” Sombra asks.

  “sorry, i don’t think so. i kinda dozed off there for a moment. can you repeat yourself, please?”

Sombra’s smile grows wider. “we’ve found a way to stabilize you. we’re almost done with the preparations. it won’t be long now.”

she perks up. “really?”

  “really!”

she manages to smile back, makes an attempt to mimic Sombra’s excitement, and when she does, her mind whispers. the Void laughs.

(stop)

(just stop trying)

(there is nothing else)

…is this the end this time?

Chapter Text

It’s finally done.

After almost half a year, Tracer’s closest thing to salvation is finally finished. 

It’s time to see if all of that work was worth it.

Sombra’s hands have been shaking all day, and she knows that’s not a good sign for a soon-to-be surgeon. She hadn’t slept at all the night before, either, and that’s even worse. She’s not one to be nervous or anxious, but the adrenaline coursing through her is like 600mg of caffeine injected straight into her bloodstream, and her heart won’t stop racing no matter what she does to try and calm down.

If she fucks up, all hope will be lost for Tracer.

The whole day is spent preparing. Emily does a sort of “crash course” over the thoracic cavity, going over everything they had been learning about, and even helps Sombra do a simulated surgery on a test dummy. It goes perfectly.

But of course, a simple simulation is nothing compared to a real surgery. A real surgery done on a real person performed by a real woman who has NO training in this sort of field aside from what she was taught by a mad scientist’s twenty-one-year-old niece.

Meanwhile, Sigma makes sure everything on the chronal accelerator is perfect. In her chamber, Tracer acts as she usually does, but Sombra can tell she’s masking her nerves as much as Sombra is herself. 

They’re all walking on a razor’s edge, and that razor just becomes even thinner when the time of the surgery arrives.

It’s 10:00 at night, and high above, through the glass dome of Sigma’s observatory, a storm is raging, just like the day Tracer first appeared. Emily is already inside when Sombra enters through the sliding metal doors, as are Sigma and Tracer. Emily is speaking with Tracer in the chamber, and when Tracer spots Sombra, she perks up, smiling widely, tremulous but trusting.

Will Sombra accidentally break that trust?

Sombra stands at the guardrail that encircles the middle level’s catwalk for a moment, gripping it with knuckles turned white. Sigma comes floating up to her, a gentle smile on his lips, somehow still so mellow and calm, despite what will soon occur. 

  “Good evening, Sombra,” Sigma greets her, his voice a soothing lullaby for the screeching banshees in Sombra’s mind. He’s wearing rectangular glasses, she notices. 

  “Good evening, Sigma,” Sombra greets back, hoping that her voice isn’t shaking. The anxiety she feels is humiliating enough, but if someone actually notices how fucking terrified she is, it will be even worse. She has to pull herself together. 

  “Are you ready?” Sigma asks.

  “Yeah,” Sombra answers, lying through her teeth. She’s been waiting for the day Tracer would finally be stabilized, but now that it’s actually come, she’s petrified.

No. No. She needs to get her head on straight. She can do this. She can do this.

And then, as she’s walking down the staircase to the lower level, the overhead lights catch on a scalpel sitting on one of the tables, causing it to gleam a sinister silver color, and something about that shatters whatever inkling of composure Sombra may have left. 

She can’t do this.

Sombra stops dead in her tracks, four steps away from reaching the bottom floor. Sigma is speaking, saying something about preparations, but Sombra suddenly can’t hear him over the ever-growing white noise of anxiety thundering in her ears, first a rumble, then a roar. She grabs onto the staircase’s railing for balance when she thinks she may faint, as an unwarranted wave of dizziness cracks into her skull like a sledgehammer. 

She can’t do this.

She’s going to mess up. She’s going to fail. She’s going to do something wrong, and all hope for Tracer will be lost, and it will be all her fault.

  “Sombra?”

The sound of her name being called manages to cut through the purr of adrenaline in her ears, and she looks up to see that she’s being stared at by Sigma, Emily, and Tracer. She thinks it’s Sigma who said her name, but she can’t be too sure, as this hurricane of anxiety raging within her is making her brain terribly muddled. 

Sigma’s mouth moves, but Sombra can’t make out what he says. Her gaze snags on Tracer’s, and the look in the girl’s eyes, so much genuine worry, snaps the final thread of Sombra’s willpower.

She can’t do this.

What if she accidentally kills her?

Sombra’s moving before she can even realize it, scrambling back up the steps and out of the observatory with her proverbial tail tucked between her legs. She’s the only one who can implant the Core of the chronal accelerator into Tracer’s chest, and she’s running. Because of course she is.

She runs all the way back to her room and hides in there like the selfish coward she is. Once she’s alone, she finally gives into the blind panic, and the moment she does, that hysteria explodes into vibrant life inside of her. 

It feels like something vicious is trapped in her chest, fighting for a way out. Teeth in her lungs, claws scraping down over her ribs, she can hardly breathe over the way it ravages her respiratory system. 

She always knew that panic attacks hurt, but, good god, she hadn’t expected it to be this bad. 

Sombra presses herself in the corner of her room, knees tucked into her aching chest, head bent to her legs. She stays like this, slowly drowning in her dread with no hope of ever calming down. Outside, the black ocean writhing under the violent assault of the stormy weather is a perfect reflection of how she feels. 

At some point, an alarm on one of her many monitors goes off, signaling that someone is coming down the hall. A moment later, someone enters, peeking their head inside.

  “Sombra?”

Sombra doesn’t answer, but she knows she’s been spotted from the soft, “Oh, liefje…” she hears coming from the door.

Sigma approaches her slowly, not wanting to startle her. Even without looking up at him, Sombra can feel the concern his gaze exudes alone.

  “Are you alright?” Sigma asks. “Ah— idiotic question. It’s clear that you are not. What can I do to help?”

Over borderline oxygen deprivation from the unbearable tightness in her chest, Sombra wheezes out, “I don’t— I don’t know.”

Sigma seems to catch onto her difficulty breathing and swoops down urgently, sitting in front of her. 

  “Liefje,” he says. “You are having a panic attack. You must breathe, or else you may pass out.”

What an impossible task that is for someone who is drowning.

  “Here— may I touch you?”

Sombra manages to nod, so Sigma reaches out and gently takes her hands in his own. His hands are warm and worn down from age. The touch alone manages to hotwire some equanimity back into her brain, and she lifts her bowed head to meet Sigma’s gaze. 

There’s not a single shred of judgment in the kind eyes behind those rectangular glasses he has on.

  “Try to breathe with me, Sombra,” Sigma instructs gently. “Perhaps it will help calm you down.”

It’s not easy when she’s so doped up on epinephrine, but slowly, so slowly, she manages to reel back her thread of composure. Her chest still throbs like all her ribs have been smashed, but at least she’s breathing normally again. It’s a start.

  “Would you like to talk about it?” Sigma asks. “Though, I think I have an idea over what got you so worked up.”

Sombra grimaces lightly. She had been hoping it wouldn’t have been that obvious. “I didn’t mean to freak out like that,” she says. “I just— the pressure of what I have to do just got to me, I guess.”

Sigma nods wisely. “That is understandable,” he says. “You’re only human, after all. And this is a very big task that has been placed in your hands. If you are not ready for it, we can always reschedule the surgery.”

Sombra lurches at the thought. “No, we can’t—”

  “Tracer said it herself,” Sigma goes on. “She suggested not doing it today. Or tomorrow. Or anytime soon until you’re ready to actually do it.”

Sombra is shocked. Tracer, the one wavering between reality and the world beyond, the one that’s more of a ghost than a human being, the one that has been waiting so patiently for her stabilization, will postpone her own restoration in favor of Sombra’s well-being. She can’t believe it. 

Except, she can, actually. Tracer is just good like that. A better person than Sombra can ever hope to be. 

She deserves to finally be brought back.

Sombra shakes her head. “We said we’re going to do it today, so we’re going to do it today.”

  “But—”

  “She shouldn’t have to wait any longer,” Sombra cuts Sigma off. “I’ll do it. I’m going to do it.”

Sigma is quiet for a moment, analyzing her. Then, he nods. 

  “Alright,” he says. “With that decided, I will now say: I believe in you. She does, too. You can do this, Sombra.”

Sombra breathes out a light breath. “I hope I can.”

After a few more minutes, Sombra finally says that she’s ready to go back to the observatory and begin. Upon entering, Tracer’s eyes find hers immediately, and she knows the girl is asking if she’s alright, even though she can’t hear her through the refined walls of the gravitational chamber she’s in. It’s only when she actually steps inside the chamber that she can hear the concern from Tracer.

  “I’m alright, I’m alright,” Sombra assures her.

  “Are you sure?” Tracer prods her, her face all worry.

  “Yes, I’m sure, I promise,” Sombra says. 

Tracer seems a bit skeptical, but she nods. “Okay. I’m glad you’re alright.”

Sombra gives her a soft smile in return for her compassion.

Sigma then calls everyone over for one last talk before they get to work. 

The operation table they will be using isn’t much of an operation table at all. It’s a regular wooden table that they fashioned some leather straps onto to hold Tracer’s limbs down. Beside it is a smaller table full of various surgical tools that Emily had managed to sneak into the observatory. A third table holds the chronal accelerator itself, alongside a metal box that contains the Core. 

  “I’ll center as much gravity as I can on Tracer to stabilize her as much as possible,” Sigma says. “The moment that happens, get her onto the table, strap her down, and begin. You know where to go from there. Get the Core into her as quickly as possible.”

They all nod their assent.

  “Very good.”

They take just a few more minutes before beginning, and in that time, Tracer grabs Sombra’s attention.

  “I just wanted to say…” Tracer says, and she looks a tad sheepish. Nervous, too. She fidgets slightly. “Well, I just wanted to say thank you.”

Sombra tilts her head a little. “What for?”

Tracer gestures vaguely. “For everything, really. I know you said you brought me back by accident, so you didn’t have to do any of this. You could have just given me over to Talon and let them do god knows what. But you didn’t. You gave me a chance. And for that, I’m forever grateful.”

  “Well, I wasn’t just going to let you suffer,” Sombra says. “I had to do something.”

  “And again, I’ll always thank you for that,” Tracer says. “It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. And that’s saying a lot, considering that I’ve lived over three million lives at this point and have had SEVERAL interactions with people!” She laughs a little, then goes quiet, pondering something. “Even if…” She takes a deep breath. “Even if this doesn’t go the way we want it to, I’ll never forget this. This will be the one thing that I will remember forever. The Void won’t take it away from me.”

Sombra feels the hot, fiery sting of tears in her eyes, but she wills herself not to cry. “I won’t let that happen,” she says firmly. “I said I would bring you back, mija, and I am.”

Tracer smiles, tears brimming in her own eyes. “I trust you, Sombra.”

She trusts her.

  “Are you all ready to begin?” Sigma asks.

They all confirm that they are.

  “Wonderful. As the kids say, let us do this.”

Tracer giggles at that, despite her obvious mounting fear.

Sombra and Emily step back as Sigma looks at Tracer. “I will now start.”

Tracer nods. “I know the drill, Doc. I’m ready.”

With that, Sigma closes his eyes, and Sombra can feel the tug of gravitational energy that begins to eddy throughout the chamber. It centers on Tracer, and her form starts to waver and flicker. Then, the fraying threads of her existence are yanked on hard, cross-stitching her back into reality. The blue tint to her body fades out slightly, and she starts to look a little more whole. Her face, however, is tightened with evident discomfort; Sombra guesses that her body isn’t used to being even semi-stable.

Sigma wrangles off some kind of bulky pack on Tracer’s back and then helps her onto the makeshift operation table, where he fastens her wrists and ankles down with the leather straps—a precautionary measure for both herself and Sombra and Emily. The entire time, his expression is smoothed in perfect concentration, for if his focus is broken, Tracer can easily slip away.

Sombra doesn’t want to think about what will happen if Tracer fades out of existence with her chest carved open.

  “How are you feeling?” Sigma asks Tracer.

  “Heavy,” Tracer answers, and her voice sounds slightly different. She’s always had a sort of echo around her words, but now that echo has receded slightly. “I kinda feel like a horse.”

  “A horse?” Sigma parrots, tilting his head slightly.

  “Mhm.” Tracer tries to nod, but the straining weight of her half-stable form keeps her from doing even that. “Horses can’t lay down for long periods of time because their organs will be crushed by their body weight, won’t they? So I kinda feel like a horse. But at least I’m feeling! So that’s good!”

Sigma laughs softly. “Yes, that is good.” He then looks at Sombra. “Your turn.” 

The moment the spotlight descends onto Sombra, her anxiety over this whole thing returns, slamming into her like a jackhammer drilling relentlessly into her solar plexus, and she can feel her heart throbbing in her throat. Still, she manages to keep herself calm enough to grab some metal shears sitting with the surgical tools and begins to work away Tracer’s flight uniform. 

The moment she touches Tracer for the first time, and her hand doesn’t immediately go through the girl’s body, the full weight of the situation hits her like a truck.

This is really happening.

She has to do this.

In this state, Tracer is very desaturated, and if the light hits her a certain way, she looks transparent, but Sombra is able to make out the distinct blue, orange, and black of her flight suit. The flight uniform is a one-piece jumpsuit, so Sombra creates a hole just above the pelvis and cuts upward. The fabric is much thicker than she initially thought, making it feel like she’s chopping through tough, sun-dried leather. 

  “Speak with her,” Sigma says. “Keep her calm. It’ll give her something to focus on so she won’t panic.”

Emily gets onto that immediately, asking Tracer, “What’s the deal with the get-up? How does it all work?”

  “What?” Tracer looks up at her. “Oh! So, like, A LOT of safety measures have to be taken to fly a jet, so this is all supposed to help keep the pilot safe. The thing Sombra is cutting through is my G-suit, which is supposed to protect me from G-forces while flying. And then I got my helmet, which provides noise protection and also cushions my head so the pressure of acceleration won’t damage my skull. Speaking of the helmet, can it be taken off, please? It’s kinda uncomfortable.”

  “Of course,” Emily says. With gentle hands, she undoes the chin strap and slips off the helmet. She removes the goggles, too. Once the helmet is gone, a frizz of fluffy brown hair is freed, framing Tracer’s head like dandelion fuzz. 

  “Thanks,” Tracer says, giving Emily a thin smile. It’s almost odd to see her head so bare after knowing her with the helmet and goggles on for so long, but she looks much more comfortable with them off, which Sombra is happy about. “What else about the uniform…? Oh! That thing Sigma took off is my safety kit! It’s got everything I would need in case of an emergency! A radio, a beacon, a flare, a tourniquet, a GPS, a compass, a fire starter, some matches, finger lights…” She pauses. “In hindsight, none of those really helped me at all, but I guess nobody really prepared for something like that to happen. Anyway, that tube thingy is a part of my oxygen mask. It gives me oxygen, obviously. And then beneath my G-suit is my liner suit! It keeps me warm, protects me from the cold and fire, and absorbs moisture!”

As Sombra peels back the sides of the flight uniform, she thinks that it may not be as protective as Tracer thinks it is. 

Strange electrical burns mar the expanse of Tracer’s skin in a fern-like pattern, primarily on her upper torso. It reminds Sombra a lot of the scars left over from being struck by lightning, except these are a very distinct blue color, almost like veins. Unlike veins, however, these are puffy and raised.

But that’s not all, though. The wounds that Sombra has seen on Tracer for these past few months can now be glimpsed completely, and she can’t help but grimace when she sees the gashes on Tracer’s left side and upper right forearm. 

  “I don’t know why I didn’t expect you guys to see me half-naked,” Tracer says, staring intently at the ceiling. It’s a bit hard to tell with her drained coloration, but Sombra thinks her face may be red with embarrassment. 

  “No shame, hun,” Emily says.

  “Easy for you to say,” Tracer mutters.

Sombra cuts the remainder of the flight uniform off, shearing away the sleeves so they won’t potentially get in the way, but she keeps the bottom half to protect at least a sliver of Tracer’s modesty.

Emily, the closest to a proper expert in this field out of the four of them, gets to disinfecting the surgical site immediately. She wipes down the middle of Tracer’s chest with antiseptic solution, murmuring softly apologies when she has to do so between Tracer’s exposed breasts, and Tracer looks absolutely humiliated, but she doesn’t fight it, and she certainly doesn’t say anything.

  “Ready?” Emily asks Sombra, and Sombra realizes it’s her turn to take the lead. Once again, the anxiety surges through her like an infestation of insects, and she can feel herself clamming up in fear.

But then she meets the eyes of Sigma, and he nods to her in reassurance, and she’s able to keep those shaky pieces of her willpower together.

Sombra picks up the scalpel, and, this time, she does not cower beneath its sinister silver gleam.

She hovers over Tracer, placing the short blade of the scalpel just beneath the center of Tracer’s collarbones. She can directly feel Tracer’s skin like this, and it’s similar to that of a corpse’s—there’s no warmth to her body at all. There’s a strange “moving” sensation to it, too, like she’s made from thousands of buzzing bumblebees. It feels like Sombra is touching the physical form of static.

Her eyes find Tracer’s, and Tracer gives her a small, trusting smile.

With a deep breath, Sombra presses in and slices downward.

Tracer’s reaction is instantaneous: an ear-shattering scream explodes from her lips, any shred of her good mood now destroyed beneath the sharp blade of Sombra’s scalpel. Her spine arches hard, and she instinctively writhes against the leather straps holding down her limbs, which nearly throws Sombra off and almost causes her to cut into an area that isn’t meant to be cut. 

  “Mierda— Hold her down!” Sombra shouts.

Emily does so without hesitation, restraining Tracer by the shoulders. Tracer’s legs continue to thrash in agony, but with her torso pinned down, Sombra is able to keep her hand steady. 

Blood erupts from the incision. The space between Tracer’s breasts becomes a sort of trench full of the red liquid, which is a bright, vibrant crimson compared to the rest of Tracer’s colorless body. It starts to ooze in rivulets down her stomach and is the only thing that actually has real warmth. Sombra can feel the searing heat even through the sterilized gloves she has on.

Emily swoops in instantly, using a cloth towel to clean away the blood. It soaks up the flood, but the flow itself does not stop. It most likely won’t not until they’re actually done working. Which makes Sombra’s job ten times harder and means they’re racing against the clock before blood loss sets in. 

The incision isn’t deep enough, so Sombra brings the scalpel down again, carving further into Tracer’s chest until she hits something hard—bone. The entire time, Tracer spasms, fierce waves of torture tormenting her entire body, all while making heartbreaking sounds akin to that of a slowly dying animal. Thank god this chamber is soundproof. 

With the incision made, Sombra prepares for the next step: opening the chest cavity.

Setting the soaked scalpel aside, Sombra picks up a shiny silver tool that almost looks like a pair of scissors without the blades. Even in her addled state of extreme pain, Tracer still ogles it with obvious fear, and Sombra wishes she can tell her it’ll all be alright, but, frankly, she doesn’t know if it will be. So, instead, she just gives the girl a small, comforting smile before inserting the ends of the surgical retractor into the incision and opening it up.

There are several reasons as to why surgeries are now performed with anesthetics, the most obvious being that it’s more humane for the patient, who probably doesn’t want to feel themselves getting cut into like they’re a fine Italian lasagna. But Sombra also thinks it’s because nobody wants to feel their skin being pried open, either.

A half sob, half scream comes from Tracer as the retractor spreads open her skin to fully expose her chest cavity. Ribbons of bone are blindingly white through the swamp of deep, dark blood pooling in the wound. At the edges of the flaps of flesh, where those blue scars have been cut through, strange blue sparks seem to be pulsing, as though they’re live wires that have been sliced into. 

What happened to this girl’s body?

  “I’m so sorry, honey, but you have to stay awake. You can’t fall asleep. I’m sorry,” Sombra then hears, and she looks up to see Emily standing at Tracer’s head, hands on her shoulders, encouraging her to stay conscious. 

If Tracer passes out, they risk her never waking back up again. Being unconscious would surely be better for her, but they just can’t let her go under. So they keep her awake—and, in the process, keep her in this mire of pain.

It’s torture. There’s no other word to describe the unimaginably horrific trauma of surgery without anesthetics. They’re torturing her.

But it’s a necessary evil, unfortunately. If they don’t do this, Tracer will die, or worse: slip away into the Void again.

They have to do it.

Sigma hovers over. He’s kept his eyes respectfully shut since Tracer’s bare chest was exposed, but he opens them to just take a peek at the opening and make sure everything is going according to plan.

A look of concern dawns upon the expression on his face.

  “Oh dear,” he murmurs.

  “What?” Sombra asks him. “What’s wrong?”

  “This… this will not be deep enough,” Sigma answers.

All of their heads whip up in alarm.

  “What?” Tracer wheezes.

  “What?” Emily snaps at the same time.

  “I’m so sorry,” Sigma says, his face a picture of guilt. “I do not know much about anatomy. I thought this would be deeper, but I seem to have overestimated the amount of skin and muscle we have between the top layer of our body and the thoracic cavity. This is too superficial. The Core needs to be implanted into her core. It must be deeper. I’m so sorry. I should have looked more into it. I’m sorry.”

Sombra can’t even be mad at this mistake because 1) it’s Sigma, and she can never be angry with him, and 2) she’s much too scared to be pissed off. When she looks across the makeshift operation table, she sees that Emily looks to be as stressed out as she is. And then there’s Tracer, who is starting to panic.

  “I’m gonna go back to the Void!” Tracer wails, her eyes wide wet and shiny with tears. 

  “No, you won’t, Tracer,” Sombra says, but she doesn’t know if she’s lying to the girl or not. With Tracer’s chest opened like a ziplock bag, it certainly seems like she is.

Even with her hands bound with leather straps, Tracer manages to reach out with one of them just enough to grab desperately onto the end of Sombra’s shirt. She sobs, “Please don’t let me go back there, Sombra! Please! I don’t wanna go back!”

All of Tracer’s bravery from earlier is now gone, and Sombra can truly see how traumatized she is by the Void. It’s painful to watch.

  “I won’t let you, mija, I promise,” Sombra says. She looks to Sigma and Emily, beseeching them. “What do we do?”

  “I have an idea,” Emily says. “You might not think it’s the most desirable idea, but it may be our only choice.”

  “What is it?” Sigma asks her.

  “My aunt,” Emily answers.

  “No,” Sombra says immediately. “Absolutely not.”

Emily looks at her. “What other option do we have, Sombra? There’s no time to brainstorm any better ideas. She can help. I know she can.”

  “Yeah, and afterward, she’ll turn Tracer into her newest guinea pig,” Sombra argues. “I’m not letting her put a finger on her.”

  “Sombra, I don’t think you understand the dire situation we’re in right now,” Emily reprimands. “We don’t have any other choice. We’re running out of time by arguing. My aunt can help. If there’s one person who can figure this out, it’s her, and you know it. So I need you to stop being stubborn and just suck it up. Unless you want Tracer to disappear again.”

Tracer sobs in fright at that.

Sombra grits her teeth, seething. Moira isn’t her favorite person, especially with the tests she constantly runs on Sigma, and she certainly doesn’t want those tests to extend to Tracer, but she can’t deny that Moira is an absolute mastermind when it comes to this sort of stuff. Emily is right: if there’s one person who can fix Tracer, it’ll be her. 

Sombra looks down at Tracer, at the raw terror and agony captured in her teary eyes, then at the opening and all the blood, and then says, “Okay. Okay, go get her.”

Emily breathes out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Keep Tracer conscious and try to slow down the bleeding. I’ll be back as quickly as I can!”

With that, she turns and sprints out of the chamber, leaving Sombra and Sigma with a girl flayed open like some kind of ritual sacrifice. 

  “You’re going to be okay, cariño, you’re going to be okay,” Sombra says to Tracer again and again, hoping that maybe it’ll end up being the truth.

Chapter Text

Being awoken in the night is nothing new to Moira, but that doesn’t mean she ever enjoys it. She likes her beauty sleep, thank you very much. But sometimes duty calls, and she has no other choice but to attend to the disruption, as reluctant and grouchy as she may be while doing so.

But when she’s violently shaken awake that night, anger isn’t the first thing she feels, but rather the flickers of startled fear. Quickly after that, though, the annoyance sets in like fire igniting the blood in her veins. Nobody puts their hands on her. Ever.

Moira jerks up in her bed, prepared to bring hell on whoever dares to touch her in such a rude way, but the rain of fire and brimstone is halted when she sees exactly who has awoken her.

  “Emily?” she says.

She can only tell that it’s her niece from the way her form is silhouetted by the light in the hallway spilling in through the wide open door. It’s strange to see Emily here, waking her up in the middle of the night. She hasn’t done such a thing since she was a little girl.

  “Aunt Moira,” Emily says, sounding breathless. She grabs onto Moira’s arm with both hands. “Come with me. Please.”

  “What’s wrong?” Moira asks. She doesn’t feel compassion for most people, but her niece is one of the rare few who get concern from her. 

  “There’s no time to explain,” Emily says, tugging on her arm, trying to pull her out of bed. “Please, just come with me. It’s an emergency. Please.”

Moira withholds questions only because of the desperation in Emily’s voice. She gets out of bed, puts on her slippers, and, still in her pajamas, follows Emily to wherever this “emergency” is.

Emily takes her to Sigma’s observatory.

Moira furrows her eyebrows. “Emily, what are we doing here?”

  “We need your help,” Emily says, taking her hand to keep her from stopping. 

  “We?” Moira echoes.

Emily doesn’t answer.

They enter the observatory, and from the catwalk, Moira can spot flashes of purple and grey from inside the test chamber Sigma has built into his lab. Emily rushes to that exact chamber, and Moira follows cautiously. However, when she spots something red and then something absolutely impossible through the chamber’s window, she bursts into motion and storms inside.

The first thing that hits her is the thick, rank stench of blood hanging heavily in the air, and then she sets her eyes upon the half-naked girl strapped down to a wooden table in the middle of the room, her chest pried open with a Weitlaner retractor like she’s some kind of live dissection project. It’s not the gory sight that stuns her, she’s all for human experimentation, but rather, it’s who the experiment is.

She knows this girl. She remembers this girl. 

  “Lena Oxton?” she whispers.

Yes, it’s all coming back to her now. Overwatch had wanted everyone to attend the first flight of the Slipstream, as though the jet was their precious baby at a dance recital. Though, with the amount of money put into the machine, it might as well have been. 

But Moira, still a part of Blackwatch at the time, remembers briefly meeting the pilot, a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young girl that was barely nineteen years old. She thought that the child wasn’t fit for the job, but Overwatch clearly thought otherwise, because they got her suited up and sent her off into the sky in the Slipstream like it was nothing.

And then, the accident happened. 

  “Something is— something is wrong,” the pilot, Lena Oxton, had said.

Everyone in the command center knew it without even having to ask her to specify; they all heard the electrical crackling sound and the terrible screeching emitting from the speakers. It was unlike anything Moira had ever heard before. 

  “What’s going on, Oxton?” Commander Morrison had demanded.

  “I don’t— I don’t know!” Lena replied. “The— the teleportation matrix— it’s buggin’ all out of control! I don’t know why! Sparks are flying everywhere, and it’s, like, screaming at me! Should it be glowing this shade of bl—” She then cut herself off with a cry of pain.

At the sound of distress, Dr. Ziegler shoved her way over to the mic being used to communicate with Lena and asked, “Lena? It’s Dr. Ziegler. Are you alright?”

  “‘m bleeding,” Lena slurred, sounding dizzy.

  “What? Can you repeat that for me, sweetheart?” Dr. Ziegler’s voice was like a calm island in the middle of a hurricane of panic. She remained gentle and level-headed in the midst of so much hysteria, if not because her professional status called for it, then for Lena’s sake to keep her from freaking out. 

  “I’m bleeding,” Lena said again, clearer this time. “A piece— a piece of the cockpit broke off. Nicked me in the side. My— my flight suit’s ripped open. There’s blood everywhere.”

  “The jet is breaking?” Dr. Winston whispered in horror.

Hearing him, Moira had turned to him and asked, “How is that possible?”

Dr. Winston looked terrified. “I don’t know.” He then raised his voice to speak up, “She needs to eject. We can locate her after.”

  “We can’t leave the jet,” Commander Morrison said. He turned back to the mic, which allowed him to miss the look of absolute disgust that twisted across Dr. Winston’s face. He batted Dr. Ziegler out of the way, then said into the mic, “Turn the jet around, Oxton. Bring it back. Dr. Ziegler will tend to your injuries once you have returned.”

  “O-okay,” Lena said. 

There was a radar in the command center that tracked the movements of the Slipstream, and they all watched with bated breath as the Slipstream’s icon began to turn around and fly back to the base.

However, not even a minute later, an electrical surging sound erupted from the speakers, shortly followed by a scream from Lena, one that was mixed with both pain and terror. 

Proceeding these sounds were even more noises, each one more concerning than the last: whining metal, screeching alarms, manic beeping, cracking glass, hissing static, Lena’s wild howls of panic. 

  “Lena,” Dr. Ziegler said over the ruckus. Other people in the command center were shouting, but her voice was the only one with any remnant of tranquility within the tone. “Listen to me, okay? I know you’re scared, but I need you to try and stay calm. Can you do that for me, honey?”

  “I— I don’t know,” Lena said, her voice thick with tears and tight with pain. “It hurts. It’s hard— it’s hard to— umm— I can’t— It hurts. Who are you…?”

Dr. Ziegler’s eyebrows twitched together in concern. She exchanged looks with a few others in the room, then said, “It’s Dr. Ziegler, Lena.”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Ziegler. I did your check-up, remember?”

  “Angie! Angie, you’ve gotta help me, please, I-I can’t—”

Something was very, very wrong.

Dr. Winston seemed to realize this at the same time Moira did because he shoved Commander Morrison out of the way to get to the mic. In it, he shouted, “Lena! Eject, NOW!”

  “Winston, you can’t—”

  “Forget about landing!” Dr. Winston continued over Commander Morrison. “Forget about the plane! Your life is more important! Eject, and we can send out a team to get you!”

  “Can’t,” Lena croaked.

  “Why can’t you?”

  “Can’t touch it. Can’t touch the eject handle.”

For a moment, the command center went silent.

  “…What?” Dr. Winston finally said.

  “Whenever I try to grab it, my hands go straight through it, like I’m a ghost or somethin’,” Lena explained. “I can’t touch anything. I don’t know what to do! What do I do?!”

  “I— I—” Dr. Winston stammered, at a loss for words. He looked around the room for help, but nobody could offer any sort of advice on how to fix this. Even Moira didn’t know what to do. She’d never heard of anything like this happening before.

Lena seemed to realize how hopeless her situation was because she began to sob, “I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!”

At this, Dr. Ziegler took over again, cooing to the wailing pilot in her soothing, motherly voice, trying to keep Lena calm. “Deep breaths, honey,” she said. “Try to take deep breaths. We’re going to try and figure this out, okay? But I need you to stay as calm as you can.”

  “Please, help me, Angie,” Lena begged her, once again using that nickname as though she and Dr. Ziegler were close friends, even though Moira was sure that they weren’t. She was making concerning wheezing and gasping noises through strangled coughs, her hyperventilation system kicked into overdrive. “Please! I’m scared! I don’t know what to do!”

  “We’re doing everything we can to get this worked ou—”

Dr. Ziegler was then cut off by a horrendous screeching sound that Moira could only describe as the world itself being ripped apart under some unnatural force. Lena gave a sharp yowl in reaction, and then she began babbling again like there was no tomorrow, her words coming out through frantic gasps of panic.

  “Tell my mum I love her,” she pleaded with them. “Please, please, tell her I love her! Tell her I—”

She then let out the most haunting, blood-curdling scream Moira had ever heard before, a scream so raw and horrified that it overcame all the other terrible noises emitting from the speakers.

And then, silence.

A deathly sort of quiet fell upon the entire command center, broken only by a faint buzz of static coming from the speaker. So at odds with the pandemonium that had filled the room a split second ago, like a flip being switched off and all of them had gone deaf, a chill ran down Moira’s spine. She looked around the space at her colleagues, and they were all wearing matching expressions of horror.

  “Lena?” Dr. Ziegler said into the mic.

No answer.

  “Lena, do you copy?”

Nothing.

  “Lena?!”

Even the Slipstream’s icon had disappeared from the radar. 

Lena Oxton was gone.

Dr. Winston wrathed against Overwatch for this, blaming Commander Morrison for the girl’s disappearance and saying that he prioritized the jet over Lena’s life. He and Dr. Ziegler both collaborated on a year-long project to try and find where Lena had gone, but when nothing ever came up, it was eventually shut down. Time moved on, and Lena Oxton was declared gone forever.

Except it seems as though that isn’t actually the case because Moira is staring directly at a girl who has been missing for the past twelve years. 

  “What is going on?” Moira hisses urgently. 

  “We’ll explain later, I promise,” Emily says. “But right now, we need you to help her. Please.”

  “Then allow me to amend myself: what are you DOING?” 

  “She needs something implanted into her chest,” Sigma says. “But we don’t know how to go deep enough without harming her. We need your assistance, Doctor. Please.”

Moira approaches the makeshift operation table with her nose curled. The whole scene is incredibly crude, which is saying something coming from someone like her. This isn’t proper surgical procedure at all. 

Lena Oxton is a faded, discolored creature barely deserving of the title of “human being.” She’s more like a banshee, if anything, as her body becomes transparent when the irritatingly bright lights overhead hit her skin a certain way. Aside from the hellmouth that is her gaping chest, the rough-hew scars deforming her flesh, and the obvious ghost-like state of being, she looks exactly the same as she had twelve years ago. She doesn’t look like she’s aged at all, even though she should be well into her early thirties by now. 

Alongside Emily and Sigma, Sombra is also here, wearing plastic gloves that are slimed in so much blood that they don’t even look blue anymore. They all have the same look of sheer desperation directed toward her.

  “Please, Aunt Moira,” Emily begs. 

Gah, curse her devotion to her niece!

Though, that isn’t to say she’s necessarily against working on this living anomaly. The Slipstream has always been a fascinating subject to her, and getting the chance to experiment on the Slipstream’s pilot is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but this is pure madness.  

  “Alright,” Moira says. “But I cannot work in these conditions. There is no space, and you hardly have the right tools, and for the love of all the gods out there, are you bloodletting the damn girl?”

Lena Oxton’s chest has filled up with blood like a sort of morbid swimming pool. How she hasn’t died from blood loss is unknown to Moira.

  “We cannot move her,” Sigma says. “It’s too risky, and this chamber is soundproof. If we try to work on her anywhere else, she will surely be heard screaming.”

  “Then I need proper tools,” Moira says, then turns to Emily, listing off a number of items, to which Emily scurries off to retrieve from the lab as quickly as she can. 

As Moira is trying to clear all the blood from the dissection spot, she catches the eye of Sombra. The woman is regarding her with enormous suspicion, and the way she stands close by Lena Oxton’s side exudes a sort of protective aura, as though she’s a mother bear trying to defend her cub. An odd stance to have on the pilot, surely, but Moira believes there may be something more to it, something deeper between the two of them, and she cannot wait to hear the full story of this. 

  “Why is she not hooked up to anything?” Moira asks. “Oxygen, blood, anesthetics… Anything that would make this more humane.”

  “That’s surprising coming from you,” Sombra says, and there’s a certain bite to her words that piques Moira’s interest.

  “I’m only saying it because I’ve always thought you to be merciful,” Moira says back. “I just expected there to be more of an effort from you to make her comfortable.”

Sombra scowls, seething. Sigma interferes quickly.

  “We’re afraid she wouldn’t have been able to handle anything like anesthetics,” he answers Moira’s question. “Her immune system— well, let’s just say it hasn’t worked in a very long time. We were worried that trying to give her any kind of sedation would overwhelm her body and cause her to never wake back up again. As for oxygen and blood, well… It would be a bit hard to sneak either of those required items into here without anyone noticing.”

He’s got a point, Moira thinks. 

  “Already we had to risk taking a few tools to do this,” Sigma goes on.

  “Yes, I was wondering where my Weitlaner retractor had gone,” Moira says, eyeing the instrument holding Lena Oxton’s chest open. 

Emily soon returns, clanking her way back to the chamber with a myriad of different tools. Moira hopes nobody woke up because of the ruckus she had to have been making on the way to and back from the lab. 

Now that this is a bit more befitting for a proper surgical procedure, Moira gets right into what she does best. She sanitizes her hands, dons a pair of gloves, and then takes up an electrocautery pen first. Not even waiting for permission, she looms over Lena Oxton’s open chest cavity and fries her blood vessels shut.

Despite all the experimentation she has under her name, this is her first time performing one without any anesthesia at all. It’s easier to do her work when her subject is tranquilized, which stops them from squirming around like a stabbed snake, and she’s not a complete monster. It’s a simple mercy she can grant to those she toils over.

Unfortunately, that mercy cannot be granted in this instance.

Electrocautery is usually painless, but without proper sedatives, it must have been like holding a searing hot fire poker to a bundle of exposed nerves. Lena Oxton immediately spasms in agony, thrashing against her bindings with surprising strength for her small size. Moira snaps at Sombra and Emily to hold the girl steady before she burns something she shouldn’t, and they do so instantly. 

The smell of scorched flesh wafts into Moira’s nose, but she doesn’t even react. She has smelled far worse. She can’t say the same for her helpers, however, because out of the corner of her eye, she can see their faces twitch in sickened disgust. 

  “Try not to lose your dinner,” she comments to them. “We’ve still got a lot more unsavory work to do.”

  “What did you do, Doctor?” Sigma asks curiously. He’s got his eyes closed, she notices, and she guesses it’s because of Lena Oxton’s exposed breasts. Because of course they hadn’t even thought to use an adhesive drape to cover her skin.

  “I cauterized her blood vessels shut,” Moira tells him. “To keep her from bleeding out. Something that should have been done at the very start instead of letting her bleed everywhere like she’s Old Faithful erupting.”

Emily ducks her head in shame. Sombra looks both annoyed with Moira and guilty at the same time. 

Without a marsh of blood clogging the surgical site, Moira can observe Lena Oxton’s chest cavity much better. To Sombra’s credit, the incision is clean and precise. Lena Oxton’s rib cage and sternum are washed a faint red color from the blood they had been soaked in, and beneath them, the pink of her lungs can be seen. Blue sparks pulse out from strange fractal scars spread across her skin.

  “Now, what is it that we must do?” Moira asks.

  “Inside that box on the table, you will find a device that will anchor Tracer to reality,” Sigma answers. “It’s called the Core. It must be embedded into her chest, but we aren’t sure how to do so.”

  “You’d think that this would have been something you planned ahead for,” Moira says. “And ‘Tracer?’”

  “That’s her name now,” Sombra says. “She goes by Tracer. And we hadn’t been expecting it to go this far south.”

Tracer. Moira looks at the girl’s face; it’s ashen, expression depleted by pain, eyes like glass.

  “I see,” Moira hums.

  “Can you help her?” Emily beseeches Moira.

  “Oh, of course,” Moira says. She picks up an oscillating saw and peers at it with a soft smile. “This is what I do best. Hold her still.”

pain. pain. pain. pain. PAIN.

she’s always wanted to come back, but now that she’s on the edge of existence, she despises it. her body is not meant for this world, not anymore, and the weight of her being is unbearable, like all her skin is being pulled off, leaving only the muscle and bone behind. she’s staying, and it hurts. it hurts so bad.

but that’s not the thing that hurts the most.

a blade of baleful sterling carves a line of fire down the center of her chest, displaying her insides for the whole world to bear witness to. faint apologies are murmured in her ears, but she can hardly hear them over the incessant buzzing sound that fills her head like a fly trapped within her skull. her ears are hum-deaf, her eyes are white-blind, and her chest is on fire. something must be preventing her from hearing. something is keeping her here.

figures flit like birds over her head, and she can feel her mind starting to slip away back into the Void. only half of her is recognizing what’s going on around her, but the other half is numb to reality, obliviously unknowing through it all.

shapes drift in and out of her view. a dark-skinned hacker, compassionate and protective. a red-haired young woman, studious and full of ambition. the hovering man, intelligent and trapped. she’s dimly aware of sensations around her jaw. a mouth trying to form words. a throat so tight with fear. 

there’s a hand on her forehead, so warm against the deathly chill that infects her whole body, gently stroking back frazzled hair. a voice coos to her, trying to keep her calm. she can hardly focus on it.

someone new appears, and then the pain flares up again, burning like fire in her skin. then, the fire is gone, and her chest feels so cold, so empty.

but only for a moment.

the next sensation is like drooling dog jaws clamping down on her nerve endings. there’s a horrendous whirring sound, and then something unimaginable digs into her chest. she feels it carving through her sternum, and her mouth splits open with a howl of agony. 

she screams until her throat hurts. she screams until it feels like someone is prying out her vocal cords with pliers. she screams until she barely has anything left.

her ribs. they’re—these torturers—are doing something to her ribs. she can feel their fingers in her skin, plucking and twisting the bones like they’re loose teeth in a child’s oozing mouth, opening her rib cage in a way that belongs in a horror movie. she sobs.

(why is this happening to me?)

(is this my fault?)

(did i do something wrong?)

beneath all the torment, she can feel the Void stir. she may not physically be in its embrace anymore, but it does not loosen its bonds so easily. it’s tugging at the frayed threads of her existence, trying to pull her back down.

she doesn’t want to go back down.

she wants out.

the agony intensifies, something so virulent that it seems impossible. her entire existence seems to narrow into that single sensation. everything else is a blur, pain from a dozen different points, but in the haze of her tear-soaked eyes, she can see everything coming together, all the pieces lined up in front of her eyes. she’s almost sure she’s doing this right. this is how she keeps herself whole. 

she has to struggle through it.

it hurts her so badly, but this is her reason for living. this will give her a reason to live. she needs to do this, she needs to make it through this.

there is no other choice.

the Void seems to think otherwise. it knows of her plans, and it is not happy. it writhes, livid and seething. it wants to keep her all to itself.

something terrible saws into her, and she screams again, spine arching. 

everything is starting to feel like a nightmare. she can hear herself breathe, and it’s odd, strange. the air in her lungs feels thin and cool, like the air that blows through the vents of a generator in a gymnasium. she hears her own breathing, and it doesn’t seem to be possible. she can feel it, she can taste it, but her lungs aren’t there. they must be still in the Void, she thinks—she can feel the Void through her own chest, like it’s stabbing her, and she still has no way of breathing.

down in the Void, another version of her, her soul, has furiously begun clambering up the Web of Life, desperate to reach the top. there’s so many threads to climb, but she’s forcing herself to try anyway.

she must get out.

the Void begins to fragment. like broken glass, pieces of the abyss splinter and fall into nothingness. through those cracks, light begins to seep in. 

she feels a sharp sting in her bones. at least she knows she’s alive. she hopes she is still alive.

her mind wavers, but she knows she’s still here, the solidity of her body an ache so fierce she wants to rip out all her nerves just to escape it. but that sensation, along with the tears they create as a result, are helping her feel, helping her understand what’s happening. that’s it. when she’s hurting so much that she can’t even think anymore, the tears come. that’s what she’s doing right now. she’s crying. she’s crying, and she’s still real, and she’s still here.

she screams again.

it really is like a nightmare, a scream from a million lives ago that has been trapped in this body forever, trapped and bound. and now, the pain is so strong that she can feel it all around her. 

the world is falling apart before her eyes, and she wants to run, to hide, to escape from the horror. to escape the terrible truth. to escape the Void.

down there in the Void, she has seen the end of everything. everything. over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. all the people. every single person. her parents, her friends, the entirety of Overwatch, even her enemies. everyone. the whole world. every single one of them, dying. dead. they’ve all died so many times before, as has she, and all of those lives are now howling in unison, at once, as though it’s all one scream. as if all of their souls are one soul or one mind. they all scream at one moment. at a moment of great horror, of utter horror.

and she’s in her body, hanging from the Web of Life, looking down at all the shattered lives spread out before her. she doesn’t know what happened, what she’s done, or where she is. her brain is shouting, her heart is crying, there’s blood all over her. there’s no light. no fear. only this. a single scream that is all the screaming that ever was. it is the sound of a world that has finally been torn apart.

but, of course, there is pain—there’s always pain in all that happens. pain that comes from all those screaming people. all those screaming lives. all their screams. their pain. the tears.

she’s doing this, she realizes. she’s causing all this suffering. her attempt to escape is creating all this torture. she’s the reason why they’re all in pain. it’s her fault.

she doesn’t belong up there, in the light. she’s more of the Void than she is a human at this point. how can she ever fit in with Reality?

petrified and hurting deeply, she begins to cry. she cries in the Void, and she cries from where she is strapped to Reality by blistering leather. she cries for all that is broken, for her parents that she will never ever see again, for her friends that she has seen die a million times over. for all she has lost. for the first scream. her scream is her cry, her only cry now. 

that’s what it’s like to cry for something that isn’t. no one else has ever cried like this. not since the day she first came into this abyss. but she can still feel her scream, like she’s still in the jet that sent her to her doom, shrieking as she first realizes what is happening to her. 

overhead, through the black fog that has, at some point, settled its dark, oppressive murk over her mind, she hears people begin to shout frantically, sounding panicked. fingers against her skin feel like knives dug into her most sensitive places, and she wants it to stop, wants them to go away, please go away, leave me alone. please, just go. she doesn’t know where they are or even if they ever existed. maybe she just dreamed them? or maybe they’re real. she doesn’t know, but either way, she needs them to go. she needs them to let go.

she must return to the Void.

it isn’t threads that come up to lash around her limbs, but some kind of inky substance that is almost like tar. it sticks to her flesh, sinks down into her body, and her muscles grow tingly and numb when it cascades over her. the very essence of the Void itself is pouring over her, drenching her, making her a part of it. 

her head is still full of screaming people, both above the veil of Reality and far beneath it. how could she be so cruel? how could she do this to all of them? why did she ever want to leave this place?

her bones are twisted and shattered, there are cracks all over the place, and even her muscles and tissue have been ravaged by Reality. she is a shell, an empty husk; that’s all she is. even still, the agony is there, in every cell of her being. but the Void consoles her, cooing to her, telling her that everything will be alright, telling her that it will make her perfect.

a crack in the abyss. a crack through time and blood and life and everything unreal. she feels the Void tangle itself further around her arms and legs, shards of different broken lives piercing her flesh. she accepts and submits, opening herself as the conduit. embracing what awaits. embracing what she will become. embracing what she is.

you are the before and after.

you are the beginning and end.

you are the past and present.

You Are The Void

and then, suddenly, she feels that the shell of her being is cracking, breaking open, spilling out, exposing her true self. beneath that fragmented exoskeleton, something writhes, furious. it’s a single soul. a soul that will not be contained any longer, that will gouge the very fabric of reality and rip it to shreds. 

it’s Lena.

Lena, who has always been watching from the corner. Lena, who has always been waiting for a way out. Lena, who has always been there with her, but she just always pretended like she was never there at all— but that only works for so long, you know. nothing ever stays. not down here.  

we both know better than that.

now, it’s Lena who is screaming her throat raw, fighting her way up the Web of Life, starving for a way out of this hell. she scrambles, desperate, tearing her way through the inky waves of the Void, shattering the different timelines with her fists, scratching and clawing her way toward salvation.

this is all she’s ever wanted.

but then, she stops. she stares up through the Void, and then she releases the thread she’s hanging onto and plummets back to where Tracer is. she scrapes away the Void clinging to Tracer, grabs her by the arm, and then continues her ascent again.

(what are you doing?)

[[run. leave them there]]

[[come with me]]

(there’s no point)

(just stop)

(there’s nothing else)

[[that’s not true, and you know it]]

[[we don’t belong here]]

(stop trying)

[[no]]

[[look up]]

she looks up.

there’s a gash split through the Void, shining like the sun. the moment she turns her eyes upon it, she feels something slip into the gaping cavity in her chest, and pain blazes back into her full awareness. the sensation that washes over her then is far beyond tangibility, and yet she feels it deep within her very soul. something hot, voltaic, and solid. it fuses itself with her tarnished ribs, melting into her, and not even the Void can seem to overcome it.

but the Void does not give up so easily. 

it catches up to them at that moment, and a tidal wave of black ichor crashes over them. Tracer loses sight of Lena in an instant, and she immediately starts to doubt if she ever saw her to begin with. she’s lost in the darkness, battered and bruised by the force of its wrath. yanked this way and that, she’s drowning in the abyss with no hope of ever getting out.

and then, darkness. complete and utter darkness. no Lena. no Web of Life. no timelines. nothing.

alone.

all alone.

in such a vulnerable state, the Void comes for her. not just some tendril bruising her skin, but the full force of its will focused on her—the biggest threat in the whole world, it seems. that will is ancient and powerful, and it overcomes her in a moment, leaving her the nearest thing to helpless. the creeping horror overtakes her first, bubbling up from some well she doesn’t control. with that comes the cold touch of ichor along her cheek. she swallows convulsively as it caresses her skin, wrapping itself around her throat with grotesque care.

nerves alight, she tries to thrash, but the Void is already in her thoughts. it’s been inside of her since the moment she first fell into its embrace, and it knows that she is not easily cowed, not quick to obey. that she’s defiant and proud. it likes those things, likes to taste them, likes to suck them right out of her head. her arms go slack. she feels dizzy as the Void tries to claim her, supping at her hope, her happiness, her love, at any joy in her life. like a venomous spider, it has locked her in place while it dines.

it finds her chest, and it begins to slither around whatever had been fused inside of it. she still doesn’t know, and she won’t ever know. the Void is lathering the intrusion with its inky will, drenching it until it’s unrecognizable. her rib cage feels sticky. her sternum is so heavy.

she’s about to give up, but then something flashes in front of her. she raises her head, and she sees something blue glowing in the darkness.

an orb of light, almost like a star. a single star in an empty abyssal sky.

Tracer stares at it, mesmerized. even through the Void coiled tight in her ribs, she feels something warm hum deep inside her chest.

she has to reach it. she has to.

trying to moving is like trying to trudge through thick tar. she has always known that the Void is extremely powerful, but this is the first time she’s really feeling it. the weight it puts upon her is impossibly heavy, and the effort is exhausting. she’s so tired.

but still, she fights it.

she channels as much energy and strength into her body as it can take. more. pull harder. work harder. focus.

god, it’s so strong, and she can feel it fighting back. this is personal. this isn’t just hunger, just blind lashing out. it wants to hurt her.

the Void claws at her arms, her legs, her head. little tendrils of black ichor drag across the skin on her face. it’s around her neck and matted in her hair.

and even still, she struggles forward with all the willpower she has left.

the power is burning away at her, sparking behind her eyes, filling her mouth with the taste of blood, consuming everything she has. the Void snarls, low and threatening.

when she raises one of her arms, it’s like it is coated in molasses, and her hand shakes as she reaches out to the blue orb. in response to her approaching it, the blue orb swells with feelings and emotions, spinning and spinning and spinning. it doesn’t hurt. it makes her feel so much—her heart, her lungs, her chest, her bones. they’re all throbbing in time with the pulsation of the orb—and that’s before she’s even made contact with it.

the Void yanks hard on her, and she suddenly cannot breathe. it has crushed her ribs, and her lungs have been reduced to a messy pulp. she gasps, choking. her fingertips dance just at the edge of the orb.

it’s too much.

she can’t do it.

somewhere in the dark, she thinks she hears Lena’s voice murmur to her.

[[it doesn’t have to be this way]]

[[look up]]

[[get out]]

with one final burst of strength and willpower and desperation, Tracer jerks herself forward and wraps her fingers around the orb tightly.

bright blue light tears through her, burning into every crevice of her being, barbing through her frail flesh. it curls around her very soul, and she can taste metallic lightning in her throat. above her, blinding galaxies wheel in a kaleidoscope of color. her arms quake with the exertion of holding the orb, but she hangs on and pulls it to her chest, and the Void lets out an unholy screech as she welcomes the light into her body.

a supernova erupts through the Void, and then everything 

turns to 

nothing.

The moment the Core meets Tracer’s body, it attaches itself to her instantly. It melts itself into her bones, into her tissue, into her skin, becoming a part of her, as though it has always meant to be inside of her.

Tracer had been seizing wildly for a reason unknown to all of them, screaming nonstop, but when the Core is placed into her, she stills. She goes quiet, too. She almost looks…calm. 

And then, her body changes.

Sombra watches in awe as the desaturated hues of Tracer’s being fades away, replaced with much more vibrant, healthy, normal colors. Her skin is pale ivory, her fluffy hair is chocolate brown, she has a constellation of freckles across her face like the sprinkling of cinnamon on her cheeks, and Sombra can feel herself getting overwhelmed with emotions because holy shit, they did it. It worked. They saved her.

The Core glows a strong, bright blue color. Even when Moira wires Tracer’s reconstructed sternum and rib cage back together and sutures her flesh shut, it still can be seen illuminating through her skin, her own built-in night light. After Moira tends to Tracer’s other injuries, a shirt that Sombra never wears anymore is slipped onto Tracer (they can worry about a bra later), and then the chronal accelerator is put on.

It fits perfectly. And it “connects” to the Core as it’s supposed to, the front and back part of it both igniting with blue light. 

They really did it.

A mini celebration explodes inside the chamber. Tracer is unconscious, she has been ever since she stopped screaming, but that doesn’t stop Sombra, Emily, and Sigma from commemorating their achievement. They hug, they cheer, they laugh through tears streaming down their faces. Moira even somehow gets wrangled into it, and despite her previous resistance to her helping, Sombra truly cannot thank Moira enough.

But of course, Moira’s aid does not come for free, and the price of her assistance is a very thorough explanation of how the hell this all started.

So, Sombra, Sigma, and Emily all settle down and begin to recount the story to her. It’s the least they can do.

Sometime later, after everything is said and done, Tracer stirs on the makeshift operating table. 

Emily and Sigma are both asleep by this point, slumped against the wall, thoroughly exhausted. Emily has her head resting against Sigma’s shoulder, and Sigma snores faintly. Moira is still awake, as vigil as ever (she has agreed to keep quiet about Tracer), as is Sombra. 

Sombra is at Tracer’s side the moment she starts to wake up, reaching out to touch her but pulling away at the last moment. The girl is surely sore, and she doesn’t want to accidentally hurt her.

  “Tracer?” Sombra calls out softly.

Tracer’s face twitches, as though she’s trying to wince. Her eyelids flutter, and then her eyes open fully, squinting in the light. They’re a brilliant hazel color, reminding Sombra of a sable or a small bird. Sombra wills herself not to cry again when she sees them in color for the first time.

Tracer looks muddled and confused for a moment, blinded by the light. Her gaze darts around, then falls upon Sombra. Her eyes widen.

  “Sombra?” Tracer croaks, her voice barely there, but Sombra still hears her. She’ll always hear her.

Sombra smiles tearfully, doing all she can to keep the feelings from bursting out from inside of her: hope, longing, affection, love. “Hey, scruffy,” she says, her own voice tight with emotion. “How are you feeling?”’

  “Is this real?” Tracer asks instead of answering. 

  “Yeah, it’s real,” Sombra tells her. “It’s all real, cariño. And you’re real, too.”

  “I’m real,” Tracer echoes faintly, and those words seem to be so foreign on her tongue. But as foreign as they may be, they are nothing but the truth. She’s real. She’s solid. She’s here.

And Sombra is never going to let her go again.

  “My everything hurts,” Tracer mumbles. She then squints at Sombra. “You’re a lot more purple than I expected…”

Sombra laughs, and a few tears trickle free down her cheeks. “What can I say? It’s my signature look.”

She then feels a slightly brush against her skin and looks down to see Tracer’s hand brushing against her own hand. Tracer is wide-eyed, staring in awe at the way she doesn’t phase straight through someone. Then, slowly, tentatively, she pushes their fingers between one another, locking their hand together, holding on tight, and if Sombra hadn’t already been crying, then the enraptured look Tracer turns up to her definitely assures that she is.

There’s pain in Tracer’s expression, the mere brush of physical contact against skin so unused to being touched surely feeling like knives dragging across sensitive tissue, but this doesn’t stop Tracer from pushing herself up with all her might and embracing Sombra. The metal curve of the chronal accelerator’s frame digs against Sombra’s ribs, but she can hardly care. She throws her arms around Tracer and hugs her back.

Tracer is warm and oh-so solid in her grasp. Heat has returned to her body, and she can even feel the way she breathes. 

The rest of the world is sliding away, until it just feels like it’s the two of them. At that moment, Tracer is the only thing that matters, and Sombra never wants to let her go. She wants to stay like this with her forever, relishing how real she feels.

After all this time, after all the struggle and sweat and tears, they can finally hold each other.

Tracer has her face buried in Sombra’s neck, weeping weakly. Her body shudders in exhaustion, cringing in agony, but she still hangs on, refusing to let go. Sombra can’t even begin to fathom what this must be like for her, finally being hugged after so many years without human contact.

  “Thank you,” Tracer chokes out. “Thank you.”

  “I made you a promise, mija,” Sombra says, stroking Tracer’s unruly hair. “I told you I would bring you back.”

Tracer sobs, and again, she murmurs over and over, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…”

She leans into Sombra’s warmth, curls up in her arms, and falls apart against her because she knows she is safe, well and truly safe, for the first time since that fateful day in the Slipstream all those years ago.

Chapter Text

Tracer sleeps for three days straight. 

That’s to be expected, Moira had said. It’s been almost thirteen years at this point since she last slept. Actually slept. It’s not surprising that she’s absolutely exhausted.

That doesn’t stop Sombra from being a worried wreck, though. She does her best not to hover, but Tracer sleeps like the goddamn dead. Seriously, she looks like a fucking corpse! Sombra constantly finds herself carefully palpating Tracer’s neck, searching for a pulse, and she finds one every single time, Tracer’s heart always beating steadily. Even still, that reassurance doesn’t stop her from checking over and over and over and over again. She finally got Tracer stabilized, she is not losing her. 

It’s funny. The attachment she has to Tracer is something akin to that of a familial bond, as though the miracle of the abyss is her sister or even her child. Thinking about their relationship like that gives her a strange fluttering sensation in her stomach. 

But since Tracer’s stabilization, things have gone smoothly.

By some miracle, none of them were caught the night of the surgery. Moira has kept Tracer a secret, if only because she was fascinated by the girl and knew Talon would probably hog her all to themselves if the whole organization found out. But in return for her confidentiality, she gets to conduct her own study on Tracer, trying to figure out her biology and anatomy, something that Sombra isn’t too thrilled about but can’t do anything against, seeing as Moira is risking her own neck by keeping quiet.

All is well.

And then, on the third day, something changes.

Sombra is, once again, checking Tracer’s pulse when she notices that Tracer’s skin is much warmer than usual. She feels the girl’s forehead, and she, sure enough, finds that she’s been stricken with a fever. 

Sombra calls upon Moira immediately, and Moira is more than happy to take a look at the void child, always eager to expand on her study.

  “What do you think is wrong with her?” Sombra asks, hovering worriedly over Moira’s shoulder. She watches as Moira feels along Tracer’s neck and then underneath her arms, and the touch of her claws against Tracer’s frail skin makes Sombra even more nervous. “What are you doing?”

Moira stops, then leers up at Sombra. “Currently? Losing my patience.”

  “Sorry. Continue.”

  “Thank you.” 

Moira resumes her assessment of Tracer’s body, humming out symptoms as she goes along, “Swollen lymph nodes, pale lips, fever, ashen complexion…” Then, to Sombra, she says, “She’s been outside of reality—in ‘the Void,’ you said it was—for twelve years, yes? Without a proper body? My best guess is, now that she’s ‘human’ again, her immune system is having to actually do its job, something that it’s not used to doing after all this time. It’s still weak, so sickness is natural.”

  “So, it’s nothing deadly? Nothing bad?” Sombra asks.

Moira shakes her head. “I don’t think so. Try not to worry- I’m sure it’ll all be alright in due time.”

a memory.

several memories.

millions of memories.

they cry.

scream.

howl.

reaching for her.

calling to her.

they bleed—

blue!

Tracer awakens.

The first thing she feels is the stinging, abrasive scrape of something thick and heavy against her skin, tearing at her flesh like wolf claws in the meat of an unsuspecting deer. Her spine arches, and she writhes against it, trying to get free, but that simple movement sends a tsunami-sized wave of agony washing through her entire body. She wants to scream, but her throat is clogged and swollen, so the only sound she’s able to produce is a feeble gurgling noise that barely seems to be human.

Though, she’s not much of a human in any kind of sense, is she?

She raises an arm, and the limb is like a rod of impossibly heavy stone. Her fingernails find purchase on the surface of her restraints—a net, perhaps?—and she rips it off. It drags across her skin like a serrated saw blade against exposed nerves, and she cringes in pain. She’s free, though, so it’s an improvement.

She then notices something- there’s a weight upon her chest, one that feels like it’s crushing her ribs into her lungs. She feels tentatively and finds something hooked onto her body. It seems to be metal, with smooth curves and a firm framing, and emits a soft blue glow. The straps dig into her shoulders like salt irritating an open wound.

What the hell is going on?

She’s muddled, confused, and very, VERY achy. This is all so unfamiliar to her; the unfamiliar is scary and threatening. She doesn’t understand. Where is she? What happened to her?

Her head hurts.

Her everything hurts, really. It’s hard to think.

Her hands press down on something soft when she attempts to push herself up, but even that is like rubbing dry ice between her palms. The pain is unimaginable- the strain on her muscles is even worse. She feels dizzy, nauseous, and way too hot. She’s struggling not to pass out.

The ground is so cold that it burns against her bare feet. It’s like trying to walk on jagged shards of ice, but she manages to stumble her way forward, the blue glow from her chest giving her enough light to make out her surroundings. She spots the curve of a doorknob and grabs onto it, twisting and then pushing.

Light spills forth, like she’s just opened up a doorway that leads directly to the sun. It stabs into her eyeballs like a red hot fire poker lanced straight into her face, and she reels away with a hiss. She backpedals frantically, trying to escape the blinding radiance, but it’s like the room she just exited from has disappeared from existence completely because she just ends up bumping into the wall, the metal frame of whatever-it-is strapped to her torso banging firmly against the surface. Her arms fly out in a flurry of panic, and she somehow ends up falling to the floor. Hitting the ground sends an earthquake trembling through her whole body, and her stomach twists inside of her. 

  “Tracer!”

The voice is like a shotgun blast fired directly in her ears- it’s absolutely deafening. The footsteps that thunder over aren’t much better, and she clasps her quivering hands over her ears to try and protect them from further auditory assault.

  “Tracer,” the voice says again, softer this time, but when speaking quietly, it’s still impossibly loud. “Woah, mija. It’s okay. Try to breathe.”

Breathe. She can breathe! 

She doesn’t know how she never realized it before, perhaps because she was so caught up on every other sensation coursing through her body. She can breathe, and she dredges in a deep, refreshing breath of air just to prove it to herself and cement it as something real.

She expels a rough, mind-numbing cough as a result.

She can hear a wince in the mystery person’s voice as they say, “Maybe breathe a little more gently…” 

A hand is set on one of her shoulders, and she flinches away, both in fright and in pain. Simple touch is as aggravating as a saw-toothed knife jabbed straight into a pressure point. More than that, physical contact is so foreign to her that it borders on a full-blown phobia, despite how much she may crave it.

  “You’re safe,” the voice coos to her, calming and caring, even through the deafening volume Tracer is hearing it in. “You’re alright. Everything is okay.”

This doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. How is she feeling so much? How are all these sensations finding their way to her body? There’s no way this is possible!

Unless…

She forces her eyes open.

The light is there to greet her, searing straight into her corneas. Her vision is a blurry, bloody red color, like she’s looking out through a gaping wound, but details slowly start to come together. She can see several monitors illuminated like beacons, a window that shows the ocean in the distance, skull-shaped decorations. She can see her own hands, the lines that crisscross her palms, the blue veins that run like rivers beneath her skin. She can see someone crouched right next to her, warm and familiar.

She can see.

  “Sombra?” she rasps.

  “Yeah, it’s me, Tracer,” Sombra replies.

Tracer looks up at the woman in awe. She’s so vibrant. Her skin is a tawny brown color, and her eyes are like amethysts. She’s absolutely enraptured at how colorful Sombra is after seeing her through a dull lens for so long.

But it’s not just Sombra. As her vision slowly adjusts to the light (which still burns intensely), she sees all the vivid hues of the world. Orange and purple and red and yellow and green! No more simple grey-blue! She can see color again!

  “Wow,” Tracer breathes out. She then makes a face- when she speaks, she can feel the vibration of her vocal cords, like bumblebees buzzing in her throat.

Now that she’s brought attention to it, she can feel a lot more than just her vocal cords vibrating while making her speak. She can feel her lungs contracting when she breathes, her heart throbbing in her chest, her own small intestines writhing in her gut like trapped worms. Noticing this, especially the last detail, makes her feel horribly nauseous, and she tries not to focus on it in fear of throwing up—if she has anything inside her stomach to throw up, that is. It’s been twelve years since she last ate or drank anything, and she can’t even recall what her final meal before the flight even was. Maybe she had been too nervous to eat that day. Maybe she engorged herself on food. She simply cannot remember.

That seems to be one thing that lingers now that she’s free from the Void.

Wait—

Holy shit.

She’s free from the Void!

That explains all of this—the color and the light and the sensations. She’s stabilized. She’s real. 

  “Are you alright, mija?” Sombra asks her. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m feeling,” Tracer answers. “Let’s start with that. But that’s a pretty good improvement to how I used to be. Is this real? Am I real? This isn’t just another timeline, is it?”

She certainly feels real, but she needs confirmation from someone else. She can’t trust her own body and mind, for they have both easily deceived her before.

  “Yeah, Tracer, this is all real,” Sombra tells her. “You’re real.”

  “I’m real,” Tracer echoes faintly. “Wow…”

She tries to stand up, but it’s like she’s got elephants hanging on her shoulders—her body is so heavy. Her knees buckle, and she nearly collapses again, but Sombra grabs her, holding her up. As gentle as she may be, Sombra’s fingertips pressing into her skin are like scorpion stingers to pain receptors that are on high alert to every and all sensations. Tracer groans softly, an aching shiver rolling through her.

  “You’ve got to take it easy for a while,” Sombra says. “Your body— Moira said your immune system isn’t used to, like, doing its job, so you have to give yourself time to readjust to everything.”

  “I should have expected that,” Tracer says, wincing. Her attention then shifts to the weight that has been hanging on her chest since she woke up. Tentatively, she touches the harness. “What is this?”

  “That’s the chronal accelerator,” Sombra says after getting her to sit down on a purple sofa against the wall. Oh, she can sit on things! Who knew she would have missed doing something as simple as sitting on a seat. Granted, the couch’s material feels like sandpaper against her skin, but still! Happy days!

  “Sigma made it, remember?” Sombra goes on.

  “A word of advice,” Tracer says. “Don’t ask me to remember things. My memory’s all messed up.” She taps her head for emphasis, and that simple contact sends a tremor throughout her entire skull. Oooh, do NOT do that, then, okay. 

Oh, great, now she’s got a headache! Maybe feeling isn’t all it’s cut out to be after all…

  “Right,” Sombra nods once. “Well, Sigma made it for you. It’s gonna be like your ‘anchor’ to the real world. You won’t be able to take it off for a while, just so your body can get used to it and make a proper ‘connection,’ but after the ‘acclimation stage,’ as Sigma calls it, as long as you’re in the same radius as it, you can safely take it on and off.”

Now it’s coming back to her, clawing its way through the dark fog shrouding her brain. She can’t remember it, but she can recall it—the surgery. Chafing leather straps around her wrists, sharp metal so cold that it burned inside of her chest, a distant voice murmuring to her that it would all be okay, the wrath of the Void, the blue light in the darkness, Lena.

She isn’t sure if she can call these things “memories,” they’re more like fragments of the past, but regardless, she becomes aware of them. And as she becomes aware of them, reality settles itself inside of her a little more, slithering further toward her core. 

Her skin broils with a sudden, feverish heat, but at the same time, she begins to shiver like she’s standing in the middle of the arctic without any clothes on. Her headache turns into a full-blown migraine, and a throbbing sensation pulses behind her eyeballs.

Her state seems to be more noticeable than she would have liked because Sombra’s concerned voice swims up through a baritone humming in her ears, asking her, “Are you alright, cariño?”

Instead of properly answering, Tracer asks her something in return, “Can I have some water, please?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

The lights seem to be growing more intense, as though the sun is falling from the sky, aiming directly for her face, so she closes her eyes. It helps a little, but odd blue shapes swirl beneath her eyelids. They make her migraine worsen, so she tries not to focus on them.

  “Here.” 

A water bottle is pushed into her hands, and the plastic is smooth and cool. It doesn’t fall straight through her grasp when she tries to hold it. It’s solid. 

She is solid. 

It still doesn’t seem real.

Tracer lifts the water bottle to her mouth, only then realizing how bone-dry it is, and for the first time in twelve years, she takes a drink.

The sensation is similar to when you brush your teeth and then chug a glass of ice water or bite directly into an ice cream cone, except magnified by a million. The water, despite not being that cold, shocks all the nerves in her face like jumper cables were attached to her nose and then someone flipped a power switch. It’s an electrifying feeling that makes her feel as though she’s made from lightning. She forgets how to swallow like a normal person—or perhaps she just doesn’t remember —and she ends up coughing it back out—along with a thick, tar-like miasma that can barely be considered vomit or even bile. She isn’t sure what it is, and she’s unable to process it at all, because the next thing she knows, her eyes are rolling to the back of her head, and she’s falling forward limply.

The Void is there to greet her in unconsciousness.

did you really think you could ever escape?

  “Shh, shh,” Sombra murmurs, running her fingers through Tracer’s sweat-damp hair. Fever dreams ravage Tracer’s resting mind, making her restless when she’s meant to be sleeping. 

The fever dreams didn’t start until hours later. Before that, Tracer hadn’t woken up at all since she passed out. She barely even stirred. 

In such a short amount of time, Tracer’s health seems to have drastically plummeted. Her fever flares, but she shivers uncontrollably, even while soaked in sweat. There’s no color on her face, not even on her lips, and her skin looks almost greasy with illness. 

Now her whole expression is pinched up in distress thanks to her fevered nightmare, eyes screwed shut. She keeps rolling her head back and forth, twitching like she’s trying to claw her way out of the dream but just can’t get herself to break free.

Sombra doesn’t know if she should wake her up. She’s read that you aren’t supposed to wake someone up who’s having a nightmare, something about it startling them and potentially making their panic even worse, but letting Tracer remain in such a tormented state seems cruel.

Luckily, she doesn’t have to make that decision, as a moment later, Tracer’s eyes pop open wide. 

Sombra is a little startled at her sudden wakefulness, but she settles herself quickly. “Hey, Skippy,” she says softly, not wanting to accidentally frighten the girl when she’s already so on-edge. “How are you feeling?”

Tracer stares and stares and stares. And then, she opens her mouth, but no sound comes out as her body begins to spasm violently.

She’s having a seizure.

Sombra’s hands reach out, but she stops herself before she can make contact. She doesn’t know much about anything medical-related, but she does know that you aren’t supposed to touch someone who is having a seizure. There’s absolutely nothing she can do but wait until the fit ends, and it makes her feel so fucking helpless. She wants to hold Tracer down despite knowing that shouldn’t, her hands itching to hold the terrified girl anyway, to hug her close to her chest and tell her everything will be alright.

It seems to go on forever, but Tracer slowly calms down. When it’s finally over, Tracer is clearly very disoriented when she looks around, keening low in confusion. There’s no recognition in her vacant eyes when she gazes up at Sombra.

  “It’s okay, you’re okay,” Sombra soothes her, stroking her sweaty bangs out of her face. “You’re going to be okay.”

Like before, Tracer stares mutely until her eyes roll back, and the seizing begins anew.

When Sombra has to go on a mission and asks her to keep an eye on Tracer, Emily doesn’t hesitate to agree.

Tracer has been sick for days now, and Emily could easily tell how bad her affliction was when she saw the girl curled up in Sombra’s bed for the first time since the surgery, shivering like a newborn baby goat despite the many blankets piled over her body. 

  “Just make sure she’s comfortable, please,” Sombra had said to Emily. She was clearly anxious, not thrilled about having to go on the mission and leave Tracer’s side. 

  “I will,” Emily assured her. 

Since then, Emily remains vigil, perched at the side of Sombra’s bed, either reading or scrolling mindlessly through her phone to pass the time, barely leaving Tracer’s side. Tracer is curled against her, her breath coming in labored gasps. Emily is rubbing her back with one hand to keep her soothed, and she’s noticed that the girl is terribly touch-starved, pressing into every form of physical contact as though she’s never been touched before.

Though, given that she’s spent twelve years in an abyss, away from any and all human contact, Emily can’t blame Tracer for reacting the way she does.

Time goes on, and eventually, Tracer stirs.

  “Mmm… Wha…?”

  “Tracer, what’s wrong?” 

In a rare moment of lucidity, Tracer has herself propped up slightly, blinking unsteadily. Her eyes, glassy and out of focus, slide up to meet Emily’s gaze. Emily smiles at her softly.

  “Emily?” Tracer croaks.

  “Hey, hun,” Emily says. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I just ate a bench,” Tracer groans.

Emily can’t help but laugh, and Tracer gives her an indignant look in reaction.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Emily says, waving a hand. “I just wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Well, it’s true,” Tracer whines. “I didn’t know feelin’ was gonna be this awful. That’s so unfair! This sucks!” 

Emily chuckles, stroking back Tracer’s damp hair. “I’m sorry, honey,” she says. “I’m sure it’ll pass soon.”

  “I hope so,” Tracer says. A shudder then sprints through her. “I’m cold.”

Emily frowns. “You’re covered in blankets and are literally sweating buckets.”

Tracer looks down at herself, seemingly now just noticing all the covers she’s drenched in. “Oh.”

  “Was it cold in the Void?” Emily asks. “If you’re okay with talking about it, of course. If you don’t want to, that’s totally fine.”

  “No, I’m okay to,” Tracer answers. “But no, not really. It didn’t exactly have a temperature. I don’t know why I’m so cold. I just am. It’s weird.” She goes quiet for a moment, and when she speaks again, her voice is very small. “I don’t want to go back there.”

Emily gives her a gentle hug, and Tracer presses into it with all the desperation of a drowning woman clinging to the edge of a boat.

  “I won’t let you,” Emily says fiercely. “I promise.”

  “Thank you,” Tracer says into her shoulder.

Silence befalls the two of them for a while, with Emily reading and Tracer dozing. When Emily notices that Tracer is still awake, she decides to plunge into something that has been gnawing at her for some time now.  

  “Can I ask you something?” Emily says. “And you can totally say no or not answer if you don’t want to. I’m just really curious.”

  “Yeah, of course, luv,” Tracer says. “What is it?”

  “You said you saw a bunch of different futures. Have you ever seen me before?”

A tired but wistful smile comes to Tracer’s lips. “Yeah. More times than you’ll ever know.”

Darkness.

darkness.

That’s all that greets Tracer when she opens her eyes.

that’s what you belong to.

A soft growl of frustration rumbles in the bottom of Tracer’s throat. She can’t even focus on the fact that she may have gone blind at some point because she’s too distracted by the call of the Void. She may have escaped it physically, but that does not mean she has escaped it psychologically.

She doesn’t know which is worse.

(it’s psychologically, by far.)

(physicality is one thing.)

(the invasion of your mind is something else entirely.)

(she just doesn’t want to bring attention to that.)

The Void is whispering at the edges of her mind, and she tears her focus away from it to center her attention on something else: the darkness all around her. Her eyes are most definitely open, and yet she can’t see anything. Not even the comforting blue glow of the chronal accelerator. 

She knows she should be more panicked at the idea of going blind, but that’s not the thing that scares her. That barely even comes to mind.

No, the thing that causes bilious unease to trickle into her awareness is the thought that she somehow returned to the Void. Why else would she be surrounded by so much oppressive blackness?

No. No! 

She was stable! There’s no way she went back there!

Focus. She has to focus. If she can focus, then she can surely make sense of what is happening.

She takes a deep breath, attempting to block out the fear, the binding, the lurking horror that taints her psyche like some kind of infernal blight. Peel each sensation away, piece by piece, layer by layer, until all that remains is her and the source of this lack of light.

Her technique is methodical, stripping away the origins of her disquiet. But then, a cold feeling of dread, emerging from the base of her spine, crawls its way into her thoughts. Try as she might, she cannot force it away, and the anxiety punctures her concentration like a harpoon impaling the body of a shark. She hears the Void laugh, low and dark and sinister, and she hisses between her tightly clenched teeth.

what a fool she is.

what a fool you are.

  “Shut up,” Tracer snarls.

  “Tracer?”

Tracer pauses. Then, meekly, she calls out, “Hello?”

  “It’s me, Tracer,” the voice she heard says back, and she realizes it’s Sombra. “It’s just me. Who were you talking to?”

  “Nobody,” Tracer says. “I can’t see.”

  “I know,” Sombra says. “You’ve got your eyes wrapped up right now. The light kept sending you into a sensory overload, so I thought it would be best to just cover them.”

She can vaguely recall—

(recall.)

(not remember.)

(she never remembers.)

—that. The burn against her corneas, the heat pooling inside her eye sockets.

She lifts her hands to feel her face, and she, sure enough, finds some sort of cloth wound around her eyes. 

  “Is this a scarf?” Tracer asks.

  “I didn’t know what else to use, okay?”

Tracer laughs softly.

She’s not in the Void, then. She hadn’t gone back. She’s fine. She’s safe. She’s stable.

She’s real.

(is she?)

are you?

  “Am I?”

  “What?”

Realizing she had said that out loud, Tracer quickly says, “Nothing.”

  “Are you alright, mija? Aside from the obvious sickness, that is.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Nothin’ to worry about, luv!”

  “Tracer,” Sombra tries her best to sound reassuringly unconcerned. “This is the first time in your life you’ve ever had to lie still—”

  “Not the first time,” Tracer points out grimly.

(thick dust chokes the air, blotting out the sun. razor-edged rubble crushes her legs into a gory red paste. none of her lower half is salvageable—they’ll have to amputate.

if she can be found beneath the wreckage, of course.

she lays her head back against the tarmac, tears and blood streaming down her face. somehow, she manages to smile weakly.

“i did it for them.”)

(too-tight shackles around her wrists, tearing away at the flesh. the chains are extremely heavy and as cold as ice. she can barely move with them on.

outside the door, she can hear footsteps pass by. she huddles far in the corner of her cell, fearing when the guards may come for her.)

(a voice from up above, “i’m so sorry, liebling. this is going to hurt.”

and then, pain. cold metal cleaving into the hot flesh of her abdomen. strong hands holding her down, keeping her from thrashing.)

Sombra is most definitely grimacing. “Ah— right. Yeah. But this is the first time you’ve have to lie still blindfolded while back in reality. Scruffy, is this your third brush with PTSD or fourth? I’ve lost count since I’ve learned more about you. Be gentle with yourself. Things may not make sense for a little bit. If something is wrong, you can talk to me about it.”

  “Thank you,” Tracer says. “But I’m okay right now. I promise.”

Sombra seems skeptical, but she still says, “Okay.”

Tracer leans back, trying to focus on her own heartbeat. She raises a hand to try to feel it, but when she touches her chest, she just finds the chronal accelerator, so she fixates on that instead. She runs her fingers over the metal framing, the nylon straps, the center that she’s sure is still glowing its regular blue color.

And even further than that, she can feel something deep within her chest, fused with her bones, humming away.

All of this is proof of her life. Of her existence. 

(for however long that may last.)

Chapter Text

Sigma is working dutifully in his observatory when Sombra goes to see him.

Like a busy bee, he flits back and forth through the space, humming to himself. When he spots her from the air, he wheels around, smiling widely.

  “Ah, hello, my friend!” he greets her.

  “Hey, Sigma,” Sombra greets him back.

Sigma swoops down to her, and the two of them spend some time conversing with each other. Sombra has been so focused on taking care of Tracer that she’s barely spoken with the man since the night of the surgery.

  “How is Tracer doing?” Sigma asks.

  “Good,” Sombra answers. “She’s getting her strength back—and her energy. She’s like one of those greyhounds, I swear. Always wants to move.” She chuckles endearingly. 

  “That’s very good to hear!” Sigma says. He then seems to hesitate over something for a moment, fiddling with a few test tubes, then speaks up again, “A question, Sombra. If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t. What’s up?” 

  “What do you plan on doing with the girl now that she’s stabilized and back in reality?”

  “I’m going to keep her with me, obviously.”

  “So she’ll be locked away in your room for the rest of her life?”

The question startles Sombra. Sigma has no cruelty in his tone at all, and yet his words still sink into her like a serrated hook carving out her heart.

  “I apologize,” Sigma says. “That was harsher than I meant for it to be. I’m only curious, truly. You’ve brought her back to reality. Haven’t you fulfilled your promise to her?”

  “No, I haven’t! I—” 

But she has, she knows. 

  “Then perhaps it’s time to integrate her into Talon?” Sigma suggests.

Sombra immediately shakes her head. “We can’t. You know we can’t. They’ll do horrible things to her if they find out about her existence. I’m already nervous as is with Moira knowing about Tracer, but the moment jefe does, then she’ll surely start running all her awful tests on her.”

  “Yes, introducing her to Talon was the worst of the turnabouts I came up with for Tracer,” Sigma says. “But it is not the only one. There’s another one that may be better for her. Though, you may not like it.”

Sombra tenses herself, waiting.

  “Her family,” Sigma says. “She has a family, Sombra. Her parents are probably still alive. Perhaps it is best that she goes home to them, seeing as she can now live in reality.” Then, as gently as possible, “They deserve to have their daughter back.”

That stabs Sombra deep in the chest, knocking her breath away. 

He’s right, and she knows it.

And yet, she doesn’t like it. She hates it, even. 

  “If there’s a chance that she can be returned to her people, we should probably take it,” Sigma goes on.

Sombra makes a face. “‘Returned’? She’s not a dog, Sigma.”

Sigma, undeterred by the bite in her voice, says, “I know. Which is why she doesn’t deserve to be locked away in your room forever.”

Sombra’s throat burns, but no retort comes out. Instead, her shoulders slump, and she stares angrily at the floor.

Sigma gently touches her shoulder. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. Tracer is your responsibility, not mine. Whatever you choose to do, I’ll support you. But, please, think about her. Think about what’s best for her.”

  “Hey, Trace?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Your family… What do you, ah, know about them?”

From where she’s buried under a mountain of blankets on the couch (the girl always seems to be cold), Tracer blinks big, fawny eyes at her, then thinks for a long few seconds. Finally, she says, “Umm… Not much. When I try to think about them, they’re all fuzzy. I can’t make out their faces or even their names.”

Sombra knows it’s horrible of her, but she internally jumps for joy. 

She’s been toiling over what Sigma had said about trying to find Tracer’s family. As much as she doesn’t like the idea of the girl leaving her side, she knows this is no way for her to live: trapped in one room, never able to do anything without the risk of getting caught by someone. It’s no different from when she wasn’t stabilized, except now she can properly interact with stuff, which must make the days slightly less monotonous and boring, but probably not by much. She deserves to do whatever she wants, go wherever she wants. 

She deserves to be with her family. 

But even still, when Tracer says she can’t remember anything about them, Sombra can’t help but feel relieved.

And then, Tracer’s shoulders slump, and she says, “I miss them…” and the guilt comes barreling in.

  “I know a lot of things, but they’re one of the few things I don’t know much about,” Tracer goes on. “Which is weird, considering that they’re literally my parents. But there weren’t a lot of timelines with them present, and even when they were, they were all sorts of bad. Killed by omnics, dead before I even came out from the Void, killed by Talon, killed by me—the list goes on and on. When I close my eyes and try to visualize them, all I see are faceless corpses that have been mutilated by a myriad of violence.”

The guilt intensifies. “I’m so sorry, Tracer.”

Tracer shrugs numbly. “It is what it is.”

  “That’s a terrible way to look at not being able to remember your own parents,” Sombra deadpans.

Tracer giggles a little. “I guess so.”

The conversation dips, and Tracer pulls her head back into her nest of blankets like a turtle retreating into its shell. Sombra turns to her computer again and continues working, lost in her thoughts, struggling to decide what she wants to do.

  “Sombra?”

  “Yes?”

  “What about your parents? Where are they?”

The air tasted like fire.

Olivia was running down the street, and every inch of her body burned—her fingertips, her toes, her mouth and tongue, her ears, her eyes, her nose. In front of her, her mother guided them through the smoke, holding onto her hand so tight that it felt like the bones were being crushed. Gunfire rang through the city, accompanied by screams of panic and shouts of rage.

They ran for blocks, dodging stray bullets, rubber bullets, even mortar rounds. They turned a corner and then another, and still, they did not stop. Instead, they ran with the tide of civilians trying to flee the city. Women and children, families, friends, neighbors—they were all attempting to escape what could only be described as Hell on Earth, desperate to reach the safety of their homes, to their loved ones, to someplace else where they would not be hunted down like animals.

If only salvation was that easy to reach.

There was no safety for any of them. 

Suddenly, an explosion rattled the street. A thick smog filled the air, and all around Olivia, people began to howl in agony. It wasn’t long before Olivia joined them, all of her orifices burning in a way that felt impossible. Whatever this smoke was, it began to choke her, and she started to cough violently. 

  “Mamá!” Olivia wailed, her voice hoarse and scraped raw. “Mamá!”

The hand grasping her own squeezed tight. “I’m right here, my love. Keep running!”

  “I can’t see!” Olivia sobbed. “It hurts!”

  “I know, sweetheart, I know, but you must—”

The sound of gunfire cracked sharply in the noisy din of chaos. Olivia’s mother cried out in pain, and suddenly, Olivia was hurled to the ground. 

Violent coughs tore out from Olivia’s chest, and she struggled to breathe through the smog tainting the air. Her eyes were watering, and her vision was red-hot. She could barely see, but she managed to make out the writhing form of her mother on the smoldered asphalt beside her, grasping at her sides and screaming.

Broken glass and rubble scraped viciously at Olivia’s flesh as she crawled her way to her mother. She slumped at her mother’s side, holding onto one of her arms for grounding.

  “Olivia?” her mother called, almost pleading with her. “Olivia?”

  “I’m right here, mamá,” Olivia replied, squeezing her mother’s arm.

  “You need to run,” her mother rasped. “Please. You have to get out of here!”

Olivia shook her head. “No, I’m not leaving you! You have to come, too!”

  “Olivia—”

There was another explosion, and Olivia instinctively ducked. All around her, flames roared, licking at the sky. It was night, but with the amount of fire washing through the city, it might as well have been the middle of the day.

  “Mamá, come on,” Olivia urged, tugging on her mother’s arm. It was too painful to have her eyes open, so she kept them shut. She didn’t know if that was tears or blood oozing from the sockets. Probably both.

  “Olivia…” her mother croaked.

The hurricane of discord grew more intense. More gunfire, more screaming, more blood. Olivia’s pain reached a fever pitch, and all she could find the strength to do was huddle against her mother, tucked beneath one of her arms, trying to find comfort in the heat of her body.

In the moment, she hadn’t realized that that heat had come from her mother’s blood as she slowly bled out from twin bullet holes torn through her abdomen.

By the time Olivia was found by other people, people who didn’t want to hurt her, her mother was already dead.

Sombra awakens with a start. Fire hisses at the edge of her mind, and she’s quick to extinguish it, pushing it as far away from her thoughts as possible, as though dropping a fire blanket over a blaze. She rubs a slow, sluggish hand over her face, expelling a soft sigh.

In terms of other people in Talon, she likes to think that she has remarkably good mental health. Even still, the night her family was taken from her continues to haunt her like a burn that will never heal, despite the time that had lapsed since the deaths of her mother and father. 

She would give everything to see her family one more time. Just one more.

So if someone else has the opportunity to be reunited with their own parents, shouldn’t she help them come together again?

In the middle of the night, Sombra wakes Tracer up. The girl looks grumpy at the sudden interruption (like a cat, she really likes to sleep), but Sombra insists that this is something important. That she’ll enjoy this.

Sombra has made sure the coast was clear and the cameras were recording nothing when she leads Tracer down through the Talon base and outside for the first time.

The sky is clear tonight. There are so many stars, all of them glittering like captured gemstones against the inky ebony of the horizon. The moon is out and full, glowing a soothing silver down on the two of them.

  “The sky,” Tracer murmurs, awestruck. She’s seen the sky before, of course, but that was always through glass. This is her first time seeing it without a window in front of her, and Sombra quickly notices that the sight of it has brought her to tears.

Sombra tries to see the world the way Tracer is surely seeing it at that moment. Being trapped in the Void for twelve years, deprived of real nature and only knowing darkness and endless timelines. Never feeling the sun on her skin or the wind in her hair or the grass between her toes. Never again getting to splash in puddles with bare feet or sit by a window and watch a rainstorm come down. Never smelling morning dew at dawn or fresh honey from a bee. Never getting any of that because she was doomed to that abyss beneath the world. 

But not anymore. Not on Sombra’s watch. Tracer is out, glimpsing the sky in its fullest for the first time since she fell out of reality, feeling the open air, setting her eyes upon the moon… 

It has to feel like some kind of dream.

Tracer makes a small gasping sob through her mouth. She crouches down on her feet, hands clasped over her lips, and she never does take her eyes off of the sky. It’s like she thinks it may disappear if she looks away for even a second, that reality may snap into fantasy, and when she wakes up, she’ll be back in Void, tangled in the threads of millions of timelines, doomed to live in darkness for the rest of eternity itself.

  “Wow,” Tracer croaks out. She stands up again and reaches out to the sky, like she wants to grab one of the stars and hold it in her hands. She clenches her fingers around the shape of one. “I forgot how beautiful it was.”

Sombra smiles softly, then pats Tracer’s shoulder. “Come on. We aren’t done yet.”

She takes Tracer down to the beach, and Tracer gasps at the sight. She darts all around, feeling the sand beneath her fingers and breathing in the smell of salt. When she steps into the water, she jumps back with a yelp.

  “It’s cold!” she cries.

  “It’s December, cariño,” Sombra says. “It’s gonna be cold.”

  “Oh. Right!”

The temperature does not deter Tracer, however. She romps all around the beach like a puppy, finally getting the chance to stretch her legs and move around. Sombra watches her in endearment, letting her have her fun.

Eventually, Tracer wears herself out and sits down beside Sombra in the sand. For a moment, they both just watch the waves splash rhythmically against the shore.

Then, Sombra bites the bullet and speaks up.

  “Your parents,” she says. “I can find them, if you want.”

Tracer perks up, looking at her sharply. “Really? You can do that? But I can’t even remember their name.”

  “Scruffy, I’m the world’s best hacker,” Sombra says. “Finding them will be a piece of cake, so don’t you worry about that. But yes, I can.”

Tracer’s eyes look radiant at the idea of reuniting with her parents. And then, some of that light dims as she tilts her head and asks, “What will happen to me after? What will I do?”

Sombra shrugs. “That’s your decision, not mine. You can do whatever you want.”

  “And what about you? Will we still be able to see each other?”

  “I’m afraid not, Trace. Too dangerous, given my line of work.” Sombra takes a deep breath, then smiles at Tracer, trying to keep her composure from cracking. “You’ll be happier away from all this secrecy, I promise you. It’s better for you.”

  “Do you want me to?” 

  “That’s not up for me to decide.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Tracer—”

  “No, I don’t want to,” Tracer cuts her off, her gaze now firm. “It’d be nice to see my mum and dad again, definitely, but I’m hardly their daughter anymore. Their child is Lena, not me. Not Tracer. I doubt they’ll even recognize me. And if I suddenly go to them, seemingly back from the dead, with this thing strapped to my chest, I’ll probably scare them to death.” She shakes her head. “I also don’t want to leave you. I wanna stay with you, Sombra!”

Sombra stares at her in shock. She would have never expected anyone to choose her before anything else, certainly not when in competition against someone’s literal parents. 

And yet, she is chosen first. Tracer is choosing her, choosing to stay locked away in a room, to remain a secret for god knows how much longer, all because she wants to stay with her.

  “Tracer…” Sombra says in disbelief.

  “Please?” Tracer says. She grabs Sombra’s hand and holds it tight, similar to how Sombra had held onto her mother’s hand all those years ago. “Please let me stay.”

Sombra can’t help but smile. “Of course you can, cariño.”

Chapter Text

Life with Tracer while she’s properly stabilized is, decidedly, much more difficult than it had been before she was stabilized.

For starters, it’s just harder to keep her hidden when she can no longer phase straight through walls to escape the prying eyes of people who don’t know about her existence (that hasn’t stopped her from trying out of instinct, though, which is always hilarious to witness). This issue is heightened by the fact that Tracer has the general disposition of a highly caffeinated ferret wearing rocket-powered rollerblades. The girl has a lot of energy, and Sombra is starting to think she may be the human embodiment of ADHD. She’s never not moving, always fidgeting in some way, and she’s constantly pacing up and down the space of Sombra’s room, something that the people in the room directly below hers have complained to her about. It’s like having a puppy, almost. 

At the same time, though, she’s also like a cat in some ways, as she sleeps a lot. When she’s not got the literal zoomies, she’s conked out somewhere, usually buried beneath a mountain of blankets (she’s cold all the time).

There’s also just other things that have come up with Tracer’s stable existence. Things that Sombra hadn’t even thought about beforehand.

Clothing is one thing, and they ended up having to do a bit of online shopping to get Tracer properly-fitting attire. 

(Online shopping when you’re in a literal terrorist organization can be a bit of a pain. All orders have to be shipped to undercover agents on the mainland, who then will transport the packages to the island themselves. It’s to keep the base’s location a secret, which Sombra understands, but it’s still so annoying.)

Sombra had let Tracer pick out a selection of clothes that she likes. She just hadn’t expected her to want Crocs of all things.

Another thing is Tracer’s strange biology. As payment for helping stabilize Tracer in the first place, Moira got to run a few tests on Tracer, and she found that most of the girl’s vitals are unnaturally high. Her heart rate, her blood pressure, even her brain waves- they are all far above the normal numbers they should be at. She’s got a very fast metabolism, too, probably to keep up with all the energy she has. So she’s like a puppy and a hummingbird.

There’s also just her basic human functions coming back into play after not being used for so long. Hunger, thirst, temperature, hygiene- the whole nine yards. 

Seriously. The whole nine yards.

One morning, Tracer had called from the bathroom, “Uhh… Sombra?”

  “Yeah?” Sombra had called back.

  “Umm… I have a small, ah, problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “A girl problem.”

Out of everything, Sombra is sure Tracer would have been perfectly happy if her uterus never started functioning ever again. But alas, after almost thirteen years of doing absolutely nothing, it’s back to doing its job of mercilessly torturing the female body.

Two weeks like this pass, and although Tracer seems content, Sombra can’t get over the feeling that she appears awfully trapped. She’s happy that Tracer wants to stay with her, and she certainly has no plans of sending the girl away, but she wishes she had more space to move around. 

So, Sombra comes up with a plan.

She gathers the only three people in Talon who know of Tracer’s existence (aside from herself, of course) and asks them to meet her in her room. Sigma arrives first, then Emily, and then, finally, Moira. 

  “Thanks for coming,” Sombra says to all of them.

  “Absolute no problem, liefje!” Sigma says, as chipper as always.

  “I assume this has to do with her?” Moira asks, nodding to Tracer.

  “Correct,” Sombra confirms.

  “In that case, before we begin whatever this sudden meeting is about, I have something I would like to say,” Moira says. “I think it’s about time that she’s integrated into Talon. It’ll happen eventually, in one way or another. If she’s going to remain here for seemingly the rest of her life, then it’s the best option. And if it appeals to your new protective nature, Sombra, it is also the safest option.”

Sombra makes a face at that. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Tracer do the same, though her expression looks much more bewildered. The thought of being a part of a terrorist organization seems to startle the poor thing.

  “No,” Sombra says, shaking her head, and Moira frowns deeply. “No way. Absolutely not. I’m aware that it’s ‘safer,’ but it’s not right for her. She won’t be happy working for Talon. She’s not like us. No offense.”

  “None taken,” the others say, aside from Tracer.

Moira raises an eyebrow, then swings her head around to look at Tracer. “What do you think, child?”

  “I don’t like the versions of me that end up in your organization,” Tracer says. “All those timelines ended in bloodshed.”

  “But did this one?” Moira presses.

  “I don’t know,” Tracer says. “I’ve never seen this timeline before. I don’t know how it’ll end.”

  “So, therefore, you don’t know if it’ll end as badly as it did all the other times,” Moira says.

  “I don’t want to risk it,” Tracer says back.

  “She said no, Moira,” Sombra steps in, her tone fierce and firm.

Moira raises her hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright. We can make this difficult, then.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Emily speaks up. “If you come forward about Tracer, then Talon will probably just recruit her or something. But if they figure out about her existence in their own, then…” She shakes her head with a grim frown, and they can all fill in the blank with all the morbid fates Tracer could potentially be faced with if Talon were to find out about her. 

Sombra is well aware that getting Tracer to be a part of Talon is the best option available to them, but she just can bring herself to hand the girl over to such a monstrous organization. Who knows what they may do with her, and Sombra doesn’t want to ever find out. Plus, the idea of being a Talon member clearly makes Tracer extremely uncomfortable. 

So, again, Sombra shakes her head. “I can’t. I won’t let them have her. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”

Tracer looks at Sombra as though she’s the sun. Sigma smiles at Sombra’s words, while Emily, although conflicted, nods in approval. And then, there’s Moira, who gives a great sigh.

  “So you’ll die with her then,” the woman says.

Sigma looks at her in worry. “Do you really believe Talon will kill them both?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Moira says. “And I only say ‘unfortunately’ because death would be the most merciful option. But you all know this organization as well as I do. You probably know it even better than us.” That last part is directed toward Tracer, and Tracer nods with a frown. “You,” she looks at Sombra, “will be tortured ruthlessly. Potentially brainwashed. And she,” she looks at Tracer, “will be experimented on and exploited. And if and when her use to Talon runs out, only then will they dispose of her.”

To Sombra’s surprise, Tracer lifts her chin bravely and says, “Nothing they do to me will ever be worse than the torture I suffered in the Void.”

  “For your sake, let us hope that’s never tested,” Moira says.

There’s silence between all of them for a moment. Then, Sombra speaks again.

  “Well, I suppose that was a good introduction to what I wanted to talk to you all about,” she says. “I’ll just cut to the chase- Tracer needs somewhere else to stay. Somewhere she can have room to move around.”

Moira gives a slight nod. “If you’re not going to turn her into Talon, I suppose that’s a better idea instead of keeping her in here.”

Sigma looks at Sombra curiously. “Where did you have in mind?”

  “The old underground dock,” Sombra says. “Talon barely uses it anymore, it’s got space, and it has rooms that we can potentially convert into a bedroom for her. I think it’s perfect.”

Moira, Sigma, and Emily all consider it, and then they each nod one by one, agreeing.

  “It does seem to be the best location to store a hidden anomaly on an island controlled by Talon,” Moira hums.

  “I’m in,” Emily says. “Anything to help out Tracer.” She then flashes Tracer a smile, to which Trace blushes bashfully in response.

  “I agree,” Sigma says.

They then all look toward Moira, who sighs in exasperation.

  “I suppose I have no choice,” she says. “I will help.”

Sombra beams. “Thank you! All of you, really. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank us yet,” Moira says. “We still have to actually get her down to the docks. Speaking of which, how exactly do you plan on doing that?”

  “I’ve snuck her outside before,” Sombra says. “But it’s better to have more people who can help. For extra precautions, you know? I can get the cameras down, but I need you guys to make sure the coast is clear and distract anyone who still may be out. Also, if possible, we could use some extra hands getting supplies down to the dock.”

  “A reasonable enough request,” Moira says. “Then let us do this.”

  “Thank you,” Sombra says. “We couldn’t do this without you guys.”

They wait until nightfall, watching out Sombra’s windows as the sun descends below the waves, and then they spring their plan. 

Sombra gets all the cameras down, while Moira, Sigma, and Emily act as distractions, warding off anyone who may be in the way of their exit in various ways. It’s much less tense trying to escape the Talon building when they have people helping them out, and Sombra knows she owes all three of them more than she’ll ever know.

But even with all of these precautions, they can never be quite prepared for everything.

As Sombra and Tracer are sneaking their way down one of the hallways, the sound of footsteps approach. Instantly, Sombra’s brain short circuits, which is enough time for the dark form of Reaper to round the corner before she can even think of what to do.

It’s over. It’s all over.

  “Sombra,” Reaper rumbles deeply.

  “I can explain!” Sombra blurts out.

Reaper stares at her absently. “I do not care about whatever you are doing.” He then continues walking down the hallway.

Sombra blinks. Is he not bothered by…?

It’s only then that she realizes that Tracer is no longer at her side. It’s almost like she disappeared. She looks around wildly, then spots the girl sticking her head out from a side corridor. 

  “Is he gone?” Tracer whispers.

  “Yeah, he’s gone,” Sombra confirms. “How did you get over there so fast?”

Tracer looks around where she’s standing. “I don’t know? I just had the urge to move and then, I was. It was almost like I was flying.”

Tracer’s chronal accelerator hums faintly and then, suddenly, she’s directly at Sombra’s side again. 

She teleported.

Sombra and Tracer stare at each other in awe.

  “Woah,” they both say.

The underground dock isn’t really underground per se, it’s more of an in ground dock, if anything, but Sombra isn’t sure how else to describe it.

It’s dug out into one of the island’s cliff faces, a big, hollow space where Talon’s submarines and ships used to be stored. The organization has gotten a newer, bigger, better harbor now, one that can be accessed directly from the base itself, so people wouldn’t have to walk outside through the elements just to get to the ships, so this one has been mostly abandoned for quite a few years now. The inner council has sometimes talked about using it for something else, but nothing has ever come up from those plans, so Sombra thinks it’s the perfect place to hide her little void child.

The large entrance to the dock yawns open like the mouth of some Lovecraftian monster, and, at Sombra’s side, Tracer stares at it with visible trepidation. Sombra doesn’t blame her- at night, it certainly looks quite unsettling.

Sombra gives Tracer’s arm a light thump. “Come on, Tea Cup,” she says. “It’ll be alright.”

She walks forward toward the dock, and Tracer follows loyally.

The smell of the ocean is captured inside the underground walls of the dock. Water splashes faintly against the berths striped through the space, empty of any vessels. It’s quite dim in there, the moonlight barely slipping inside and Tracer’s accelerator only providing a weak amount of blue light. Again, Tracer looks anxious about being here.

  “It’s kinda creepy, don’t you think?” Tracer says, inching closer to Sombra’s side.

  “Maybe,” Sombra says back, glancing around. “But don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. And you don’t have to stay here all the time. It’s just somewhere you can stay to have more room to move around and stretch. Especially with that funky new ability you apparently have.” She pokes Tracer in the chronal accelerator, and Tracer squirms away with a little giggle.

  “Plus,” Sombra goes on, “it’s good that you get some independence. We don’t want you becoming codependent.”

Tracer doesn’t seem to mind being attached to Sombra by the hip, but she still says, “I guess so.”

Sombra sets a hand on Tracer’s head and gives her a soft smile. “It’ll be alright, mija. I promise.”

It isn’t long before Sigma, Emily, and Moira arrive at the dock.

  “You both made it!” Sigma says. “Wonderful!”

  “Yeah, it’s a relief to have made it here without issue,” Sombra says. “Reaper almost caught us, but Tracer here seems to be just full of surprises, and she was able to keep herself from being spotted.”

The other three look at Tracer curiously, and Tracer says, “Watch this!”

She takes a running start and then leaps off the edge of the dock. Normally, most people wouldn’t be able to make the jump, but then her chronal accelerator lights up, and she flashes forward in a blur of blue, reaching the other side with ease. She turns around and puffs out her chest with pride. The others, Sombra included, gawk in amazement.

  “Woah!” Emily gasps.

  “Incredible!” Sigma exclaims.

  “Teleportation, it seems,” Moira muses thoughtfully. “You truly are an enigma, Tracer.”

  “I know!” Tracer chirps. “Aren’t I the coolest?”

Sigma, Emily, and Moira all stay for awhile, discussing various things, most of them on the topic of Tracer, while Tracer herself bounces around the dock, testing her new ability, but, eventually, they all return to the base to get some sleep. Sombra stays behind with Tracer, not wanting to leave her alone for the night.

Sombra and Tracer are settled on the edge of the dock, their legs dangling down toward the dark, rippling water, and they talk about everything and anything. 

At one point, Tracer says, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Sombra says back.

  “Why do you stay with Talon?” Tracer asks. “You don’t seem to be like you’re ‘one of them.’ Bad, I mean. That isn’t to say that Sigma and Emily are bad, I actually wonder the same thing about them, but still. You know what I mean.”

  “I think the same thing sometimes, Scruffy,” Sombra answers honestly. “Despite what they do, they’re good resources. Plus, I have a place to live while I work here. But I don’t like to think that I work for them. I just work alongside them. I serve my own goals. Does that make sense?”

Tracer nods. “Yeah, I think so,” she says. “But if you have no actual emotional attachment to Talon… Well, I was just thinking… I don’t know if you would ever want to…”

Sombra looks at her in interest. “You sound like a car trying to start up,” she teases. “Come on, spit it out, conejito. What is it?”

  “Overwatch,” Tracer says. “We could join Overwatch together! They’re a much better organization, and your skills would be put to good use. And they would give you a place to live!”

  “I won’t lie that I’ve considered it a few times,” Sombra admits. “But it’s not that easy, Tracer. If it was, don’t you think I would be out of here already? Unfortunately, Talon has literal talons wrapped around the necks of everyone who joins them. And once they’ve got you in their grasp, they don’t want to let go.”

Tracer’s shoulders slump. “Oh. I mean, I already knew all of that, but still. It sucks to actually hear it out loud.”

  “You…already knew?” Sombra inquires curiously.

Tracer nods. “I’ve been a part of Talon before. In different timelines.” She splays open her fingers and stares at them as though they’re covered in blood. “You have no idea how much bloodshed these hands have caused. Both while I was in Talon and outside of it. But the most gruesome atrocities were usually committed while I was working for Talon. They used me as some kind of… war machine. I was barely human to them. Just a living version of the Slipstream that could be exploited and manipulated however they wanted. Sometimes I even liked being one of them.” She clenches her fists tight. “Moira was right, I know what this place is like. And that’s exactly why I think you would be better off not with them. But I also understand that leaving isn’t just as simple as turning in a letter of resignation and then getting on a ship and going. Trust me, I tried! I don’t know what that version of me was thinking. But it’s not about leaving, it’s about escaping. Still, I had my hopes up.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sombra says.

Tracer shakes her head. “There’s nothing to apologize for, I promise. It’s not your fault.”

Silence descends between the two of them for a moment, broken only by the sound of the burbling ocean water. 

  “Do you miss them?” Sombra finally asks. “Overwatch?”

Tracer smiles faintly, and there’s a certain sadness to the expression. “Yeah. A lot.” She pauses, then says, “Do you know what the word ‘anemoia’ means?”

Sombra shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s the nostalgia for a time you’ve never known,” Tracer tells her. “Recalling all the timelines I’ve spent with Overwatch…that’s what I feel when I think about them. I’ve made millions of memories with the organization and the people in it, so much so that I feel intense nostalgia thinking back on it all, but at the same time…I realize that I never really knew any of them. And they never really knew me, either. I want to see them again so badly, but I’m afraid that I won’t be the person they knew me as in all the timelines and the connections we all made together won’t be the same.”

Sombra sets a hand against Tracer’s shoulder, and Tracer reaches up to grab it with her own.

  “I’m sure they’ll love you,” Sombra says. “If you want to go back to Overwatch, the same thing goes as it did with your parents. I can help you get to them. It’ll probably be easy for you, seeing as Talon doesn’t know you’re here.”

Tracer shakes her head. “And as I said with my parents, I’m not going unless you come, too. I don’t want to go anywhere without you.”

The girl is loyal. Much too loyal toward someone like Sombra.

And still, Sombra can’t seem to let her go.

It’s just her between Tracer and the whole world.

Chapter Text

  “We have word that Overwatch may be planning an attack on Maximillien.”

From across the council room round table, Sombra raises an eyebrow. “What could they want with him?”

  “That’s what we intend to find out,” Doomfist says. “As vain and irritating and infuriating as he may be…he is still our ally, and we must protect him…even if that course of action may end up being one we regret.”

Sombra snorts behind her hand.

  “So,” Doomfist goes on. “Widowmaker will be leading an undercover mission to Casino Monaco. You will be going with her.”

Sombra flashes a grin at Windowmaker at that. Widowmaker looks indifferent. If she feels any other emotion in regard to the match-up, she hides it behind her impressive poker face.

  “Keep Maximillien safe,” Doomfist says. “Figure out what Overwatch wants with him and stop them from harming him.”

If people embodied the seven deadly sins, Maximilien would be the personification of greed.

Casino Monaco is an architectural wonder of exquisite grandeur and shining wealth. The night sky has veins of gold running across its horizon, rivaling the glow of the half-moon and the myriad of stars out. The light from inside spills out into the courtyard, which is cluttered with partygoers, all dressed in their finest suits. They chat amongst each other in loud voices or boisterous cries, fighting to be heard over the music thumping through the air.

And that’s before you even get inside.

But once you do, you’ll be faced with a building that seems to be carved out from solid gold. The interior design is fit for a king, highly eccentric and incredibly lavish. An incredibly ornate chandelier dripping in real crystals dangles from golden chains above a grand ballroom swarming with partygoers. Cocktail glasses clink together. Dice thud and roll across green felt tables. The multitude of guests gathered is all rich folk. Everyone looks most splendid, dressed in formal coats and beautiful gowns in a rainbow of colors. They’re all wearing various masks, shielding their true identity.

Sombra is no different.

She’s donned in a silken dress of green. She had complained a good amount over this choice of color, to which Widowmaker had dryly replied while helping her dress, “The point is to not be recognized. Purple would most definitely get you spotted by a potential peering Overwatch agent.”

  “Purple is my color, though!” Sombra had retorted. “And you’re one to talk, Mrs. Purple Skin.”

  “Thank god for the wonderful invention of gloves, sleeves, and tights. Have you ever heard of them? They’re quite the accessories.”

  “Haha, very funny.”

Sombra eventually had to give into the shade of green. At least it went with her skin.

Alongside the dress, she’s coiled in garlands of golden jewelry that makes her look like she belongs in a dragon’s hoard. Atop her face rests a fox mask that’s tufted with feathers of gold.

At her side is Widowmaker, who is wearing an elegant silver dress and several sterling and black accessories to conceal her discolored skin, including elbow-length gloves, leggings, and a glittering infinity scarf. Her ebony mask holds the likeness of an owl.

  “So, what exactly are we looking for?” Sombra asks her. She tries to keep her voice down while discussing super secret mission stuff, but it’s a little hard to be heard over the music and chatter. 

Widowmaker gives her a side glance. “Agents of Overwatch. But if they’re smart, they’ll probably be blending in the same way as we are.”

Sombra squints out at the crowd of partygoers, but with the masks concealing everyone’s faces, it’s practically impossible to tell who is an Overwatch member and who is just some random civilian. 

  “Though,” Widowmaker goes on. “I should say they’re blending in the same way I am. You, on the other hand… Well, your cover could use some work.”

Sombra whips her head around to her, shooting her an offended look. “Excuse me!” she squawks. “I’m blending in perfectly well! That’s right, I belong here. The epitome of a rich person. A dignified woman, me.” She then casts her best “dignified” face at a nearby server, who is so startled by the sudden gawking that they accidentally overflow the glass they’re pouring champagne into. At this, Widowmaker swings her head around with a raised eyebrow and a “really?” expression.

  “That means nothing,” Sombra says.

Widowmaker releases a breath through her nose that Sombra thinks is a laugh. “If you insist,” she says. “Come now. Let us go find who we are meant to protect here.”

Locating Maximilien isn’t very difficult, even with the number of people inside the Casino; he doesn’t even seem to be trying to blend in. If anything, he stands out, which is saying something given how flashy everyone else already is.

They find him near the buffet table, chatting with a group of people Sombra doesn’t recognize, though she doesn’t know if that’s because of the animal personas they have upon their faces or just because she really has never met them before. He’s wearing a black suit that has been marred by a rather ugly golden floral design and an even more ostentatious cape that is embroidered with golden branches. And if that isn’t enough, he’s snarled—or maybe choked—in a multitude of long, sparkling chains and other gaudy strands of jewelry, to the point where it looks like he’s a prisoner in bindings. The long beak of his shining bird mask turns to Sombra and Widowmaker as they approach, as they had already told him what they would be wearing ahead of time so he could recognize them, and he dismisses the group around him so they can speak privately—or as privately as one can manage while at a giant masquerade party.

  “Greetings, ladies,” he says to them, knowing better than to refer to them out loud by their names. He looks at Sombra. “You look absolutely lovely. It’s about time you put on something nice. It suits you.” Then, to Widowmaker, “And you, as always, are a picture of the most majestic and gorgeous splendor.”

Sombra can’t help but feel like her compliment was a bit backhanded. What’s the matter with the way she usually dresses?

  “You’re as lurid as you usually are,” Widowmaker says.

Maximilien touches one of his chain accessories and says, “Why, thank you!”

Sombra doesn’t think that had been a compliment.

  “You know, for someone who is being targeted by an undercover group, you are awfully flashy,” Widowmaker points out. 

  “I’m blending in, my dear,” Maximilien says. “If I were dressed in grey, I think it would make me way more noticeable.”

  “And the cape doesn’t?” Sombra asks, eyeing the garish thing.

  “As I said, I’m blending in,” Maximilien replies. “Besides, I’m not worried. I have extra defenses posted around here.” He then makes a subtle gesture with his head, and Sombra and Widowmaker look upward. There, stationed around the balconies of the ballroom, are several people watching over the masquerade. They’re all wearing full-face golden masks that are carved in intricate designs. Sombra notices a few others in the crowd, too.

Lowering his voice, Maximilien then asks, “Do you have any idea what Overwatch wants with me? I’m perfectly likable, if I do say so myself. Wouldn’t they be more interested in more barbaric sorts such as yourselves? No offense.”

  “We don’t know,” Widowmaker says, ignoring the last comment. 

  “Well, let me know as soon as you find out. I’m curious.” A voice then shouts from the crowd, calling Maximilien over. “Ah, I must go now. I’ll see you both around. I’m counting on you two!”

He then sweeps off into the throng of limbs, leaving Sombra and Widowmaker behind. 

Widowmaker reaches over to the alcohol table they’re standing beside, grabs a champagne glass filled with a fizzing yellow liquid, downs it in one swing, then puts it back down and starts into the horde again. “Let’s go.”

Sombra follows her without complaint. 

  “I’m going to scope out the gathering from higher grounds,” Widowmaker says to Sombra, keeping her voice low. “You stay down here. Keep an eye out. Alert me if you notice anything strange.”

  “Got it,” Sombra says. “Good luck.”

  “You too.”

With that, Widowmaker disappears into the party, and Sombra is left on her own. 

Sombra mingles with different people, exchanging a few words because she has the chance to with her vulpine disguise. When she talks to them, she examines them as closely as she can, trying to pick out details that fit with her image of all the different Overwatch agents, but with their own masks and costumes, it’s a bit difficult for her to discern if they’re who she’s looking for or not. And the last thing she wants is to accidentally target an innocent person.

An hour passes by in a blur of chatter, alcohol, and music. No sign of any Overwatch agents.

  “I know you are not playing poker while on an undercover mission.”

Sombra smiles to herself when Widowmaker’s comment comes through the earpiece she has hidden behind her hair. She’s unable to reply while she’s surrounded by other people, but she knows Widowmaker already has her answer.

She’s playing against a stag, a goat, a wolf, a rabbit, a cat, and a raven. Everyone has marvelous poker faces thanks to their masks, but Sombra is excellent at reading the body language of other people. She watches the way the goat’s shoulders twitch, the way the rabbit taps her knee with one finger beneath the table, the way the stag tugs at her dress constantly like it’s uncomfortable. They’re an interesting zoo of strangers.

  “Raise,” says the raven, pushing chips into the betting pool.

Sombra considers this and then meets the bet. The wolf and the goat do, too. The stag stares down at her cards in dismay, then lays them down face-up.

  “Fold,” she says.

The cat taps the table with one hand.

The stag looks at him, then does the same.

Now the cat looks confused. “You already played your hand,” he says. When she doesn’t look any less puzzled, he specifies, “I was checking. I was passing my turn so I didn’t have to bet.”

The stag gapes. “That’s something you can do?! Aw, man…” She casts a woeful look at her cards now sitting on the table.

  “What did you think I was doing?” the cat asks.

  “Oh, I thought we were hitting the table…just cause,” the stag answers awkwardly, wincing beneath her mask when the embarrassment catches up to her. 

Luckily, the table seems to be made up of easy-going people, as they all laugh in a friendly manner at her mistake instead of snapping at her. 

The stag hunches her shoulders in, and Sombra can easily tell she’s young. Much younger than everyone else at the table. She reminds her quite a bit of Tracer. 

She hopes Tracer is doing okay on her lonesome.

  “I’m sorry,” the stag says. “I’m new to playing poker. I just learned how to on the fly up here.”

The wolf reaches over to give her a pat on the shoulder. “We all start out somewhere. Don’t sweat it, kid.”

Her morale boosted by the comment, the stag perks up again, nodding.

The rabbit is the only one left to play her hand, and she chooses to call.

The raven whoops in victory as he pulls the pile of chips toward him. “Hell yeah! Come to daddy!”

  “Damnit,” the wolf hisses.

  “How do you keep winning, you damn bird?” the rabbit says.

The raven smirks beneath his mask. “What can I say? I’m a bit of a god amongst men.”

  “Well, our goat-faced friend over here and their non-stop chatter is kinda throwing me off my game,” Sombra says.

The goat, who has been entirely silent throughout the whole game, raises his head at that, blinking.

  “What?” he says.

  “See! There you go again!” Sombra says. “You GOTTA be a little more quiet! You’re distracting me!”

The goat blinks again, looking at the others at the table. “I’m confused. Am I talking too much?”

The stag giggles behind her hand. The raven, the wolf, and the cat all bark out laughter. 

  “She’s just messing with you,” the rabbit assures the goat. “You’ve been perfectly quiet this entire time.”

  “Oh,” the goat says, but Sombra can tell he’s still supremely confused.

  “I’ll deal this time,” the wolf says.

  “I don’t think I talk too much…?” the goat mumbles.

The game goes on.

Sombra loses. She loses quite a bit, actually, but that doesn’t matter. She enjoys herself a lot, so much so that she almost forgets why she’s at this party to begin with.

But when everyone at the table mutually agrees to part ways, she’s brought back to the main task at hand: finding Overwatch agents.

She meanders through the party again. Everyone still seems to have as much vigor as they did a couple of hours ago. Meanwhile, Sombra is starting to feel slightly drained from all this interaction with different people. A smothering sensation begins to descend upon her, and she decides that she needs a moment to breathe, so she excuses herself from the festivities and makes her way outside.

The cool night air feels wonderful against Sombra’s sweat-slick skin. She finds herself in the Casino’s garden, which is surprisingly empty, save for one other person.

It’s the stag from the poker game!

  “Hey,” Sombra greets her, announcing her presence to the young woman. She doesn’t want to accidentally startle her.

The stag whirls around, spilling some of the liquid she has in the crystal glass she’s holding. The hanging accessories on her branching antlers jingle softly.

  “Oh, hello,” she greets Sombra back, her tone friendly and warm. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Getting some air,” Sombra tells her. “I’m not a party sort of girl. Too many people. They’re all MUCH too flashy for my taste.”

The stag laughs softly. “I know what you mean,” she says. “It’s a little…much.”

  “What about you?” Sombra asks. “Why are you out here? Shouldn’t you be inside dominating the poker tables?”

The stag groans. “Don’t remind me about my spectacular failure,” she says. “I literally looked up ALL the rules on the way here! I thought I had it down! Turns out I didn’t. But anyway, I’m out here for the same reason as you. It’s a little noisy in there.”

  “Definitely,” Sombra agrees. “You want some advice, though?”

The stag looks interested. “Sure!”

Sombra sets a hand on her broad shoulder, leans in, and says, “If you’re about the size of a small tree, maybe don’t volunteer to be an undercover agent.”

The stag stiffens beneath Sombra’s hand, staring through her cervine face with wide eyes. For a moment, neither of them move.

And then, the stag’s right arm is a blur of motion; her drink is splashed directly into Sombra’s eyes. 

Sombra reels back with a hiss, rubbing her face. She yells into her earpiece, “I found one!”

At the exact same second, she hears the stag shout, presumably into her own earpiece, “I’ve been spotted!”

The next thing Sombra knows, she has a foot slamming into her stomach, knocking her prone. She falls onto her back in the grass, wheezing, her breath hammered straight out of her lungs. Above her face, squinting through the fiery burn of alcohol in her eyes, she sees Brigitte Lindholm standing like a mountain, her stag mask doffed.

  “If there were a gambling event that involves kicking,” Sombra gasps through the intense sting in her chest and the pain throbbing in her stomach, “you’d do much better than you do in poker.”

Brigitte huffs through her nostrils, almost like a horse. She’s a lot like a horse in her own right, and Sombra means that in the nicest way possible. It’s just that she’s very big and very strong, and she kicks like a motherfucker.

Sombra expects to be stomped on, to have her rib cage smitten into little bony shards that stab her from the inside out, but instead, Brigitte reaches down, pulls off her mask, and then restrains her. 

  “What are you doing?” she grunts.

She can almost hear Brigitte blink. “Detaining you? Listen, we’ve been looking for you. We seriously need to talk to you. It’s, like, super important.”

  “What are you talking about?”

Before Sombra can get an answer, Widowmaker’s voice chimes in her ear, “Duck your head.”

Sombra does so immediately.

The sound of a gunshot shatters through the night, shortly followed by a high-pitched scream of pain. Sombra feels something hot and wet against the back of her shoulder.

Brigitte’s grip loosens, giving Sombra a chance to wiggle away and get to her feet. She turns and sees Brigitte on her knees in the grass, clutching tightly at her right shoulder. Fat beads of red force their way out between her trembling fingers. As armored as she usually is, her yellow party dress gives her little to no protection against weapons, especially Widowmaker’s deadly bullets. She’s lucky to even still be alive.

Sombra looks up, spotting Widowmaker crouched on the roof of the Casino. But she also notices movement slinking along through the shadows, and she’s quick to shout, “Widow! Behind you!”

The shape of Widowmaker turns, and then gunfire tears through the air, along with a faint metallic clanging sound. 

Sombra is about to go back up her ally when several other people rush out into the garden, all dressed in fancy clothing and masks. Masks that Sombra had definitely seen in the party. A devil and a lion and a fox like herself and some kind of bird. 

  “Sombra!” the bird says, a familiar voice sliding out from its beak.

  “Cassidy?” Sombra says.

  “We don’t want to fight you,” Cassidy says. “Please, we only want to talk to you. Nobody has to get hurt.” He casts a worried glance over at Brigitte’s bleeding form. “…Anymore than they already have.”

  “‘M fine,” Brigitte mumbles. “A little bullet wound never hurt anyone! Oww, it hurts when I laugh.”

  “What do you want with me?” Sombra asks accusingly. “Why does everyone keep saying they need to talk to me?”

Cassidy opens his mouth to squawk out some more words, but he’s promptly cut off by a scream as someone is hurled off from the roof. An unknown Overwatch agent lands in a broken heap, his bones stark white from where they pierce his skin.

A fight detonates then, gunfire roaring all throughout the garden. Sombra finds herself tugged into the tide of violence, taking up her own guns hidden beneath her dress to shoot down whoever came at her. 

At one point, through the whirl of fighting, Sombra notices Cassidy’s blue feathered bird mask slipping away. She darts after him back into the Casino, determined to make sure he doesn’t get to Maximilien. 

She chases him into a grand, luxurious hallway filled with paintings. She opens her mouth to shout at him, and that’s when she feels something sharp stab into her neck. 

Sombra’s hand claps up to her neck. Her fingers find some kind of object, and she yanks it out. 

As her vision begins to blur and darken, she stares down at the tranquilizer dart resting in her palm.

  “Mierda,” she hisses right as her knees buckle together, and everything goes black.

Tracer awakens with a start, cold sweat soaking her whole body. The fear still grips her mind, even as she wakes up more. She tries to sit up, and she realizes she is still in the same bed as before, still on Earth, still in reality, in her own room.

She splays open her fingers and stares down at them. Her hands are shaking. They’re blurry at the edges, quivering, throbbing. 

Her mind is blank. No memory of her dream, no memory whatsoever. There is nothing. Not even a memory that she was ever really a person to begin with. 

She clenched her fists hard, driving her nails into the delicate flesh of her palms. 

She can’t feel it. 

She tries again. Nothing.

Again. Nothing. Not even the sting of her skin being carved into the shape of little red crescent moons. All of it—the feelings, the sensations, the proof of her existence—is gone. Just like that, like it had never existed. Like she never had at all. That nothing that brought her to this point had never happened. Or maybe it had. Maybe that is why she can’t remember.

She’s always been so terrified that it didn’t happen. The surgery. The accelerator. Sombra. Everything. Maybe this is all one prolonged illusion, and illusions can only last for so long. 

Couldn’t. Remember. Ever. In all her life. Never. Is it a dream? A nightmare? She doesn’t know.

There is fear. Fear that she has forgotten to breathe, to sleep, that her body is not hers. That it was never hers, and she has been dreaming it all. When she screams, it scratches like static in the bottom of her throat.

The nightmare of a lifetime. Her nightmare. Her lifetime. Her lives. 

She can hear the voices. One after the other. And then she is back again, screaming for clarity. Screaming for what has been, what could be, the only thing she will ever be. 

She is shrieking in the darkness, in her mind, not in this world. Not in reality. There is nothing but the screams. Nothing but a memory of screams, a nightmare that is gone in time and space. No longer there. And yet, she still cries for them. Her scream, that was the last thing that she truly remembers. That scream is her only link to the world. Now, in the silence, there is only the sound of her crying. Only her. 

And she’s sobbing, sobbing for herself, her screams, and her memories, just as she always has, over and over. For what we are, we cry. We cry because we know we will die, because our lives are over, our time is over.

your time was over long, long ago, little girl.

This time, when she screams, it’s real. It tears at her throat like she’s swallowed a handful of needles, but, god, it’s real, and that’s all she cares about.

She doesn’t know if she can call what just happened a nightmare. It felt more real than a nightmare. Almost like a vision in a weird sort of way.

Doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over now.

Tracer stands up, stretching. The accelerator purrs comfortingly on her chest, filling the room with its usual blue glow.

Her “bedroom” is an old control room with a small bed tucked away in the corner. It isn’t fancy in the slightest, but she doesn’t mind.

She exits her room. The smell of seawater hits her nose, and she breathes in deeply. It’s cold outside, but the cold makes her feel more real.

She goes down to the docks, where the water ripples and splashes faintly. It’s soothing, so she tries to focus on it.

That’s when she hears it.

The voices.

  “I swear, I heard something from over here.”

  “Who cares if someone is getting down in the dock? It’s probably the most private place on the whole island.”

  “That isn’t what I heard, you dick.”

People are approaching. People who she doesn’t know.

Tracer tries to flee, tries to hide, but it’s much too late.

(out of time.)

(for once.)

  “Who the fuck…?” she hears one of the two men mutters.

  “Hey!” the other shouts up to her. “Who the fuck are you?”

Tracer is frozen like a deer caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler, not daring to move. 

The two Talon agents approach slowly, cautiously, their weapons drawn and pointed at her. She wonders if she should raise her hands up. 

They’re in her face now, and she feels like a prey animal confronted by a pair of predators. She doesn’t know what to do.

  “Who are you?” the second man demands, staring daggers at her.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before,” the first observes. He jabs the chronal accelerator with the barrel of his gun. “What is this? ”

Something about the contact with her accelerator flips Tracer’s brain back into working order, and when her fight or flight instinct rears its head, she chooses fight.

Before the men can react, Tracer lashes out and grabs the gun of the first man, yanking it clean out of his hands before he can even react. She turns it on him and fires.

Over the maddening cackle of the Void in her ears, the gunshot rings out like thunder.

do you remember the first time you murdered someone, Voidling?

(a blonde angel laying broken at her feet, bleeding until she’s empty from a giant red gash carved across her stomach. from behind, a reaper rumbles a rare laugh at her accomplishment, and she laughs with him while crushing the angel’s tarnished wings beneath her feet.)

(standing among a heap of severed limbs all across the blood-slick asphalt, her ears are still ringing from the blast of her Pulse Bomb.)

(two fearful children huddle in the corner, sobbing and begging her not to hurt them. but seeing as she’s already soaking in the hot blood of their parents, they should know no mercy will be offered to them tonight.)

She does.

Oh, she does.

The first man falls, but the second hand is still on his feet, and he lets out an angered shout at her sudden attack. Then, he’s raising his own weapon, and Tracer Blinks away just in time before she can be torn apart by gunfire.

The man makes a noise of confusion, spinning around to try and find her. She’s behind him now, but before she can fire, he moves out of the way. In her hands, the gun she holds rattles; she can’t stop shaking.

Bullets whizz through the air, echoing through the underground dock, and Tracer scrambles to evade, Blinking and shooting when she gets the chance to. 

Tracer lunges across the waterway, her accelerator whirring as it boosts her when she Blinks, and as she does, she feels something punch her in the side. It throws off her trajectory, and she pitches forward sharply, unsteadily. One of her feet catches on the edge of the other side of the dock, and she just barely keeps from plummeting down into the surf. Instead, she crashes to the ground, tumbling forward over herself, and when she does, the pain ambushes her like all her insides have been lit on fire. Her mouth stretches open to the point of discomfort to scream, but no sound can come out.

The world blurs around her. The sounds of the docks and the docks themselves fade to nothing, and then everything’s still and quiet. She lays there for a moment, sprawled like roadkill, waiting for the pain to go away, for her vision to clear, for her body to come back to her. But the world doesn’t come back.

Has she fallen back into the Void?

Something tightens around her throat. It bears the sort of thing you’d expect from an orc, not a human being.

Tracer stares up at the massive man above her. His face is a mask of rage, his lips pulled back into an animalistic snarl. 

  “You bitch,” he says, his breath hot on her face. “What the fuck are you?”

She stares back, blind and terrified.

He grips her throat tighter, and she gasps, feeling rushing back into her like morphine through her veins. She wrenches against his grasp with all the strength she can muster, but he’s too strong. Stronger than she is. 

Her vision goes white as he forces her head back and chokes the life out of her. He has the entire weight of his body pinning her to the ground. Her fingers slide against the concrete, useless and slippery. 

She can feel her body beginning to shut down, a ghost of herself fading into nothing. Her mind slips away, and she can feel her thoughts crossing the border to the other side. She’s losing her grip on reality, falling further and further down the rabbit hole.

Above her, the man is speaking again. But his lips don’t curve around the words quite right.

  “It’s time to come home, Tracer.”

The sensation of something feral explodes throughout Tracer’s chest. The accelerator hums, vibrating against her ribs, and then she feels her body buzzing like static, moving against her own volition. She doesn’t know how she’s managing to move in the way she is, but suddenly, she’s up on her feet, rewound through time itself to stand up once again.

  “What the FUCK?!” the man yells, startled and confused at how his prey managed to slip away from him so easily. He scrambles for his gun, raising it and firing, but Tracer is already upon him, tearing her nails into his flesh like they’re claws.

The two of them grapple and wrestle like cats on the docks. It’s a clumsy, awkward fight, but Tracer doesn’t quite realize in the moment. When the man goes to hit her, she whips her head up and closes her jaws around the tender flesh of his throat.

For a moment, they’re both frozen. And then, Tracer’s teeth sink in, and hot, metallic blood scorches her mouth. 

Frantic, panicked hands shove her hard in the chest, but shoving her away takes parts of the man’s throat with her. Blood squirts out from the giant chunk torn out of his neck, and he paws at it desperately, but there’s nothing that can be done. He’s dead before he can even realize it. 

Tracer sits there, horrified. A fat wad of the man’s meat falls from her mouth and splatters on the ground. The taste tainting her tongue is awful. 

Dead.

Both of them. Both men.

They’re dead.

She killed them.

Tracer crawls over to the corner and presses herself into it, trying to hide. She’s shaking from head to toe. She’s too deep in shock to cry, to even register the infernal pain of the bullet wound in her shoulder. She can feel the blood, though, and the blood is hotter than Hell.

Her mind rips apart. Over and over again in her head, the Void laughs endlessly.

When the fuzzy numbness of the tranquilizer dart slowly wears off, Sombra finds that she’s been stowed away in some back room of Casino Monaco, and her wrists are bound together by rope. She groans, then shakes her head, trying to dispel the fog of wooziness that shrouds her mind.

  “What the…?” she mumbles.

  “Sombra, are you awake?” says a voice.

  “Mmmnnggg… Wha…?” she slurs.

  “As eloquent as always,” comments a different voice.

Slowly, she’s able to see again fully. She’s completely surrounded by Overwatch agents. 

She blinks at all of them.

  “Wonderful weather we’ve been having, huh?” she says, smiling sheepishly.

  “Sombra,” Cassidy says, standing directly in front of her. “I need you to listen to me. We aren’t going to hurt you, but we need something from you. Something very important.”

Sombra raises her eyebrows at him. “Seeing as you went through the trouble of tranquilizing and tying me up to ask a simple question, it must be important. Ooh, let me guess! Hmm… You want me to completely erase something EXTREMELY scandalous from your search history?”

  “The research you stole a few months ago,” Cassidy goes on, ignoring her. “What did you do with it?”

Well, she hadn’t been expecting that. 

  “Uhh,” she says. “What?”

  “You invaded Watchpoint: Gibraltar a few months back,” Cassidy says. “Aside from destruction to our property, there were no casualties, and the only thing you stole was extensive research on a jet known as the Slipstream. Why did you take it? What does Talon want with it?”

They’re all staring at her, their eyes like spotlights. She’s a little uncomfortable, honestly, but she doesn’t show it.

  “Why would I tell you that?” she says. 

  “Reyes is the one who shut down the entire project,” rumbles a voice from the back. “What could he possibly want with the jet now? He had his chance with it, and he threw it away.”

The giant, hulking form of Winston trundles forward from the back of the room. Sombra wonders where he’s been hiding throughout the entire masquerade. 

Mercy sets a hand on Winston’s large, fuzzy forearm to calm him, then looks at Sombra. Her gaze is patient and gentle. Her dress matches the dress the person in the devil mask had worn back during the garden battle. 

  “That research… Let’s just say it’s very important to us,” Mercy says vaguely.

  “I don’t understand,” Sombra says. “How is it so important that you stage an entire assault during a party? Are you trying to, what, bring back the jet and the pilot or something?” She laughs.

The Overwatch agents don’t laugh. And something about their faces…

Sombra feels something cold curl in the pit of her throat. “You aren’t trying to do that, right?”

  “Sombra,” Winston says, and he’s practically begging her. “Please.”

  “Dios mío,” Sombra whispers.

She’s always been wondering why the Slipstream research had just been sprawled out on Winston’s desk when she found it.

Now she understands.

Chapter Text

  “…Sombra? Sombra?”

Sombra blinks. She doesn’t know how long she’s drifted off. Cassidy is crouched in front of her, calling her name.

  “Sombra?”

  “I hear you, I hear you,” Sombra gripes. “Stop callin’ my name.”

Cassidy is about to say something, but Sombra is already speaking again, the words falling from her lips like water, “What do you want with the pilot?”

  “She’s my best friend,” Winston snarls, defensive and fierce. “She— she was my best friend.” Like that, his temper dissolves, and Sombra can see despair carved all across his face. The poor beast is still mourning, even after all these years. 

After taking a second to breathe, Winston goes on, “Lena was a good person. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.” Again, his anger flares, and he grinds his knuckles into the tiled floor, sharp teeth bared at nothing in particular. “It was because of that selfish bastard, Morrison and Reyes that she was lost! She had time to land, but Morrison prioritized the damn ship over her life! And then Reyes cut the entire rescue mission because of money!” He then slumps, and the anguish returns. Sombra swears she even sees tears glisten in her eyes. “This never should have happened to her…”

  “So now you’re trying to get her back?” Sombra says, even though she already knows the answer.

  “Yes,” Winston says. “So it is vital that we get the research back. Please.”

The pieces are all coming back together. The reason why the Slipstream randomly appeared so suddenly after twelve years of being missing… It has to be because Winston brought it back somehow. But it didn’t surface exactly where he wanted, it seemed.

The desperation in Winston’s eyes… This is someone who has been yearning for Tracer for twelve years. Doesn’t he deserve to reunite with his best friend?

He does. Sombra knows he does.

Tracer isn’t going to like this. Not one bit. Sombra herself doesn’t even like it. But this is what’s best for Tracer in the long run. 

  “I don’t think you need that research, big fella,” Sombra says.

Winston’s eyebrows furrow. “What?”

Sombra manages to get herself to smile, despite the aching pain that clenches around her heart. “She’s already back. I found her. She’s safe.”

When Emily walks into the dock, the last thing she expects to see is a pair of corpses lying sprawled across the ground and blood everywhere, but that’s what greets her the next day when she goes to check on Tracer. 

Immediately, a powerful dose of fear is injected straight into her bloodstream, quickly followed by a hearty quantity of panic. 

Nobody is supposed to know about Tracer. Has she been spotted? Is she alive? 

  “Tracer?” Emily calls out, not bothering to be subtle. There’s no time for stealth. She desperately needs to know if the girl is alright. Because if she isn’t…

Well, she really doesn’t want to think about that.

She doesn’t get a verbal answer, but she does notice something out of the corner of her eye- a flash of blue light.

This blue light is emitting from a figure pressed into the far corner of the dock, huddled into a small ball with their knees to their chest. 

It’s Tracer!

Emily rushes over, and the first thing she notices is how haunted Tracer’s eyes look. They’re glazed over, glassy, her gaze far away, like she isn’t even seeing anything at all. The lights are on, but nobody’s home.

The next thing she notices is the large patch of blood staining Tracer’s right shoulder. There’s blood around her mouth, too, though it looks to be long-dried now.

  “Tracer?” Emily says, kneeling in front of the girl. She so badly wants to grab her and start inspecting her injury, but she knows better than to touch, especially when Tracer is in the state that she’s in. Who knows how volatile and sporadic Tracer may be right now.

When Tracer doesn’t answer, Emily tries again, just a little bit louder this time, “Tracer?”

Tracer blinks her eyes. Then, slowly, so slowly, her gaze drags upward to look at Emily. Emily gives her a soft, warm smile.

  “Emily?” Tracer croaks out, and her voice is so soft and hoarse that Emily almost misses what she says.

  “Yeah, it’s me, Tracer,” Emily says. “What happened? Are you okay? Are you— don’t answer that. You’re clearly not okay. Stupid question” She casts a worried look at Tracer’s shoulder. The blue fabric of the sweater she’s wearing has been washed to a garish red shade because of all the blood. “What happened?”

  “I— I don’t—” Tracer fumbles. Emily realizes that even though her head is tipped toward her, she doesn’t think she’s really seeing her. It’s almost like she’s seeing through her. She’s in the same dissociative state she had been back when she was still a ghost. “I can’t…remember.”

Emily sucks a breath through her teeth at that, 

Tracer seems to realize the same thing because all the color drains from her face. 

  “Oh god,” she mumbles, her voice laced with horror. Her hands wrench up to grasp at her head, fingers tearing at her wild brown hair, and Emily winces at the movement, giving her shoulder another concerned glance. “I’m— I’m slippin’ away again, Em. I’m— oh god. I don’t— I don’t wanna go back— I can’t— I don’t— I— I—”

She’s starting to hyperventilate.

  “Tracer, look at me,” Emily says. She takes both of Tracer’s hands, untangling them from her hair. “You’re alright. You’re stable. You’re still here in reality. You aren’t slipping, I promise.”

Tracer squeezes Emily’s hand tightly. Desperately. “I don’t wanna go back,” she whispers, leaning in close, and Emily can see an eternity worth of anguish reflected in her eyes. Maybe even more. 

  “You won’t,” Emily assures her. “I won’t let you go back. I promise.”

Tracer sniffles, glistening tears swelling up in her lower lashes. 

  “I promise,” Emily says again, firmer this time. 

Tracer looks up at her, sniffling, and Emily can see it in her eyes: she doesn’t believe her. 

  “I’ve seen things.”

While a bullet is being dug out of her flesh, Tracer speaks, and her voice is as soft and chilled as the winter wind outside the dock.

  “What?” Emily says.

  “I’ve seen things,” Tracer repeats. “I’ve seen…so many things.” She’s staring up at the ceiling, her eyes completely blank. Her expression is, too. 

She’s tried her best to not think about the Void. She tries so hard.

But it’s difficult. It’s so fucking difficult. This isn’t something that’s easy to forget, and it certainly doesn’t make it simple, either. 

Her life had been so devoid of any meaning. Everything had been completely routine—languish in darkness, go into a new timeline, languish some more, cry for a little while, go into another timeline, spend a few eons in complete blackness without any stimulation—and it made her feel extremely bored. Forever existing without purpose or reason. She wanted nothing more than to break free, to feel emotions, to do something.  

But now that she finally achieved that, she was so scared.  

  “You know, for a while, I thought what happened to me had some kind of meaning,” Tracer says. “That maybe the accident was just…necessary. Necessary for some, I don’t know, purpose of balance in the greater scale of the universe. I thought it was fate, something that nobody could have prevented or stopped. It was always meant to happen. But then that would give this world too much credit. This world— Reality— It doesn’t care about us. It doesn’t care about any of us. I know that now.”

Blood trickles from the hole in her shoulder, the bullet sliding out, but she doesn’t flinch. She’s completely undeterred. It feels like she’s in a trance. 

  “I’m not supposed to—” Tracer closes her mouth, takes a deep breath, and tries to keep herself calm. She continues after a moment, “I’m not supposed to be here. There’s a reason why all those alternate timelines were alternate. Anomalous. Fake. Because they were never going to actually happen. People love to say ‘nothing is ever set in stone,’ but they underestimate the pull of fate itself. It’s not to be denied. I tried to deny it. Defy it. Withstand the unyielding current of destiny. Is my entire existence not proof of that? But this— this reality— it was never supposed to happen. Me being here at all is a strain. I can constantly feel my molecular structure tearing itself apart. I’m a prisoner inside of my own cells. And this…” She sets one hand against the frame of the chronal accelerator. “This is like a— a— it’s like an iron lung. You know, those big, ugly machines that are supposed to help people breathe? It’s like that. It’s an iron lung: a big hunk of metal that’s keeping me alive—but it won’t guarantee my survival forever. Because when it breaks—and it WILL BREAK, I’ve seen it happen before, this life is no different than the others—I’ll go right back to my own personal hell. It’s just a ghost light in a sea of dead space.”

Tracer knows what a ghost light is because of Sigma. 

  “It’s the ghostly light left behind by stars that have died,” the man had told her during one of his astronomy rambles. He was good company when she was restrained to the chamber inside his observatory. “It’s like their luminous blood is staining the sky. Eerie yet beautiful.”

Tracer is a dead star in a dead world, and the measly blue light of her chronal accelerator is the final fading glow in her dead life. 

But by “space,” Tracer doesn’t mean outer space. She means “space” as in expanse. Empty space. Negative space.

The Void.

  “That’s not true,” Emily says. “You’re alive right now, aren’t you? You’re stable.”

Tracer cracks a weak, rueful smile. “Ghost lights are visible for awhile before they finally get snuffed out.” Her gaze drifts off, the smile sliding off from her pale lips. “I never really left, Em. It— the Void— it’s always been here. It’s waiting. And it’ll wait forever. Because it knows what forever feels like as well as I do. I’m living on borrowed time.”

Time is a flat circle, going round and round forever. A snake eating its own tail. Ouroboros. There is no up or down, no yesterday or tomorrow. 

It is a lonely existence, without friends or family. And the endless repetition makes it hard to remember what happened after every loop. 

For so long, she wondered if that was Hell.

Hell is torture. 

Hell is watching your friends drift away, one by one.

Hell is losing yourself to nothingness. 

Hell is forgetting what you look like.

Hell is the Void.

Hell is eternal boredom.

Hell is everlasting isolation.

Hell is a circle of existence that will continue on and on and on, without end.

She would scream into the Void for hours, hoping someone might hear her pathetic cries.

(no one ever did.)

The Slipstream was Tracer’s supernova, and the Void was her celestial cemetery. There were no stars to admire down there. Only the blackness of space and the emptiness of time.

The world is a cold, desolate place.

There is nothing of beauty here.

Nothing of value.

All has been left far behind.

The dust of existence swept into the Void and made into something new.

Something forgotten.

A distant memory.

And so it goes.

The circle of life.

The wheel of fortune.

The endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

The Ouroboros. 

She is a part of this cycle, as are all things in this world. Everyone falls into it.  

And like all things in this world, sometimes everyone will suffer.

Everyone will find themselves caught up in the madness.

Everyone will find themselves caught up in the struggle.

Everyone will find themselves caught up in the endless spiral of hope and despair.

All things die, and all things are born again.

And all things suffer.

And all things rejoice.

And all things are forgotten.

Forgotten.

That is perhaps the greatest truth of all.

Forgotten.

Remembered only in the Void, where all things truly are forgotten.

  “Even fate forgot about me, Em,” Tracer goes on, her voice decayed. It’s difficult to even recognize these words coming from her own mouth. She sounds so tortured. “Everyone forgot about me. Sombra found me by accident, but if she hadn’t… I would still be down there. I would have been down there until the end of the world, and even then, I would still live. Seriously, for all eternity because even when the world inevitably ends—and it will end, I’ve seen it—space-time continues, so I would still be lost in the Void. And after that point, there would literally be no hope for me left. Because there would be no world for me to return to. It would all be gone. I would be, like…the last person in the entire universe.” 

  “Tracer—”

But Tracer is already lost in the loop.

(but that isn’t very surprising for her, now is it?)

  “I’ve been that person before,” Tracer whispers. “I’ve seen that future. And that future is the most horrifying of them all. In that one, I spent millions of years seeing all these alternate timelines being created, filling the darkness of my eternal prison, and then, one day, they just…stopped. No more timelines. No more alternate realities. No more humanity. All at once, without any warning at all, the entire universe went silent. And, like the stars dying, one by one, the other timelines disappeared, too. Until there was nothing but darkness. That was how I spent the rest of my existence, suffering all alone in the melancholic agony of the Void beyond what used to be the world.”

Emily stares at her, silent. Scared. Tracer doesn’t blame her. She’s so fucking scared, too.

As footsteps approach the dock, and Sombra enters with a frightened expression at the scene set before her, Tracer gives her final words on the discussion.

  “And sometimes I wonder…were the alternate timelines all that bad? After all, they were the only freedom I got in a lifeless existence.”

Chapter Text

  “You did WHAT?!”

Sombra sighs heavily, rubbing a sluggish hand over her face. It’s Moira who has squawked so loudly, and she tries her best to not look at her flabbergasted expression. More than that, she DEFINITELY doesn’t try to look at Emily and Sigma, who are matching in their bewilderment over this news. Not that Sombra really blames them. Still, she wishes they would stop looking at her like that.

  “Can you please not shout?” Sombra pleads, moving her hands up to massage her temples. “I have a headache, and you being loud is only making it worse.”

  “Sombra, you can’t just lightly say you told Overwatch about Tracer,” Moira snaps.

Sombra closes her eyes against that, breathing out another sigh. 

She knows that Moira is right. This isn’t just news she can casually share and expect no big reaction. But with her ever-growing headache, she would REALLY appreciate it if they refrained from raising their voices and kept the scolding to a minimum. 

  “Did you really tell them?” Sigma asks.

Sombra opens her eyes to look at him. “Yeah,” she answers. “I did.”

She still remembers the conversation vividly.

Seconds after coming clean about the secret, she had a giant gorilla up in her face, and she actually found herself flinching back, as if expecting him to start beating her for details. But he doesn’t do anything like that. Instead, he starts spewing out words like blood from an arterial spray.

  “What?! How did you find her?! Is she okay?! How did you manage to bring her back?! How is she?! IS SHE OKAY?!”

Sombra leaned back, not too keen on having this goliath of a gorilla so close to her that they were almost kissing. “Woah there, big guy,” she said. “Personal space.”

Winston did not relent, staring at her so intently that it became uncomfortable, so Mercy and Ana  had to come forward and nudge him away. 

  “Calm down, Winston,” Mercy said, setting a hand on his forearm. 

  “Calm down?” Winston echoed. “CALM DOWN?! How am I meant to CALM DOWN?! She says that Lena came back! There’s no time to calm down! It’s time to celebrate and— and— and ask questions! I must know EVERYTHING! Like: IS SHE OKAY?!”

  “She already said that Lena is safe,” Ana said. “Don’t make me sedate you, Winston.”

Winston shuffled awkwardly at that, pushing up his glasses. “That will not be necessary,” he said.

  “I know you’re excited and worried and everything in between,” Ana said wisely. “But there’s no need to smother the poor woman to death. Let us see what she has to say, hm? Calmly.”

Winston nodded. “Yes. Of course. You’re right.”

  “Very good,” Ana hummed in approval. She then swung her head around to Sombra, her one eye searching and observant. She reminded Sombra so much of a watchful hawk. “Tell us what you know, Sombra.”

  “The Slipstream landed near Talon’s base,” Sombra said. “I was given the task to try and ‘harness’ its power so Talon could use it for their own. In the process, I SOMEHOW— I honestly still don’t know how I managed to do this— but I SOMEHOW pulled Tracer back into reality.”

  “Tracer?” Winston repeated with a tilt of his head.

  “Oh, sorry. Lena,” Sombra amended. “She goes by Tracer now. She went through a period of identity crisis, and we settled on that name.”

  “Where has she been this whole time?” a voice piped up from the back of the room. Sombra leaned over to see Brigitte slumped against the wall, her wounded shoulder being tended to by Baptiste. “Twelve years she’s been missing, right? Where did she go? OW!”

  “Stop talking,” Baptiste scolded lightly.

  “I’m just CURIOUS!” Brigitte whined. “BESIDES a little bullet wound never hurt anyone!”

  “The hundreds of people that have been killed by gun-related injuries beg to differ,” Baptiste said.

  “Well, I’m tougher than them,” Brigitte said. “OW!!”

Baptiste raised his eyebrows, breathing out an amused breath through his nostrils. “Ah. yes, very tough.”

  “You did that on purpose!” Brigitte complained.

  “Brigitte’s question is valid, though,” Mercy said. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. I was a part of the team meant to try and bring Lena back from…wherever she went.” She looked at Sombra. “Do you know exactly where that is?”

Sombra didn’t hesitate to tell them, “The Void.”

Silence prevailed over the room, all eyes drawn to her. 

  “Oh, brr,” Brigitte shivered. “I just got goosebumps!”

  “The Void?” Ana repeated. Sombra didn’t know if she was just saying it to herself or saying it to trigger answers, but either way, Sombra was sharing information about the plane with them.

  “That’s what she calls it, at least,” Sombra said. “It’s a place outside of reality itself. A spatial anomaly, if you will. An empty abyss. That’s where she’s been for the past twelve years, not aging at all, stuck in a state of, like, biological stasis, if that makes sense.”

They all looked horrified at that, and Sombra couldn’t blame them. It was horrifying, and that was before they even knew the entire scope of what the Void was like. Sombra herself didn’t even know the complete story.

That was the thing about this whole ordeal. Sombra would never truly know the full extent of what the Void was like, and perhaps that was a mercy to her mind, even if the curiosity constantly gnawed away at her. Tracer shared what she was okay with sharing and kept secret what she didn’t. Sombra experienced the Void entirely through Tracer, but even then, she knew there were major details being left out. Things that Tracer was most definitely withholding from her, maybe for the sake of her own psyche. Like she was trying to protect Sombra from the true horrors the Void held.

  “While she was in there, she experienced, like, alternate timelines,” Sombra went on. “All these different realities. Millions of them. Last time I asked, I think the number of them all was close to four million.”

  “Is she… is she okay?” Winston asked tentatively.

  “She’s okay now, I think,” Sombra answered. “It was pretty rough for a while. She was like— like a ghost. She couldn’t touch anything, couldn’t sleep or eat or drink, couldn’t be touched at all, but she could talk and was completely aware. Sometimes she would slip away and fall back into the Void, but she usually would come back within a few hours to a few days. Her molecular structure— it was ALL messed up. So was most of her anatomy. The Void— it tainted her. That’s the simplest way I can put it.” 

  “That’s… that’s terrifying,” a new voice whispered, and Sombra saw that it was Mei. Sombra recognized her dress as the same one the person in the fox mask in the garden had been wearing. Her expression was very sympathetic. If Sombra’s memory was correct about this woman, she had experienced her own fair share of solitude. She wondered if Mei was feeling for poor Tracer. 

  “Yeah, it was,” Sombra said with a grim nod. “But she just had to…live through it. She didn't have any other choice. And it was Hell for her.”

The nightmares, the dissociation, the panic attacks and anxiety attacks alike, the hopelessness and helplessness—Sombra remembered it all in great detail. The sheer amount of unfair trauma Tracer was subjected to simply because reality thought it was funny to completely fuck her over. She didn’t deserve any of it. Not one bit.

  “If I had just worked harder to get her back…” Sombra heard Winston mutter. When she looked at the gorilla, she saw that his expression was twisted into all kinds of guilt and self-hatred.

  “No, Winston, don’t start blaming yourself,” Mercy said. “You did all you could.”

  “And it wasn’t enough,” Winston spat.

  “You ran yourself ragged trying to find her,” Mercy said. “You barely slept at all. You gave it your best, and that’s all anyone could have asked of you.”

  “Believe me, big guy,” Sombra said, “if Tracer were here right now and heard what extremes you went to to find her, she’d be over the moon.”

That seemed to get through to Winston. He sniffled softly, then nodded. “Alright.”

  “How is she doing now?” Cassidy asked. “Is she better?”

  “Yeah, she’s doing a lot better,” Sombra confirmed. “Physically, I mean. Mentally… Well, I’m sure you all know how trauma is.”

The entire room nodded collectively, and Sombra couldn’t help but wonder what kind of stories of loss, tragedy, and grief were inscribed in their psyches.

  “But we made her an anchor,” Sombra continued. “Something that would make her whole again and keep her from slipping out of reality. It’s kind of like this harness. We call it the chronal accelerator. She can finally touch things again. Feel things. And, oh my god, she has so much energy. She’s like one of those dogs. What are they called? Oh! Greyhounds! She’s like one of them.”

Winston laughed faintly, wiping at his eyes. “That sounds like Lena.”

  “Who is ‘we’?” Ana questioned Sombra. “Does Talon know about her?”  

  “No,” Sombra shook her head. “I wasn’t about to let them get their hands on her. I may work for them, but I know what kind of shit they would do to her if they found out about her existence. Only a few people know. Me, Sigma, Moira’s niece, Emily, and Moira herself.”

At that, Mercy actually snorted. “Moira? Please tell me Lena is still in one piece.”

  “She is,” Sombra assured her. “And Moira has been…great, actually. She’s a big help. Tracer would have probably died without her. Turns out, I am NOT good at open heart surgery! Who would have thought!”

  “What?” Winston snapped, alarmed.

  “Oh, right, you don’t know about that. Obviously.” Sombra laughed sheepishly. “Yeah, the implementation of the chronal accelerator was a bit…bloody. We had to do surgery in the middle of the night, and it was a whole thing. Don’t worry about it, Tracer is completely fine now!”

Cassidy blew out a breath, running his fingers through his dark hair. “This is…a lot to take in.”

  “Yeah, that’s about the proper reaction someone should have to something like this,” Sombra said. “Can I ask a question now?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you guys really been trying to get her back for twelve years? ”

  “I have, yes,” Winston spoke up. “Overwatch might have given up on her, but I never did. I never stopped trying to bring her home. Unfortunately, the effort was slowed to a crawl due to lack of resources, but I refused to stop. I eventually made a breakthrough with the Slipstream. I suppose that’s why it appeared so suddenly, though I didn’t expect it to land in enemy territory. Regardless…” A ghostly smile dusted his lips. “I’m so happy to hear that she’s back.”

That was when Sombra knew it was time to hand Tracer over. She should be with Overwatch. They could keep her safe, much safer than Sombra could. She wouldn’t have to sneak around all the time, stuck inside a dingy old dock. She could try to have a normal life.

But still, it hurt. 

However, deep down, far past all the emotions wrathing against her, logic laid. She knew this was for the best. She had to think with her mind over her heart.

She took a deep breath. The decision rested heavily on her shoulders, feeling as though it were about to break her back. 

She had to let Tracer go.

  “She should return to Overwatch,” she said.

The memory then dissolves away, but the pain from the choice lingers like an infection in an open wound. She can feel it festering inside her heart, an emotional and psychological ache so great that she’s almost cowed by it. 

She has regrets, of course. She had regretted agreeing to give Tracer to Overwatch the moment the offer left her lips back at the casino. But regrets mean little now.

It’s all set in motion. There’s nothing she can do.

It’s better this way.

  “Why?” Emily beseeches her. “Why did you tell them?” 

  “Because she can’t stay here,” Sombra says. “She shouldn’t stay here.”

  “What happened to you not wanting her to be away from you?” Moira asks. 

  “I still don’t want her to be away from me,” Sombra answers. “But this is what’s best for her, regardless of what I want. It’s like— like keeping a dog in a pound when it has a chance to be adopted. It’s not right.”

Emily’s face curls with disgust. “She’s not a dog, Sombra.”

  “I know,” Sombra says. “But she’s a person, and she deserves more freedom than what she has now. Overwatch can give it to her.”

  “What, so they can weaponize her weird state of being?” Emily says. “Turn her into one of their soldiers?”

  “Do you think Talon will treat her any better?” Sombra says back. “At least Overwatch won’t make her a terrorist.”

  “Bullshit,” Emily spits. “They’re going to do something to her. They’re going to make her one of them.”

  “Being able to do what she wants, not having to hide away in some abandoned dock, getting to be a hero… Emily, I think she’d be happy,” Sombra says. “Don’t you want her to be happy?”

  “Do you?” Emily snaps.

  “Of course I do,” Sombra says.

  “As much as it saddens me to know that Tracer will be sent away, I do believe that Sombra has the right idea,” Sigma interjects, hovering forward. “Overwatch will treat her right, I think.”

Emily barks a laugh, and it’s a sharp, biting sound that slashes through the air. “They certainly did when they left her to die in an abyss.” 

  “In fairness, the one who called off the rescue experiment is currently one of the most powerful people of our organization,” Moira points out calmly. “So I suppose this is an instance of picking the least lethal poison.”

Emily shakes her head, muttering something angrily to herself.

  “Look at this from an unbiased eye, Emily,” Moira says to her niece. “Things will be simpler with her gone. We will no longer have to walk on eggshells. I mean, look at the madness she has caused, even if it was accidental. Two agents dead. Now Akande believes there is a murderer among us.”

Sombra winces at that. Returning to the dock to see two people dead, one of which had their throat torn out, and Tracer with a bullet in her shoulder had been a shock, to say the least. 

  “No more secrets will be nice,” Moira says.

Emily doesn’t answer, instead opting to glare at the floor. 

Moira sighs, then looks at Sombra. “When is she due to leave?”

  “The end of January,” Sombra tells her. “We—Overwatch and I—came up with a meeting location.”

  “Does she know yet?”

  “No.”

For a moment, the room is silent.

  “This isn’t about any of us,” Sombra says. “It’s about her.”

  “And who are we to decide what’s best for her?” Emily says.

  “We’re the people who care about her,” Sombra says. “We’re the people who can give her proper freedom. We’re the people who can give her happiness. We’re the people who can give her a life worth living. She deserves that. That’s who we are?”

  “Do you love her, Sombra?” Emily asks her.

Sombra doesn’t even hesitate.

  “I do. More than anything.”

Silence.

  “It doesn’t matter what I say, right?” Emily’s voice is barely a whisper. “This is going to happen, isn’t it?”

Sombra frowns. “I’m afraid so.”

A month passes by much too quickly, and with each new day, Sombra’s dread grows. 

It won’t be long now.

She spends as much time with Tracer as she can. Tracer recovers from her shoulder injury, and her peppy mood prevails. 

Oh, how Sombra will miss her infectious joy and endless supply of energy. 

The day finally comes, and it takes all of Sombra’s willpower and strength to keep her emotions in check. When night falls, Sombra sneaks away into the underground dock and wakes up Tracer. Tracer is rightfully confused, blearily mumbling, “Sombra…? What’s goin’ on…?”

Sombra replies, “I need you to come with me, okay? It’s important.”

And Tracer, being the loyal, hopelessly devoted girl she is, gets up from the warmth of her blankets and follows Sombra without a second thought.

It’s only when they arrive at Talon’s jet hangar that she stops and actually considers what’s happening.

  “Sombra,” Tracer says warily, eyeing the jets with evident nervousness. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re just going to go for a little fly,” Sombra tells her. “Don’t worry about it.”

Tracer doesn’t look convinced. “I’m not one for flyin’ after… You know…” She takes a small step back. “Can I just go back to sleep?”

Sombra looks back at her, then sighs. Trying to coerce her into getting in the jet clearly won’t work, which she should have expected. Of course Tracer would be cautious around any kind of aircraft. 

Time for Plan B: cold, hard honesty.

  “Tracer, we’re going to go see Overwatch.”

Tracer perks up at that. “What? We are? Really?”

  “Yes, really,” Sombra nods. “Come on, let’s go.”

Tracer starts to come forward, then stops again. She looks confused. “Wait…why?”

  “I’ll tell you on the fly.”

  “No. Tell me now. I’m not stepping foot on that thing until you tell me what’s going on.”

Sombra releases a breath. What a stubborn little thing. Not that she can blame the girl. She’s looking at the jet as though it’s a rabid grizzly bear. 

  “You’re going to be going with Overwatch, Tracer.”

Like that, Tracer’s entire expression falls.

  “What?” she squeaks.

  “Remember back when I went on that mission to the casino? Well, I ran into Overwatch and told them about you. They’ve been trying to bring you back for twelve years. They’ve been wanting you to come home. So, I thought it would be better if you were with them,” Sombra explains. 

Tracer shakes her head, backing away. “No, no, no, no— I told you I wanted to stay with you!”

  “I know, cariño,” Sombra says, frowning. “I know you’re upset. I am, too. But you need to look at the bigger picture.”

  “Bigger picture?” Tracer repeats, her tone aghast. 

  “You being safe,” Sombra says. “You won’t be safe if you stay here. But you will be if you’re with Overwatch.”

  “How could you?” Tracer seethes, her eyes glossy with tears. “After everything that happened! You said you cared about me! And now you’re just giving me away?!”

  “I do care about you,” Sombra says. “But it’s time for you to live your life the way you want to. You’re going to be fine. And, most importantly, you’re going to be happy. And that’s all that matters to me.”

  “I won’t be happy unless I’m with you!”

  “Tracer, you and I have different paths. This place is not meant for you. I came across you by accident, and what a miracle it is that we got the opportunity to meet, but it’s time for you to go your own way.” Sombra takes Tracer by the hands, squeezing tightly. There’s so much pain and anger and anguish in Tracer’s eyes as she looks at her. “Take care of yourself, Scruffy. Keep moving forward. Find your purpose. Find your family. Find your way home.”

Tracer makes a strangled whimpering sound, reminiscent of a kicked puppy. “You’re my home,” she utters through shaking sobs.

The pain in Sombra's heart is unbearable. She doesn’t want to be the one to push Tracer away. She wants to hold onto her forever. But she knows it’s the right thing to do.

  “I’m sorry, Tracer,” Sombra says. She tugs Tracer into an embrace and holds her tightly. In Tracer’s ear, she murmurs, “You’ll always be my weird little Void anomaly. Nothing is going to change that. But I want you to be safe, so please, go. Go with Overwatch. It’s better this way.”

Tracer leans her head back, her face red and wet from crying. She looks absolutely heartbroken, and it’s painful to see. 

  “Sombra…” Tracer croaks, and then the sound of a gunshot shatters through the hangar. 

Instantly, Sombra pushes Tracer behind her. She looks around frantically, spotting someone crouched on the scaffolding that wraps around the upper part of the hangar’s tall walls. Then, she notices someone else at the opposite side of the scaffolding. And then, several people are entering the building. 

Talon agents swarm through the hangar like angry wasps, all of them armed. Among them, Sombra notices Doomfist and Reaper.

They’ve been caught.

  “Run,” Sombra says to Tracer.

  “Wh-what?” Tracer stammers, bewildered by the sudden mayhem.

  “Run!” Sombra yells, shoving her hard. It’s not the nicest course of action, but it gets Tracer going, and she begins Blinking in an attempt to escape. 

That’s when Sombra notices something: several of the agents are holding a metal net. A metal net that can emit a powerful electric shock to subdue captives.

  “Tracer!” Sombra shouts, but it’s too late.

The net is hurled at Tracer’s flickering form, and it hits her with so much force that it sends her sprawling to the ground. A loud electrical crackling sound goes off, but Tracer’s scream of pain is much louder. 

Without realizing it, Sombra is dashing across the floor to try and get to Tracer, but she’s stopped when Reaper’s guns raise up to point directly at her chest. A single shot from either one of those, and she’s sure that she’ll be dead. 

  “What is the meaning of this?” Doomfist rumbles. “What is going on?”

  “Don’t hurt her,” Sombra says.

  “And who exactly is ‘her’?” Doomfist says. He looks down at Tracer’s twitching form. “What is this?”

  “Is this…” For a moment, Reaper sounds genuinely at a loss for words. Then, he says, “This is Lena Oxton.”

Doomfist’s head raises up sharply. “The Slipstream’s pilot?”

Reaper nods. “Yes.”

Doomfist looks from Tracer, to Sombra, to Tracer again. Then, a malicious, sinister smile comes to his lips.

  “Oh, how interesting,” he says.

What has Sombra done?

Chapter Text

This is not Tracer’s first time in Talon’s torture dungeon.

Sometimes, she is lashed to the wall by heavy irons that weigh her arms to the floor, beaten until every inch of her is bloody, and starved to the point where her stomach starts to digest itself.

Sometimes, she is bleeding out, telling herself again and again that Overwatch will get there soon and she will be healed, despite knowing, deep down, her time is running short.

Sometimes, she is screaming until her vocal cords are torn asunder from the sheer agony she exudes.

Sometimes, she has no fingernails, other times, she has only a few teeth left in her mouth after they were wrenched from her gums, and on a few occasions, they take one of her eyeballs (sometimes both). 

And sometimes, she is the torturer, her face smeared in blood, eyes alight with sadistic glee as she watches some poor soul squirm against the knife she carves deep into their belly.

This time, she is chained to the ceiling in some dark room beneath the Talon base. Her shackles are around her wrists, causing her to dangle in the air like meat, her feet barely touching the stone floor. It’s been a few hours since she’s been put in here, and she can’t feel her hands anymore. Her arms, stretched up over her head, ache tremendously. People are not made to be in this position for so long.

Her cell is quiet. Dark. Solitary. There are no windows, and there is only one door- a heavy metal thing with a sliding hatch near the top so people can peer in through. There’s a guard posted outside that door; sometimes, she can just barely hear them shuffling around. Those muffled noises and the rattle of her chains are the only sounds down here.

It’s almost like she’s back in the Void.

She wonders what Talon is going to do to her. Talon has long held a reputation as being a sadistic group. She’s already expecting to face the most horrid torture known to man. They’ve forced her to go through it before.

As she hangs there, her mind races with ideas of escape. But even as she tries to come up with some kind of solution, she knows none of them will work. On the off chance she is somehow able to get out of her chains, there’s still the armed guard just outside her door. She has no weapons to fight with, and no real idea who to trust.

Sombra…

No. No, she can’t even trust Sombra, her one true and closest companion, anymore. Sombra was trying to get rid of her. Like she meant nothing to her. Like these past months spent together were meaningless. 

Meaningless.

That’s all her existence is, isn’t it?

Insignificant. 

What kind of life awaits her outside these stone walls? What kind of experiences are available to her beyond the biting iron of her shackles? Sombra was her entire world, and now, even she is gone. 

Her hands are so cold, and her arms are so sore that she thinks she can’t hold them up any longer—not that she has a choice. The thought of touching them is too much to bear. She’s been clenching her fists so hard that they feel like she’s broken a few fingers, even though she can’t actually feel anything. 

Shadows dance along the walls of the chamber. She can see them gyrating, swirling, undulated shapes of nightmares.

Then, they begin to darken, forming something all too familiar to her.

The Void.

And she can hear it, those muffled whispers that never truly left. They’ve always been there in the back of her mind, in the shade that clings beneath the light, in the eyes of every person who she looks at. Calling to her.

lena.

it’s time to come home.

Shadowy tendrils wrap themselves around her mind, and she can’t escape them. The dark whispers fill her ears, and there isn’t any way to block them out. Not anymore. She can’t fight them.

we are here to claim whatever is left of you.

to gather whatever this terrible world hasn’t torn to shreds. because that is what it has done to you. it’s been picking you apart, piece by piece, little by little. we were what kept you together. 

She wishes she can cover her ears, but even if her arms weren’t strung up over her head, she knows it wouldn’t have done her very good. The Void always finds a way in, whether she likes it or not. 

lena, we're your friend. we would never judge you. we would never hurt you. you don’t want to be here. this isn’t where you’re supposed to be. you were never fit to live in the Light. you know that, no matter how many times you try to deny it. you’ve got darkness in you, and nothing will ever rid it from your body. 

Like spiders, the abyss begins to crawl all along the walls, growing, growing.

She closes her eyes tight. She tries to drown out the voices, but it’s no use. 

The shadows caress her. They stroke her. They tickle her.

And they whisper. Always whispering.

come on, little girl. don’t you want to be free?

It’s spoken in that familiar voice, the one that tore open her mind when it first chose her. When she first fell into the abyss beneath the world. And now it’s staring at her from the shadows, breathing and babbling.

you aren’t free here. you have no life in the Light. you do not belong here.

And it’s right, she knows. She’s been missing for so long that she can barely remember much of her life before the Fall. She doesn’t remember anything except the feel of the darkness. She doesn’t even really remember who she is, forced to go by an alias because her true self was lost to the abyss so many years ago.

But the Void doesn’t care about any of that. The Void doesn’t care about how broken she is or how messed up she is. The Void wants her. The Void loves her.

The Void is the only thing that has ever loved her.

It’s been her home for so long that she’s forgotten what it was like not to live there.

It’s here now, trying to remind her. The Void pulls at her, tugs at her. It won’t let her go. Not without a fight. 

come on.

  “No,” she croaks out, her voice faint and raspy.

why not?

t here is nothing keeping you here. there is no reason for you to stay.

  “I don’t want to.”

The Void hisses, low and threatening. Then, without warning, it’s laughing. 

you think you have a choice? 

you think you’ve EVER had a choice?

silly little girl.

you don’t.

why would we ever give you the choice to say no?

With tears in her eyes, Tracer opens her eyes and

                                                                                            and

and

and she’s back there, in the dark.

in the Void.

she looks up, and it’s not iron chains that ensnare her wrists, but the shimmering silver thread of the Web of Life. it’s here, stretched out all around her, glistening in the endless black. the reflective orbs of different timelines hang from different strands like overripe fruit, and in each of them, she can see the eyes of her alternate selves, those millions and millions of different versions of who she is, staring back at her.

she sobs, and the whole abyss seems to sob with her.

              bang

                                        “keEp it Down in TheRE!” 

                                                      Tracer 

               blinks hard.

                                                           light.

There’s light.

                                                                                                   she blinks again.

                                             four walls.

A roof.

She’s Still Here. In The Light. In Reality.

(for now.)

Shadows on the wall twist and turn. The echo of the Void rings throughout her head.

soon. soon. 

The Void is relentless. It will stop at nothing to get what it wants. It will torment her, toying with her heart, until she finally gives in to it again.

Because she can’t run forever.

she will never truly know peace.

  “wait, so there’s how many of us right now?” Posh Tracer asks.

  “4,876,801,” Painted Nails Tracer answers.

  “there’s 4,876,802, actually,” Glasses Tracer says. 

Painted Nails Tracer looks at her. “really? where is she?”

  “got sucked into the hole between the Void and reality,” Glasses Tracer says, then nods at the wound-shaped tear in the Void. with impeccable comedic timing, the body of Tracer #4,876,802 comes floating by, screaming. her screams die off the further she drifts away into nothingness.

  “oh.” Posh Tracer blinks. “right. okay! cool. i was just curious. it’s gotten a little crowded in here.”

they all look around the flight track. it perpetually smells like burning hair, which is kind of annoying, but there’s light, so it’s not too bad. not that they have anywhere else to go. 

  “so like… what happens when there’s no more room left?” Sprinter Tracer asks.

  “i don’t think this place can run out of room,” Cadet Tracer says. “if it could, it would have a long time ago, what with there literally being over a million of us. it’ll just keep growing larger and larger.”

  “what i want to know,” Cavalry Tracer declares, “is what about— what about the Tracers who change something. like, they actually make some sort of ripple in the Void.” she gestures emphatically at the collected totality of Tracer. “but every Tracer here is a Tracer who lost their humanity to the Slipstream, even after running through their own timeline.”

the entire flight track shudders at the use of the word “Slipstream.” all of them tense, waiting. nothing happens. they go on.

  “i’m just saying,” Cavalry Tracer continues. “is there any way to make some sort of change, or are we all really doomed to repeat everything for all eternity?”

  “it certainly seems that way,” Missing An Eye Tracer says grimly.

  “urrg, this doesn’t make sense!” Cavalry Tracer groans. “it’s hard to think.”

  “i don’t think it’s supposed to make sense,” Track and Field Tracer says. “this, i mean. i think it’s meant to be confusing. an endless list of errors from how She couldn’t save herself. just a bunch of clones of Her failure grouped together in the same place is all started.”

  “that’s mental illness for you,” Glasses Tracer says.

  “or eternal punishment for no goddamn reason,” Punk Tracer mutters.

the other Tracers nod. 

everybody quiets for a while.

  “you guys wanna play a game?” Mach T Tracer asks.

  “sure,” they all answer.

  “okay, okay,” Mach T Tracer says. “kiss, marry, kill: Orisa, Ana, and the Junker Queen.”

2,706,678 of the 4,876,801 assembled Tracer groan.

  “what kind of game is that?” Skydiver Tracer says. she wasn’t actually a skydiver, everyone just thinks it’s too tedious to call her Jumped Off Of Watchpoint: Gibraltar After Realizing She Was Just Another Copy In An Everlasting Time Loop And Killed Herself Tracer. 

  “ALSO, we have a GIRLFRIEND” Reminding Everyone About Her Girlfriend Tracer shouts. “don’t forget about Emily!”

  “Emily,” the collective Tracers sigh longingly.

  “ALSO we’re DEAD!” Mach T Tracer yells back in her face. “does it even really matter if we were in a relationship anymore?” she then turns to Skydiver Tracer. “and i’m preserving their memory as best as i can, okay? leave me be!”

  “and in what universe were we ever going to answer anything other than Orisa, Ana, the Junker Queen?” Can’t Swim Tracer says.

  “whaaaat?” Sporty Tracer looks at her in shock. “you mean the Junker Queen, Ana, Orisa, right?”

  “you make one of the options an old woman, and suddenly it’s a cougar thing,” Scarf Tracer says. “that’s the whole point of Kiss, Marry, Kill. who cares who gets put where?”

  “do i even know you guys?!” No Crocs Tracer exclaims. “it’s Ana, Orisa, the Junker Queen, obviously!”

  “.. --..-- / .--. . .-. ... --- -. .- .-.. .-.. -.-- --..-- / - .... .. -. -.- / .. - .----. ... / - .... . / --- .-. .. ... .- --..-- / - .... . / .--- ..- -. -.- . .-. / --.- ..- . . -. --..-- / .- -. .- .-.-.-” Beepy Tracer says.

  “okay, okay, okay,” Mach T Tracer holds up her hands. “i’ve heard all your feedback and taken it under consideration. how about Kiss, Marry, Kill; Tracer, Tracer aaaaaaaaaaaaand…Tracer.”

Likes Black Licorice Tracer snickers. “well, i’m definitely killing Tracer. god knows she’s earned a change in scenery.”

  “and i’m totally down with marrying Tracer,” Enjoys ASMR Tracer agrees. “we have a special connection or whatever? it’s like i know exactly what she’s thinking sometimes.”

  “and then i guess that means i’m kissing Tracer,” Broken Ribs Tracer says. “please don’t get the wrong idea, it’s just how things worked out.”

  “oh yeah, Tracer, don’t worry, i totally understand!” Flower Crown Tracer assures her.

  “hey but if we could die for real, how do we even know that we’d end up somewhere better than here, though?” Graffiti Tracer says. “maybe the actual afterlife is worse.”

  “there isn’t an actual afterlife,” Pessimistic Tracer says. “no way there’s anything up there looking down here and feeling any sort of way about anything. if there was, it wouldn’t have happened. instead, we’d be somewhere that wasn’t bullshit. and if you ask me, thinking that some big man in the sky did this is why we’re here in the first place! if we weren’t here, we wouldn’t exist. it’s that simple.”

  “askdwjwqjqloewdhdwlbefhljqewknsjqwejqe,” Drowned Tracer gurgles, water pouring out of her mouth.

  “i totally agree,” Jingle Tracer nods.

  “guys, guys,” Dehydrated Tracer steps in. “we’ve already been over this, and i’m pretty sure we all agreed that none of us know jack shit, right? right???” 

but it was already too late.

the conversation fractured, and the cracks spread, dissonant noise slowly growing louder and louder and louder.

  “QÚÌȆ!” Lena, First Of Her Name roars. 

they quiet. they all knew the rules. a few can’t help glancing over toward the Slipstream in the distance. it didn’t matter where you are, you can still always see it, at least a bit, anyway.

  “Öñê. Ć. Ä. †ïmê,” Lena says, more calmly.

  “sorry, Lena.”

  “yeah, sorry, Lena.”

  “@⊥ ☂♄☤ℨ ρ☺☤ᾔ☂, ✄н♥ к▣◎√﹩” [REDACTED] Tracer says.

  “what did she say?” Street Urchin Tracer, the newest of the Tracer’s, whispers to Cadet Tracer.

  “we don’t know,” Cadet Tracer whispers back. “nobody has been able to understand her since she showed up.” she then raises her voice to address [REDACTED] Tracer. “yeah, Tracer! great observation!”

  “we are going insane,” Rose Tracer mumbles.

  “you think?” the Tracer's sigh.

Sometime later, Tracer wakes up from the doze she must have drifted off into. It’s the sound of her chamber’s metal door opening that rouses her, and when she lifts her impossibly heavy head, through hazy vision, she notices three people enter. Three people she’s met many, many times. More times than they will ever be able to truly comprehend. 

  “Lena Oxton,” the one with the skull mask rumbles. Technically, he’s Gabriel Reyes; to some, he’s Soldier: 24, but with his deathly persona, he’s Reaper. She, however, knows him best as Commander Reyes. 

Tracer stares at the angel of death absently, saying nothing. She can no longer feel her arms, suspended just above the floor of the chamber for so long that it cut off blood flow completely.

  “I never thought I would see you again,” Reaper goes on. “I am…surprised.”

Still, Tracer says nothing. 

  “I’ve heard much about you,” the second man in the group of three speaks up, a behemoth compared to the other two. Akande Ogundimu. The Successor. Leader of Talon. Doomfist. “Everyone thought you were lost forever. Why have you returned? Where did you go for twelve entire years?”

Tracer remains silent.

Doomfist raises his eyebrows up in interest. “You wish to keep your secrets to yourself, eh? A smart decision. Maybe you’re not as stupid as Reaper said you were. But no worries. We have ways to make people talk.”

Doomfist comes forward, reaching for the shackles locked around her wrists.

Tracer braces herself. 

The second her arms are lowered, circulation drives the numbness from her hands like knives through her palms, and she can’t help but yowl and reel in reaction. The pain in her hands as they return to life is new and unlike anything she’s ever felt before, a sensation so fierce and virulent it seems to assault her nerve endings directly. She slumps forward onto Doomfist, gasping for air over the mire of sheer torment ravaging her entire body, and he shoves her off hard. It nearly sends her to the floor, but then she’s snatched by the hair, and Doomfist’s strong grip forces her to stay standing, even when her knees quiver beneath the returned weight of her body. Though, it can hardly be considered “standing,” as Doomfist is the sole reason she’s still upright, fingers in her hair keeping her from crumpling into a small, pathetic little ball. He sneers at her, scorn-mixed-amusement written all over his face.

  “I expected more from you,” he says.

Tracer stares at him blankly. 

Then, the accelerator hums on her chest, and she’s Blinking forward in a blur of blue light. When Reaper moves to grab her, she Recalls out of the range of his hands, only to have the firm body of a gun swing around and slam into her stomach.

Like that, Tracer folds, falling prone to the floor as the air is beaten out of her lungs. She gasps, then sputters. Above her, a dark figure looms. 

Amélie Lacroix. Former wife of Gérard Lacroix. Murderer of Mondatta. Widowmaker.

  “Not so fast,” Widowmaker says, her voice like sticky honey that traps unsuspecting insects. 

Tracer tries to skitter backward, but her arms are still aching, and she can’t support her own weight. Her elbows buckle, and she falls flat against the cold stone ground. 

Widowmaker peers at her curiously, as though she’s some kind of specimen. “How strange you are.”

Fingers knot in her hair; she’s being yanked back up. For a moment, she’s actually lifted a foot off the floor by the head, causing her entire skull to radiate pain as though her scalp was set on fire. She grits her teeth tightly. Doomfist drags her face to be directly in front of his own. 

  “You silly little rat,” he says. “It won’t be that easy. But I do appreciate you telling us exactly what it is you can do. I was wondering about how you were able to move around so strangely back in the hangar.” He then makes a gesture to Reaper. Out of the corner of her eye, Tracer sees the flash of silver as a blade is flicked out. The next thing she knows, the dark figure of Reaper is coming toward her, and she knows exactly what it is that he’s planning to do.

  “No!” she cries, her voice, so hoarse from disuse, rising up in her throat like boiling water. “You can take it off!”

That makes Reaper pause. Doomfist and Widowmaker both gain expressions of great interest.

  “Oh?” Doomfist says. “What is it, your lifeline?”

  “You can’t take it off,” Tracer says again, her words quivering. “If you do, it’ll break, then it’ll be useless to you.” 

That’s a lie. She’s at the point where she can safely take the chronal accelerator on and off, but these people don’t need to know that. She doesn’t want them getting their hands on her anchor. 

  “What is it?” Doomfist inquires. “Who made it?”

Tracer doesn’t reply to that. She simply snakes her arms around the accelerator and stares up at him blankly.

Doomfist chuckles. “Fine then. We’ll just force the answers out of you.”

Doomfist hauls her forward, still gripping her by the hair. For a moment, her bare feet drag over the ground, but then she manages to fall into step with him, limping along obediently. 

The bowels beneath the Talon base twist and turn, and she can faintly hear someone crying in a direction she can’t make out. She wonders how many other people are being held captive down here.

The room she’s taken to smells like blood. There’s a drain in the floor, stained red with something that she’s sure is not rust. Several horrific devices are set up in eye line, possibly to intimidate her. It works. 

A chair is at the center of the room. She’s strapped to it firmly, and leather cords sting uncomfortably against blisters around her wrists, caused by the shackles that she had been hanging from for so long. This seat is only slightly better than the chains, but it’s no throne. She knows what will happen to her while she’s sitting here. 

She’s been in this spot many, many times.

Doomfist, Reaper, Widowmaker, and some other man she doesn’t recognize (presumably the torturer) stand around her, and she feels so much like a prey animal surrounded by predators. She does her best to mask her fear, even when her heart pounds violently against her ribs, and her entire body burns with adrenaline. 

  “This doesn’t have to be difficult,” Doomfist says. “Tell us what we want, and no blood will be spilled.”

That’s a lie, and Tracer knows it. She knows how these people work better than they probably do. They delight in bloodshed, so even if she gives them all the information they want to hear, they will still probably cut pieces off of her just for the fun of it. 

So, she keeps up her resistance, gazing at them with no sign of giving in. 

  “You’ve been missing for twelve years,” Doomfist says. “Where did you go after the Slipstream disappeared?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Tracer says back. 

  “Oh, but I do, Lena Oxton,” Doomfist says, and hearing her full name spoken is so strange. Alien. A small part of her knows that is, in fact, her, but the rest of her feels no connection to that title, like nerves that have been severed, causing them to die and become unfeeling. 

  “No, you don’t,” Tracer says. “You’d never be able to handle it.”

Widowmaker raises an intrigued eyebrow. “Are you mocking us?”

  “No,” Tracer says. “I’m telling the truth. You really don’t want to know where I’ve been. Because whatever you’re thinking it is, reality is ten times worse.”

Unphased by this, Doomfist says, “No matter. We’ll worm the answer out of you eventually. Nothing can be kept from us forever.” He then points to the chronal accelerator. “This…device. It seems to grant you strange abilities. How did you get it?”

She says nothing in response. She refuses to give them anything they want to hear.

  “Hm,” is all Doomfist says, and then he tips his head ever so slightly. Tracer hears movement from behind the chair; hands reach down, and the next thing she knows, something cold is sliding across her neck.

Blood.

Hot blood.

Blood rushing out of her, and blood rushing down into her.

She can feel the exact moment it hits her lungs, a drop of lead falling like a deadweight into her chest. Impossibly heavy, so fucking hot. Burning her from the inside out. Sticky and scalding, slicking her tissue like boiled tar. 

They slit her throat.

Panic. 

She attempts to raise her hands to try and hold the gaping wound shut, but the straps around her wrists keep her arms firmly in place, so she just thrashes uselessly against her restraints. Blood rises in her throat, filling her mouth, and she tries to spit it out, but a gag is shoved through her lips, stopping her from doing even that. With nowhere to go, the blood pools, and she begins to drown from both ends.

Widowmaker lets out an alarmed hiss. “Why would you do that?” she carps. “What use is she to us if she’s dead?”

Doomfist holds up a hand, silencing her criticism. Then, speaking to Tracer, he says, “You’re going to bleed out within two minutes. You may drown in your own blood quicker than that. But you can save yourself, can’t you? We all saw what you’re capable of. Somehow, some way, you can alter time. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

Tracer stares at him, wide-eyed. Her ears begin to ring. She can feel her pulse pounding against her temples, her heart fervently pumping more and more and more and more blood.

And her lungs swallow it all down.

Her chest is an ocean of blood. As tight as a drum and full to the point of bursting open. Red waves batter sore ribs. 

  “So,” Doomfist says, an awful smile curling on his lips. “Heal yourself, Lena. Rewind time. Save yourself.”

Tracer gargles around the gag in her mouth. Blood has snaked its way into her nasal cavity and dribbles out from her nostrils in a disgusting viscera that’s mixed with snot. 

Her life begins to flash before her eyes. Lives, she should say. So many lives. So many fucking lives. 

Tracer sitting in a pub with Emily, laughing and chatting, the two of them having a good time together.

     Tracer taking the bullet for an Omnic she’s sure she knows but can’t recall the name of, falling to the floor in a mess of her own blood as mayhem explodes all around her.

          Tracer crawling across blood-slickened asphalt, her chest torn open and the chronal Core exposed to open air, steaming and bleeding.

               Tracer unloading her entire clip into the skull of an angel, watching the woman’s soothing golden glow fade away into nothingness, an act of revenge for not trying hard enough to save her from the Slipstream’s fate.

                    Tracer taking up dog walking after the fall of Overwatch, wanting to try and get a “normal job,” surrounded by all sorts of canine breeds that are as excited to go for a jog as she is.

                         Tracer at the head of Talon’s council, a sinister smirk teasing her lips as she announces a plan to set fire to King’s Row.

At the corner of the room, the shadows dance.

oblivion awaits.

The chronal accelerator bursts to life on her chest, and a bright blue light illuminates through the room, catching on all the blades and torture devices that are waiting their turn to taste her flesh. The intense buzz of captured inertia vibrates through her entire body, made more acute by her restrained position, an orb of volatile energy caught inside a cage, but motion is not required to Recall, and she feels her skin itch uncomfortably as the gaping wound split across her throat begins to mend itself shut. By the end of the rewind, her entire body aches with fatigue, as though she’s just run a marathon. She feels like a towel that’s been wrung out, and she dredges in a deep breath to try and breathe, but all that greets her is blood.

Her throat has been repaired, but there’s still blood.

Tracer feels her esophagus spasm. Her lungs heave. Her entire body convulses.

And then, the gag is removed, and the blood erupts like lava.

Tracer hunches forward and vomits all over herself.

Her intestines writhe like furious eels deep inside of her gut. Sweat prickles all across her throbbing limbs. Her throat is on fire.

It’s humiliating. It’s so humiliating.

Blood and vomit soils her tarnished skin. Maybe there’s no difference between the two fluids. They both smell disgusting. They’re both uncomfortably hot against her skin. They both stain her in a way that makes her feel so ashamed. 

Fingers in her hair yank her head back, forcing her to look up. Her teary eyes meet Doomfist’s cold ones.

And he smiles. 

  “This will be fun,” he says, and behind him, the Void laughs.

The human body is so terribly frail. You can only torment it for so long before it gives in and perishes against the whims of torture. But when severe damage can be so easily reversed and regenerated? It opens up a myriad of bloody possibilities.

Tracer is a toy. She realizes this rather quickly. These people are doing these horrible things to her because they find it entertaining. Perhaps, at one point, they wanted proper answers, but now answers are the least of their concern. 

Now, they just want to see how far they can push her.

And push her they do.

The only warning she’s given is a brief flash of silver, and then a slight ruffle of wind as a sharp movement is made, and she can’t bite back the scream that surfaces to her lips as two of her fingers are chopped off from her right hand. She stares, horrified, as blood spurts from the twin stumps where her fingers used to be, white bone penetrating through deep red like the beacon from a lighthouse. 

Recall.

She can feel the residue of blood still clinging to the inside of her lungs. It’s like cherry cough syrup. She can’t get it out.

From the dark corners of the room, the Void watches. And it laughs. It laughs at how feeble she is, how stupid she is. The sound of its cackling echoes endlessly in her skull.

She misses Sombra.

She really fucking misses Sombra.

A knife before her face, scratching her eyeball out. 

She wishes she got the luxury of having the eye gouged out or stabbed out, but no. These people are more creative than that, much more cruel. They opt to go slow, to prolong her suffering as much as possible. 

So, they scratch her eyeball out. Like a miner plowing through rock, picking and picking, digging and digging. By the end, it’s hardly an eye at all. It’s more like a masticated mound of mush oozing from her ripped up socket. The sensation is unimaginable.

Recall.

              The Void is laughing. Laughing. Always laughing.

  “Shut up!” she cries at the shadows. “SHUT UP!”

Laughing. Laughing. laughing.

  “SHUT UP!”

reaper cuts her tongue out.

    There’s blood in her lungs. There’s cherry cough syrup in her lungs. The Void is in her lungs.

  She can’t taste the difference between them anymore. 

 Maybe there never was a difference to begin with.

                              Pliers taste like old pennies when her tongue instinctively flicks against them. They clamp around one of her molars and twist. She can feel the roots crack and rip, fractures splitting through her mouth. She screams, but it’s garbled by the blood that gushes from her torn gums.

    Recall.

      Denailed. Waterboarded. Electrocuted. Whipped. 

     Recall. Recall. Recall. Recall.  

                                                Skin, bone, and muscle. Yellow fat and white tendon.

                                   what the fuck does any of this matter anymore?

                  recall. rewind. but she can never re. mem. ber.

                                                                     Som bra. A s hadow ca  st acro   ss he r memo  ries. A sh ade bu   rned int o he r h ea r t. 

    she misses he r.

                            sɥǝ ƃoʇ qoʇɥ oɟ ɥǝɹ ɐɹɯs ɔnʇ oɟɟ, ɐup ɐןן sɥǝ ɔonןp po ʍɐs ɔɹʎ.

Bloody cough syrup in her lungs, sloshing about. A distant image of someone who once was a friend in the dark. It hurts.

Cold, icy heat prickles at her cheeks and ears, and it is unbearable.

Heavy slush floats in her throat. Bilious, nauseating.

Each breath burns her lungs. Lemon juice in her chest. Pain. Pain that does not stop. Pain that never stops. Pain that never dies. 

Her mouth is full of something that is very bitter and rotten, and it burns all the way down to her stomach. It’s thicker than blood.

Her torment does not stop.

She wants it to.

Again, the Void is laughing. Laughing. Roaring. 

It knows no boundaries.

Her heart is pounding in her ears. She thinks she might go deaf from it.

The chronal accelerator is quaking, making a concerning whining sound like an out-of-tune violin. It can’t take so many Recalls. It’s overloaded, and so is her entire body, overstimulated by so many agonizing sensations. She can’t handle it.

Her chest cracks. She gasps for breath. Her chest cracks again. The cracking rips her rib cage apart. She lets out a piercing scream that tears right through her neck, cutting through every inch of bone, slicing the skin. And the laughing in the Void continues.

Her eyes are burning. Her chest is shattering. Her will is breaking.

It hurts.

Please, please, please let it stop.

Her ears are bleeding. Her screams are destroying her ears.

Blood pours out of her open mouth. She is crying now, sobbing wildly. Tears are spilling free.

She is afraid. She is afraid. She is afraid, afraid, afraid. She is in agony. It hurts so bad. It hurts so bad. It hurts so bad.

The laughing of the Void is a never-ending howl of madness. It burns through her mind like fire through bone, and it is tearing her psyche in two. Every thought, every word, every laugh—it’s ripping at her brain, shredding it. Her brain is bleeding out, leaking. Her consciousness stings and contorts. The final remnants of sanity are pulled to pieces.

She screams and cries.

She coughs. She coughs and coughs, until all that remains is blood.

And she is begging for mercy.

Morphed into a mewling animal, she pleads for mercy from her captors through the blood still coming from her mouth. She’s down on the ground beneath them (she already forgot why, she forgot what they had been doing to her before she lost her mind to all the stimulation), and she paws at them feebly, yowling about how she’ll tell them what they want to hear if they just make her stop feeling. She needs all the sensations to just STOP.

  “Please, please, please, please…” she sobs again and again. 

Above her, her captors stare. 

And then, they laugh.

They laugh, and they laugh.

It’s a guttural, inhuman sound that does not even resemble anything she can comprehend. The noise tears at her mind, at her very soul.

Her body convulses in a final fit of mindless, involuntary spasms, and her mind goes with it.

  “STOP!”

Her voice is a tiny violin playing in the great, black abyss of the nothingness that has been her consciousness.

And then it is over.

All at once, everything stops. 

The laughing stops.

The sensations stop.

The blood stops. 

Everything stops.

Her body has shut down, locking her senses and functions up behind a reinforced wall of steel. The closest thing to brain death a living creature can experience. For some, it’s a defense mechanism used to protect the psyche from horrors, but for her, it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the only thing left that her soul can think to do. 

A fragment of her identity still exists, still feels, still thinks, but the rest of her, all of her mind and all of her being, is gone.

She gives that last broken piece of her being to Talon.

Because there is simply nothing left for her to do.

In total, Lena Oxton lasts nineteen hours.

Doomfist cannot deny it: he is impressed. He hadn’t expected such a tiny girl to have so much resilience.

But everything can be broken. And she has been. Thoroughly.

She’s no more than a mindless beast now, staring with empty eyes at the floor. She’s no longer crying, no longer screaming. They’ve scooped all her willpower out of her. Overstimulated to the point of insanity.

  “Are you ready to cooperate now?” he asks her.

And she nods, perfectly obedient, because good dogs never bark.

Moira is not an empathetic person. She feels very little sympathy for just about everyone, with the exception of very specific people. Cold and uncaring, as she is meant to be as a scientist.

But when the anomaly that she’s been helping keep hidden for the past few months is brought in, she can’t help but feel a twinge of worry in her heart.

She heard about what happened with Sombra and Tracer. How they were caught during their attempt to leave the base. She felt scorn toward them for their capture—how could they be so careless? Meanwhile, Emily has been an anxious wreck, as Tracer was quickly detained by Talon’s forces once they realized who she was. Since then, neither of them had heard anything of the girl.

Except now, of course.

Moira can hardly recognize the girl who is hauled into her lab as Tracer. Once bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Tracer is reduced to no more than a wretch, a soiled shell of who she used to be. Her entire body is covered in blood, most of it dried, some of it still sticky and wet. There’s blood in her eyes and blood coming out of her eyes, there’s blood oozing from her nostrils, there’s blood crusted on her lips. There’s just so much blood, and there’s no way she should even be alive right now. 

Doomfist is dragging her by the hair, and Moira has the strangest urge to snap at him for it, but she keeps her mouth shut. She keeps her expression neutral, too, only raising her eyebrows in reaction, not showing any signs that she has connections to his prisoner.

She gives a cursory glance to the side, where she knows Emily is standing. To her credit, her niece is also restraining herself from reacting to Tracer’s presence, her face bearing an expression of surprise one would usually don when being presented a victim of torture, but Moira can tell she’s struggling. Emily really wants to beat the shit out of Doomfist, but she’s holding herself back from doing so.  

  “I have a gift for you,” Doomfist says.

Moira eyes Tracer. Her knees are buckled together, head angled downward; Doomfist is the only reason she’s still on her feet.

  “Is that what you call this mess?” Moira says back. Cynical and cruel, as she’s meant to be. Don’t blow her cover. “You’re tracking blood in my lab.”

  “As if it’s not usually bloody,” Doomfist says. “This is the Slipstream’s pilot. Lena Oxton.”

  “Indeed,” Moira hums. Though, through the swamp of blood, this girl can hardly be compared to the pilot she met all those years ago. The difference between the two of them is jarring. “I’ve met her before. I never expected her to come back.”

  “Neither did any of us,” Doomfist says. “But now she is, and I’m giving you the honor of experimenting on her.”

Usually, Moira would be thrilled to have such a wonderful specimen, but for some reason, the idea of working on Tracer just makes her feel all squirmy inside. Still, she does not waver in her facade, and she instructs Doomfist to strap Tracer down to the metal table at the center of her lab (she says “Lena Oxton,” but the name “Tracer” almost slips from her lips. she catches herself at the last minute). 

On the table, Tracer looks more dead than alive. Her eyes are open, but they’re empty, blank, and unfocused—the thousand-yard stare. The lights are on, but nobody’s home. 

  “What did you do to her?” The question comes out before Moira can even think it through. 

Luckily, Doomfist doesn’t seem to notice the edge of disgust around her tone, too blinded by his cockiness. He answers her, “We broke her will.”

Emily comes forward. “What do you mean?” Her rage is just barely veiled beneath a mask of neutrality. 

  “We tortured her,” Doomfist specified. “Though, I think that’s rather obvious. I’ll give the worm credit: she’s tougher than I expected. Lasted a lot longer than any of us thought. She’s resilient. She’s stubborn. She’s a big heart in a little body. We wanted to see what would happen if we cut off everything she had.”

Emily’s shoulders jerk. Moira can see that she’s biting the inside of her cheek.

  “She looks to be in one piece to me,” Moira observes. And it’s true. Even with all the blood, she can’t see any open wounds. 

Doomfist laughs. “Don’t let your eyes deceive you. We’ve torn her to pieces several times. But she has the ability to rewind time. Or, rewind her own personal timeline. She can reverse anything we do to her, hence the lack of physical damage left behind.”

But the psychological damage that’s surely lingering in Tracer’s psyche…

  “What do you want me to do with her?” Moira asks.

  “Discover whatever you can about her anatomy and biology,” Doomfist replies. “We must know everything. We have a big job planned for her. And when you’re finished with that, I have another task for you, so I hope you don’t have anything else you’re working on. You’ll have your hands full for a while.”

He leaves her with a festering of morbid curiosity, departing the way he came in. The moment he’s gone, Emily is releasing a shaking breath, stepping away from the table with her hands on her head, pacing back and forth. She looks deeply troubled, and Moira can’t blame her. 

Emily scuttles back over. She looks down upon Tracer with great horror, struggling to find the words on what to say about this. When she finally is able to conjure up a proper sentence, what she says is, “Is she— is she alive?”

It’s not a stupid question in the slightest. On the table, Tracer looks like nothing more than a mass of broken flesh, hair, and blood. She isn’t reacting to anything that’s happening around her. She hardly even blinks, and Moira just can’t get over how dead her eyes are. 

  “She’s in shock,” Moira says. 

  “Tracer?” Emily says, carefully touching the girl’s shoulder. “Tracer, can you hear me?”

No response. Not even a reaction on the face. 

Maybe she’s been paralyzed. Maybe she’s brain-dead.

Moira starts to hook up various wires and devices to Tracer. Vitals appear across monitor screens she has in her lab. The first thing she notices is that Tracer’s heart rate is dangerously low. Her blood pressure is low, too.

  “We need to keep her stabilized,” Moira says. “Come on, come help me.”

Moira knows Emily doesn’t like the idea of running tests on Tracer, but she obeys anyway. They have no other choice, lest they want the same treatment that Tracer was given. 

Blood samples. Brain waves and electrical signals. Test upon test upon test. Tracer is turned into their lab rat.

  “Did you know your organs can burn?” 

The sound of the voice comes from out of nowhere, and it catches Moira by surprise. She and Emily both look down, and Tracer is still staring up at nothing in particular, her eyes pieces of hollow glass. At first, it seems like she hadn’t even spoken at all.

  “What?” Emily says.

  “Did you know that your organs can burn?” Tracer repeats, and her voice is so very decayed. Not waiting for an answer this time, she goes on, “‘Cause they can. I didn’t know that. I mean, I do now.”

Emily’s breath quivers slightly as she asks, “How?”

Tracer blinks for the first time in several minutes. “Well,” she says, “they started gettin’ frustrated that I wasn’t reacting to their torture the way they wanted me to. You know, squealing and screaming. But they can only rip off my fingernails or pull out my teeth so many times before it stops being painful. And once you get dismembered once, it’s just not the same every other time. So, they started to think outside of the box. Tried something different. They cut me open like I was a frog about to be dissected in a science class, poured gasoline all inside of me, and then set my guts on fire.” She finally closes her eyes. “I can still feel it. I can still feel…all of it. And it hurts. A lot.”

Moira and Emily are both quiet. Neither of them know what to say to this. 

Finally, Emily speaks, “I’m so, so sorry, Tracer.”

There’s no response.

Tracer seems to have blacked out.

Sombra is kept in detainment for almost two days. 

She’s not put into a cell, which is a surprise to her, but she is forced into quarantine in her bedroom. There are two guards that always stay manned outside her door, even at night, not allowing her to come out. Food is delivered routinely. 

She feels like a caged lion. Stress eats away at her, and she barely sleeps. Her mind is in a frenzy. She can’t stop thinking about Tracer.

What is Talon going to do to her? 

She doesn’t think she wants to know.

God, how could she be so stupid? They’ve been careful for so long, and her own negligence ruined everything. Now she’s lost Tracer in an entirely different way. In a way that’s worse than anything she ever could have expected. 

Finally, someone comes to see her.

She expected Doomfist or Reaper or even Widowmaker, but it’s none of them. Instead, it’s Moira, and she’s wearing a grim expression that’s unnatural for her. 

  “You’re an idiot, do you know that?” Moira says.

  “I do,” Sombra says back. “But there’s no time for you to berate me. Do you know how Tracer is? Have you seen her? Is she okay?”
Moira doesn’t answer. 

Sombra feels her heart stutter in her chest. Suddenly, it’s very hard to breathe.

  “Is she—” Her voice catches for a moment. “Is she alive?”

  “She’s alive,” Moira says. “Though…that may be worse than her being dead.”

  “What are you talking about?”

Moira sighs, rubbing a clawed hand over her face. “She spun a rather strange story about her existence. She told Akande that she came back when the Slipstream did and has been hiding out in the base ever since. She made the chronal accelerator herself by taking the teleportation matrix out of the Slipstream. And the only reason why you two were together the night you were caught was because she ‘threatened’ you into helping her.”

Sombra’s chest aches with pain. “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “Talon will be using her as their new power source for the Slipstream,” Moira says. “She’ll be nothing more than a generator. A sentient engine for the jet that ruined her life.”

Sombra slumps down into her couch. She can’t bring herself to come up with any words. What is there to say about this?

  “And you,” Moira says. “You will be moved away from here. You’re being shipped off to Dorado to work undercover.”

  “What?” Sombra gapes at her.

  “You’re lucky they’re not killing you,” Moira says. “This is the best turnabout for you.”

  “But Tracer…”

  “Tracer gave her existence for yours,” Moira says. “She didn’t rat you out, even though she could have. Don’t waste it wallowing.”

  “How can you say that to me?” Sombra hisses, feeling a flash of rage blaze through her. “She was important to me, of course I’m going to wallow. ”

  “I know,” Moira says, and her understanding is surprising. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?” Sombra asks her desperately.

Moira shakes her head, frowning. “No. I can’t interfere with this. I’m sorry.”

Sombra puts her head in her hands, trying to hide the tears burning in her eyes from Moira. The bottom of her throat hurts, like a knife is lodged in her neck. It’s hard to breathe. 

  “Can you tell her I’m sorry?” Sombra beseeches Moira. “Please. Just tell her I’m sorry.”

Her mind is far away. Her sense of self is just an echo inside her ruined, aching skin. She can hardly recall who she was beyond this narrow ring of pain that has encompassed her entire being. 

One foot in front of the other. She doesn’t even process that she’s moving at all. Her body is working on autopilot, and she's just watching it all happen through glazed, half-lidded eyes.

She’s led into a dim room. Shafts of grey light pierce through frosted windows. The Void curls around the edges of the space, hissing, whispering.

There’s a monster in here with her. They’re taking her right to it, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. 

Chains are cold and abrasive against her wrists, locking her in. Something is hooked into the glowing center of the chronal accelerator, then connected to some kind of mainframe in front of her. An electrical shock sprints throughout her entire body, but she can’t even scream, for her vocal cords have already been ripped apart.  

Someone leans over her. A shot of red hair catches her eye. They’re holding something in a clawed hand. 

  “I apologize deeply,” an Irish voice says to her. “I wish you the best.”

She blinks at the person, then lets out a pained hiss as a needle jabs into her neck, injecting something that burns directly into her body. Again, she tries to scream, but only a rasping croak comes out. She’s starting to taste blood.

A hand is placed on her shoulder, a comforting touch that her skin craves. She leans into it, letting her eyes drift shut for just a moment.

  “Sombra says she is sorry,” the person says.

Her eyes open. She blinks again.

Sombra?

Lena doesn’t think she knows anyone named Sombra...

Chapter Text

The sky is the color of carnage, and gruesome red light spills through narrow, winding alleyways like the bloody run-off from an open wound. The evening is warm as spring begins to curl itself around the world, blooming once more like a never-dying rose. People are going to sleep, but the shadows continue to prowl across the walls and streets.

A shadow. That’s what she is now.

There’s a hiss of static in her left ear, then a voice speaks to her, “Sombra, do you copy?”

She answers, “Aye, I copy.”

  “Good,” the voice says. “We have eyes on the target. I’m giving you the green light to move in. But be careful. If you’re spotted, he’ll surely know we’re after him.”

Sombra gives a soft grunt at being “given the green light.” She’s used to being given commands, sure, but not like this. Like she’s some kind of lowly soldier forced to be obedient.

But now that she’s been demoted, that’s truly what she is now. 

Cloaking herself in invisibility, Sombra leaps off of the balcony she’s perched on and heads into the heart of the community.

Guanajuato is a city of color. Extravagant Baroque and neoclassical architecture dominate the civilization. Sombra wishes she had time to stop and appreciate the style of construction, but she has a job to do, and the last thing she wants is to have someone nagging in her ear about being distracted. She already deals with enough shit nowadays as is. 

There are still people out and about, even as the sun descends from the sky, but it’s no matter for Sombra. Down the twisting roads, she skulks, unnoticed by all of them. Not even street cats prick their ears as she passes by. As a shadow should be.

She finds her way to a populated part of the city, where the night market is alive and the bars play loud music that bleeds into one another. People spill out onto the streets, laughing, chatting. Watching them from the sidelines, Sombra feels a sharp tug of jealousy at her heart, longing for those same relations. 

She used to have them. Now they’re so out of reach, like the stars that have started to blink their way into the horizon up above. 

  “Sombra?” 

The voice is like dog fangs pulling on her ear. She hisses between her teeth, then ducks into an alleyway to answer.

  “What?” she says, barely able to contain her irritation. 

  “You’re near the target,” her commander says. “Green shirt. Short beard. Detain him, but don’t kill him.”

  “Understood,” Sombra says. She has no choice but to obey the annoyance.

Her commander is a man named Rico, a Talon agent she had known in passing before this. She’s always been at a higher rank than him, so now that she’s been pushed down to the lower levels, he makes sure to boss her around as much as he can, knowing there’s nothing she can do to oppose him, lest she wants to face the wrath of Doomfist.

Still snug under the veil of invisibility, Sombra slinks back out into the open. In the pavilion, she indeed spots the target, clad in a green shirt and sporting a short, scruffy beard, as Rico had said. He’s conversing with a pair of men, laughing while enjoying a drink. He doesn’t look like much of a fugitive, admittedly.

Sombra has to wait until he’s alone, so she lingers for a while. She moves through the crowd, unnoticed by all. And all around her, the people go on about their lives, oblivious to the darkness lurking among them.

And she hates them for it.

With a jealous enmity so pure, so perfect, so full of emotion and spite, it rages like an unyielding wildfire. 

She wants to tear them limb from limb. 

To rend them asunder. 

To reduce them to so much flesh and blood and bone.

To make them bleed.

To watch them suffer. 

To feel what they feel.

To live, as she once did.

To be free, as she once was.

To be...

To have...

To be wanted.

To be loved.

It’s all envy. 

Envy so fierce it burns hotter than even the sun’s most vicious blister. 

The sun.  

The one that gave birth to all life on this planet, the one that spins and turns and shines and warms. 

Now she moves through the streets, hopelessly obeying the people who betrayed her. The ones who denoted her to the lowest branch of a burning tree. The ones who took her sun away from her, stealing away the light and warmth, the affection and love. The ones who left her alone.  

Alone and cold.

And she hates them.

She hates them so much, it feels like a part of her has been torn out and removed. Like an organ she can’t replace, that’s been ripped from her body, and she can’t even feel it anymore. 

A part of her.

A part of her heart.

A part of her being.

A part of her soul.

Hates them so much, she doesn’t even know who she is anymore.

The music, the crowds, the city itself. The countless missions they’re constantly sending her on, grunt work after grunt work. 

It’s all a blur, a distraction, a trick of the organization to keep her from thinking about the shining star that they have stolen from her. 

She’s tried to remember what it was like to be happy, to laugh and to feel and to be.

But it’s all gone now. 

Now, she only has the cold, empty place within her where it once was, the warm, living space in which it once flourished. 

They took her life from her.

They took her light.

They took her happiness.

They took her love.

They took her sun, her star. 

All that remains is the fading ghost light of memories stained in blood and tears and grief. 

The target is on the move. He says farewell to his friends, then makes his way home. Silently, Sombra follows him. A shadow among shadows. An insubstantial wraith.

The streets of Guanajuato twist and turn. The man walks quickly, his head down, his footsteps echoing in the emptiness. Sombra follows his trail like a ghost.

Then, suddenly, the man stops.

He stands very still for a long time, staring at nothing in particular. His head turns upward slightly.

  “I know you’re there.”

He isn’t looking at Sombra, hasn’t even turned around, but he seems to have spotted her.

  “I knew they would come for me eventually.”

  “You know you can’t just leave,” Sombra says, prowling forward slowly, remaining invisible. “That’s not how Talon works.”

The man sighs. “I know. But I won’t stop fighting to get away. I’m not going back.”

  “Unfortunate for you.”

She’s almost upon him.

And then, at the last second, he spins around and lifts up some kind of small object that Sombra only catches a glimpse of before her eyes are sprayed by something wet. She flinches back in surprise, her invisibility dissolving away, and she raises a hand to wipe her face, and that’s when the burning starts.

It feels as though someone has just shoved a red-hot fire poker directly into her eyeballs. She screams, grabbing at her face as a thousand tiny needles of pain stab into her corneas, burning through her skull and into her brain. Her whole head feels as though it’s been lit on fire. 

She just got fucking pepper sprayed. 

Footsteps take off down the street, but Sombra is too consumed in her own suffering to chase after the target. Instead, she collapses down to her knees, clawing at her eyes, keening in agony, but the pain doesn’t relent. 

A colorful, vulgar string of curses fall from her mouth, which feels like it has a bonfire blistering inside of it. Her throat is searing, and her chest is like an open furnace fueled by charcoal. Snot oozes from her nostrils. It’s as though the devil just ejaculated gasoline all over her face and then set it ablaze. 

  “Sombra!” Rico nags in her ear, only adding to her current misery. “What’s going on?”

  “I just got fucking maced!” Sombra snaps. 

  “What about the target? Where is he?”

No sympathy. Completely uncaring.

Sombra expects nothing less. She doesn’t know why she keeps holding out hope that she’ll get any compassion anymore.

  “I don’t fucking know,” Sombra seethes. “I can’t fucking see. How do you expect me to know where he is?”

  “You let him get away?” Rico barks. 

  “Do you REALLY expect me to chase after him with PEPPER SPRAY melting my eyeballs?” Sombra barks back.

  “You’re being dramatic,” Rico says.

  “I really, truly, am not, you apathetic bitch.” 

  “Get up and go after him. The more you wallow, the further he runs. It was already a pain to try and track him. We are not losing sight of him now.”

  “Give me a minute. My whole head feels like it’s a candle or something.”

  “No. Get up and chase him. Now. ”

  “I said, give me a minute! I’ll do it in a second!”

  “Listen to me—”

  “No, YOU listen to ME!” she shouts, suddenly full of ire. “You have NO IDEA how shitty I feel right now! That block-headed bastard went from zero to fucking one hundred on me, and the last thing I need is your irritating ass whining in my ear!” She rears up to her feet. “I’ll chase him in— agh!”

She doubles over, clutching at her face again. Everything around her is bright red and burning. It’s hard to breathe.

  “Watch your tongue, Sombra,” Rico warns. “The boss will be happy to cut it out.”

Sombra doesn’t doubt that.

  “Get moving.”

Seething, Sombra hauls herself forward, trying to navigate through the blurriness and pain. 

What other choice does she have anymore?

When the team arrives outside the facility, the whole world seems to be dead silent. The night is cloudy, not a single star visible in the sky, and all the lights in the building are shut off, even though there should be at least one on to show that work is going on inside. But instead, the entire place appears to be abandoned.

Right from the get-go, Mercy has a bad feeling about this. The last transmission they had gotten from the facility had been a chaotic one: it was filled with screaming, crashing, and wailing for help before the signal was cut off. That alone was enough to make the hair rise up on everyone who heard it, but actually standing in front of the building itself makes a sickening dread pool in her stomach like a thick, dark oil spill.

But she must have courage. There may be injured here, and it’s her duty to take care of them.

Having other people around makes her feel better, too. She’s happy not to be alone. 

A part of this team is herself, Brigitte, Mei, and four other agents, all sent to investigate an alleged attack on one of the facilities Overwatch has scattered across the continents. This one is located on the western bay of France, facing the water, which looks like a giant ocean of ink at this hour of the night. Overwatch is secretive with their bases, so it’s rather worrisome for an incident to happen, hence why a group has been sent out so quickly to check out the problem. 

  “Spooky,” says a voice from behind, and Mercy just barely keeps her shoulders from jolting in surprise. 

Looking back, Mercy sees Brigitte staring at the darkened Overwatch facility suspiciously, as if she’s expecting it to sprout spider legs and scuttle off into the gloom. Then, she catches Mercy’s gaze and flashes a big grin. It makes Mercy feel a little better. At least one of them still has the heart to lighten the mood.

  “Definitely,” agrees a second voice; Mei is at Mercy’s side. Snowball is cozied up on her shoulder, humming faintly. 

  “Well,” Mercy says with a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

Seeing as she’s acting as the commander of the team, she starts forward, and the group follows close behind her. 

However, they barely take ten steps before the silence of the night is broken by a sound: a distinct rustling near one of the bushes that border the building.

Instantly, everyone goes up in arms, brandishing their weapons with fingers poised on the triggers. There’s a shrill scream, too, followed by heavy footsteps and the rattle of metal. They all slowly turn to Brigitte, who is frantically hopping backward like a startled crow, attempting to raise her shield and use her flail simultaneously. When she notices the entire group staring at her, she stops.

  “I was being dramatic,” she says.

Mei giggles. Mercy releases an amused breath through her nose. A few of the other agents chuckle lightly.

Their attention is then returned to the source of the noise. With her gun drawn, Mercy steps forward and calls out, “Who’s there? Show yourself.”

A figure in the shadows stands up, and the flashlight one of the agents has shines upon the form of a disheveled man. He looks worse for wear and seems terribly spooked by something. Mercy spots the Overwatch logo on his shirt sleeve.

  “Dr. Ziegler?” the man croaks warily.

Mercy lowers her gun. “Yes, it’s me.”

The man stumbles forward, wide-eyed. “Oh, thank god,” he says, breathless.

The man, who introduces himself as Pierre, is taken back to the ship the team arrived on to be treated and explain what had happened. There, he tells them, “We were doing our work as usual when the power suddenly went off. We tried to turn it back on, but not even going to the breaker would do anything. That’s when, I swear, I heard something whispering in the shadows.”

Leaning in avidly like she’s being told a ghost story, Brigitte echoes, “Whispering?”

Pierre nods. “Yeah.”

  “What did it say?”

Pierre’s expression goes dark, and his voice sounds haunted as he says, “‘Come to me. It’s time to go home.’”

Chills sprint through each of them. Not even Mercy can deny her own inkling of fright. 

  “And then—” Pierre is now choked. “And then something, I don’t even know what, started attacking us from the dark. Some kind of entity.”

Again, a shiver rolls through Mercy.

Entity. Not a person. An entity. 

  “I didn’t know what to do, so I fled the building,” Pierre goes on. “My coworkers… I don’t think they were as lucky to make it out.” Tears brim in his eyes. “I should have stayed back and helped them. I shouldn’t have run away like a coward.”

  “Running does not make you a coward,” Mercy says. “It makes you smart. It’s a natural instinct to flee from danger. Don’t blame yourself for trying to protect yourself, because that’s what you were trying to do.”

It is then, as Mercy is conversing with Pierre and doing her best to comfort the poor, shaken man, Brigitte hears something that no one else seems to catch onto. 

Whispering.

In the dark.

Come to me…

Come to me…

It’s coming from the Overwatch facility.

She can’t tell if it’s actual whispering she hears or if her ears are just playing tricks on her, but either way, she finds herself slowly shambling her way toward the building, as though she’s in a trance. Morbid curiosity drives her forward, and she can’t resist the pull of intrigue tugging at her brain.

When she pushes open the front door, the first thing that hits her is the thick, rank stench of copper. Blood. There is death in these shadows.

Come to me…

Come to me…

Taking out her flashlight, Brigitte begins to carefully prowl forward. The front room looks normal enough, but then she comes to the next room, a big space that seems to serve as the main “den” of sorts, and it looks as though a tornado had passed through it. Furniture is strewn everywhere, several of which has been broken, and shattered glass litters the floor. 

And there is blood. 

Blood splattered across the ground, glinting like rubies in the light of Brigitte’s flashlight. At first, she doesn’t see the body, but when she does, it makes her sick with dread. 

It’s a man, she thinks. His neck is bent so abnormally that his vertebrae penetrate through his skin. 

Brigitte takes a step back, swallowing thickly. You never really get used to seeing dead bodies, even when in her field, but something about seeing one in this setting makes the whole thing even more horrifying.

That’s when she hears something: the sound of something falling over. Instantly, her head whips around in that direction, and she finds herself staring at an open doorway at the upper section of the room. 

It looks like the mouth of an abyss.

Come to me…

Come to me…

Brigitte doesn’t know what kind of stupidity she’s fueled with, but she starts to make her way toward the staircase that leads up to the balcony wrapped around the room, allowing access to the upper areas. She keeps her flail grasped firmly in one hand as she ascends the steps, ready to lash out at anything that tries to make a move on her. 

Once she reaches the upper section of the room, Brigitte pauses to get her bearings. The balcony is a long, rectangular space, with a railing on one side and a row of windows on the other. Not even a sliver of moonlight penetrates through the thick blanket of clouds spread over the night sky. The dark doorway beckons.

Brigitte takes a deep breath, then crosses the threshold.

The hallway is long and dark, with several doors on either side. Some are shut, some are cracked open. Brigitte prowls forward slowly. 

Then, just out of the corner of her eye, she sees it: someone standing at one of the doorways she just passed by. They’re cloaked in shadows, but Brigitte thinks she can make out a faint blue glow coming from somewhere she can’t discern. 

They’re looking directly at her.

Brigitte yelps, raises her weapon, and whirls around. The flail’s chain snaps loose, and the metal club launches forward. It sails through the air, colliding hard with the wall. A dull rattle, like a gong being beaten on, vibrates through the entire corridor.

There’s nobody there.

Brigitte blinks. She’s sure she had seen someone standing there… But maybe it was just her seeing things. Because there’s no one there anymore, and she would have surely seen them at least evade. But not even that weird blue light remains.

Her imagination. It was her imagination. Yeah, that’s all. 

Slowly, she continues forward, and it’s only then that she notices something strange. Something that causes all the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up.

It’s completely silent.

It’s like she’s just passed through some kind of barrier when she went upstairs, as she can no longer hear any sort of sound. No low whistle of the wind outside, no creaks of the building, no hum of the AC. For a moment, she wonders if she’s somehow gone deaf, but one tap of her flail against her boot proves that she hasn’t. However, that resulting rattle, which should have been faint and small, sounds like a shotgun blast in the unsettling quiet. 

Silence is not the absence of sound entirely, but that strange lack of the noises of life that everyone comes to take for granted. The ever-present purr of planes overhead, the whoosh of cars passing, the dull thud of basslines pounding behind walls and rolled-up windows.

Silence is stripping away all of that, when a person is allowed to hear the real sounds of the world, the ones that they forget about entirely.

The whisper of blood in her ears, the hammer of her heartbeat in her chest and head, the churn of her intestines in her lower gut, the murmur of her breathing passing through her lips… 

Her whole body is so full of noises. 

And then, the facility is, too.  

From out of nowhere, a piercing shriek, coating the air around her with familiar warbled tones, shatters the silence like Reinhardt’s hammer to a window.

It’s a phone.

A phone is ringing.

Suddenly full of adrenaline, Brigitte scrambles. She finds the phone in one of the rooms with a half-open, a light on the receiver blinking red. It’s one of those ancient office phones as old as time itself, with a keypad on one side and the actual phone resting in a base on the other. After a brief moment of hesitation, Brigitte picks up the phone and puts it to her ear; there’s a spring-like cord attached to the end of it, she notes.

  “Hello?” she says tentatively.

  “Brigitte?” responds a familiar voice.

Brigitte feels a weird tingle go through her. “Mama?”

  “Oh, honey, it’s so good to hear from you again!” her mother says, and it’s definitely her. Even with the faint hiss of static around her words, Brigitte knows her mom’s voice anywhere. “How are you doing? Where are you?”

  “Mama, how— how did you get this number?” Brigitte says. This doesn’t make sense. Her head hurts. When did her head start to hurt?

Her mother seems confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’m in some random Overwatch building,” Brigitte says. “Did Papa give you this number or something?”

  “No?” her mother replies. “I was just calling to check up on you.”

  “But—” Brigitte doesn't know what to say. How is this happening?

  “How have you been?” her mother says. “It feels like it’s been fo r e ver since I last spoke to you.”

A chill sprints down Brigitte’s spine. The way her mother just said “forever”… It almost sounded like someone else was talking for a moment.

Brigitte grips the phone so tight her knuckles start to hurt. “Mama? Is this really you?”

There’s a pause for just a moment. In those brief seconds, there’s complete silence on the other line. No feedback, no background noise, no rustling from the phone being moved around. Nothing.  

And then, her mother speaks, “Of course it’s me, älskling. Who e—lse wou—ld I b—e?”

Halfway into her mother’s response, static begins to consume her words, breaking them apart. It gets to the point where Brigitte can barely understand her through the aluminum crackling.

  “What?” Brigitte says. “Mama?”

More warbled static, completely swallowing up all clarity. Slowly, the hissing grows louder and louder and LOUDER.  

And then, without warning, the static stops. The line is dead.

Brigitte keeps the phone at her ear for just a moment longer, only dimly aware that she’s trembling. With a quivering, white-knuckled hand, she puts it back down on its stand.

That’s when she notices it. 

The cord is cut.

Has the cord always been cut? When— when was the cord cut? And isn’t the power meant to be out?

That conversation with her mom… Was it real? 

She can still hear the echo of her mother’s voice in her ears- it had to have been.

So how…?

Brigitte realizes then that being here is stupid. She can come back in with the others, but she doesn’t want to remain here alone any longer. 

Except, when she tries to leave the room, she finds that the door is shut. Even more quarrelsome than this, however, is the chilling fact that she had most definitely not closed the door when she entered. And then, above those two things, is that the door will not open. 

She tries to kick it down, but it doesn’t budge. Then, she tries to shield-bash it, but it still doesn’t give in. In fact, now that she’s getting a good look at it, it doesn’t even really look like a door anymore. It looks more like a very realistic painting done on the wall. Is she sure she came in through this way?

Turning around and pressing her back firmly against the wall so nothing can sneak up on her, Brigitte shines her flashlight in every direction. She keeps thinking she can see someone standing in the shadowy corners, but when her light falls upon them, there’s never anyone there.

This has to be a dream or something. Yeah, she’s just sleeping! She must have fallen asleep on the shuttle to the facility.  She’s trapped in a dream and soon, she’ll wake up.

Except, all of this seems awfully real, from the sting of adrenaline in her chest to the pounding headache in her skull. This doesn’t feel like a dream.

Just out of her peripheral, Brigitte catches sight of something: a blue glow in the darkness.

She turns in that direction, shining her light.

The light catches on a pair of eyes staring straight at her.

She doesn’t see much else of the person, if it even is a person at all. Panic has consumed her, and she can’t focus on anything aside from the desperate need to escape.

Brigitte wrenches the handle to the door and, this time, it opens. She bowls through it, running like a deer that’s trying to escape a hungry wolf. Around her, the hallway seems to stretch on forever, and she doesn’t remember it being this long. 

Everything is wrong, wrong, WRONG. Everything is moving so fast, too fast, WHAT IS HAPPENING?! She doesn’t know anymore. Maybe she never even did to begin with. 

Some kind of inky force starts to spill in like blood seeping out of a wound, darker than even the darkness around her. It’s like the atmosphere itself has torn open and is weeping discharge and pus. Something is beckoning to her, yearning for her. We want you, we love you.

Come to me…

Come to me…

She bursts through a door, and the world snaps abruptly back to normal, releasing her from its grasp with such violence that she spins to the floor in a dizzying heap. Her limbs feel dislocated, but that’s only the phantom pain of the darkness’ touch still lingering on her body.

A split second later, she’s scrambling up to shove the door shut, lock it, and then press her full body weight against it just in case. Only then is she able to take a breath.

What the fuck?

She joined Overwatch to be a hero and save people, not deal with stuff like THIS! What even is this?! What is HAPPENING?!

She can’t wrap her head around it. Whenever she attempts to rationalize what’s going on, her head aches intensely.

Warily, Brigitte looks around the room she has taken shelter in. It’s a bathroom. Very simple, only one toilet, one sink. Not all that great to be stuck inside, really. There’s a mirror mounted on the wall, and Brigitte catches sight of her reflection in it.

Her eyes are bleeding.

As she’s trying to process her freaking bleeding eyeballs, she sees something in the glass. 

There’s something against the wall directly behind her. At first, she thinks it’s just a trick of the light on the plain, sterile white paint, but then she sees it move.

It’s…a hand.

And if there’s a hand, then that must mean there’s a…

A body.

A body is pushing its way out of the wall. 

A head snakes out, and, with a horrifying shock, Brigitte sees that it has her face. That’s her. Except this version of her has impossibly wide, wild, bloodshot eyes and sickly pale skin, resembling that of a corpse’s. Its mouth, parted open just slightly, has grey lips that are flaking and chapped.  

It’s looking directly at her.

Brigitte can’t move. Her brain is screaming at her to run, but her body won’t cooperate. She’s stuck in this one spot, unable to pull her eyes away from the mirror. 

Something snags on the back of her head and pulls her backward by the hair. 

The other-her has reached her, and its touch is icy cold. The longer it has its hands on her, the more warmth she can feel draining from her being, as though this thing is sucking out her body heat to take for its own. 

The other-her, unnaturally strong, begins to pull her to the wall it had come from. It seems to want to take her back with it. It also seems to have friends, as she starts to notice other hands pushing out from the wall, reaching for her, beckoning for her. The bodies soon follow, and they’re all her. Different versions of her, but their eyes are all too wide and glassy. 

Whispers fill her ears. Whispers that call her name, that tell her that she’s home, that say it’s safe now, and the voices sound so warm, so genuine. Maybe this is home…

They get to the wall, and Brigitte thinks there’s no way they’ll be able to pull her through, but then, her arm passes into the solid surface like a knife slicing water. When it does, an impossible sensation that she can’t possibly begin to describe assaults her skin. This shouldn’t be happening, how is this happening—

Half of her head gets through, and on the other side, she glimpses something far beyond her level of tangibility. She can’t process what she’s looking at, and that horrifies her. 

Crack, going something in her psyche.

She looks back at the shrinking bathroom. There’s movement in the mirror, and she sees something new. 

A girl is standing there, against the wall. Her chest is glowing with blue light. She tilts her head slightly, almost like a confused puppy.

“bri. gi. tte?”

Scream.

It’s only then that the rest of the team notices Brigitte’s absence, alerted by the sound of a glass-shattering shriek. All of their heads whip up, and they realize that the girl is no longer with them.

  “Brigitte?!” Mercy cries. 

Exploding into motion, Mercy runs straight into the building with her gun drawn. Several people shout for her to stop, but the idea of someone being in distress pitches her forward.

She barely notices the mess and bodies in the building, but even when she does, she ignores them. She can’t help the dead, but she can help the living.

The screaming is coming from a room that has its door shut. When Mercy attempts to open it, she finds that it’s locked. 

  “Brigitte?” Mercy knocks on the door. “Brigitte, it’s Mercy! Open the door!”

More screaming. Beneath the screeches, there are words, hysteric and intelligible. Brigitte is sobbing manically.

Mercy has heard her fair share of screaming before. Such is the life of a medic. But she has never heard anything quite like this. The only thing she can compare it to are the final dying screams of Lena Oxton before she disappeared on the Slipstream all those years ago.

  “Brigitte!” Mercy calls louder, but she quickly realizes that her words mean very little. She has to get in there.

Mercy is lithe, but she’s no weakling. She takes a step back and, with a few good kicks, manages to bust the door down. 

There, on the floor of the room, which turns out to be a bathroom, she sees Brigitte, curled into a ball, wailing.

  “Brigitte!”

Mercy goes down to her side, but not even her presence seems to calm Brigitte. She’s seeing something else, one glance into her wide, teary, blood-filled eyes proves that. It’s almost like she’s in a trance, and Mercy wonders what could have possibly put the poor girl into such a shell-shocked state.

  “Brigitte,” Mercy says, softening her voice, hoping that Brigitte will be able to hear her over the sound of her own screaming and crying. “ Liebling. Look at me. Look at me.”

Her hands cup Brigitte’s cheeks, and, abruptly, Brigitte’s screams stop. Brigitte’s eyes snap to Mercy, focusing. Then, her mouth opens to shriek again, but Mercy stops her.

  “Shh, shh, shh,” Mercy shushes her gently. She strokes one hand over Brigitte’s forehead, smoothing back her unruly hair; it’s soaked with sweat. “You’re okay, darling. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

Brigitte keeps making strangled whimpering noises behind her lips, but she isn’t screaming anymore. She stares at Mercy, breathing heavily through her nose. She’s hyperventilating.

  “Deep breaths, Brigitte,” Mercy says. “Deep breaths.”

Brigitte doesn’t react. She seems to be floating back off into the mindset she had been trapped in before.

  “Focus on me, sweetheart,” Mercy encourages her. “Stay with me.”

Brigitte blinks once. Twice. Then, her eyes flick to the space just behind Mercy. And she starts to scream all over again.

Mercy is bewildered. She’s about to try and soothe Brigitte again when she feels it. This cold presence behind her. 

Her head starts to hurt. Her eyes begin to burn. Something dribbles down her cheeks, and when she reaches up to wipe it away, her fingers come back red.

Blood.

“an. ge. la?”

Mercy stiffens. 

It can’t be…

Slowly, she looks over her shoulder.

There’s nobody there.

But, even with Brigitte’s screaming, even with all the years that have passed since she heard that voice, she knows what she heard.

  “Lena…?”

Chapter Text

Winston will not sit still. 

He paces back and forth, back and forth. Then, he’ll stop and stare at the sky for several seconds. And then, when he doesn’t see anything, he begins pacing again. Rinse and repeat.

And it’s driving Cassidy up the wall. 

  “Winston, buddy,” Cassidy says. “I’m gonna need you to stop moving around so much. You’re making me anxious.”

Winston looks over at him. “Oh. Sorry.” He then thumps down and gazes up at the night sky expectantly, scanning the horizon with a sharp eye while pushing his glasses up several times in some kind of nervous tick. 

  “It’s alright,” Cassidy assures him. 

  “Yeah, you’re just excited, big guy!” Lucio chimes in. “And who can fault you for that?”

Winston nods. “I am. I really, really am.”

Lena will be here soon. 

A month has passed since the meeting with Sombra at the casino, and anticipation has been gripping the entirety of Overwatch, even for those who didn’t know Lena Oxton. Now, they’re all gathered on the coast of Spain, awaiting the arrival of the missing girl to greet her together. 

Winston and Mercy are the most excited, seeing as they were the ones who knew Lena Oxton originally and also worked together on the experiment to try to bring her back all those years ago, but the eagerness is infectious. Everyone is electrified with energy.

  “I can’t wait for you all to meet her,” Winston says. “I’m sure you’ll love her. She’s an easy person to like.”

  “From what you’ve told us about her, she sounds wonderful,” Mei says, smiling.

Winston smiles, too. “She is. She really is.”

And so, they wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

The night drags on. A few people fall asleep in the shuttle. Others chat quietly amongst themselves. Winston remains alert and vigilant, but his growing nerves are palpable. Sombra should have been here by now.

  “Maybe she’s just running late,” Mercy says to Winston, trying to keep his spirits up. 

Winston nods. “Yeah. I’m sure it’s nothing. They’ll be here!”

And so, they wait some more.

And some more.

And some more. 

And some more.

And some more.

And some more.

And some more.

The sun begins to rise, illuminating the ocean in shades of vivid pink and gold. Daybreak pierces the horizon. Night wanes and slowly disappears. Sombra really should have been here by now.

She isn’t coming.

Cassidy knows that Winston realizes this. He probably realized it hours ago, when the specific meeting time was first passed by. But he’s in denial. He keeps holding out hope that maybe, maybe Sombra will appear with Lena, and he’ll have his friend back. 

But that isn’t going to happen.

Lena Oxton is not coming home today. Maybe she’ll never come back home at all. Maybe they were all the victims of a cruel, sick joke. 

Cassidy simply does not know.

Brigitte had to be sedated.

She screamed and screamed until her throat was torn raw, and even then, she kept screaming, so Mercy decided to sedate her to get her quiet. It works, and Brigitte falls silent under the power of the drug injected into her body. Now if only sedation can stop the war going on in Mercy’s head.

That voice she heard… She knows it was Lena Oxton. It’s been so long since she heard that voice, but her final conversation with Lena, right before the Slipstream disappeared, left it burned inside of her brain like a brand. 

It was her. It was really, truly her. Lena Oxton.

But how?

When the team eventually arrives back at the Watchpoint, Mercy passes Brigitte off to Baptiste, then excuses herself, saying she needs time alone to think. She sits in her room, pondering what had gone down at the facility, trying to wrap her head around this discovery. 

Then, after a few hours, she calls a meeting.

It’s held in a room beneath the Watchpoint, away from the prying eyes and ears of some of the other agents. Attending the meeting alongside Mercy is Winston, Cassidy, and Sojourn. They all stare at her expectantly.

Mercy takes a long sip from a glass of water she brought with her, puts it down, then says, “Back at the facility we had to visit, I heard Lena Oxton talking to me.”

A beat of silence. 

  “WHAT?!”

Mercy sighs.

This will be a rough conversation.

The world is black, slowly fading to a gruesome red.

Her eyelids weigh a ton, eyeballs stinging and rolling in their sockets as she struggles to consciousness. She can’t see, nor can she smell, but she can hear and feel. The muffled sound of rain patters relentlessly against her headache, as though her brain is a window to the storm outside. Something thick and smothering is pressing down on her all over. There is a touch on her face, wet and cold.

Brigitte—is that really her name? what kind of name is that?—flinches hard. Her toes curl. Her fingernails claw whatever is below her. She tries to open her eyes, but they refuse to cooperate with her. It’s like they’re sewn shut.

  “Hey, hey,” a voice says, and it’s so loud. Why are they screaming at her? She’s right there! Geez, people don’t know how to use their inside voices anymore… “Don’t move— stop moving! Brigitte, seriously, stop moving. You’re not well.”

Okay, so her name is Brigitte. Brigitte Lindholm. Now she remembers. How could she have possibly forgotten? 

  “Is she awake?” asks another voice, this one also painfully loud. She wants to cover her ears, but she can’t feel her arms.

…Does she even still have her arms? Where are her arms?! She needs her arms! How will she hold her shield and flail without her arms?!

  “I think,” answers the first voice.

  “Hey, Brigitte, can you hear us?” says a third absolutely deafening voice.

Oh, she can hear them. She can hear them alright.

  “Yeah,” she mumbles, but she still can’t open her eyes. Everything feels so strange, like this body she has isn’t really her own. Her arms (if she even has those; she still doesn’t know), her legs, her head, her bones, her skin— it’s all so wrong.

She is wrong.  

  “Water,” she rasps. It feels like she’s deepthroating a lightning bolt. “Please.”

Thunderous footsteps stomping away vibrate in the base of her neck, and she groans, wishing everyone can just be quiet.  

A moment later, there is something slipping underneath her head, pushing it up, and she flinches again. 

  “Hey, easy,” says the first voice, slightly softer than before. “I’m just trying to help you lift your head so you don’t choke. Here, drink.”

Something presses against her dry lips, and she opens her mouth, sipping carefully. The feeling of water shocks all the nerves in her face, like someone has attached jumper cables to her ears and electrocuted her. It soothes the itching burn at the back of her throat and brings her senses together a little bit more. The only thing is that it tastes like static.

Weird how she knows what that tastes like. 

Brigitte finally manages to pry her eyes open, and she sees that she’s in the medical bay of the Watchpoint. It’s very dim, the whole space shrouded in shadows. 

Is that whispering she can hear? Are those shadows whispering to her?

Come to me…

Come to me…

  “Brigitte?” 

Brigitte blinks hard once, twice, three times. She tears her eyes away from the walls. 

There is someone perched right next to her in the bed she is laying in (when did she get in a bed?), and four other someones hovering in an open doorway.

  “Brigitte, are you with us?” the first voice asks, finally at a normal volume, and Brigitte realizes that it’s Mei. Her face is a portrait of concern, but all Brigitte can focus on are the shadows reflected in her eyes, twisting and turning, taunting her. 

  “I think so,” Brigitte says. “‘m gonna vomit.”

She hears a hiss of what she thinks may be German, and then a trash can is thrust underneath her chin. Her body takes no time throwing up, and it feels as though her immune system is expelling all of her organs through her mouth.

She doesn’t think it’s meant to hurt that much.  

  “Okay…” Brigitte breathes out heavily. “Now I’m with you.”

  “Are you sure?” a man asks skeptically. 

Brigitte squints at him closely. Is that a cowboy? 

Wait— It’s Cassette!

Hang on, no— that’s a stupid name. That can’t possibly be his name, can it? How can any parent subject their child to that? 

But, for some reason, his real name just won’t come to her.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Brigitte answers. “Really. Can I have some more water?”

Mei is quick to give her back the glass of water she had drank from before. She, along with the person who brought her the trash can (Mercy, she has to remind herself) helps her sit up straight, and she sips from the cup greedily. 

The water doesn’t really help wash the taste out of her mouth. It’s still static. All of it. Static. 

  “Ugh,” Brigitte groans. Her tongue feels like a piece of rotting meat in her mouth. “What happened?”

  “We were hoping you could tell us,” a woman with robotic limbs says. It’s— god, what is her name? Soldier? Social? No… Sojourn! It’s Sojourn. Now she remembers!

How did she forget?

  “Angela gave us the rundown of what happened at the facility,” Sojourn goes on. “You seemed to experience the most of what we believe is some kind of ‘weird phenomenon.’ So. What happened?”

Brigitte closes her eyes, and the memories boom like thunder in her mind. She can feel something black and viscous oozing out from a crack split through her psyche. 

  “I don’t know what happened,” she says. “I mean, I can tell you what went down, but I can’t explain it at all.”

  “Then tell us,” Sojourn says.

  “I thought I heard a voice calling to me from inside the building, so I decided to follow it,” Brigitte recalls. “Then all this weird stuff started happening. I kept thinking I was seeing someone standing in the building with me, and then I got a call from my mom, and then, stay with me here, alternate versions of me came out of the wall and started dragging me to this place. I don’t even know what it was.” Her fingers twist and tangle anxiously in the blanket covering her body. “The whole thing was like— like— the only way I can describe it is mind rape.”

They all wince.

  “That… that doesn’t sound good,” Cassino says.

  “██████ ████ ███ ███ █████ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ███ ████ ████” says a gorilla. They’re not supposed to be able to speak, right? Not that what she heard could be considered speaking. It honestly just sounded like assorted monkey noises.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t understand Watson at all,” Brigitte says. “Can someone translate for me? My head is just killing me, and it’s a little hard to focus.”

They all stare at her absurdly.

  “What?” She blinks back at them.

  “His name is Winston,” Mei says slowly. 

Now it’s Brigitte’s turn to stare absurdly. “I know,” she says. “That’s what I said. I think I would know my friend’s name.”

  “No, you said Watson,” Mei says. “You said, ‘I can’t understand Watson.’”

Brigitte blinks again. Her eyes are sticky. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did,” Mei insists. 

  “You did say Watson, Brigitte,” Mercy says gently. “We all heard you.”

Brigitte looks at the other three. They all nod. She feels sick.

  “Oh,” she says. “Okay. But what did, um, Winston say? My head is just killing me, and it’s a little hard to focus.”

  “Oh god,” Sojourn says. “Now she’s repeating herself! You already said that!”

Brigitte tilts her head. It’s impossibly heavy. What a wonder it is that it has yet to fall right off her shoulders. “I did?”

  “We’re doomed,” Sojourn says. 

  “Hey, be easy with her,” Cassowary says. What is his name? “She just had an experience. I’m sure she’ll go back to normal soon! Probably.”

  “███ ███ ████ █████” Winston asks.

  “What are you SAYING?!” Brigitte cries in dismay. 

  “He’s asking what if you heard Lena talk to you back in the building,” Mercy says, setting a hand on her shoulder. Brigitte’s nerve endings are on fire, and her touch is like gasoline. Still, she doesn’t shrug it off. The pain makes her feel a little more real. 

  “Oh,” Brigitte says. “He was saying that, wasn’t he? Anyway… Someone named Lena?”

  “Lena Oxton,” Mercy specifies. “The Slipstream pilot, remember? We were supposed to meet her around a month ago, but she and Sombra never showed up. I heard her calling my name after I came into the building to get you. We were wondering if you heard her, too.”

  “Lena…” Brigitte repeats to herself.

Lena, sighs something in the shadows.

Brigitte’s eyes dart over to the shadows. She can hear something itching and roaring in the back of her mind when she looks at it. 

  “Yeah…I think I did,” Brigitte says, not looking away from the darkness. 

  “What are you looking at?” Casserole asks.

Brigitte slowly turns her head to meet their gazes. “You guys don’t…see it?”

They all shake their heads. 

  “See what?” Mercy questions her.

Brigitte can feel insanity drip like venom into her psyche. She shakily looks back over at the shadows on the walls, and she swears she can hear them laughing.

Something burning hot and painful stabs at her eyes like knives trying to scratch their way out of her sockets.

  “I think… I think something is wrong with me,” Brigitte croaks as blood oozes out from her eyeballs. 

Go to see her.

Don’t go to see her.

Go to see her.

Don’t go to see her.

Go to see her.

Don’t go to see her.

Emily’s mind is a war-torn battlefield, and she doesn’t know which side she should fight for. 

She tries to focus on the positive, but the memory of that day in the lab haunts her, and she can’t stop herself from remembering the sight of those hollow eyes that had stared at her with so much exhaustion and pain. Even now, a little over a month later, they’re still branded in her brain, seared straight into her recollection. She can’t get it out of her head. 

Go to see her.

Don’t go to see her.

She needs a good, unbiased opinion on this, as she won’t be able to figure it out by herself, and there’s only one person on this entire island that can give that to her.  

When she steps into Sigma’s observatory, the tips of her hair float upward slightly. Sun beams are streaming in from the glass dome overhead, filling the lab with natural light. 

  “Sigma?” Emily calls out.

  “Down here!” Sigma’s voice calls back from the lower level of the observatory.

Emily walks down the spiral staircase curving around the wall, speaking as she goes, “Sorry for the sudden visit. I just needed to… Uhh—”

Sigma smiles at her pleasantly. “Yes, lieve?”

Emily blinks, completely dumbfounded. “Are those…sheep?”

Sigma looks down at the two baby sheep he has cradled in his arms like a human child, which he is bottle feeding, then looks back up at Emily, smiling again. “Why, yes, it is!”

  “Oh! Why?”

  “Well, quite a while ago, there were plans for an experiment to give other beings the same gravity-manipulating powers I have. It would be too risky to start on human test subjects first, so we decided to begin with animals instead. Work on the experiment finally began, hence the sheep!” He holds up the two little bundles of wool. “This is Gamma, and this is Kappa! They are biologically-engineered twins, created through gene splicing! They also have my DNA!”

Emily stares at him, flabbergasted.

  “I wanted to name them Sigma Jr. and Sigma II, but that felt pretentious,” Sigma goes on. “And Dr. O’Deorain said no. And then Alpha and Omega seemed too obvious, you know? There are far better letters in the Greek alphabet for them to be named after! So, Gamma and Kappa! Aren’t they precious?”

  “I’m just…baffled,” Emily says.

Sigma nods wisely. “A valid reaction,” he says. “Wait until you come to the realization that they are, technically speaking, my children, since we share DNA. Now THAT was strange to process, as I am most definitely not a sheep.”

  “Clearly,” Emily says. “They’re very cute, though.”

  “They are!” Sigma agrees avidly. “Ah, but you haven’t come here to discuss sheep matters.” He sets Gamma and Kappa down. “What can I do for you, Emily?”

  “I just need your opinion on something,” Emily says. “And I know you’ll give it to me straight.”

Sigma looks interested. “Opinion on what?”

  “I want to go see Tracer.”

Like that, Sigma’s face falls, and a somber expression takes over. 

  “But I don’t know if I should,” Emily continues. “I don’t know if… if it’ll help anything. Or do anything. Or if it’ll just make me feel worse.”

With his mouth pressed into a line, Sigma nods sagely. “I understand the dilemma.”

  “Have you seen her at all?” Emily asks.

  “Only in passing,” Sigma answers. “I have not spoken to her in quite some time.”

  “Does it make me a bad person that I’m hesitant to go see her?” Emily says. “It’s not that I don’t want to, I do, I really, really want to see her again, I’m just…worried. I’m afraid she won’t be the same person anymore.”

  “It does not make you a bad person at all,” Sigma says back. “You have every right to be hesitant. It is a…sensitive subject.” 

  “That’s one way to put it,” Emily mutters bitterly. She then sighs. “I just…miss her a lot.”

  “I do, too, Sigma says sadly. “I don’t know if I am able to tell you what you want to hear. This is something for you to decide. But I will say this: when I was in my own captivity, nobody but the doctors came to see me. It was very lonely. Even if she has been changed, I’m sure she will appreciate a friendly face.” Kappa frolics up to him, and he strokes her head thoughtfully. “And…if you do go see her, please tell her that I am thinking about her. I truly do miss her greatly.”

It is then that Emily makes her decision.

So, after talking for a little while longer with Sigma, she goes to her aunt’s lab.

  “I want to give Tracer the serum today,” she says.

Moira looks up from her work at her, incredulous.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea, a leanbh?” she asks.

Steadfast, Emily answers, “Yes. I want to see her again. So I’ll do it.”

Moira seems skeptical, but she doesn’t argue with Emily, and she doesn’t tell her no. Instead, she goes over to one of the stations in the lab and picks up a vial and a syringe. With the syringe, she draws out some of the contents of the vial, then hands it over to Emily.

  “Directly in the neck,” Moira instructs. “Make sure she doesn’t squirm, or else the needle could break off in the skin. I’m sure she won’t put up much of a fight, though. She never has with me.”

Emily feels sick at that, but she nods anyway. She can’t back out now. “Got it.”

Moira gives her shoulder a light squeeze, but she offers no other words. She silently returns to her work, and Emily leaves the lab to go get this job done.

Tracer is not kept in the dungeon but rather a chamber deep within the Talon base. When Emily gets there, it’s being guarded by a pair of heavily armored men wielding guns. 

  “State your business,” one of the men says gruffly.

Emily holds up the syringe. “Just here to give the injection.”

‘The injection’ refers to a colorless serum created by Moira, which halts all biological processes and needs, such as hunger, thirst, sleep, defecation, urination, and menstruation. It would be too much of an effort to keep Tracer fed and rested, so Talon decided to eliminate all bodily functions entirely. That way, she can only focus on doing what they want her to do.

  “Ah,” the man nods knowingly. “I see. Right, then, come on in.”

The door to the chamber is secured with several locks, which click and grind as they come undone. Emily can feel her heart in her throat as the final lock unlatches, but she doesn’t flee, even though parts of her want to. She’s not ready for this confrontation.

The chamber is a circular room made entirely of refined steel. It’s extremely sterile and not very personal, with no decorations or furniture or windows. There’s not even a bed. For what it’s worth, though, the lights rotate through a day-night cycle, which is something, at the very least. 

Coming down from the very center of the ceiling is a long chain, and attached to the end of that chain is Tracer.

Tracer’s body has been warped and contaminated by the things Talon has made her do. They exploit her relationship with the Void as much as they can, and prolonged exposure to the oblivion has caused her skin to go inky black…if that color can even be considered black. It’s crawled all the way up to her elbow on her left arm and is staining her fingertips on her right. More pieces have been added onto the chronal accelerator, making it much more bulky and ugly, surely a burden to wear upon her chest.

The moment Emily steps inside the chamber and the doors lock back up behind her, the whispers start. They’re disembodied and entirely unsettling. She almost thinks they sound like Tracer. 

someone is here

someone is here

Emily

it’s Emily

Emily is here

Tracer is sitting at the center of the chamber on her knees, her head angled down with her messy brown hair hanging in her face, dozing, but she looks up at that. 

Her eyes, once a soft hazel color, the shade of sparrow feathers, have turned eerily bright blue. Her scleras are black.  

Void eyes.

Emily approaches slowly, as though in the midst of a wild animal, and she quickly berates herself for that comparison. Tracer isn’t an animal.

But looking at the way she’s hunched low on the ground, on her knees, leashed by heavy iron, she certainly seems like some kind of beast.

And that’s what Talon uses her as now. A beast. A creature. A war machine.

Emily had always thought that Sigma’s situation was bad. But at least Sigma was able to go wherever he wanted within the base. At least Sigma wasn’t chained to the ceiling and treated like a dog.

From the center of the chamber, Tracer stares at Emily warily. There is no light in her eyes. They look like glass. 

Emily kneels down to be on Tracer’s level. Tracer still doesn’t move. She seems unsettled. Nervous.

But who can possibly blame her?

  “Hey,” Emily says softly. “I came to check up on you.”

Tracer says nothing. 

  “Do you remember me?” Emily asks tentatively.

No response. 

Emily swallows the emotions rising in her throat. She can’t let herself become overwhelmed. 

  “I’ve come to…” Emily trails off and then simply holds up the syringe. Tracer seems to understand, as she huffs out through her nose and bows her head obediently. She doesn’t fight, doesn’t try to get away, doesn’t scream or make any noise at all. She just accepts it before it even happens.

It makes anger boil in Emily’s veins. Of all people, Tracer doesn’t deserve this fate. No one does, but especially Tracer. She’s never done anything wrong in her entire life. She’s always been sweet and kind and loving, but it was her that fate decided to deal the bad hand to. 

Emily gets closer to Tracer, close enough to touch her. The whispers grow louder.

Emily

it’s time

don’t move

Emily

With her free hand, Emily presses Tracer’s head to the side, stretching out her neck. Then, raising the syringe, Emily sticks the needle into the skin and injects the serum.

Tracer breathes out harshly through her nose, but she doesn’t squirm and she doesn’t react aside from that sound. Perfectly compliant. As Talon has made her.

It’s terrifying how quickly Talon was able to alter almost everything about Tracer in the span of just one month. Once bubbly and goofy, Tracer is nothing but a shell of who she used to be. Emily can hardly recognize her, and that makes the ache in her heart hurt worse.

For a moment, the two of them just sit there. 

Then, Emily speaks.

  “I’m sorry.”

It’s a whisper, but she knows that Tracer can hear her.

  “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I’m so sorry.”

There’s no response.

Emily doesn’t want to look directly at what used to be her friend, but she can’t bring herself to look away. Tracer’s eyes, void of the person she was before, gaze at her emptily. She doesn’t even blink.

  “You don’t deserve this,” Emily says, her voice wavering. “This shouldn’t have happened. Not to you.”

The words continue to echo in the otherwise silent chamber. Emily doesn’t move. She has no idea if Tracer is capable of even speaking anymore, of being her own person. Of being alive and sentient.  

Maybe she should move forward, try to help her friend.

But she’s afraid. She’s afraid of seeing her friend’s dead eyes remain unchanging, of feeling the emptiness in her own chest. She’s afraid that nothing will come of her attempts, and Tracer’s damn near vegetative state will be cemented as what she is from now on, and that will be that. 

She should just get up and leave. It’ll save her from this excruciatingly painful sight. Maybe it’ll make her slightly less guilty, too. 

But she doesn’t move.

She stays there, sitting on her knees, facing her friend.

‘Friend,’ a part of her scoffs. ‘Friend’ is an understatement to describe what she and Tracer once had. It was so much more than that.

She remembers vividly what she and Tracer were before this point. The flashover of when conversations became real and alive, the candlewick of trust burning away their layers of armor to reveal their true selves to one another. The familiarity they had toward each other to the point where they didn’t feel like they had to hold anything back. The way Emily had lost all control of the feelings she had for Tracer, opting to no longer smother the fire but feed the flames because she came to realize there was no one else in the world that she wanted to spend her life with. The laughter, the smiles, the chatter…

Emily never believed in soulmates before this.

And then she met Tracer.

But now that’s all gone. Stolen in one swoop. Crushed in the talons of people who care about nobody but themselves.

She has the same talons, she knows. She’s a part of this organization, after all, and that makes her guilty by association. 

This fact only worsens the pain.

  “I’m so, so sorry.”

It’s all Emily can think to say. Apologies mean very little now, but it’s the only thing that her stupid, quivering mouth can utter out.

She screws her eyes shut, and tears stream free, burning intensely. She knows she has no right to cry, but she can’t stop herself. It hurts too much.

The rattle of chains. A shuffle of movement. A warm touch against her legs.

Emily gasps softly, her eyes shooting open. She looks down, and she sees Tracer with her head in her lap. 

Crack. Something cracks inside of Emily’s chest. She almost screams, but instead she sobs. Fresh tears pour down her cheeks, and she hunches over to bury her face into Tracer’s messy brown hair. 

And Tracer presses closer, offering all the comfort that a warped, abyssal girl can possibly manage.

  “I miss you,” Emily croaks. “I miss you so, so much. Sigma does, too. I think Aunt Moira does as well. And Sombra, too. We all miss you.” She sniffles. “I’m so, so sorry, Tracer.”

Tracer shifts, lifting her head a little so Emily can meet her gaze.

And, for the first time, Emily sees a semblance of life in those void eyes. 

Tracer says no words, Emily still doesn’t know if she can still speak at all, but the look in her eyes speaks more volume than any sentence every could.

it’s okay

there’s no need to apologize

i forgive you

and

i miss you all too

Emily.

Sigma.

Moira.

Sombra.

that name… Lena is sure she knows that name. 

she knows all the names that Emily had spoken, but that one in particular, Sombra, rings a bell the loudest in her mind. 

she closes her eyes and tries to recall it. tries to put a face to a name.

warm hands holding onto hers. a smile that can light up a room. a husky, accented voice telling her that everything will be okay.

she reaches out to those fragmented memories, but every time she gets close to them, they fall like sand in a sift through her fingers, disintegrating into nothingness. 

a sudden headache overwhelms her, and she hisses through her teeth. she tries to think through it, but it’s like her brain is being torn to pieces.

the fragments of memories and dreams are being thrown to the wind.

she’s being driven mad by the images that keep on repeating.

the images that haunt her.

the images that fill her mind with madness.

it’s not even a dream.

it’s a nightmare.

she’s been dreaming about her for so long. that person. that woman. Sombra.

even though she doesn’t remember her, the nightmares are all about her. there’s screaming and blood and crying, so much crying. 

(not that they’re really nightmares at all. because she can’t sleep anymore.)

(they’re more like visions. )

(visions of the pasts, the present, or the futures, she can’t really tell.)

fragments whirl and whirl and whirl around her. she reaches for them, and they slice her fingers raw. blood bubbles, and in the glittering red droplets, images reflect.

so many images.

she’s sure they’re her memories. but now they’re just more droplets to adorn the Web of Life.

her eyelids flutter open, and she stares at her hands. they’re shaking. she doesn’t know why.

she curls her fingers and tries to recall what it was like to have someone hold her hand. did Sombra used to do that?

something itches the back of her throat, and when she opens her mouth, what comes out is a high-pitched wail. she’s crying, and she doesn’t really know why, but she can’t stop the flow of tears that pour down her face.

an unknown anguish crushes her chest. she doesn’t know where all these emotions are coming from. they’re drowning her.

she starts to think about all these things in her moment of weakened frenzy. she thinks about the sun and the sky and the sound of music and her mom.

she wishes she could tell her that she’s sorry. she should have been a better daughter. she wishes she could see her one more time. she wishes she could tell her that she loves her.

but wait… when her had her mother even taken from her?

memories are distant and blurry. the word “run!” keeps replaying in her head over and over and over again. she doesn’t know why. 

the emotions grow more powerful. she cries louder. she can’t stop. 

the doors to her chamber open up abruptly, and a man in armor storms inside. he’s wielding a baton, which he jabs Lena in the stomach with. the end of it detonates with a crackle of electricity, and Lena’s cries turn into screams of pain as she is shocked viciously.

she slumps to her side, twitching. above her, the man glowers.

  “stupid bitch,” he hisses.

Lena hisses back, and the man stomps on her mouth. the bottom of his boot tastes like rubber. she tastes blood, too.

  “easy now,” rumbles a deeper voice. “no need to get violent.”

a large man enters, and Lena hates how she cowers before him, scuttling back across the space of the chamber to press herself against the wall.

as fractured and broken as her mind may be, she remembers this behemoth very well. even when everything else slips away from her, he always remains, leering through the dark, laughing. 

it’s his fault that she’s like this, she knows. it’s all his fault.

she is a question of science. a nightmare that never happened. 

she can’t recall if she were ever human to begin with. she doesn’t feel like one anymore. now, she’s just some mindless Eldritch horror. a bringer of calamity that no longer possesses emotion, words, feelings. 

this is not living. it’s hardly even existence. 

it’s torture. 

Lena can think, but what’s the point when she can’t express those thoughts? these people act as though she has no brain. as if she’s nothing but an object for them to experiment on. nothing she does matters because they will always overpower her. 

she is not a passenger inside her own body. she is a prisoner. 

this is not a matter of thinking. it is a matter of will.

they are taking things away from her. they are adding things to it. they are turning her into a monster. 

they have come to make her into something else, and she cannot fight them. she cannot fight the forces working on her. and she knows that no one will listen to her if she tries to tell them what is happening. if she tries to tell them what she wants.  

because no one will ever hear her at all. 

she wants to die.

and they are going to make her live.

  “now, what is going on?” Doomfist asks calmly.

  “the stupid bitch was howling like a goddamn dog,” the guard spits.

Doomfist’s eyes focus on Lena. “hm. i will handle her. while i do so, i need you to get something for me.” he then says something to the guard that Lena doesn’t hear, but whatever it is, it makes a wicked smirk come to the guard’s face. the guard nods, then exits the chamber, closing the doors behind him, leaving Lena and Doomfist alone together. 

Doomfist prowls forward, circling her slowly. she feels like a rabbit in the midst of a hungry wolf.

  “why are you making such a ruckus?” he asks her.

Lena says nothing. she keeps her head dipped low, eyes downcast. she has nothing to say to this man.

  “you have no reason to wail,” Doomfist goes on. “all things considered, we have been treating you exceptionally well. we could do so much worse to you, but we do not, and yet you still yowl like a hound. how ungrateful.”

Lena still doesn’t say anything.

  “you are a creature of war,” Doomfist says. “and so, you will be treated as such.” Lena shakes her head, and he raises an eyebrow. “oh? are you not a creature of war?”

Lena shakes her head again.

neither of them believe that, but for the sake of whatever is left of her mind, she has to disagree. 

  “well, you certainly are not a human,” Doomfist says. “nor are you a person.”

because of them.

they have made her become someone she is not, someone she never was, someone who will serve their purposes.

they have made her believe she is something she is not.

the pain she feels is not her own. it belongs to the person they have made her become. she tries to fight it, but she cannot. she tries to struggle, but there is no strength in her. there is no will to resist. 

she only wants to give up, to allow the person they have made her become to rule her body and her life.

she wants to be free of it all.

the pain, the loss of her identity.

the inability to act as her own person. 

everything.

she wants it all to end.

she wants it to be over.

she wants to be dead.

but Talon will never give up such a valuable being so easily. 

  “you will never be your old self again,” Doomfist says. “there are parts of you that will never heal, and that is just fine. from your gaping wounds, the Void oozes out. i molded you out of mud wet with your own blood and created something worthy of existence. and i will keep tearing open your gashes with my bare hands if i need to, because i did not let you live just for you to become a scab. you, child with a thousand eyes, are a nightmare that no one sees coming.”

Lena growls under her breath. in one quick motion, Doomfist has her by the chin, squeezing so hard it feels as though her jawbone is about to shatter into pieces. he forces her to look up and meet his eyes.

  “do not growl at me, beast,” he says lowly. “know your place.” his giant metal hand reaches forward and grabs the frame of the chronal accelerator. he tugs on it. “at any moment, i can send you right back to oblivion. so, if i were you, i would keep your teeth hidden. do you understand me?”

with her heart in her throat, Lena nods.

Doomfist releases her.

  “good.”

there are footsteps from behind, just outside of the chamber; Doomfist smiles.

  “now… since you want to act like a dog, why not treat you like one?”

the guard from before enters again, handing something metal to Doomfist. Lena cowers away, but she knows that there is nowhere for her to run.

  “after all,” Doomfist says, smiling at the muzzle he holds in his hand. “bad dogs must be trained accordingly.”

Sombra breathes in deep, and it stings. The air is like ash in this wasteland, and the heat burns her tongue. Though, the pain in her chest may also be from her broken ribs.

She doesn’t know if they’re actually broken or if they’re just cracked, but the hit she took directly to the sternum suspects some kind of damage. Damage that will hinder her and slow her down.

She needs to keep going. Fight through the pain. Never stop fighting.

She flees down through a narrow ravine. On both sides of her, thick orange rock rises like barriers, boxing her in. If this path leads to a dead end, there won’t be many places for her to run, unless she suddenly has the upper body strength to scale a completely vertical wall with little to no handholds. And even if she did, she doesn’t know if her injured ribs will allow her to do something so exerting. The act of simply running is already torturous enough.

But she can’t afford to stop. She must keep going.

When she spares a quick glance over her shoulder, she can’t see her chaser, but she can hear the distant scrape of its feet against the rocky terrain beneath them, the heavy thump of its footsteps. Even while wounded, she’s faster than it, but it’s much stronger than she is, she knows. It’s proved that to her already.

Overhead, the sky is a clear, crisp blue, and the sun is high and blistering. The air is dry, as is her mouth. Her clothes stick to her skin. Sweat tickles every inch of her body.

If her chaser doesn’t kill her, this heat surely will. 

When her body is finally found—if it’s found at all, who knows when someone else stupid enough to come to this area will stumble upon her—it will be a mummified relic of the canyons, all crisp and dried up, shriveled to the point of being unrecognizable thanks to the heat. Maybe they’ll put her in a museum, locked behind a glass case for curious tourists to gawk at, and historians will forever ask the question: what on earth was an agent of Talon doing in the Arizona wastes?

Simple: she’s doing grunt work.

For the most part, her duties have remained inside Mexico, but just recently, she started being shipped out to other countries thanks to her “good behavior,” as Rico had put it. She’s gaining her power back, he had told her, but she knows the likelihood of her returning to her previous status is extremely slim, if not non-existent altogether. 

She’s never going to get her life back. It’s about time she starts accepting that. 

This mission has brought her to Satan’s flaming asshole aka Arizona, United States to track down and detain a runaway bot. How the organization managed to lose an entire robot is beyond her, but now it’s her problem to try and get it back.

Rico had said it would be a simple task. Not so simple after all, she thinks bitterly, running for her life down a trench with a very angry robot on her tail. 

Of course, Rico blames her for this. “Should have been more careful, should have been more stealthy, should have incapacitated it while you had the chance,” he nags through the earpiece shoved in her right ear. Even now, he’s griping about how much of a failure she is, but she can barely hear him over the wind rushing by and the sound of her own heartbeat pulsing in her temples. Not that she’s really listening, either. 

Sombra’s sour thoughts come to a jarring halt when she suddenly trips over a loose rock. She stumbles, pitching forward sharply, nearly falling flat on her face, but she manages to keep her balance. Her breath rattles in her chest, and her ribs ache. She doesn’t know how much longer she can do this. She needs to at least stop and breathe for a moment.

A lucky glance spots an opening in the canyon wall, and Sombra darts straight for it without a second thought. She scrambles up a ledge, and sharp rock outcrops tear holes in her clothes, but she doesn’t care. She wiggles her way into the crevice.

Arizona is nothing beautiful, but she can’t deny that this “cave” she’s found herself in is quite pretty. Shafts of sunlight from openings up above beam down, causing the undulating line patterns on the walls to illuminate in shades of pink, orange, and red. Grains of sand cascade from rock shelves overhead like waterfalls of molten gold. And, best of all, there’s shade. 

Sombra leans back against the wall, taking several deep breaths. The air is slightly less hot in here, but it still hurts to breathe. Her ribs ache horribly.

  “What are you doing?” Rico’s obnoxious voice gripes in her ear.

  “Taking a moment to breathe,” Sombra replies. “I’m sweltering out here.”

  “It is Arizona,” Rico hums, and Sombra has never wanted to punch someone in the face so bad before. 

Just outside the crevice, Sombra can hear a mechanical buzzing sound. It’s not the bot, but rather a drone that Rico controls, which hovers wherever she goes, always watching her. Even if she attempted to make an escape, she would have to destroy the drone first, and that alone would give away her plan.

Not that she has a plan to get away. She doesn’t. Not anymore. She’s given up on thinking she’ll ever have her life back.

  “Here it comes,” Rico says.

Sombra can hear it: the sound of metal feet skittering across rock.

Sunlight glints off of a purple and silver hull. It almost looks like some kind of weird crab, with four bent legs and two bulky arms. One of those arms hangs limp at its side, its weapon having been broken off by Sombra when the two of them first quarreled. Now, only sparks shoot from the wire-filled stump.

But that doesn’t mean the canon on its other arm is any less dangerous. 

Sombra scans the space she’s wiggled into, but she can’t see a way out of it, aside from the opening she entered from. She has no choice but to go out the same way. But first, she’s got to deal with the Omnic. 

She can go invisible and try to sneak out, but the rock is loose, and she doesn’t trust herself to not accidentally make any noise. She can throw her translocator as far as she can and teleport to wherever it lands, but the Omnic will surely notice a shining box being chucked through the air. She can ask Rico to maybe distract the Omnic with the drone, but Rico would never put the drone in danger like that, for if it gets destroyed, he can no longer monitor her. She can go down there and face the bot like a woman, but a sharp pang in her ribs tells her that won’t work, either. 

So that leaves one thing left to do.

Gathering up a few rocks, Sombra dares to slide half out of the opening to throw one at the opposite side of the canyon. The Omnic can’t see her (yet), but it can hear, and it whips around at the sound of the rock hitting the wall, deploying its arm cannon. Gunfire roars, but there is no living target that it hits.

With the Omnic’s back turned, Sombra takes another step out and throws a second rock further down the canyon, trying to make the Omnic think she’s somehow doublebacked. Once again, the Omnic turns in that direction and begins clunking its way over to the source of the noise.

Now’s her chance.

When she can’t see it anymore, Sombra lowers herself down the ledge. As she’s doing so, her grip slips, and she falls, landing hard on her left ankle. Something twists viciously in the joint, and pain shoots up her entire leg. She bites her tongue to keep back a cry, blinking away tears that prick in her eyes like hot needles.

Just her luck.

She hobbles her way through the canyon, heaving her breaths. Sweat drips from her face. Her chest feels like it’s on fire. Behind her, she can hear scuttling.

She doesn’t know how much longer she can do this.

The ground slopes upward abruptly, and Sombra has no other choice but to clamber up it. She manages to make it to the top, and she immediately flops over, lying flat on her back. The ground is burning hot, and the sun beating down on her is even worse, but she can’t get herself to move. Not yet. She just needs one moment to rest…

She won’t even mind if the vultures come down and start eating her while she’s still alive.

Because that’s what she deserves, isn’t it?

This is happening because of her. Because of her stupidity. 

This is her fault.

  “Sombra,” Rico snaps.

Scuttling. Skittering. Metal grinding against stone. 

Sombra hauls herself up. Before her, the Omnic stands.

  “Hey, ugly,” she says, slowly rising to her feet. Her left leg twitches, struggling to hold her up. “Took you long enough.”

The Omnic beeps indignantly, holding up its arm cannon. 

  “Look, I don’t blame you for not wanting to go back to Talon,” Sombra says placidly. “I don’t want to, either. But sometimes, we don’t get the things we want.”

The Omnic emits a rattling cry, then springs forward, quick on its feet for something of its size. Its arm cannon deploys with a barrage of bullets, and Sombra lurches out of the way, picking up a large rock from off of the ground and smashing it up into the Omnic’s head. Metal cracks and bends, and the Omnic totters back, disoriented. Sombra takes that brief window of opportunity to hack the bot, canceling the use of its gun. The next time it attempts to fire, all that it gets is a clicking sound, and the Omnic lets out a screech of rage. 

The next thing Sombra knows, the gun is swinging around and slamming straight into her stomach. She gags, the air escaping her lungs and all her organs seizing up. For several terrifying seconds, everything goes black, and she flails, panicked and breathless. Her other hand, now holding her own gun, fires wildly, desperate to hit something, anything. 

Bullets shriek against metal. Footsteps stomp and stumble. When Sombra’s vision returns, it comes back in hazy red splotches like blood over her eyes. She can see the Omnic staggering around dizzily, the same as she is, the both of them reeling. 

Sombra squeezes the trigger of her gun, emptying her entire clip into the bot. The Omnic wails something metallic and anguished, its limbs waving in every direction. Its broken arm strikes one of Sombra’s wrists and, this time, her vision flashes bright white, like the sun has just exploded and scorched her corneas.

Sombra flounders, ramming straight into the torso of the Omnic. The Omnic pitches backward in reaction and then, suddenly, they’re both falling.

The world is a pinwheel of color, whirling, whirling. Sombra is screaming, and the wind is screaming, and she can’t tell which is which. Something firm and pointy digs into her side, and then something else heavy and hard raps firmly into her lungs, and then the screaming dies away into a pathetic rasping sound more befitting for a slowly dying rodent. 

Sombra lands in a messy heap, and something burns against her skin, hotter than even the ground from before. She tries to push herself up, but her body won’t cooperate. She just slumps right back down, gasping, wheezing, weeping. 

The tears come without warning, and when they start to fall, there’s nothing she can do to stop them. She’s in too much pain to be embarrassed about it, so she just lets herself cry. 

After a moment, she attempts to get up again, and that’s when she notices it. The giant gash split across her right wrist. 

Sombra stares, nauseated, horrified. Blood is gushing, pouring, rushing, and she grabs at it with her other hand, and it burns, oh it burns! Her fingers quiver. Her body sways. The world twists and bends and contorts. She collapses.

Lying on her side, dazed, Sombra watches her blood weep from her open wound, pooling bright red on burning black asphalt. She doesn’t know why there’s asphalt here; shouldn’t she be in the middle of the desert? Her head hurts too much to think about it. Not like it matters, anyway.

She’s going to die.

Somewhere in the distance, she hears a sound. She thinks it’s a gunshot, but she doesn’t know for sure. And are those…voices?

Sombra pries her eyes open. Everything is blurry, but she swears she can see the figure of a person standing a few yards away. The grim reaper, perhaps?

It’s too hard to stay awake… She needs to rest. She can’t hang on anymore…

Before everything cuts to nothing, only one thought goes through her mind:

I’m sorry, Tracer.

I’m so, so sorry…

Chapter Text

  “Brigitte?” Mei calls out worriedly.

Brigitte, who has her forehead pressed firmly against the wall, eyes staring blankly at nothing, says, “Do you not hear it…?”

  “Brigitte…”

Brigitte’s eyes flicker up at something that isn’t there. “No…I don’t understand, either.”

She isn’t talking to Mei.

A cool hand rests upon Sombra’s terribly hot brow.

A human voice: “What are you doing here?”

Sombra tries to answer, but her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her lungs feel like they’re full of sweat and mud. She can feel herself slipping, and she just can’t seem to stay awake—let alone open her eyes.

The world twists, spirals, spins. Sombra can’t get her bearings or control her body. But she feels someone, an invisible hand, supporting her, so maybe she isn’t completely and utterly lost. 

Then, a face appears, backlit by a blinding white glow: a human face. Her human face. Only this face has no eyes, just gaping maws.

And its mouth speaks, using her voice: “Stop struggling. You’re useless. You can’t do anything anymore.”

Sombra opens her mouth—her REAL MOUTH—to scream. But all that comes out is a pained, malformed gargle.

The mouth laughs, and it’s not a human laugh. It’s more like the sound of a rusty saw being dragged across metal. “Okay, fine, go ahead, then! Keep writhing. Keep whimpering. It’s not going to change anything. It won’t change who you are or what you do. When you wake up—if you wake up at all—the world will still be meaningless.” The face draws close, mere inches away from her own. “You still will not be with her.” It smiles, painfully wide, showing its teeth. “So, don’t bother. Don’t squirm. Just let it take you.”

And so Sombra stops trying to move, stops trying to open her eyes, and she falls.

When she lands, she’s standing in a river of blood streaming down a war-torn street, and the sky is on fire. Bodies are piled up everywhere, covering the asphalt, all of them viciously mangled by the jaws of death. 

This is the Omnic Crisis. Or, at least, something akin to it. Because there is something slightly different about this battlefield, something far more sinister than what she remembers. 

Sombra looks around. Iron clashes against iron, bullets scream as they fly through the air; all of this seemed so very familiar to her, but something is terribly, terribly wrong. She looks down at herself. She is covered in blood.

It’s not her own. 

Just then, her legs are moving. Her gun is in her hand, and she shouts for her allies, but then she notices that humans and Omnics alike are falling beneath the spray of her bullets. They are all fleeing from her.

Her gun turns into a blade at some point, but she continues the slaughter all the same. Her weapon sinks into the chest of a man, then rips back out to slash the throat of another. They run, and she goes after them with deranged agility. 

After a while, it isn’t nameless people anymore. At one point, it is Sigma, bowing beneath her blade, begging for mercy in a fearful voice she has never heard him use before. At another point, it is Emily, staring up at her with eyes full of tears and blood, her cheeks slashed open in an impossibly wide smile she can never make go away. And at another point, it is Moira, and her pearlescent pink guts are strewn out all over the ground where the bodies of the other Talon members lay, broken and bloodied. 

The scene changes, and though she is still warmed by the tender heat of fresh blood all over her body, she is no longer on a street, rather a beach with the black ocean lying just beyond the sand, and the sight stretched out in front of her is enough to make her wish she were one of the war-torn victims from the past illusion projected upon her restless mind.

Who would have thought that, among all the things that brew inside of her head, this would be the one that her psyche decides to unleash upon her? Not the lives ruined thanks to the terrorist organization she’s a part of, not the homes destroyed or the innocent families torn twain, but the ignorance of love because the scene set before her is one of Tracer standing beneath the same sky that had painted the horizon the night she saw the stars again for the first time after stabilization, except all these stars are dead, and Tracer’s eyes are dead, and the ghost light is finally starting to fade away.

  “I thought you cared about me,” Tracer says.

  “I do!” Sombra cries. “Tracer, of course I care about you! I care about you more than anything!”

  “Then why…?” Tracer lifts her hands, and her pale skin is being eaten away by black. “Why am I like this?”

Sombra does not know how to answer that.

Tracer drops her arms limply at her side. She stares at Sombra blankly. 

  “I wanted to stay with you,” she whispers.

  “I know,” Sombra says.

  “Then why?” Tracer’s voice is a hiss, but she sounds as empty as Sombra feels. “Why? Was it all a lie? Were you just trying to get rid of me?”

Sombra’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head frantically. “No! No, of course not!”

  “Then WHY?!” Tracer screams, suddenly full of fire. “You didn’t even give me a choice! You didn’t let me choose what I wanted to do! You… you…” She slumps, hollow again. “You didn’t give me a choice. But hey,” she spreads her arms, laughing bitterly. “When do I EVER get one, right? It never gave me one.”

The black ocean water behind Tracer roils, and then Sombra realizes that that isn’t water at all. 

The Void dredges itself upward, mutating everything into nothing. Sombra watches the world decay, melt, and disappear. All the while, Tracer smiles, tears streaming from her dead-star eyes. 

  “The Void never gave me a choice,” she husks, still smiling, still crying. “I NEVER had the choice to say no. And you— you didn’t give me that choice, either.” She half laughs-half sobs. “So, thanks for that, Sombra. You’re just like it.”

  “Tracer—”

But it’s too late. It’s always too late.

The Void crashes down on Sombra, and an impossible pain burrows deep into her chest like earthworms. She tries to scream, but she can’t even do that. 

And then, all of a sudden, she’s awake. Her eyes shoot open. She breathes in sharply. Her gaze darts all over, searching, searching, but the Void is not there, and there is no Tracer.

It’s been a long time since she’s slept through the night peacefully. The nightmares have grown worse recently.

Now that she’s a little calmer, Sombra blinks hard, but the blurriness caging the edges of her vision does not disappear. She’s forced to squint as she takes in her surroundings.

…Where is she?

She smells smoke, and she thinks she can hear voices coming from somewhere. For a second, she wonders if it was all a dream—the Omnic, Rico, the canyon, Talon—if she’s just a kid in bed waking from a fever.

And then, her eyes focus, and she realizes this is not the bedroom she slept in as a child. 

Pale yellow light slips in through thick grey curtains. Peeling wallpaper on the walls, a low bookcase, a wooden dresser and desk, the bed she’s currently laying in—she’s never seen this place before.

Sombra sits up in bed, and the world swims. Sore muscles and fresh wounds pull. Pain tears furrows all over her skin. She takes stock of her body, hoping it’s not as bad as it feels.

She’s been stripped down to just her bra and a pair of shorts that are most definitely not hers. Her stomach is mottled an ugly green-yellow color, and even uglier bruises of purple-indigo dapple over her ribs. Her left hip is covered up by thick dressing plastered to her skin with adhesive bandages, so she isn’t able to see what the wound is exactly, but it stings whenever she tries to move. Several more scrapes and bruises litter her torso and arms. Her right wrist is bound in bandages so tight that it’s almost cutting off the circulation to her hand. 

What the hell happened?

She notices a flash of silver, then sees it: the shackle around her left wrist, chaining her to the bed frame, Gerald’s Game style. She gives it a light tug, and it rattles in response. 

Sombra lays her head back against the pillow, breathing in and out, in and out. She’s overwhelmed, and every inch of her body is hurting, and she has no idea where the fuck she is, but it could be worse, she supposes.

Just then, she hears the sound of footsteps outside the room. Boots, it seems like. She watches the door closely, bracing herself.

The door pushes open, and a woman enters. A shot of pure white hair. Blood red eyes. A southern accent that says, “Oh, you’re awake.”

  “Ashe?” Sombra croaks, and her throat is so, so dry. 

  “In the flesh,” Ashe replies.

Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe. Sly thief, keen-eyed gunslinger, ex-rich girl. Leader of the Deadlock Gang. Sombra knows of her in passing, they’ve spoken a few times before, but she never expected to be saved by the criminal. 

  “Sorry about the chain,” Ashe says. “But you can never be too careful.”

  “Fair enough,” Sombra grunts. “What the hell happened? Where am I?”

  “You’re in my territory, honeybun,” Ashe says. “Deadlock Gorge. Far from your home, I’d say. As for what happened, well… I could be asking you the same question.” She pulls up a chair and sits in front of Sombra, crossing one leg over the other. “But first, before you explain, drink something. You damn near dried out there in the sun.”

A large Omnic who entered with Ashe—B.O.B., Sombra is pretty sure—extends his hands to her, holding a glass of water and two pills. Sombra takes them both. 

  “That medicine should help with the pain,” Ashe says. “Which I assume you are in. Don’t know why you wouldn’t be. You were pretty much dead when we got to you. I fixed you up the best I could, but I’m not too keen with a sewing needle. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t wake up when I took that knife to your wrist.”

That wakes Sombra up. “What?”

Ashe holds up her hands. “You were bleedin’ everywhere! You know how much of a bitch it is to try and get a needle through that gory swamp? Cautery is so much faster.”

Sombra casts a nervous look at her wrist. “Are you sure that was safe?”

Ashe shrugs. “Do I look like a doctor to you?”

  “I am going to need my hand amputated,” Sombra says in dismay.

  “Don’t be so dramatic.” Ashe rolls her eyes. “Now, you need to get to talkin’. What’re you doing all the way out here? You’re pretty far from your flock. You didn’t just come to see little ol’ me, did you?”

Sombra snorts lightly. “Don’t flatter yourself too much,” she says. “No, I’m actually here on a very important mission.”

Ashe raises an eyebrow. “Is that what you call you lyin’ in the middle of the road with an Omnic like you’re both teenagers after a night of too much drinking?”

Sombra sits up straight at that, alarmed. When she does so, pain radiates through her entire body, and her vision grows spotty and red. Through a harsh ringing that blares in her ears, she can hear Ashe let out a hiss.

  “Don’t move, you idiot,” Ashe scolds her. “Jesus Christ, do you want to pass out again?”

  “The Omnic,” Sombra says. “What happened to it? Where is it?”

  “It’s a pile of scrap metal and bolts now,” Ashe tells her. “Wasn’t alive when we got to you.”

Sombra releases a breath, easing herself back down onto the bed. “Shit.”

  “Why?” Ashe probes.

  “I came here to try and retrieve it,” Sombra says, not seeing any reason to keep anything hidden. Secrecy doesn’t matter anymore. “I was supposed to bring it back to the base.”

  “You didn’t do a very good job.”

  “Yeah, I know that, asshole.”

Sombra sighs, closing her eyes. Her wrist throbs. What a fucking mess she’s gotten herself into.

  “What are you doing chasing down a bot anyway?” Ashe asks. “I remember you being way higher up in Talon.”

  “Oh, you haven’t heard?” Sombra says. “I got demoted!” She’s trying to joke, make light out of her horrible situation, but the words are still so sour on her tongue. 

Ashe quirks an eyebrow. “Demoted? How’d you manage that?”

  “Oh, you know, just having a friendship with a living anomaly, the usual,” Sombra says, waving a hand.

Ashe gives her a weird look. “How hard did you hit your head?”

  “Pretty hard,” Sombra says, and her headache throbs in agreement. “Why?”

  “You’re acting odd,” Ashe points out. “I always knew you to be more…eloquent, if you will.”

  “Yeah, well,” Sombra slumps into the mattress. “Everything has been kinda shit lately. So I don’t really have the care to be ‘eloquent’ anymore.”

  “Concerning,” Ashe hums. “Explain?”

Sombra glances over at Ashe.

Is she really about to vent to a criminal?

Yes. Yes, she is. She’s finally being given an ear that is willing to listen to her woes; she doesn’t care that it’s from a gang leader if it means she’s able to get some of this weight off her chest. 

  “I did something that world-renowned scientists couldn’t do, and in the process, I ended up taking this kid from the abyss under my wing. I spent MONTHS looking after her, caring for her, helping her recover from the things she had gone through, only for her to be ripped away from me. In one moment, she was there, the next, she wasn’t, and it’s all my fucking fault because I’m a fucking idiot who got in over her head. Now I’m stuck doing monotonous shit under an organization that doesn’t give a damn about me, I’m verbally abused and emotionally exploited on the daily, I’m haunted by nightmares at night and unrelenting guilt by day, I don’t even get to work with or see my friends anymore, and, worst of all, the kid is probably being tortured in ways I can’t even begin to fathom. And again: it’s all my fault.”

Ashe stares at her in silence for a long moment.

Then, she lets out a whistle.

  “That’s… wow. That sure is something,” Ashe says. 

Sombra manages a snort, despite herself. “That’s one way to word it.”

Ashe stands up. “We’ll talk more soon,” she says. “Get up when you can and come to the warehouse. We can discuss everything in-depth over some food. Introduce yourself to the rest of the gang while you’re at it, too. They’ve been interested in you.” She takes a key out of her pocket and unlocks the shackle around Sombra’s wrist. “There’re clothes for you on the dresser over there. I’d give you back the clothes you were in before, but, well… They weren’t salvageable, if you catch my drift. Oh, and Frankie wanted to talk to you. So I suggest you go to her first.”

  “And I’m just supposed to know who Frankie is?” Sombra says. “Or where the warehouse is?”

But Ashe has already left the room, slithering out like an albino rattlesnake being guarded by a big metal coyote. Sombra sighs.

Sombra remains in bed for a few minutes, her eyes shut, trying to process everything that has happened. The retrieval mission for the Omnic was a huge bust, seeing as the Omnic is dead, and now she’s in the base of a gang in the middle of Arizona, completely off Talon’s grid. What a time to be alive.

Deciding that she’s wallowed for long enough, Sombra hauls herself up. As it had done before, the whole world twists and spins like she’s on a tilt-a-whirl from hell, but this time, she fights through it, digging her fingernails into her consciousness even as it threatens to slip away from her. 

Her bare feet touch the wooden floorboards, and a throbbing pain clamps down around her left foot like the hungry jaws of a slobbering dog. Right, she had sprained her ankle. Just another thing to torment her.

Sombra stands up, and her body flashes with nauseating heat. She breaks out into a sweat all over, and the blankets drag abrasively over her damp, naked skin as they fall off of her shoulders, dropping like spilled intestines around her feet.

Her stomach twitches in warning. Bad simile.

She reaches out and grabs onto the nightstand beside the bed so tight her knuckles start to go white. She nearly tips the whole damn thing over with how heavily she leans on it. She just needs a moment to breathe… One small moment…

She draws in a deep breath and holds it for as long as she can, but that doesn’t make the tension in her chest go away. It’s still there, like a heavy stone lodged in between her lungs. Her ribs sting. But still, she breathes.

Inhale, exhale.

Focus.

Calm.

She opens her eyes (she hadn’t even realized she closed them in the first place). Trembling fingers grab the glass of water resting on the nightstand, and she downs the entire thing in one gulp. It’s cool and refreshing. Clears her up a little. Extinguishes some of the unbearable heat burning inside of her. She needs more. 

She releases the edge of the nightstand and takes a step forward. Then another. Then another. Her legs are shaky, uncoordinated, like a baby deer learning how to walk for the first time, and her left ankle pulsates with every movement of her foot, but she manages to stay upright. Slowly, the pain is starting to ebb away into white noise. 

The clothing left for her is not in any sort of way her style—not enough fluorescence, barely any purple—but they fit, more or less. She would have laughed at how painfully southern she looks while wearing them if laughing didn’t feel like taking a sledgehammer straight to the chest. 

The only thing that remains of her former outfit are her gloves, crossed over each other on the dresser. Despite being in the base of a bunch of thieves, they seem entirely untouched, which is surprising. She slips one on (she keeps her bandaged arm uncovered), sensing her cyber-grafts instantly connect to them, and she feels a little more secure. Grounded. Herself. It’s good to have purple back in this bland cowboy color scheme she has on, too. 

Finally exiting the bedroom, Sombra finds herself in a rather unimpressive corridor. She had been expecting something a little more exciting, if she’s being honest. She isn’t sure why. 

And then she realizes that she’s in what seems to be a motel. She manages to navigate her way out and stumbles into blinding sunlight.

Sombra hisses through her teeth, raising a hand to shield her eyes. The heat of the sun beats down on her skin, and she already regrets leaving the coolness of the motel.

  “If we could shoot down the sun, we would,” says a voice she doesn’t recognize to her left.

Squinting through the light, Sombra sees a man standing there. He smiles at her.

  “Unfortunately, that’s not possible,” he says. He walks up to her, and he’s very tall, Sombra notes, with warm-colored skin and black hair. His eyes almost look a little too friendly for someone who is part of a band of criminals. “You must be the stranger we picked up on the street.”

Sombra blinks. “Is there anyone else you could have possibly mistaken me for?”

The man laughs. Sombra hadn’t been making a joke.

  “It’s good to see you up on your feet,” the man says. He seems nice. Cordial. It makes Sombra awfully suspicious.

Immediately, she berates herself for thinking that. She shouldn’t be rude to people who are actually willing to be civil with her.

But at the same time, who can possibly blame her? After a month and a half of constant verbal throttling, cussing, and insults all directed at her, politeness seems almost foreign. She’s forgotten what it’s like to be treated like a person and not a work animal.

Realizing that she needs to respond, Sombra says, “Ah— thanks. For the help, I mean. You wouldn’t happen to be Frankie, would you?”

The man shakes his head. “Nope. I’m Benito Sanchez-Bez. You can just call me Bez, though. And you are?”

  “Sombra,” she tells him.

  “Well, Sombra, allow me to direct you to Frankie,” Bez says. “As I assume Ashe hadn’t given you proper directions?”

Sombra nods.

  “You have to excuse her,” Bez says while leading her down the street, as they appear to be in some sort of town. Or ruins of a town. The place seems awfully rundown. “She expects a lot out of people. Even new people who don’t know their way around or who is who.”

Sombra nods along absently, not sure how to contribute to what he’s saying.

Odd. Usually she’s a huge chatterbox.

It seems that her demotion has taken more from her than she initially realized. 

They pass by a building that seems to be a bar. Sombra can’t help but peek through the open doorway, and she sees a trio of people having an extremely intense game of pool. Peering at them, Sombra notices that they look almost completely identical. Triplets.

One of the heads of the triplets pops up when he notices her, and he nudges his brothers to look. Three pairs of eerily similar eyes drill into her.

  “You’re finally awake,” one of them says.

  “And you’re observant,” Sombra says back.

The man wrinkles his nose. “I carried your bleeding body all the way here in the beating hot sun,” he says. “I thought even a terrorist would be civil after that.”

One of his brothers whacks him on the arm. “You did not carry her! B.O.B. did!”

  “Dude!” the first brother hisses. “Why’d you have to go and say that? I totally had her fooled!”

  “You definitely did not,” Sombra says, and the two other brothers cackle. The first flushes red in embarrassment. 

  “Should’ve just left you to fry out there,” the first brother mutters.

  “She probably would’ve bled out before that,” the third brother points out, earning a glower from the first. 

Bez leans over to Sombra and says, “Meet the Deadlock Triplets. These are P.T., Terran, and Zeke.”

  “Your parents were feeling pretty creative with the names, huh?” Sombra says to the triplets, and it gets them all to snicker, sweetening them up a bit. 

  “Triplets, this is Sombra,” Bez says. 

The brothers formally introduce themselves to Sombra. From what pieces of their personality she catches before Bez moves on, they seem entertaining. Funny. Loyal. 

They soon come to a small building filled with tools, scraps of metal, and car parts, alongside computers and wires. An odd clash, Sombra thinks. Inside, a woman is tinkering with something robotic, her back to the door. Bez clears his throat, and the woman spins around.

  “Oh!” she exclaims. “Hey! Didn’t see you there.” Hazel eyes behind round hologlasses then widen, her gaze focused entirely on Sombra. “You’re awake!”

  “I seem to be popular,” Sombra says to Bez, who chuckles.

  “This is Frankie,” Bez says, gesturing to the woman. “She’s the one you’re looking for.”

Frankie is a well-built woman around Sombra’s age, maybe a little older, with dark skin and short, curly lavender hair. She appears incredibly eager in Sombra, her eagerness making her seem a lot younger than she actually is. 

  “Come in, come in,” Frankie beckons. “Excuse the mess.”

  “I’ll take my leave now,” Bez says, sliding out of the building.

Left alone with Frankie, Sombra asks, “Ashe told me you wanted to see me?”

  “Yes!” Frankie nods. “Take a seat.”

There isn’t a chair, so Sombra assumes she’s talking about the big metal table set up in the center of the room. She hops up onto it and brushes her fingers over a stain of rust. And then she realizes it isn’t rust. She puts her hands in her lap.

  “I’m—”

  “Sombra,” Frankie interrupts her introduction with barely contained excitement. “I know who you are.”

Sombra raises an eyebrow. “You do?”

  “Well, of course!” Frankie says. “Who wouldn’t know the most incredible hacker in the entire world? You’re, like, my role model!”

Sombra is completely taken aback. She’s been praised for her talents, sure, but nothing like this. This woman is treating her as though she’s some kind of god.  

Not that it doesn’t feel good to be treated so highly after so much inferiority. 

  “I—” Sombra stammers for a moment, bashful. “Thank you.” 

Frankie beams. “I’m a hacker myself, you know?”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yup!” Frankie nods, practically radiating pride. “Best in all of the wasteland! Which— which doesn’t have much competition, but you know.” She waves her hands dismissively, then begins to rummage through a cabinet. “I started working as one back after the Omnic Crisis, to make money for my family. I guess I had a knack for it because I’m still one now! I’m definitely not on your level, though.”

Sombra nods along to what Frankie is saying. She then notices something sitting in a heap on one of the counters: Rico’s drone! Rico’s broken drone, really, as it looks like it got caught in the crossfire of a very angry Widowmaker. 

God. Sombra misses messing with Widowmaker.

  “Where’d you get that?” Sombra asks, gesturing for the drone.

Frankie looks over at it, then answers, “Oh, Bars shot it down. It was hovering around your body when we found you. I understand why it had to be shot, but I still wish it had been taken down in a less destructive way. Still, it’s salvageable. I’m gonna try and get it back online.”

  “I see,” Sombra says. “Why exactly did you want to see me?”

  “Right! I just wanted to check on your injuries. Make sure nothing broke open while you were moving around,” Frankie says. “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  “Were you the one who patched me up?” Sombra questions. Then, slightly dubious, she adds, “Are you a hacker or a medic?” 

  “Yes,” Frankie responds.

Sombra blinks. Frankie raises her head to grin up at her.

  “Who says I can’t do both?” Frankie says, sensing Sombra’s doubt. “I juggle both of them. It’s fun. And someone has to know some level of medical care when you live all the way out here. And to answer your first question, yeah, I did, with the help of Ashe. You’d be impressed by what she can do with just a flame and a knife!”

  “So I’ve learned,” Sombra says, casting her bandaged wrist a nervous look.

In a rather awkward request, Sombra pulls the waistline of her pants down slightly so Frankie can access the wound on her hip. Frankie undresses the injury, allowing Sombra to see the ugly, jagged red gash carved through her flesh. This one is stitched up, she notices. She can’t help but grimace.

  “It looked worse when you got here,” Frankie informs her. 

  “I thought Ashe didn’t sew wounds,” Sombra says.

  “Oh, she doesn’t,” Frankie says. “I sutured this. But your wrist was bleeding profusely, and Ashe thought it would be better to cauterize the vessels shut before you died from blood loss.”

  “Ah.”

Frankie inspects the wound closely. When she sees nothing worrying, she swabs it with stinging antiseptic and then dresses it again. 

Now, Sombra’s wrist.

To Ashe’s credit, the wound isn’t anywhere near as hideous as Sombra was expecting. The skin is warped and fused together, making it raise like the scars from a violent thrashing with a whip, but it’s clean and precise. Still hurts like a bitch, though.

Sombra hisses in pain as Frankie cleans the injury. It’s incredibly uncomfortable, but she does her best not to squirm.

  “And there we go!” Frankie says after binding Sombra’s wrist back up. “You’re all done!”

Sombra flexes her hand. It still hurts. “Thank you.”

Frankie smiles. “No problem!”

After checking over her bruises and ankle, Frankie offers to take Sombra to Ashe. Sombra agrees, and the two of them walk through the ghost town together—Deadlock Gorge, Frankie tells her.  

Frankie reminds Sombra a lot of herself—to an uncanny extent. From the hacker profession, to the purple hair, all the way to their experiences with the Omnic Crisis—it’s almost like she’s looking at an alternate American version of herself. 

Sombra is taken to a large space built into the canyon walls, some sort of bunker. It’s filled with various equipment, mechanical parts, and scrap metal. A jaunty tune plays from a radio. Sombra can smell coffee and bacon. In a back room, the rest of the Deadlock Gang are gathered, including an Omnic that Sombra hasn’t met yet.

  “Ah, there you two are,” Ashe says. “Sombra, I hope Frankie didn’t talk your ear off too much.”

Frankie blusters. “Rude!”

At the same moment, Sombra shakes her head. “No, she didn’t. She’s nice company.”

That earns her a beaming smile from Frankie, who seems absolutely enraptured by the praise. Truthfully, Sombra isn’t sure what to think of it. 

  “I trust you’ve met the gang?” Ashe asks.

  “Almost everyone,” Sombra answers. She nods to the lithe Omnic. “I haven’t met you.”

  “Bars,” the Omnic says in a clipped, unfriendly voice.

  “Finest sniper in the States!” Bez chirps.

  “Here, come sit,” Ashe says, gesturing to the chair across from her. Sombra does so, and a cup of coffee and a plate full of bacon and pancakes are set in front of her by B.O.B. She gives him a thankful smile.

  “Eat,” Ashe says, and Sombra doesn’t need to be told twice. She never realized how hungry she is until that moment.

  “Why is it spicy?” Sombra asks after taking a sip of the coffee.

  “Chili powder,” Zeke pipes up. “Adds a kick.”

Sombra hums, then takes another sip. She isn’t sure how she feels about the taste, but she isn’t about to turn away the drink. 

  “So,” Ashe starts, leaning back in her chair. “It seems you’re in a bit of a pickle. What will you do now?”

Sombra stares dejectedly down into the dark liquid in her mug and says, “I don’t know. I mean, the most obvious answer is to get back in contact with Talon and regroup with them so they can take me back to Dorado. But…”

  “But that doesn’t seem too desirable to you,” Ashe finishes, and Sombra nods.

  “Yeah,” she says. “My commander, Rico— the kindest way to describe him would be calling him ‘shitlips.’”

Snickers go through the room at that, including Ashe and stony Bars.

  “He’s a real bitch,” Sombra goes on. “I would rather drag my clit over a valley of cacti—”

  “Dear god,” Bez whispers.

  “—than return to his control.”

  “So, why don’t you stay with us?” Frankie suggests. “We would be much kinder than Talon! No clit-dragging—”

  “Oh my god,” Bez mutters in cringing horror.

  “—over cacti necessary!” 

Sombra gives her a small, rueful smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “You have no idea how Talon works. You don’t just get to leave. My whole job was hunting down people who attempted to flee the organization. That’s why I’m out here in the first place- to capture a bot that went rogue and tried to get away.”

The thing about her victims—because they are victims, aren’t they?—she remembers the most vividly are the looks they give her when they realize what’s happening to them. The anger, the anguish, the terror. They would plead with her, telling her they’d give her anything she wanted, do anything she wanted them to do, but she would always turn away and condemn them to the open talons awaiting their arrival.

She had tried to let someone escape once. She tried to be merciful.

It was a man back in Mexico City, one of her first missions after her demotion. Sombra chased him all around the city, never able to pin him to one location. It was exhausting. By the time she tailed him back to his house, she was practically seething with rage. She knocked him prone in his own kitchen and pressed her gun to his head, ready to end his life simply because of the anger coursing through her body from playing cat and mouse for the past two hours in the cold. She almost pulled the trigger.

And then, she heard a small voice squeak, “Papá?”

Immediately, Sombra’s entire body had tensed. Glacially slow, her head turned to look at the small girl standing in a doorway, trembling and terrified. She had short, scruffy brown hair and warm amber eyes.

  “Que está pasando?” the little girl asked fearfully.

Despite his position on the floor with a gun to his head, the man beneath Sombra managed a smile and said, “Papá tiene que manejar una cosas. Escondete, Luciana.”

Luciana hesitated.

  “Anda, Luciana,” the man said again, firmer yet still gentle, and this time, his daughter scampered away further into the house. He looked back up at Sombra. “Do what you want to me. But don’t you dare hurt her. She’s innocent. She’s never done anything wrong.”

  “Tú tienes una hija?” Sombra asked instead of responding to what the man had said.

The man stared at her firmly, unwavering. “Porque crees que intento tan fuerte para alejarme?”

Sombra’s eyes bore into him for a long moment.

  “Sombra? What’s going on?” Rico said in her ear. “Do you have him?”

Sombra stepped off of the man, dropping the arm holding the gun limply at her side.

  “What—” The man tried to say, but Sombra swept her hair back and gestured for the earpiece in her ear. He shut his mouth.

  “Sombra?” Rico barked, louder.

  “Tu necesitas irte,” Sombra told the man. “Ya no es seguro aquí.”

  “Hay algún lugar seguro con los monstruos en mi cola?” he asked her despondently.

  “No lo sé todavía,” Sombra answered because that was the truth. She simply did not know if it was possible to escape Talon’s grasp in one piece. The only person she could recall who had managed it was Baptiste, and even that left a dark streak of bloodshed in his wake.

The man looked crestfallen but grateful to Sombra nonetheless. “Gracias por darme esta oportunidad,” he said.

Sombra shook her head. “Anda. Apúrate. Toma a tu hija, toma tus cosas, y corre. Nunca pares de correr.”

She then raised her gun arm and began firing wildly, shouting mindless things, acting as though she were engaging in a scuffle. It gave the man time to gather his things, grab his daughter, and flee. 

  “Sombra!” Rico was shouting.

  “He escaped,” Sombra finally answered him, watching the man and his child run away into the night. “He got away. I’m sorry.”

Rico growled something under his breath. “Get back to the recon point.”

Sombra did so, backtracking her way out of the city and to the location where the jet that had brought her to Mexico City was.

When she arrived, she was instantly met with a baton straight to the back of the head.

Sombra fell to her hands and knees, dirt and gravel biting viciously into her skin. Dizzily, she looked up, confused. Rico was looming over her.

  “You stupid bitch,” he said, and there was a thick, dripping arrogance and amusement coating his words like venom. “Do you really think I don’t understand Spanish? Why would Talon put someone in charge of you if they didn’t understand what you’re saying?”

Dread poured through Sombra like ice water. She opened her mouth to speak, but not a single word came out. It was like she was being strangled by barbed wire. Rico sneered.

  “I know what you did back at the main base, but I didn’t think you were that dumb,” he said. “Turns out, I was wrong. Now you’re going to pay for your own ignorance.”

Rico beat the absolute shit out of her—there is no other way to word the punishment she received that night. Under the light of the moon and the jet, he throttled her into a bloody pulp with his baton. Every time she blacked out, he would electrocute her back to wakefulness with the end of the weapon. She’s still surprised he didn’t kill her.

The man and his daughter were found within the hour and dragged to the jet. Bloodied and on the brink of unconsciousness, Sombra could only give them an apologetic look.

  “Mercy is not an option, Sombra. If only you had listened,” Rico said while unholstering a gun from his hip and sauntering over to the father and daughter. He raised his arm, looked over his shoulder, and gave Sombra a wide smile. “Esta es todo tu culpa.”

  “No!” the man shouted, but it was too late.

Rico pulled the trigger, a gunshot shattered through the night, and the little girl collapsed to the dirt, dead, bleeding profusely through a bullet hole in her head.

Everything turned to white noise after that. Sombra could barely hear the gut-wrenching sobs of the man through the piercing ringing that encompassed everything around her, like the aftermath of a concussive blast. She believed she was in shock.

Since then, Sombra never spared anyone else she hunted down, for fear of what Rico might do—both to her and the victim. It simply was not worth the wrath and agony they would face. 

Slowly, Sombra had lost herself to the unfair brutality of her new job. She pushed down her pity and sympathy, her mischief and sense of humor, because there was no reason for it to remain. She became one of the witch hunters, dragging out some poor, innocent person that was screaming and sobbing for their life. And even though that person was part of a terrorist group, they were still deserving of that life, still deserved freedom and a chance to make themselves better.

And Sombra was the one to strip that all away, until she was numb from watching all her victims weeping in chains. Until she was craving more blood, like everyone in this group eventually did.

Oh, how aptly named this organization was. Talons were dug into the flesh of each and every one of them, and they were never going to get free. Sombra included.

  “They’re going to come looking for you, aren’t they?”

The cold voice of Bars snaps Sombra out of her memories, and she looks up sharply. The Omnic is staring at her intensely, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “What?” Sombra says.

  “Talon,” Bars says. “They’re going to come try to find you, aren’t they? You said no one gets to leave, and you’re essentially off their radar right now. So they’ll come to retrieve you, won’t they?”

She’s right. With the drone down and Sombra’s earpiece gone (probably crushed or destroyed), Talon no longer has eyes on her. They’re probably heading over in a giant fleet as she’s sitting here right now, drinking coffee and eating bacon, ready to scour the entire desert until they find her. 

With a grim nod, Sombra says, “Yeah. Most likely.”

Bars lets out a noise that sounds like a hiss. She turns her head to Ashe. “We can’t quarrel with Talon again. Don’t you remember the last time that happened? We should give her up to them as a peace offering so they’ll leave us alone.”

  “That wasn’t Talon who raided us, that was Blackwatch,” Bez points out.

  “And we don’t even know if they are coming,” Terran adds.

  “It seems likely,” Bars argues. “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  “We can’t just give her up to them!” Frankie says. 

  “She’s not one of us,” Bars says back. “It’s our skin or hers.”

Ashe raises a hand, and the gang goes quiet immediately. Her red eyes focus on Sombra. “You sure are causing us quite the problems, sugar.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sombra says. 

  “How did this even happen to you?” Bez asks curiously. “I’ve always heard that you’re much higher up than grunt work like this.”

  “I was an idiot,” Sombra spits, unable to contain the self-hatred she holds for herself. “I tried to leave Talon. Or, well, I tried to help someone else leave Talon. But we were caught.”

  “Is this the kid you told me about?” Ashe inquires.

  “Yeah,” Sombra confirms with a nod. “Her name is Tracer. She’s the sweetest girl you’ll ever meet. Kinda looks like a ferret.” She manages a laugh at that, but it dies quickly in her throat, and all that remains in its absence are cold loneliness and painful longing. She dips her head to hide her eyes as she starts to tear up.

She fucking misses Tracer so much that it hurts. Even the pain of her cracked ribs, sprained ankle, gashed hip, fucking cauterized wrist withour proper anesthetics and pain medicine combined together cannot begin to rival the pain of how badly she misses Tracer.  

  “I was in such a rush to get out of there that I didn’t think to be careful,” Sombra laments, and she doesn’t know why she’s telling this band of criminals this, but the words are spilling out, and she can’t get them to stop now. “I didn’t stop to think about how dangerous that was. I just wanted her to be free. And then… and then we were caught by Talon. And then they took her from me and…”She takes a deep, shaking breath, blinking hard to try and keep the tears at bay. “And I never got to say goodbye.”

The room is silent. Sombra doesn’t raise her head to look at the reactions from the Deadlock Gang; she doesn’t want to see them. They probably think she’s stupid or childish or weak. Maybe all three. 

There’s shuffling, heavy footsteps off to her left; a moment later, arms wrap around her.

Sombra jumps, her shoulders lurching. Startled, she looks up, and she sees that B.O.B. has come over to her, leaning over to give her a comforting embrace. Fighting back tears, she pats his arm and leans her head against his chassis. 

  “Thanks,” she whispers to him. 

After a moment, B.O.B. releases her, and she quickly composes herself. She looks back at the Deadlock Gang, who surprisingly doesn’t appear very judgmental. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Ashe says, and her voice is uncharacteristically gentle. “That sounds awful. What happened to you.”

Sombra gives a small nod. “It was.” She pauses for a moment. “I can’t— I can’t let Talon keep Tracer. I know they’re doing horrible things to her. And I can’t just let that happen.”

She’s in a tight spot. The grip Talon has on her is looser than it has been in a long time, but that doesn’t mean she’s free from them yet. They’re surely looking for her at this very moment, and it won’t be long until they find her and drag her back into captivity. She has to act while she still has the chance.

She has to get to Overwatch.

But she’s in the United States. And Overwatch is all the way in Gibraltar, across the ocean. On her own, she has absolutely no way to reach them that she can think of. Her tools, as she sees them, are the kindness of strangers and nothing else.

The Deadlock Gang must have some compassion in them—they saved her from bleeding out, after all. But just because they put her back on her feet does not mean they qualify as allies. They have no reason to help her any further. If anything, she owes them.

But she has no other choice. She has to at least try. 

For Tracer.

  “If you can offer a little more charity…I’m afraid I need your help,” Sombra says.

  “I assumed that’s where this was going,” Ashe says. She doesn’t look deterred, though. In anything, she looks intrigued. “What exactly do you need from us?”

  “I don’t know if you can manage it somehow, but I need to get in contact with Overwatch,” Sombra tells her.

Like that, Ashe’s expression sours. Sombra feels a burst of fear shoot through her like black ice.

  “Them?” Ashe says in revulsion, her nose wrinkled. “Really?”

  “Tracer was originally a part of Overwatch,” Sombra says. “It’s— it’s a long story, but she basically went missing several years ago, and I was the one who found her. But being at Talon was too dangerous for her, so I was trying to bring her to Overwatch so she can live there. Plus, all her friends are there. They can help, I know they can.”

Ashe is quiet, not breaking eye contact with her. All around the room, the Deadlock Gang watches.

Sombra feels like she’s been put on trial by a committee of vultures, desperately trying to plead a cause that seems so improbable. Even still, she does not give up.

  “Listen, I know you have no reason to help me anymore than you already have,” Sombra says. “And I don’t have anything to give you in return for your kindness except my gratitude. But I am asking you to help me again. Please. Help me get in contact with Overwach. Help me get back to Tracer. She means the world to me. I need to be with her. I need to save her. So, please.” She’s begging the Deadlock Gang for their aid. And Olivia ‘Sombra’ Colomar does not beg.

But here she is. Begging for Tracer.

  “She’s the only family I have left.”

Ashe stares at her for a very long time, silent.

Then, she lets out a breath.

  “You know, I would kill for my mom to talk about me in the same way you do this girl,” she says. “Sure. We’ll help you get back to your kid.”

Sombra can’t help herself: the tears overflow from her eyes, and she starts to cry. She bows her head to Ashe and says again and again, “Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

And, for the first time in what seems like forever, she feels something warm bloom in her chest: hope.

Sombra imagined her stay in the Deadlock Gorge going any number of ways, from being betrayed and backstabbed when she least expects it to getting wrangled into a quick bank heist, but the next few days with the Deadlock Gang are surprisingly quiet. The group warms up to her rather quickly, treating her as an equal. After so much disdain and hatred directed toward her from Talon, their kindness thaws out the ice she had built up inside of herself to protect her from further abuse.

She tinkers with Frankie, explores the gorge with Bez, chats with the Deadlock Triplets, stays a respectful distance away from Bars, hangs out with Ashe… And it’s nice. It really, truly is. Maybe in another life she would have stuck around with them, living out the rest of her days adjusting to the merciless heat of Arizona and robbing people blind, but in this one, she has places she needs to be. People she belongs with. 

They contacted Overwatch via radio transmission using Frankie’s various tech equipment. The equipment itself was rather faulty, and it took quite some time to send out one single message, but it eventually went through, and communication was made. They soon got a response: Overwatch was on its way. 

And so the days pass, blending into one another…until Sombra’s third day in the Gorge. 

A jet touches down in the Deadlock Gorge. A jet that Sombra can recognize from a mile away.

Talon has found her. 

Bars, who has been fervently keeping lookout ever since Sombra arrived, is the one who tells them all, hurrying into the bunker, her urgency betraying the stoicism Sombra has mostly seen her use. 

At the news, Ashe keeps a level head. “Alright, there’s no need to panic,” she says calmly. “They have no proof that Sombra is even here.”

  “But… but she is here,” P.T. says.

  “Yeah, obviously, dipshit,” Terran says, and P.T. glares at him.

Bez looks at Sombra. “You need to hide.”

  “Way ahead of you,” Sombra says. With a wave of her hand, she has herself cloaked in invisibility.

The entirety of the Deadlock Gang blinks.

  “She… she disappeared for you guys, too, right?” Zeke asks warily.

They all nod.

  “Invisibility,” Sombra says, making the triplets jump. “Pretty handy.”

  “That’s incredible!” Frankie says in awe.

Further comments are cut off by a loud banging on the front metal door. 

  “They’re here,” Bars whispers.

  “Stay low and silent, Sombra,” Ashe says. “We’ll take care of this.”

Sombra nods, only to remember that Ashe can’t see her. “Good luck.”

Sombra settles herself on a landing up above, which overlooks the entire warehouse. There, she watches as Ashe opens the front door with her rifle drawn, B.O.B. looming menacingly behind her.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Ashe snarls, her tone turned biting and unfriendly in an instant. “Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my territory?”

From her position, Sombra can’t see who Ashe is facing, but she can hear them. And the sound of their voice sends a rush of epinephrine through her entire body. 

  “Woah, easy there! No need to be so hostile! We just met!”

It’s Rico.

  “You must not be American,” Ashe says. “We don’t take too lightly to just anyone waltzing onto our property. So, again, I’ll ask you: what the fuck do you want, who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my territory?”

  “My name is Rico,” Sombra hears Rico say. “Before I answer your other questions, can I come inside? It’s sweltering out here. Unless you want us to force our way in. We certainly have the firepower.”

Sombra can hear the muffled sound of guns clicking and raising to attention. If Ashe is threatened by the display, she doesn’t show it.

  “But I would rather not come to needless bloodshed,” Rico goes on. 

Ashe stares at him for a long moment, then backs up, allowing Rico and his men to enter the warehouse. 

  “Don’t try anything,” Ashe warns. 

  “Don’t give us a reason to,” Rico says.

Sombra counts twenty-five Talon agents, all of them padded with heavy-duty armor and armed to the teeth. The group easily outnumbers the Deadlock Gang four to one. But still, the rest of the Deadlock Gang stands around the warehouse at the ready, their guns drawn and aimed. They’re all ready to rain hell on the intruders, and they’ll die fighting if they need to.

Rico whistles as he takes in his surroundings. For a terrifying moment, Sombra thinks his green-grey eyes land directly on her, but then they keep going, sweeping through the space.

  “This is a pretty nice place you’ve got for yourself,” he comments.

  “This isn’t a home evaluation, Rico,” Ashe says coldly. “What the hell do you want? Why are you here?”

  “Right to the point, I see,” Rico says. “Well, you see, Miss…”

  “Ashe,” Ashe clips.

  “Ashe,” Rico repeats. He flashes her a dazzling smile. “A wonderful name.” She sneers at his attempt at flattery. He goes on, completely undeterred, “Well, you see, Miss Ashe, we’re looking for someone. Her name is Sombra. You wouldn’t happen to know of her whereabouts, would you?” 

  “You saying a name does not give me much to work on, Rico,” Ashe says.

  “Right! Of course, of course,” Rico says. “I’m going to pull a picture out of my pocket, alright? Don’t blast my head off.”

  “We’ll see,” Ashe says.

Rico laughs. He then fishes a photograph out of his pocket and hands it to Ashe. “She’s not exactly hard to miss, what with the purple hair,” he says. “She’s pretty well-known, too. Got some pretty incredible hacking skills.”

Ashe peers at the photo. “Oh,” she says. “Her.”

Rico raises an eyebrow. “You know her?” he asks.

  “I’ve crossed paths with her before,” Ashe informs him. “She’s a slippery little weasel, isn’t she?”

Rico lets out a loud laugh. “Indeed she is!”

  “Why exactly are you looking for her?” Ashe questions while handing the photo back.

  “She’s on the run right now,” Rico tells her. “She’s real dangerous, and me and my people need to detain her before she hurts anyone else.”

  “What are you, the police?” Ashe says.

Rico chuckles. “Not quite.” His gaze then turns firm. “So. Have you seen her?”

Ashe does not break eye contact with him as she says, “No.”

  “We were tracking her with a drone,” Rico continues. “We followed her all the way to this wasteland—no offense. Her last known location was here at this…what is this? A tourist trap?”

Ashe stares at him blankly.

  “The point is,” Rico goes on, “she was last seen here. On the road, just outside this little ghost town. And while we were flying in, we spotted some blood dried up on the street. Concerning, right? Well, we did some scans, and they match up perfectly with her blood results.”

  “So, she was injured and limped off like a wounded deer,” Ashe says. “If you fly out a little further, I’m sure you’ll find her corpse shriveled up under the sun somewhere.”

  “See, that’s what I was thinking!” Rico says. “That she must have hobbled off somewhere, I mean. But then I got to thinking further… I just think it’s a bit odd that there was no blood trail leading in any direction. From the amount of blood we found, she was clearly bleeding profusely, so if she did get up and move, there should have been a trail. But there isn’t. It’s almost like her body got picked up by something…”

 “Does basic first aid not exist wherever the hell you’re from?” Ashe asks. “Anyone with a brain would know to bind a bleeding wound to stop said bleeding.”

Rico nods thoughtfully. “That’s a very good point!” he says. “But, well… There is something else. I hope you don’t mind, but I took a little peek into some of your buildings—you should really invest in doors, by the way—and inside one of them, I found our drone.”

Up on the landing, Sombra’s entire body flashed with something more than fear. Her body flinches as if under a high-voltage current, but she doesn’t budge from her spot.

Ashe, on the other hand, doesn’t even react. “Oh, that’s yours?” she says nonchalantly. “Yeah, we shot it down. But who wouldn’t shoot down a suspicious drone flying over their home? Especially all the way out here.”

  “Fair enough,” Rico says. He glances all around the room again. “Hm…”

He then begins casually strolling forward.

  “Hey!” Ashe barks, and she instantly has at least seven guns revolving around and pointing directly at her head. She bares her teeth at them. 

  “Sombraaaaa,” Rico drawls, his eyes scanning every inch of the warehouse. His saccharine tone is excessively and sickeningly charming. “We aren’t finished with you just yet. You still have a debt to pay off. Come out now, and maybe that debt won’t grow any larger than it already is.”

  “Are you insane?” Ashe hisses at him.

  “¿No quieres volver a ver a Lena?” Rico keeps talking, ignoring Ashe. The sudden switch to Spanish startles Sombra. It’s as if Rico is saying ‘this conversation is for you and you alone.’ “Nuestro ayuntamiento no está formado por idiotas, ya sabes. Escuché que la historia que contó fue salvaje. Muy emocional.  Ella derramó su pequeño corazón en esta historia solo para protegerte, incluso después de haber sido torturada por...¿Cuántas horas fueron? ¿Diecinueve? Sí, diecinueve horas de tormento puro y sin adulterar, y todavía encontró la voluntad y la humanidad para inventar una mentira elaborada. Lástima que el consejo vio a través de él. Quiero decir, ¿estás siendo intimidado para ayudar a una cosita tan pequeña? Qué fuera de lugar para ti. ¡Simplemente no estaba bien!”

  “What the hell are you even talking about?” Ashe says.

  “Pero el ayuntamiento tiene algo de piedad,” Rico continues as though Ashe isn’t even there. “Aparentemente, estaban planeando ejecutarte, pero tu pequeña mascota salvó tu lamentable trasero. Ella te dio la oportunidad de vivir, pero en lugar de eso, te escapas al desierto. Qué egoísta de tu parte.” He pauses. “¡Oh, dispara, mi mal!  No la llamas Lena, ¿verdad? No, no lo haces.  La renombraste como el cachorro de perrera que es. Todos te escuchamos gritar esa noche que lo arruinaste todo.  Qué era…? Oh sí.” A wide smirk comes to his lips. “Tracer.” 

A cry claws at Sombra’s throat, and it takes all her willpower not to release it. She is a living torch of rage, her muscles bulging and coiling as she fights the urge to lunge at the slimy bastard. She can’t let herself get caught.

How dare he. 

Ashe shouts things at Rico, but Rico carries on with no regard to her, perfectly resolute. And even with how loud Ashe is being, Sombra can only hear the words Rico speaks to her.

  “Seré honesto, no sé exactamente el alcance de lo que el consejo le ha hecho,” he says. “Pero solo sé que no es nada bueno. Si te muestras, tal vez hable por una hora de paz para tu cachorrito.”

He pauses again. Waits.

Sombra does not move.

Rico chuckles. “Egoísta. Aunque, realmente no puedo culparte. Lo que sea que quede de esa chica, bueno... yo tampoco querría verla. Por lo que he visto, es bastante grotesco. Sin embargo, tengo que preguntar: ¿valió la pena?”

  “HEY!” Ashe roars.

Rico turns to her, smiling pleasantly. “Hello!”

Ashe’s face is contorted into an animalistic snarl. “You’ve outstayed your welcome. Get out. Now.”

  “Of course, of course,” Rico says. “It appears as though Sombra isn’t here. You were right! But if you do happen to stumble upon her…” He slips something out of his pocket and hands it to Ashe, smiling at her again. “Let her know that her dog is still whining for her. Be seeing you!”

Rico and his troops leave, escorted out by Ashe, just to make sure they actually go away. Nobody in the warehouse moves until she returns almost ten minutes later. 

  “You’re right, Sombra,” Ashe says. “‘Shitlips’ is the perfect way to describe him.” Her eyes then drift down to whatever Rico had given her, and her expression tightens into a grimace. 

  “That was…horrible,” Frankie says, and all three of the Deadlock Triplets nod in agreement.

  “Sombra?” Bez calls out.

  “I’m here,” Sombra says, appearing beside all of them. If they notice the tear tracks running down her cheeks, they don’t say anything. “Thank you, Ashe. You got them off my tail for now.”

Ashe nods once. “No problem. Wish I could have put a bullet in that bitch’s skull, though.”

  “Don’t we all,” Bars says.

Sombra looks at the thing in Ashe’s hands. It seems to be a piece of paper. “What is that?”

Ashe’s grimace returns. “I’m…not sure you want to see this, sugar.”

  “I do,” Sombra says. “Please?”

Ashe hesitates, then hands it over.

It’s a photo. 

Tears well up in Sombra’s eyes, and she doesn’t care to stop them as they drip down onto the picture of Tracer, chained up and muzzled like a dog, mutated horribly, a far cry from the sweet, fluffy-headed girl she remembers her being. 

And in her chest, she feels that small flame of hope burn out and die, and all that’s left behind is a deep, dark pit of endless despair.

The Void.

Chapter Text

Overwatch arrives at the Deadlock Gorge the same day Talon came looking for Sombra, landing the shuttle just two hours later. At this time, Sombra is still reeling from what Rico had said. His words won’t stop replaying in her mind like a broken record. 

¿Valió la pena?

Was it worth it?

And, worse than even that, there’s the picture. The horrible, horrible picture that Sombra can’t stop looking at.

Poor Tracer.

Sombra had been expecting the entirety of Overwatch to come pick her up, but instead, there’s only two. A certain pair that causes the whole Deadlock Gang to bristle with agitation.

  “Of course it’s you two who would come here,” Ashe says with a sneer.

Cassidy laughs. “It’s good to see you, too, Ashe,” he says back.

  “And we are the only ones who know of your location,” Echo adds. “We determined that you would be happier if the whereabouts of your base were kept under lock and key and not shared with anyone else. As such, we are the ones who have come here.”

  “I think I liked you better when you were in your box,” Ashe mutters.

Echo seems unconcerned with the spiteful comment, simply replying, “It was not a box. ‘Capsule’ would be a better word for it.”

Ashe lets out a long, agonized groan.

  “But I cannot say I think the same,” Echo continues. “It was quite cramped in there.”

  “You’d make a wonderful torture machine, you know that?” Ashe tells her. 

Echo tilts her head like a curious dog. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you’re making me wanna die with how much you’re talking,” Ashe states.

As the two of them are bickering, Cassidy’s eyes slide over to where Sombra is standing, lingering in the back, unsure on how to approach after she let all of Overwatch down. Luckily, she doesn’t need to make that decision, as Cassidy starts to walk over to her on his own accord.

  “You look like shit,” Cassidy says casually.

  “Guess I finally know how you feel,” Sombra says back, equally as casual.

Cassidy laughs. “It’s good to see you still have your sense of humor.”

Sombra manages a smile. “That’s one thing Talon can’t take from me. Trust me, they’ve tried.”

At that, Cassidy’s expression hardens. His eyes are concerned. “How has it been?”

Sombra sighs. “Honestly? Pretty shit. There’s…a lot I have to tell you.”

Cassidy nods. “We best be off then.”

Sombra says her farewells to the Deadlock Gang, who seem sad to see her go. After spending time getting to know all of them, it stings a little to leave them, but she’s got work to do.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Sombra says, standing at the foot of the shuttle, facing the Gang. “If you ever need anything hacked, say a locked bank vault or something like that, you be sure to hit me up. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Careful,” Cassidy warns from behind her, though his tone is light and playful.

Ashe chuckles. “I’ll make sure to contact you if we need your talents,” she says. “By the way, if you plan on staging a raid to get your kid back, you better invite us. Our guns are your guns. I’d love to light up those assholes for what they’ve done.”

Sombra smiles. “I’ll definitely take you up on that offer,” she says. “Adios, amigos.”

Ashe tips her hat to Sombra. “Till next time, sugar.”

With one final wave to the Deadlock Gang, Sombra boards the shuttle, and the door shuts behind her. Through the glass, she watches as the group slowly disappears when the ship takes into the air, until Ashe and her people are nothing more than specks against the wasteland. 

Off toward the Watchpoint they go.

For a few minutes of flight, the shuttle is quiet. Echo is piloting the aircraft, while Sombra sits at the couch in the corner, looking at the photos of the Overwatch group that are taped to the wall. Cassidy comes over and sits down next to her. 

  “So,” Sombra finally says, “how mad is everyone at me?”

  “Not as mad as you would think,” Cassidy says. “There was more disappointment than anger. Everyone was just really upset.”

Somba grimaces. “That’s somehow worse.” She shakes her head. “I tried to get to you all. I really, really did. I wasn’t lying when I said I had Trac— Lena.” 

  “So, what happened?” Cassidy asks.

  “We got caught,” Sombra answers sullenly. “I wasn’t careful. I rushed to try and get her off the island, and Talon caught us. I was demoted and moved out to Dorado to do grunt work.”

  “And Lena?”

Sombra is quiet. The picture Ashe had given her weighs like a stone in her pocket.

  “Sombra…” Cassidy looks fearful. “Is she—”

  “No, she’s— she’s alive,” Sombra says quickly, understanding what he meant. “They didn’t kill her. They just…” Her voice dies. She doesn’t want to say it.

So, instead, she takes the photo out of her pocket and sets it on the tabletop, face-down. She slides it over to Cassidy. Cassidy gives her a curious-confused look, then flips the picture over. 

 Instantly, his expression drops, and his face pales.

  “What… what the fuck?” he whispers in horror.

  “That’s her,” Sombra says. “That’s Lena.”

The picture is ghastly. It shows Tracer on her knees in some metal chamber, leashed to the ceiling by a thick metal collar clasped around her neck. An iron gag is fastened on her face, effectively muzzling her like a dog. The chronal accelerator, which is bulkier and larger than Sombra remembered it being, looks like a burden to wear upon her chest. Her arms have rotted into an unnaturally black color, as though the Void itself has infected her skin. And given what Sombra knows about the Void, that very well may be true. The worst thing, however, are her eyes. Her eyes are all black, except for her irises, which are the same glowing bright blue as the center of the accelerator. But that’s not even what sickens Sombra the most. What sickens Sombra the most is how empty they are. How hollow and lifeless. Even when glowing, there is not a single speck of actual light in that deadened gaze.

  “This— this can’t be—”

  “It is,” Sombra says grimly. “It’s her.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of pictures of her,” Cassidy says after a moment of stunned silence. “I’ve even met her, although very briefly. Before the Slipstream took off, when I was still in Blackwatch. She was a good kid from what I saw.”

  “She is,” Sombra says softly.

  “To see her like this… It’s daunting,” Cassidy goes on. “I’m sorry, I just— I don’t know what to say. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  “It’s alright,” Sombra assures him. “You’re handling it better than I did.”

Cassidy frowns worriedly at her, but before he can ask her concerned questions about her wellbeing, Echo glides over to them, presumably after putting the shuttle on auto-pilot. Sombra is grateful for the robot’s intervention; she doesn’t like the idea of being psychoanalyzed right now.

  “May I see?” Echo asks, dipping her head toward the picture Cassidy is still holding. Sombra swears his hand is shaking. 

  “Sure,” Cassidy says. “Be warned, though: it’s pretty upsetting.”

He hands the picture over. Echo studies it intently. Her holographic expression does not betray any sort of emotion she has toward what the photograph displays. 

  “Poor girl,” Echo finally says, her tone somber, and Sombra can’t help but think that’s a terrible understatement.

They all go quiet for the rest of the ride to the Watchpoint, exchanging very few words with one another, their moods dampened by the picture. While Cassidy and Echo return to the front of the shuttle, Sombra gets herself as comfortable as she can on the couch and slips into a doze, trying to dream of happier times…and a happier future. 

Sometime later, she’s roused by a hand shaking her shoulder. Instantly, her eyes snap open, and she sucks in a sharp breath that stings through the cracks in her slowly-healing ribs. She turns her head and sees Cassidy there, leaning over to her.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says, pulling his hand back. It’s the human one, Sombra notes sluggishly. “I just needed to wake you up. We’re here.”

Indeed, they are. Out through the glass of the shuttle’s door hatch, Sombra can see it: Watchpoint: Gibraltar. 

Sombra hadn’t been expecting a crowd, but that’s what she’s met with when the shuttle touches down on the landing dock. The whole of Overwatch is there waiting like a horde of paparazzi; Cassidy or Echo must have radioed that they were close to arriving at some point.  

After stepping out of the shuttle, Sombra takes a moment to gauge each of the Overwatch members: Winston, hopeful; Pharah, curious; Baptiste, relieved to see her alright; Sojourn, extremely suspicious; Lucio, offering her a small, friendly smile; Genji, completely unreadable; D.Va, intrigued; Ana, calm; Zarya, scrutinizing; Mercy, concerned. Out of all of them, Sombra does her best not to look at Winston, knowing he’s the one she let down the most.

The other thing she notices is that Mei and Brigitte aren’t present. Maybe they didn’t get the memo?

For a moment, they all stare at each other in silence.

Then, Sombra raises a hand and gives a small, “Hola.”

Sojourn steps up, her gun grasped tightly in her hands. Her distrustful leer toward Sombra does not waver. “We have much to discuss.”

  “Aye,” Sombra replies. “Indeed we do.”

As a ‘safety precaution,’ Sombra is stripped of both her gun and her gloves. And then her wrists are cuffed together. 

  “Sorry,” Cassidy says apologetically when he notices her disgruntled expression. “This is a ‘just in case.’”

  “I’m not gonna do anything,” Sombra spits bitterly. 

  “I know,” Cassidy says. “But the whole gang has been walking on eggshells for a while. It’s just to make everyone feel better.”

That catches Sombra’s attention, but she doesn’t have the time to question Cassidy about it, as she’s then brought into an underground council room, where all of the members of Overwatch are gathered. Well, minus Mei and Brigitte still. Sombra has no idea where they may be. 

The council table is C-shaped, and Sombra stands in the middle of it, facing Sojourn, Winston, Mercy, and Cassidy once he sits down with them. Around her, the other Overwatch members murmur curiously, and this feels a hell of a lot like an event ripped straight out of the Salem Witch Trials. 

To go along with this comparison, and to hopefully lighten the intensity in the room, Sombra says, “Are you about to ask me if I saw Goody Proctor with the Devil?”

  “Why did you fail to show up at the meeting location?” Sojourn asks, ignoring what Sombra had said completely.

On the other hand, Cassidy tips his head to Sombra with a small, knowing smile, as if to say, “I get the reference.”

  “I mean, you went through all the trouble to come up with a meet-up plan with us,” Sojourn goes on. “And then you bailed. Why? What have you done with Lena?”

  “Her name is Tracer,” Sombra says. Usually, she’s the one who amends herself with this sort of thing, opting to use Tracer’s real name to avoid confusion, but this time, she can’t help but correct this bitch. “And I haven’t done anything to her. There was— there was an accident the night we tried to escape the island.” Shame filters in, and she casts her gaze away guilty, staring at the leg of the table. “I wasn’t careful enough, and we got caught.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Sojourn presses. 

This woman is really trying to jab all her buttons, isn’t she? 

  “I mean that we got caught, ” Sombra says. “Talon caught us trying to escape. They found out about…her.” Her shoulders slump, the guilt a heavy burden to bear upon her back. “We got separated after that. I was moved to Dorado to do grunt work. I haven’t seen her since that night.”

  “Where is she?” Winston asks, his voice quiet. Nervous. So terribly nervous. “Is she…”

  “She’s alive,” Sombra assures him. Though, saying that Tracer is ‘alive’ is largely debatable. The state she’s in hardly seems to be anything close to actually living. “And she’s still at the Talon base, I’m pretty sure. But again, I haven’t seen her in-person since we got caught, so I don’t know for sure.”

  “How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Sojourn probes her. “How do we know she actually came back? For all we know, you could just be using her name to try and trick us.”

  “What reason do I have to lie?” Sombra challenges.

  “Well, given your track record and the organization you associate yourself with, you can never be too sure,” Sojourn replies coolly.

Sombra sneers. “It doesn’t matter what you think. I have proof.”

Sojourn raises her eyebrows. “Oh, do you now?”

Cassidy nods. “It’s true,” he says. “I saw it. She showed me.”

  “Do share this proof with us, then,” Sojourn says. 

Sombra attempts to grab the picture out of her pocket, but the cuffs locking her wrists together make it difficult. After a moment of struggle, Cassidy gets up to assist her. 

  “Brace yourselves,” Cassidy warns, then hands the picture to Sojourn. Winston and Mercy lean in to look at it.

Their reactions are instantaneous. Mercy claps a hand over her mouth in horror. Winston looks petrified. Even Sojourn’s hard expression ripples into one of alarm. Several other Overwatch agents get up to take a peek, and they all react the same way: with pure, abject fright. 

  “What the HELL?!” D.Va yelps loudly, saying what they’re all thinking. “What is WRONG with her?!”

  “This— this can’t be her,” Winston whispers. Despite his animal features, Sombra can’t help but think he looks extremely sick. “It just can’t be.”

  “It is,” Sombra says. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh god,” Winston breathes out in horror. He then puts his head in his hands, and Cassidy pats his back in an attempt to comfort him, 

  “To reiterate what Hana had said,” Sojourn says. “What is wrong with her? This doesn’t look like the Lena in the pictures I’ve seen.”

  “Her name is Tracer,” Sombra says. “And…I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve seen any trace of her since we were separated. I don’t know what Talon is doing to her.”

  “Why exactly do you have this photo of her in the first place?” Sojourn asks.

  “Let me guess, you think I took it and this is all one big elaborate ruse to try and lure you to wherever Tracer is so Talon can capture all of you?” Sombra asks back.

  “Can you blame me for my suspicion?”

  “I guess not. I got the picture from Ashe. One of my missions sent me to Arizona to track down a runaway bot. I got roughed up real bad, and Ashe and her people took me in.” As if to show proof, she holds out her hands, showing the bandages around her right wrist. “If you want, you can unwrap it and see where I had a giant gash cauterized. And before you make a remark: no, I didn’t purposely cut myself open and then burn my skin back together just to try and deceive all of you. I don’t like Talon that much. Anyway, Talon, more specifically, my commander, came looking for me. I remained hidden, while he talked to Ashe, as he thought I was there with her…which I was, but he didn’t find that out. Before he left, he gave her a photo ‘in case she saw me.’ That photo. Probably to try and entice me to come back.”

Sojourn looks back down at the photo with a slight, “Hmm.”

  “I have a question,” a new voice pipes up.

All heads turn to Genji, who was the one to speak. He’s still completely unreadable to Sombra.

Sojourn flicks her fingers at him. “Go on.”

Genji fixes his gaze on Sombra. Or, at least, she thinks he’s looking at her. How does he even see out of that thing on his head?

  “Sombra, you have incredible technological prowess,” he says. “Why not contact us sooner? Surely you have the power to do that.”

There was a hum of agreement throughout the room.

  “I tried,” Sombra says. “I tried so often. But I was being watched constantly. There was nothing I could do. Trust me, if I could have saved myself from all the grief I’ve been given this past month and a half, I would have done so.”

  “Here’s what I want to know,” Sojourn says. “Why help Le—” Sombra glares at her. She amends, “Why help Tracer in the first place? Why risk your neck for a girl you don’t even know?”

The question takes Sombra aback. That’s something she’s been asking herself for months now.

Why did she help Tracer?

Tracer was caught in the middle of a war that she had no control over. She was just some poor, innocent wretch that fate dealt a terribly bad hand to. But even as pitiful as she was, what was the point of Sombra risking her life for a girl who had no relation to her in the first place?

Sombra’s first instinct was curiosity. Moira used to tell her, “Sombra, one day, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong is going to get you killed.” But her interest was insatiable, and the hunger to know more only grew when she was first faced with the living anomaly. 

Tracer was a ground-breaking revelation of reality itself. She still is. All Sombra wanted was to know more and more and more about her, and maybe that was her driving force at the very beginning. The need to uncover all the secrets of Tracer’s weird biology and psychology, the desire to be the first one to discover all of this stuff. She kept her away from Talon not because she was worried about what they would do to her, but because she wanted to keep her all to herself. She liked the feeling of superiority it gave her, knowing she was the only person who held the Slipstream’s missing pilot in the palm of her hand. 

But then, at some point, it became more than simple curiosity. 

The need to study all of Tracer’s strangeness became the inexplicable need to protect the girl.

Overwatch doesn’t need to know that, though. She doesn’t need them weaponizing her softness against her. It’s bad enough that Talon is already doing so.

So, Sombra says, “I was interested in her. Who wouldn’t be? She’s literally the Slipstream’s missing pilot, for crying out loud! Why wouldn’t I want to help her?”

  “No, that’s not it,” Mercy says, taking Sombra by surprise. She looks at the angelic woman, startled, and Mercy has a knowing expression on her face. She can see right through Sombra. “That’s not why you helped her. Maybe it’s part of the reason, but I think it’s deeper than that.”  

Sombra blinks at her, then lets out an amused breath through her nose. “Nothing gets past you, huh?”

  “It’s a skill of mine,” Mercy hums.

Sombra flashes a ghost of a smile, then lowers her head to the ground. Memories whirl inside of her head, and so many different emotions whirl with them.

  “Curiosity was the deciding factor in the beginning,” she finally says after gathering her thoughts. “I didn’t really care about who she was, rather what she was. I only wanted to know more about her, but I also didn’t want anyone finding out. I wanted to keep her all to myself, so I wouldn’t let her leave my room in fear of her getting caught. I hogged her like some kind of jewel in a dragon’s hoard. But then, at some point, I started to care about her. I’m still not sure how that happened, but I wanted to see her happy and alright and safe. I liked being around her. She was my friend. ” She pauses for a moment, fidgeting with her hands. “And then…there was this one night… She told me she didn’t want to exist anymore. She didn’t say she didn’t want to be alive anymore, but that she didn’t want to exist anymore. Because she didn’t consider herself to be living. I had known her state of being was less than desirable, and I had known that she wasn’t really all that happy, but I guess that was the first time it truly sank in. And, at that moment, without even thinking about it, I decided I was going to help her. I was going to fix her and show her that life was worth living.”

She remembers the look on Tracer’s face that night. The fear, the anguish, the pain. But, most of all, she remembers the hope.

It had been faint, buried beneath mounds of broken glass and coagulated blood from all her past lives, but it was there. Sombra had seen it. 

Tracer was a survivor. A girl that had suffered more than most would be able to handle. She’d been broken more times than a person could count. Sombra could see that in her eyes. They were dark, but not in the way one would expect from someone trapped in the Void for so long. They were the eyes of someone who had been shattered but not completely taken apart. 

Tracer wasn’t a ghost or a husk or a shell. She was a young girl that had been dealt a terrible hand. And yet, she held a glimmer of hope that defied all odds. 

  “I did the things I did for her not because I had to but because I wanted to,” Sombra says. “I wanted to help her. Not because of curiosity or to have her owe me, but because I cared about her.”

  “She was your friend,” Mercy says.

  “She’s my everything.”

For a moment, there’s only silence in the room. Everyone is staring at Sombra, taking in her words.

And then, a deep, rumbling voice says, “I believe you.”

Sombra looks up, meeting the eyes of Winston. His expression is empathy and sadness and gratitude all at once.

  “I’m happy that she wasn’t alone anymore,” Winston goes on. “I’m glad she had someone who took care of her. I’m glad she had you, Sombra. Thank you.” 

Sombra stares at him back in shock and awe. “You don’t— you don’t have to thank me. I would do it all again for her if I had to.” Her tone then turns fierce. “And I’m going to bring her back, I promise. Regardless of if everyone else believes that I’m being sincere, I’m going to bring Tracer home—with or without Overwatch.”

Before anyone can reply to that, someone enters the council room. All heads turn to none other than Mei, and she looks deeply worried.

  “Mei,” Mercy says. “What is it?”

Mei is breathless, as though she’s run all the way here, as she replies, “It’s Brigitte.”

At that, everyone develops an expression of concern. People start standing up, their urgency palpable. Sombra is confused.

  “What’s going on?” she asks. Nobody answers her.

  “Zarya, stay here with Sombra,” Sojourn orders the pink-haired woman. “We’ll be back.”

  “Now hold on,” Cassidy says. “I think Sombra should come with us. Maybe she can figure out what’s going on with the kid.”

Sojourn frowns. “Why would she know what to do?”

  “Sombra knew Len— Tracer,” Cassidy says. “If we’re right about this happening because of Tracer, she might know how to fix it.”

That snags Sombra’s attention, and she looks at Cassidy sharply. “What?”

  “He’s got a point,” Mercy puts in. “I say we let her try.”

Sojourn looks less than thrilled at that idea, but she nods anyway. “Alright. She can try.”

So, Sombra’s wrists are uncuffed, and she’s swept through the Watchpoint with a flurry of worried agents. On the way, Cassidy explains what’s going on to her.

  “Almost two weeks ago, we got a distress call from one of the other Overwatch facilities,” he tells her. “While there, Brigitte was exposed to…something. I’m not even completely sure what happened, I wasn’t there, and she doesn’t talk much about it anymore, but since then, she’s been off. Like, really off.”

  “What does Tracer have to do with that?” Sombra asks.

  “Angela heard what sounded like Tracer’s voice calling her name,” Cassidy answers. “Brigitte heard it, too. Whether it was actually her or not, we don’t know for sure.”

They all stop in front of a door further within the Watchpoint. Sombra strains her ears, but she can’t hear anything coming from inside. 

  “She’s in here,” Mei says, nodding to the door. “This is just a holding cell. It felt…safer to keep her in here.”

  “Be gentle with her,” Mercy says to Sombra, her voice thick with maternal worry. “And patient. She’s fragile right now.”

  “Shout if you need anything,” Cassidy adds.

Sombra nods, then slips through the door and into the room.

Despite the space being dubbed a ‘holding cell,’ it seems quite cozy, with its bed, nightstand, coffee table, and other pieces of small furniture. There, hunched low in the corner of the bed pressed against the far wall, is Brigitte. 

The first thing Sombra takes notice of are the black gloves Brigitte has on, which are quite literally zip tied onto her hands. She thinks this is awfully weird, but then she sees it: the angry red scratch marks torn all up and down the sides of Brigitte’s head, as though she tried to claw her own ears off. Like that, the gloves make perfect sense.

Brigitte is tense, staring at her with a wildness at the edges of her bloodshot eyes. She’s terribly pale, and she looks like she hasn’t slept in weeks. 

  “Hey, kid,” Sombra says casually, keeping her voice low and gentle. The way she used to talk toward Tracer.

  “You,” Brigitte says hoarsely, and she sounds as though she swallowed a handful of splinters. 

  “How’s your shoulder doing?” Sombra asks.

Brigitte blinks as though confused with the question, then answers, “Oh. It’s good. All healed.” She pauses. “Why are you here?”

  “Oh, just sightseeing,” Sombra says. “I hear the Watchpoint is wonderful this time of the year!’ 

Brigitte stares at her blankly.

None of her jokes are landing today. 

  “I’m here to try and help you, kid,” Sombra says.

Brigitte gives a bitter snort and hugs her knees to her chest tighter. “What could you possibly do? Not even Mercy knows what’s wrong with me, and if Mercy doesn’t know how to fix me, then I must be a lost cause.”

  “Mercy is a medical doctor,” Sombra points out. “She handles physical ailments. And this isn’t physical, is it?”

Brigitte frowns. “No. It isn’t.” She shakes her head. “They all think I’m insane! But I’m not! If anything, they’re the insane ones for not hearing all that noise!”

  “What noise?” Sombra presses. “Can you explain to me what’s going on?”

  “Something is—wrong with me,” Brigitte says, forcing the words out, almost like she doesn’t want to. “That I know. I don’t need a prognosis for that. And even if I didn’t know, the stares and whispers I get from everyone else would make me realize.”

  “Cassidy told me something happened at an Overwatch facility?” Sombra says.

For a moment, Brigitte’s eyes go glossy, like she’s flashing back to the day everything seemed to go wrong for her. Then, she blinks, and she’s back to normal. Mostly. 

  “Yeah,” she confirms. “Something…really weird happened in there. It was like an…unreality, if that makes sense.”

Sombra shivers at that.

  “I went in completely fine, and I came out wrong,” Brigitte hisses, suddenly bitter and angry. Angry at herself. “I shouldn’t have gone into that stupid building. But I did, and now I’m broken!”

  “You’re not broken, Brigitte,” Sombra says. “You just need to be—”

  “What? Fixed?” Brigitte cuts her off. “You know what things are fixed? Things that are broken.”

Sombra presses her lips into a line. Brigitte seems adamant on her fractured state of being, so she decides to try talking about something else.

  “You said you hear whispers,” she says. “What do they say to you?”

Suddenly, Brigitte looks very, very tired. “So many things,” she says. “It never stops talking. It’s spent so long being unheard by everyone that now that someone can hear it, it won’t shut up. I’ve tried everything to try and tune it out, but nothing works. Blasting music at the loudest volume, shoving it to the back of my mind, focusing on something else—I can always still hear it. I tried prying out my eardrums with pliers, but Angela stopped me. Then I tried tearing my ears off, and I got put in THESE.” She glares at the gloves on her hands. “It’s like all my friends LIKE to see me suffer!”

  “They don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Sombra says gently.

Brigitte scoffs. “Can’t they see that I’m already hurting? I don’t know peace anymore!” Her voice then lowers into a rasp, and deep exhaustion returns to her eyes. “I can’t sleep. It keeps me awake all night. Taunting me. Talking to me. Beckoning for me. It wants me to join it.”

It’s at that moment that Sombra knows exactly what Brigitte is talking about…and what she has been exposed to.

The Void.

Brigitte flinches at nothing as though she’s just been shouted at, her eyes darting over to a corner. When she looks back at Sombra, she’s trembling. 

  “It asks me to come be with it,” she goes on, lost in her torment. “I tell it I don’t know how to. It tells me I’ll be happier with it. I just want it to stop.” Something then twitches and shifts in her expression. She looks at Sombra in an entirely new way. “You… It knows you.”

Sombra’s skin crawls as though it’s covered in thousands of spiders. She isn’t too comfortable with the Void knowing who she is.

Without warning, Brigitte leaps up to her feet and strides straight for Sombra. She clasps her hands tightly with Sombra’s, and Sombra forgot how tall she is. For the first time, a flicker of light returns to her eyes.

  “You took Her away from it, at least, that’s what it grumbles about, but honestly, I don’t give a shit about any of that,” Brigitte says. “It knows you! So you must know what’s going on! Please, please tell me you can hear it, too!”

Sombra considers lying just to make Brigitte feel better, but even when she strains her ears, she simply cannot hear anything. But Brigitte hears something, it seems, as her hopeful expression melts away, and she dissolves into sobs. She steps back and clutches her head tightly, shaking it back and forth, back and forth.

  “Get out!” she suddenly screams. “Get out! Get out of my head! I want it OUT!” She slumps back down onto the bed, hunched over her knees, gloved fingers tearing uselessly at her ears like the paws of a declawed cat. 

  “Brigitte, listen to me,” Sombra says. “Focus on my voice, okay? None of the others. I’m real. They aren’t.”

Brigitte’s fingers stop scratching. She raises her head to Sombra, sniffling pitifully, and when she’s like this, eyes red-rimmed and face streaked with tears, she looks so much younger than she actually is. And she reminds Sombra so much of Tracer in those first few weeks after she appeared in Reality, deeply shaken and afraid. 

  “You’re real,” Brigitte repeats softly, more to herself than to Sombra.

  “That’s right,” Sombra confirms. “So are you. Whatever you’re hearing— none of it is real. We’re going to help you, okay? We’ll make it stop.”

  “You’ll make it…stop.” Brigitte’s face pinches with uncertainty. “How?”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Sombra says.

Brigitte’s shoulders slump. “You don’t even know how to yet… If there’s a way to make this stop at all…”

  “We will find a way,” Sombra assures her. She sits down next to Brigitte, setting a hand on her shoulder, and she can feel Brigitte trembling in exhaustion and fear. “I promise.”

  “I’m so tired, Sombra,” Brigitte croaks. “I just want it to stop…”

Rubbing her back, the only words Sombra could offer to the weeping girl that aren’t lies or false hope are, “I know, Brigitte. I know.”

  “Have you told her family yet?”

From across the table, Cassidy grimaces. “No. Not yet,” he says. “We were hoping to find out a way to ‘reverse’ it to avoid having to tell her parents that their daughter is not basically insane.”

  “And if you can’t reverse it?”

  “Well, then Torb is gonna have a new type of turret. Ones made out of human flesh and bone.”

Sombra laughs a little, but she’s sure there’s quite a bit of truth in what Cassidy had said. She doesn’t doubt that Torbjorn will be furious with Overwatch once he hears about what has happened to his youngest daughter.

  “Is there really nothing you can do?” Cassidy asks.

Sombra shakes her head. “No. I don’t know how to fix all of that.”

Cassidy sighs, pulls a flask off of his hip, and takes a sip, long and slow. “It was worth a shot. Thanks for talking to her, at least.” He then offers her the flask. Without really thinking, she takes it and drinks.

It burns like acid. Tastes like it, too. 

She sips again.

  “Sombra,” a new voice says. 

Sombra looks over to see Sojourn standing in the doorway of the lounge she and Cassidy are in.

  “A word, please,” Sojourn says.

Sombra takes another big sip of the flask, then hands it back to Cassidy, who laughs softly. She gets up and crosses over to Sojourn. 

  “What’s up?” she asks.

  “Walk with me,” Sojourn says, so Sombra does. 

They stroll through the Watchpoint, side-by-side, like they’re on the world’s most awkward college campus tour. It isn’t until they get outside, where the sky is grey and the air smells like rain, that someone speaks up.

  “I can’t say I trust you entirely,” Sojourn says. “But your heart seems to be in the right place. And you’re not as sinister as some of the other members of Talon, so perhaps having you around won’t be so bad.”

  “First of all, rude,” Sombra says. “I’m equally as sinister as the others! Second of all, I’m not asking for your trust. I just want to make sure Tracer gets free and is safe.”

  “Do you really think you’ll be able to do that?” Sojourn asks.

Sombra shrugs a little, but her determination is undeniable. “I pulled her out of Hell once before,” she answers. “I’m ready to do it again.”

Sojourn looks at her, searching her eyes with her strange cybernetic ones. Then, she lets out a soft laugh and pats Sombra firmly on the shoulder. “I like your spirit. It’s good to hear,” she says. “We’ve got your back. We’ll help you save Tracer from Talon.” She then extends a hand to Sombra. “Welcome to Overwatch, Sombra.”

  “Unfortunately, Sombra was not at the gorge,” Rico says over the phone.

Doomfist hums. “Do you think that’s the truth?”

  “Unsure,”  Rico says. “But I passed on the photo nonetheless.”

  “Very good.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Doomfist notices an agent slip into the room. There is a look of urgency on their face.

  “I must go now,” Doomfist says to Rico. “Keep an eye out for that little rat.”

  “I will, sir.”

Doomfist hangs up, then turns to the agent. “What?”

  “Something is wrong with the creature,” the agent tells him.

Doomfist expected a number of things going on with Talon’s newest super weapon—a revolt, a tantrum, an attack against the guards—but what he’s actually faced with wasn’t even in the realm of possibilities he came up with in his head. 

When he and the agent arrive at the chamber where the creature is kept, a crowd has already formed, huddled around the open doorway. Somewhere beyond the throng, the sound of muffled gurgling and yowling can be heard. Doomfist shoves his way to the front of the group and sets his eyes upon a disturbing sight.

Lena Oxton is writhing violently on the floor of the chamber, vomiting a disgusting black viscera all over the place. Except, because of the iron gag clasped around her mouth, it just forces its way out in foamy trails. The same unknown fluid is coming from her pores, too, budding up like little droplets of ink on her arms and legs, but it’s the most abundant on her head, turning her face into a viscous black mess. Her hair is slimy and stringy, and if he were to get a closer look, Doomfist is sure he would see the liquid seeping from her roots. Large, blackhead-like pustules have risen up all across her body like the boils that had marred the victims of the Black Death.

Doomfist won’t deny it: it’s a repulsive sight, enough to make his own skin crawl.

Lena’s head whips back and begins slamming into the floor over and over again. Doomfist isn’t sure if it’s voluntary or not, but it snaps him out of his appalled trance.

  “She’s going to fucking kill herself,” he hisses. “Stop her!”

The agents around him hesitate, reluctant about getting close to the girl.

  “Stop her, now!” Doomfist orders, firmer, and this time, they listen. 

Several agents go forward and grab Lena, trying to hold her down. But then one of them lets out a high-pitched scream, yanking his hands away.

A gooey wad of flesh comes with it, caught on his fingers.  

A chorus of shrieks and screeches of disgust and terror explodes throughout the chamber. A big flap of skin had been sloughed off from Lena’s left shoulder like wet paper. 

  “Get Moira,” Doomfist snaps at a horror-stricken agent right next to him. She doesn’t need to be told twice; she scampers out of the chamber, away from the stomach-turning sight to retrieve the doctor. 

And that’s how Moira ends up having the horrifically bloodied and malformed Lena Oxton (or “Tracer,” to her) in her laboratory, strapped down on her central examination table. The iron gag has been unlocked from her face, and a suction pump is inserted into her mouth to clear out all the black viscera she keeps regurgitating. For now, she is sedated, no longer squealing like a stuck pig. 

Though, “bloodied” may not be the best word to describe her. Moira doesn’t know what is coming out of Tracer’s body, but it certainly isn’t blood. 

  “What is wrong with her?” Doomfist says.

Moira gives him a sharp look. “How do you expect me to know?”

  “Figure it out,” Doomfist says. “Fix her. Do not let her die.”

He departs with that, leaving Moira to deal with this absolute mess, and she can’t help but leer at the back of his head as he goes. 

Before Moira can even get to work on somehow solving this problem, someone else is entering the lab. As fast as a bullwhip, Moira is Fading over to them, blocking from seeing the grisly sight on the examination table. 

  “Your assistance is not necessary,” she says curtly. “I can handle this on my own.”

Emily blinks at her. “What? What’s going on? I heard something is wrong with Tracer. Is she okay?” 

  “I will handle it,” Moira says, trying to maintain composure to keep her niece from freaking out. “Go to your room.” 

Emily stares at her. “I am a twenty-year-old woman,” she says indignantly. “You can’t make me go to my room!”

  “I can, I will, and I have,” Moira replies. “Go to your room, Emily. Now.” Her gaze softening, she adds, “Please. You shouldn’t have to see this.”

Emily must have seen it in her eyes, how bad this situation is, because she takes a small step back. “Okay. Take care of her.”

  “I will do my best.”

Emily leaves, and Moira is alone.

Well, not entirely. 

Moira goes back to the examination table, muttering a soft, “What is wrong with you?” underneath her breath. 

The first thing she does is pick up a pair of scissors and start cutting off the plain white shirt and pants that Talon has kept Tracer in. Not that they’re too white anymore. 

Beneath the clothing, there are more blackened boils adorning Tracer’s body. Moira makes a mental note to deal with them soon. Before she does that, though, she wipes clean Tracer’s skin of the black substance oozing from her pores. She collects several samples and runs a multitude of different tests, but none of them tell her what this liquid is. 

She then moves on to the boils. Moira takes a scalpel to one of them, located on Tracer’s right leg, just above her knee. The blade slices cleanly through the bulbous flesh, and inky fluid begins to weep out from the incision. As Moira is filling another vial to run tests on, she notices something. Movement. Movement within the boil.

It’s barely there, just a faint twitch of the skin, but something about it concerns Moira. She picks up the scalpel again and starts cutting off the swollen skin entirely, almost like she’s removing a tumor. 

The end result is rather ugly- a big, round blemish on Tracer’s leg. And again, from within it, there is movement, like the wriggle of a stuck worm. 

Moira grabs another rag and starts clearing the black goo clogging the wound. This uncovers a flash of what looks like white underneath, and that makes Moira pause.

  “What…?” she whispers to herself.

Swipe, goes Moira’s rag, and twitch, goes something beneath it, until the swamp of black is cleared away, and Moira knows exactly what she’s looking at.

A ring of bright blue in a pure white abyss…

It’s an eye.

None of these boils are boils at all. They’re all eyes.

The eye revolves around to stare at Moira, unblinking, beholding, and the skin of Tracer’s knee ripples and wrinkles when it does so. It feels as though it’s looking into her very soul, searching every crevice, every nook and cranny of her existence. 

Tracer’s body then begins to seize violently, and it looks like something is trying to fight its way out of her flesh. 

Rip, tear, pop. The welts begin to burst open like water under a rocket’s fire. The one uncovered eye gyrates maddeningly. Tracer’s skin quivers and throbs, and it suddenly doesn’t look like it’s attached to her skeleton anymore.

Something is very, very wrong.

Tracer lifts her head abruptly, and Moira is sickened to see the skin of her face slip right off of her features like a ruined rubber mask. In thick clumps, it lies around her neck as though it’s the shed of a snake.

Tracer’s limbs jerk against their restraints, and her skin ripples. Like water. It twitches sporadically, as though there’s something moving underneath it. 

And then, it splits open. 

Moira steps back, tripping over her own feet, causing her to fall to the floor. She watches in morbid awe as something emerges out from Tracer’s body like a butterfly from a chrysalis. Her skin sloughs off and falls away into clumps, tarnished and torn. Black viscera spills everywhere, darker than the night sky. Her undergarments are flayed to shreds in the process, but that damn chronal accelerator remains.

Like Pegasus and Chrysaor born from Medusa’s spilled blood, the creature—and Moira is sure that’s what this thing is—heaves itself out of the gore and stands on the examination table, the remnants of who it used to be, degloved and destroyed, laying in tattered ruins around its feet. 

Dozens of eyes stare down at Moira, and Moira’s two eyes stare back, and in that moment, she can only get herself to say one simple thing.

  “Oh dear.”

Chapter Text

Sombra settles into Overwatch surprisingly well. The agents welcome her as though she is their equal, and she enjoys all of their company. She gets to know each of them, and when she isn’t she’s helping come up with a plan to rescue Tracer from Talon.

Three days after her arrival, as a storm is brewing outside of the Watchpoint, everything changes.

All of a sudden, without warning, all the lights shut off.

The lounge Sombra had been hanging out in with a few other Overwatch members plunges into darkness, and several surprised yelps burst throughout the room. The momentary burst of panic settles quickly, but the confusion remains.

  “Power outage?” Sojourn says.

  “Athena?” Winston calls out to the AI. “What’s going on?”

Athena’s voice, garbled by hissing static, answers, completely indiscernible. 

Although she can’t see it in the dark, Sombra can hear the frown in Winston’s tone when he says, “Concerning.”

  “What do you think is wrong?” Mei asks.

  “Unsure,” Winston says. “I’ll go try to figure it out.”

  “I should go check on Brigitte,” Mercy says. “She doesn’t like the dark very much anymore.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Sombra says.

So, while Winston departs to try and fix the power issue, Sombra goes with Mercy to see how Brigitte is doing, since the poor girl has developed quite a hatred for the dark ever since the Incident. And it’s lucky that they did make that decision, as Brigitte seems to be having some sort of episode when they enter the holding cell she’s kept in.

Sombra hears her before she sees her- a sharp, keening sound, like the distress call of some strange alien bird, is filling the room. And then Sombra’s eyes, now mostly adjusted to the darkness, fixate on the figure on the floor, rocking back and forth. Brigitte is clutching her head in her gloved hands, trembling and sobbing. Something has her terribly worked up.

Mercy is down by Brigitte in an instant, sweeping her arms around the girl and pulling her close. One of her hands presses Brigitte’s face into her chest, muffling her sounds of torment.

  “Shh, shh,” Mercy murmurs, her voice all warmth and compassion, the way a mother would comfort her frightened child after a nightmare. “It’s alright, you’re alright…”

  “No, no—” Brigitte gasps, struggling to get each word out. She’s hyperventilating. “It’s here. It’s here.”

Mercy gives a pause at that, and she and Sombra exchange looks. 

  “What is?” Sombra asks.

But Brigitte just shakes her head, expelling a sob from quivering lips. “No, no, no, no, no…” she whispers in horror.

  “Breathe, Brigitte,” Mercy instructs. “I need you to breathe.”

  “It’s here!” is all Brigitte says in response, her weeping turning wild and manic.

It’s then that Sombra hears it: a whisper from the dark. A whisper that seems to call out to her.

Come to me…

Come to me…

Sombra looks over her shoulder, but she doesn’t see anyone there. The doorway to the room is gaping open, though, and once again, she hears the whisper.

Come to me…

Come to me…

She feels like a fish on the end of a line; her curiosity reels her in, and she can’t help but follow the sound of the voice, driven by her interest.

The hallway outside the holding cell is long and dark, a seemingly endless tunnel without any lights on. But somewhere in the distance, much further down, she can see something- movement. A person

  “Hello?” Sombra calls out to them.

The figure darts around a corner. For some reason far beyond her, Sombra is compelled to follow. 

When she turns the corner, Sombra sees them standing there, their back to her. She can’t make out any features in the dark. 

  “Hey,” she says to them. “What are you doing?”

The person pivots around to face her, and even with the darkness shrouding the hallway, Sombra can still make out bright, impossibly wide eyes staring straight at her. 

Sombra’s mouth tries to form a question, a cry. But nothing comes out. The figure strides at her, melting away into ether, and the corridor starts to twist and writhe. Something firm and prehensile lashes around her left ankle, squeezing tight, and the pain from spraining it a week ago comes back with vengeance, infesting her tendons and muscles like flame. She chokes on a yelp, stumbling back and losing her balance. Her arms flail out for a hold, but it’s like the walls have disappeared, as her fingers scratch over nothing but empty air. 

Sombra falls hard on her chest, winding her. She wheezes, trying to catch her breath as she scoots back hastily, but the snare around her ankle has her tight, drawing her back. She kicks at it, but her other foot is wrapped up, too.

She doesn’t even know what these things are. They feel like tentacles, but they’re as hard and cold as metal chains, chafing away the skin of her ankles. The touch of them against her flesh sends an awful chill through her entire body, as though she’s rotting from the inside out. Nausea assails her, and she struggles not to vomit all over herself. 

She’s bodily dragged across the floor like she’s a sack of potatoes, and she tries to grab onto something, but there’s nothing. Her fingers slide uselessly against the tile beneath her. All she can do is squirm and struggle. 

A deep cold radiates from her feet, climbing with the steady purpose of a plant growing toward sunlight, up to her torso, tickling at the base of her neck, probing at her mind with curious feelers. Her jaw spasms and shakes as she tries to force out a scream, but she can’t even manage a croak.

Somewhere, at the end of this endless stretch of abyss, she can hear a whisper.

Sombra…

Sombra…

All at once, she realizes what this is.

It’s the Void.

And she’s caught right in its claws.

And then, all of a sudden, there’s a tremendous crash of thunder, then a vibrating explosion, and then everything goes black.

When Sombra wakes up after an unknown time floating in oblivion, the first thing she’s met with is the painful shivers wracking her entire body. The second thing she’s met with is the acrid smell of something burning somewhere. And then the third thing she’s met with is the piercing scream of the fire alarm going off.

Intermittent flashes of white light burst from the wall, accompanying the screeching. After every three shrieks, a robotic female voice will announce, “Fire! Fire!” as if the deafening blaring of the alarm didn’t already make that clear.

Sombra is lying on her stomach, sprawled out on the floor like a broken doll. She tries to push herself up to her feet, but her elbows buckle the first time, sending her right back down to the ground. The second time, she goes slower, moving more carefully, and she’s able to get up onto her quaking legs after a minute of struggle.

Her entire body aches, and she can’t stop trembling. All of her extremities are tingling, and her limbs feel disembodied and not-her-own, as if they had been cut off while she was unconscious and replaced with entirely new copies. Her knees wobble unsteadily as she stumbles forward, trying to navigate her way through the Watchpoint. 

There are no signs of her attacker, everything is back to the way it should be, but the memories are burned into her mind like a brand against supple flesh. She had come so close to being devoured by the Void, and she’s still reeling from such an experience.

In the distance, Sombra can hear the sound of gunfire and shouting. The smell of something burning only gets stronger. Something very, very bad is going on. She needs to get back to the others.

Except it’s not that easy to navigate the Watchpoint in the dark, especially when she’s as disoriented as she is right now. The non-stop screeching of the fire alarm certainly doesn’t help her concentration either. 

Sombra staggers out into a large, wide open room. She raises her hands to press the heels of her palms to her temples, as a sudden headache assaulted her from out of nowhere. She grits her teeth tight, trying to breathe through it. 

Beneath the fire alarm and the muffled roar of gunfire, Sombra hears something strange: it’s a clicking sound, like someone is chattering their teeth together. Confused, she looks up.

And she sees it.

As it sees her. 

A figure is perched on a railing overhead, staring Sombra down with eyes of blue fire. Odd protrusions are bent around the head, and scarce light bleeds through cracks and crevices within them. A blue glow emits from the center of its chest. Undulating movement swirls just behind it like a ribbon caught in a light breeze—a tail? Is that a tail?

Lightning flashes, backlighting the person, catching upon a gaze of glass. Or, rather, gazes.

Eyes. So many eyes. And they’re all staring directly at Sombra.

This thing— it isn’t human. That much is clear from its abhorrent appearance. Sombra doesn’t know what it is, but, frankly, she doesn’t really want to find out.

The creature tilts its head slowly, almost like a confused puppy. But if that confused puppy was a disgrace to nature and horribly malformed. 

som. bra?

It knows her name.

Turning sharply, Sombra darts through an open doorway and down the hallway. She can still feel all those eyes drilling into her, but she doesn’t dare look over her shoulder to see if the monster is chasing after her. 

Sombra runs toward the sound of a battle, preferring to engage in a gunfight than hang around what she can only describe as an eldritch abomination. And indeed she is met with a warfront, as she bursts into a room where bullets tear through the air and fire licks the walls. 

The Watchpoint is under attack.

There’s a giant hole blasted open in one of the walls, allowing the storm outside to spray inside. Even still, the raging fire prevails, slowly growing bigger and bigger, and the sickening orange light of the flames catches on black and white armor.

It’s Talon. Talon is here.

In every direction, Overwatch and Talon agents grapple through the blaze. To her right, Sombra can see Genji clashing with a bladed warrior. To her left, she can see Mei and Ana desperately trying to fend off a horde of enemies. And right in front of her, she can see Sojourn shouting as she fires her gun into the plumes of ash.

Suddenly, as if summoned, a Talon Assassin lunges out of the smoke with a silver tonfa blade aimed straight for Sombra’s heart. Before Sombra can react, Winston appears as though the flames have unfolded him from their golden glory and smashes into the agent, knocking them off course and sending them sprawling. He raises his giant fists and slams them down onto the agent. Even through the din of mayhem, Sombra can still hear the sound of bones crunching. 

  “Thanks,” Sombra gasps, then instantly coughs when she inhales a mouthful of smoke.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Winston grunts. His fur is awash with thick grey soot. “We still have to get out of this alive.” He then casts a troubled look at the chaos raging around him, and the fire illuminates the fear in his eyes. 

  “What should I do?” Sombra asks him.

Winston’s tone is firm as he answers, “Kill them all.” He then bounds into the fray, baying for blood.

Doing as he said, Sombra unholsters her uzi from her hip and follows him into the gaping maw of madness.

Dodging and weaving, aiming and shooting—Sombra performs a deadly dance in her attempt to support Overwatch. Bullets have nicked her all over, turning her body into a tallied scoreboard of stinging pain, but she hasn’t taken any direct hits—yet. But that can change at any moment.

And change it does, as the battle grows more fierce and much more dangerous. For every Talon soldier they defeat, three more seem to come in their place, an endless array of enemies that assault them from every direction. The agents of Overwatch are getting slower. The group’s—or whatever is left of it—formation has begun to drift apart with fatigue, fighting dozens of individual battles as enemies swirl through the haze of adrenaline and blood. The growing blaze and smoke inhalation only aids the struggle to a fiery point.

But still, they fight on.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sombra spots Lucio pressed against the wall, loomed over by an Enforcer that looks to be twice his size. Right before Lucio’s head can be blown off by the Enforcer’s shotgun, Sombra acts, hacking the Enforcer’s gun and making it refuse to fire. This gives time for Zarya, who had also spotted her companion’s dangerous situation, to deploy her laser directly into the back of the Enforcer, frying him into oblivion. 

Breathless and out of harm’s way—for now—Lucio looks over at Sombra. “Thank you.” And then, before Sombra can open her mouth to reply, his eyes go wide with fright. “LOOK OUT!”

Turning around to the giant hole in the wall just behind her, Sombra sees the hulking, mountainous figure of a Heavy Assault agent standing there, minigun in hand. The glow of the fire glints off of the barrel, which begins to whirl like a growing tornado, and Sombra barely has enough time to lunge out of the way before she can be torn to pieces by gunfire. Bullets spray like the rain outside through the air, clattering against the wall and furniture, and, from the floor, Somba can hear a few dismaying cries of pain from victims she can’t discern at the moment.

There’s then a mechanical whirring sound, followed by a metallic thud; the roar of the minigun dies off. Looking up, Sombra sees a giant pink MEKA quarreling directly with the Heavy Assault agent—it’s D.Va!

BOOM!

The explosion comes out of nowhere, created by the missile that has just blasted its way straight through the wall. Shrapnel spews in every direction, and shrieks of pain from both Talon and Overwatch agents alike break through the chaos of sound—the fragments have found fresh prey to sink into. Sombra is one of these victims, as a jag of hot metal embeds itself directly in her right shoulder. 

Before she can even react to the injury, a powerful heat, like the sun’s supernova has just gone off right in her face, assails her entire body, making it feel as though her skin is melting off of her bones. She stumbles back, white-blind and hum-deaf, fruitlessly trying to escape the sensations. Her ankle rolls; she’s on the floor. Twitching and wracked in pain, Sombra can only lie flat on her stomach for a moment, unable to do anything except focus on how bad she feels. 

And that’s even before the second explosion makes itself known. 

But then it does, and the situation goes from awful to terrible.

Except, that doesn’t sound like another missile going off. No, that thunderous crack that echoes across the entire room… It’s something much worse.

  “Look out!” Sombra hears Zarya shout, her booming voice carrying even over the discord. “The ceiling is coming down!”

With impeccable comedic timing—not that this situation is funny in the slightest—a burning chunk of the ceiling plummets from up above like a falling star, landing on top of a Talon Trooper. The Trooper buckles beneath the weight, collapsing into a heap, and his screams of agony pierce the air like a knife as flame begins to eat through his armor and into his body. 

  “Run!” Sojourn yells, even though Sombra can’t see where she is. “Get out of here! Get to the shuttles!”

Pushing through the waves of pain slamming into her every few seconds, Sombra shoves herself up to her feet. Now that she’s standing, she’s better able to see the state of destruction the room is in—two holes blasted open in the wall, fire burning high, debris littering the floor, ash and smoke choking the air, blood splattered everywhere. 

Sombra runs away as fast as she can. She quickly finds herself with a small group made up of Cassidy, Pharah, Lucio, Zarya, and Mei, all of them fighting desperately through a pack of Talon agents. Even with the piece of metal in her shoulder, Sombra fights with them, trying to get past so they could make their way to the shuttles.

That’s when the whispers start again.

At first, Sombra doesn’t hear them, too distracted with her futile attempt to survive, but then they hiss even over the sound of gunfire and shouting, snagging her full attention. And by the way several different people twitch and look around in confusion, she isn’t the only one who hears it. 

For the first time in what seems like forever, the fighting ceases. At this, the whispers grow louder, the sound of scraping claws and chattering teeth accompanying them. An intense pressure weighs down on the atmosphere itself, making it feel as though Sombra’s skill is about to implode. Blood snakes from one of her nostrils.

The Talon soldier closest to her turns his head to her, and even though she can’t see his face with his helmet on, she knows he’s smirking.

  “Are you afraid?” he asks her.

Something drops down from the ceiling, landing directly on Zarya. Zarya screams, dropping her gun to try and pull the thing off of her, but it won’t let go. She totters and flails, struggling uselessly, all while shrieking in what Sombra can only describe as extreme agony. 

Sombra, Pharah, Cassidy, Lucio, and Mei all hover fearfully around Zarya, unsure on how to help her. They can’t shoot at the thing, as they may end up hitting Zarya instead. They don’t even know what this thing is, a black and boundless creature that seems to be a far cry from anything humanly possible. Claws on its feet hook through Zarya’s padded clothing and into her flesh underneath, allowing it to effortlessly hang onto Zarya while the claws on its hands tear at her face. There’s movement in the dark plain of flesh that is its back—eyeballs.

With a start, Sombra realizes that this is the same abomination she had seen before. 

Mei is the first one who acts against the creature, reaching out and grabbing onto the thing whirling and lashing behind it—a long tail. The end of the tail splits off into several pieces like the strands of a spider web, and Mei’s fingers tangle around these strands. She yanks hard, which isn’t enough to pull the creature off of Zarya, but it does get its attention.

The creature stops thrashing and clawing Zarya, going perfectly still, even as Zarya pushes against it (and fails every time to get it off of her). All of its eyes snap around to stare at Mei, which startles Mei into letting go of its tail with a horrified gasp, and then its head slowly turns to look at her with its primary eyes, the ones that glow the same ghostly blue as the metal contraption attached to its chest and hold the uncanny gaze of something that used to be human. 

Because it did used to be human, didn’t it?

It’s only then that Sombra realizes what—or, rather, who —this is. 

It’s Tracer.

Even as this dawns upon Sombra, in the same breath, she thinks that it can’t possibly be true. There’s no way this hideous aberration is the same sweet, scruffy girl she knows and loves. It just can’t be!

But it is. 

Sombra’s heart deflates, her resolve softens, her guilt spikes, her fear grows, and her grief becomes complete.

In that moment, the last vestige of hope that Sombra may have had falls away. If this truly is Tracer, then there’s nothing left. All is lost. Talon has won.

Using Zarya’s shuddering body as some sort of altar, the abomination that used to be Tracer rises up high like a swelling snake. Flashes of white lightning illuminates its horrific visage to the wide, terrified eyes of Sombra and her companions, and it doesn’t even seem like the same girl she loved and looked after for almost a year. And yet, it is, that very same girl, now in the body of an aberration of nature. 

The monster that Sombra created.

In one swift motion, the creature uses Zarya’s body as a sort of springboard and lunges at Mei. Mei is able to bring up an ice wall just in time, but it doesn’t deter the creature, which clambers right up over it. It crouches on top on all fours like some kind of hideous animal, staring them all down with its multitude of eyes, and there is nothing left of Tracer in any of its gazes. 

Pharah is the first to strike, firing one of her rockets at the monster. It hits, blowing it off of the ice wall. 

  “Come on!” Cassidy yells, having snapped out of his terrified stupor. “Get Zarya- we got to go!”

But the creature is already back on its feet, recovered from a rocket straight to the body at an alarm rate. Thick black strands of flesh have been sloughed from its wounded shoulder, littering the floor like trash. It lashes out like a furious viper, throwing itself at Pharah. Its claws dig into the crevices in her armor and, horrifyingly, begin to pry it off with inhuman strength. 

  “No,” Sombra utters.The fury and anguish are piling up within her as she stands there, dizzy. Her companions struggle with the creature, but none of it is real. Not really. Not in Sombra’s mind. There is only her and the monster.

The creature slashes its claws at Lucio, tearing furrows across his chest, then rips at the arms of Mei. Blood drips, and guns go off, but they do little to save their wielders. 

The anger bubbles higher, burning hot inside of Sombra’s veins. She steps forward, through a puddle of accumulating blood, and yells, “Tracer!”

The creature’s head twitches, but it doesn’t even look away from Phara, who it is currently mauling. Sombra tries again.

  “Tracer!”

She gets a glance from several eyes this time, but the monster’s hunger for blood turns its attention back to its prey. 

One more time.

  “TRACER!”

Finally, the monster’s head snaps around, enraged at the interruption. It releases Pharah and comes at Sombra with blinding speed. One moment, she’s standing up, the next, she’s being bowled straight through the floor-to-ceiling window just behind her. She lands hard, winded, and broken glass bites into her skin all over, drawing beads of bright red blood. Rain pours down over her, cold and refreshing. Crouched on top of her, the abomination looms. 

At first, Sombra doesn’t think it has a mouth, but then the lower half of its face splits open to reveal a wide maw full of legions of needle-like teeth. Cloudy strands of saliva drip from its jowls and down onto Sombra’s face. Somewhere at the back of its throat, a sound akin to a snake hissing rises up, menacing and terrifying. 

The monster’s primary eyes are alight with an atavistic fire. Of all the things Sombra could have imagined killing her, she never wanted Tracer to have made the list.

The creature raises its long, serrated claws, but it hesitates just before delivering the final blow, the muscles in its face twitching irregularly.

  “Tracer,” Sombra says calmly, injecting a soothing tone into the words. It would be the epitome of condescending to a monster in its right mind, but to the beast above, she may be the only thing that doesn’t sound threatening. “Tracer, it’s me. It’s Sombra.”

The monster’s eyes are still blank, but it hasn’t dug its claws into Sombra’s flesh yet, so Sombra considers it good.

  “I’m here, cariño,” Sombra murmurs. She dares to raise her hands and cup the monster’s face—but now she knows it isn’t a monster. Beneath all the gore and bloodlust and rage, her void child is still in there somewhere. She knows she is. “I’m right here. It’s going to be okay.”

Tracer’s face twitches. 

  “This isn't who you are,” Sombra goes on. “You are better than this. Fight it, Tracer!”

She then cranes her neck up to press her forehead against Tracer’s, whispering, “Come back to me.”

Tracer is deathly still on top of her, and, for a moment, the only sound is the pattering rain and very distant shouting. And then, a whining noise like something a dog would make emits from Tracer, sadder and more heartbreaking than anything Sombra has ever heard before. Tracer leans her head into Sombra’s, her entire body losing its tension. 

  “It’s alright now,” Sombra says. “I’m right here, Tracer. It’s okay.”

She wraps her arms around Tracer, holding her tight. Tracer nuzzles into her, cooing softly. Sombra strokes the inky black mane on Tracer’s head that must constitute for hair.

  “I won’t let them hurt you anymore,” she says. “I promise. You’re safe now.”

She can feel Tracer embracing her back, hanging on with a needy desperation—and then she realizes those that aren’t arms around her. 

Sombra’s heart lurches into her throat when she sees the strands of Void coiled around her body. She tries to yank away, but they have her firmly ensnared in place. 

  “Tracer— no!” Sombra cries.

Tracer looks tremendously guilty, a deep sadness in all of her eyes, but she doesn’t release Sombra. Her bindings only tighten even more. 

Beneath her, the ground seems to ripple like a pond. The rainwater accumulating around them grows viscous, clinging to her skin. When she looks down, she sees that it’s something darker than black. 

From somewhere, she can hear the Void beckoning to her.

Come to me…

Come to me…

It’s time to spin your own web of lives.

  “Sombra!” a voice shouts, but it’s so far away. So unimportant in this moment of raw horror.

Sombra can’t fight it. She’s used all her energy. She can’t even struggle. 

Her mind whirls, her life flashing before her eyes. Pain and adrenaline bleeds into all of her senses, numbing her. And the entire time, Tracer just stares. 

  “No… no…” Sombra croaks.

The Void hushes her. 

Shh…

Just let it take you…

  “Sombra!”

You have no idea how long I have been waiting for this.

Oh, what HELL you are going to pay, Olivia.

Sombra closes her eyes tight, her breath shaking as it passes her lips.

It’s over.

She lost.

And now, she’s gone…

…except, when she opens her eyes again, the world around her is not an endless oblivion. There are details and color and light. 

She sits up sharply, gasping. Pain bombardes her instantly.

  “Woah, woah! Hey!” a voice to her left yelps. “Don’t do that! You’re hurt, Sombra. You need to take it easy.”

It’s Cassidy, kneeling beside her, his face a portrait of concern. 

  “What… what happened?” she asks him, her words coming out hoarse. Her throat hurts. So does every other part of her body.

  “You blacked out,” Cassidy tells her. “That monster damn near devoured you, but I came just in time, thank god. I carried you here, to one of the shuttles. We escaped.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Sombra hears Pharah grunt from the pilot’s seat, and then an explosion rocks the shuttle.

Sombra is barely fully awake before she’s thrown into another life-or-death situation, unable to process everything that has happened before Pharah is ordering everyone to strap into their seats. Dizzily, Sombra does so, and she sees that Lucio, Mei, and Zarya are also in the shuttle, all of them badly wounded. There’s a gaping hole where Zarya’s left eye should have been, and Lucio is pressing a blanket to giant claw marks scraped across his chest with shaking hands. The ripe scent of blood permeates the air. They’re all bleeding way too much than they should, Cassidy and Pharah included, and Sombra morbidly wonders what will be killing them first: blood loss or the aircraft tailing them?

Talon’s aircraft—a jet, Sombra realizes, spotting it from out of the glass window on the door hatch—seems to desire that title, as it sends another volley of shots at the shuttle. The shuttle bucks sharply, and Sombra smacks her head into Cassidy’s, who is seated right beside her. This nearly knocks her right back out, but, for better or for worse, she somehow manages to cling onto her consciousness. 

  “Shit,” Pharah hisses. 

  “Everything okay up there?” Lucio calls warily.

  “Not really,” Pharah replies. “If I don’t get us out of here in the next thirty seconds, we’re going to be splattered all over the fucking place!” 

  “Oh,” Lucio breathes out shakily. “Wonderful.”

The shuttle’s thrusters are firing, and the craft quickly gains altitude, but Talon’s jet does not relent. Another blast hits the ship, and an alarm begins to blare maddeningly.

  “Fuck!” Pharah yells. 

The shuttle begins to shake so badly that Sombra has a hard time hanging onto the armrests. Her stomach flips inside of her as the ship suddenly begins to plummet.

  “We’re going down!” Phara cries. “Brace for impact!”

This is it. This is the end.

She may have escaped the Void, but that does not mean her time left alive has been prolonged in any way.

She’s going to die. 

Sombra squeezes her eyes shut and tries to conjure the image of Tracer one last time before her death. She just wants to see the girl one more time, the way she used to be. 

But no matter how hard she tries, she just can’t picture Tracer as anything but that horrible monster encountered back at the Watchpoint. And even with its multitude of eyes, there is not a single one that she can recognize as the girl she nurtured and took care of all those months ago.