Chapter Text
She remembered that next morning so vividly.
She had called her parents, who had been worried sick, calling all around to try finding their daughter. The construction man who had lifted her out from beneath the rubble of her own making— shattered glass and bits of concrete— stayed near and spoke to her mom about how he had found her. She had attempted to count in her head to prevent her from crying, but the numbers began to jumble as tears welled up while she tried explaining what had happened over the past multiple hours.
Police were called as they checked the premises. They glided over every square inch of the buried building, finding the horribly mangled and mutilated corpses of her friends— but no Mimic. She had broken out into a panic attack near instantly at the news, the information of a puddle of oil with no robot to cause it singeing the folds of her brain like a brandished iron. The fact that her efforts were nowhere to be seen should have made her worry about looking like a liar, but her worry only stuck to the thought that this monster was somehow still loose.
After another few hours of deafening sirens and lights that burned her eyes, she had felt nothing but the pounding of her now bandaged head and the insufferable burning of a leg that may never be healed. It hurt to walk, it hurt to think, and all of the adrenaline she had been feeling had pooled into severe exhaustion. Her parents had come up to her and said that she was allowed to go home, and she could have cried all over again.
Once she was home and helped into her bed, she had laid down and turned her neck to face the crack in the door. Light trickled in at a thin line, illuminating directly over her eye as she stared out lazily and watched her parents chat and scramble to find the old crutches they had kept from when she had broken her leg all those years ago. She could hear them stop every few moments to whisper things between one another, which she had just assumed was them trying not to bother her since she was on the verge of sleep. Now she knows that it was them silently worrying about what she had seen.
She thinks about that night often. Spending hours of her day staring into space and replaying the same scenes over and over— watching Kelly get skinned and ripped to shreds, hearing the echoing screams from Jayce as her only move was stepping away, it all played every time she closed her eyes, flashing for a moment every time she blinked, sending painful jolts through her body as she tried and failed to count over and over again—
“Lucia!”
Lucia opened her eyes as she stiffly sat up in her bed, cringing as her neck audibly popped. She was met with the gentle face of her mother, sitting at the edge of her bed with a frown. Instead of opening her mouth to speak, she stared at her daughter, reading her damp face for a moment. Stray curls from her hair were stuck to her forehead by sweat as she glanced around the room and towards the old analog alarm clock on her bedside table. “It’s time to get ready for work, honey.”
It was 8:00 A.M. Lucia let out a short breath, maneuvering herself to sit with her feet flat against the carpeted floor of her bedroom. Her legs screamed in agony at the stretch, but let the feeling linger for a moment before she reached for her cane— colored purple and covered in glow in the dark stickers— and slowly stood up.
Lucia fumbled with herself silently for a moment before leaving her mother and her bedroom behind, heading out towards her kitchen and mindlessly grabbing a heavily bruised banana. She continued to a nearly spotless countertop and grabbed a bag of bread, flipping three pieces into a small cyan toaster. It was a housewarming gift from her aunt.
Lucia had just recently bought herself a decently sized apartment that was only a short ways away from her parent’s house. Living with her parents after the incident had become a daily fight with Lucia trying not to suffocate under the weight of her parent’s worry and frustratingly overbearing lifestyle they had decided for her. She had just recently turned twenty-two after all.
The toast popped. Lucia may have jumped a bit.
She grabbed the odd number of toast and placed it onto a paper plate as she looked into her dingy fridge she had scavenged for recently, groaning and closing her eyes as she scouted for the butter, but noticed she had forgotten to buy any. “Just what I needed today.”
Lucia’s mom popped out of the bedroom, walking with purpose over to where her daughter was slumped. “What’s wrong, baby? Everything okay?”
Lucia slowly looked up and gave her mother a frown. “I didn’t get any butter.”
Her mom popped her tongue. “You know, you could’ve asked your dad to grab you some when he went out shopping the other day.” She opened the fridge and grabbed a small jar of strawberry jam that sat unopened. She grabbed a butter knife and began spreading a generous amount over the toast, making a face as she counted three pieces of bread. Lucia silently grimaced further. She didn’t like jam. “Yeah, well, it’s nice to be able to do things on my own sometimes.”
Lucia’s mom stopped and turned her head over her shoulder. “Like going to the store by myself.” Lucia peeled her banana and took a small angry bite. “And getting some damn butter.”
Her mom stared back at her blankly, but Lucia didn’t budge. She simply gave one last scowl before turning her head to look at her living room— or at least what should have been— taking another bite while staring at some boxes in a pile she hadn’t bothered touching. Her mom sighed and put down the knife. “Yeah. I get it.”
Lucia finished the fruit in her hands and lazily tossed the peel into the bin a few feet away. “I’m not too hungry anymore. I’m gonna get dressed.” As she limped off, Lucia’s mom quietly washed the jam-filled butter knife in the kitchen sink, cursing under her breath as the water stuttered to life and made the pipes in the wall creak in protest. She couldn’t help but feel a rush of guilt swell in her gut, the feeling traveling up and stopping in her throat as if trying to choke her. If she hadn’t been keen on staying strong for her daughter, she may have cried. But he just turned off the sink, setting the knife in the neglected drying rack a few feet away. Most of Lucia’s dry dishes sat alone in her dishwasher. Too much work, she would say.
In her room, Lucia grabbed her uniform off of the edge of the hamper by the door. She brought her shirt up to her nose to sniff for a moment, her dark work pants following suit, before shrugging and quickly throwing them both on. She hummed flatly to herself as she floundered with the collar just the same as she usually would; she always hated how Faz Ent. made their clothing so scratchy.
She stumbled over herself as she reached toward her bedside table and snagged her lanyard and keys, quadruple checking to be sure that her keycard was still there, and still under her own name. Kids have been snatching things recently, according to her coworkers. What would a kid want with a keycard that only opens security doors?
Limping back out of her room and into the soon-to-be living room, Lucia caught her mom chomping on the last piece of toast she made. She knows her mom makes it differently— a darker setting, a different jam flavor, an entirely different brand of bread— Lucia silently looked away. “You ready?”
“Don’t I usually ask you that one?” Lucia’s mom teased, shoving the last bite of toast into her mouth. She rose up from the chair she dragged into the kitchen and wiped her hands clean off on her pants. Crumbs hit the tile floor and traveled beneath the counters. Lucia jingled her keys in front of her mother’s face with a shit eating grin. “Yeah, just wanted to make sure you were ready for me driving today.”