Work Text:
“I start over with a dead variable.”
Pencil looks up at the sky, the maw of darkness looming over the blue above the past Dream Island, now but a distant memory on the breeze. It hangs over her, hangs over CloudYAY, like their impending doom, like the Grim Reaper with a collection of wayward souls.
”Counting them made my temperature rise.”
Her stomach turns and twists, distorting like the rift between the stars and the sky hanging in the air, constantly glitching, repairing, breaking, and repeating. Pencil knows her fate, just by looking up at the anomaly before her, it’s cracks stretching out like vines.
”With nobody else to send it to, I write a painful soliloquy.”
She sees her entire life flash before her eyes. Even if it dies, even if it dies, even if it dies, will it go away!? She wonders, hearing those voices in her head, voices of her alliance. She knows they aren’t really there, she knows they’re dying too, slow, painful deaths from the inside until the rift swallows them all into someplace else.
”Something’s coming, coming, coming, coming to where we are.”
She can’t die. She can’t go back. Her mind, her heart, her soul, everything is racing. She knows the others are terrified too, but she can’t hear their voices, it’s all been blocked out. She feels her heart hammering in her chest and the sweat dripping down her face. She can’t go back.
“If only there were an eternal paradise, where everyone could be saved.”
The sky flashes every colour on the spectrum. Objects, both inanimate and living, phase in and out of existence. The air is thickly warm and thickly cold. She thinks about what could have been, if she hadn’t been so stupid, so prideful. Would Book and Ice Cube have left? Would FreeSmart still be alive?
She is silent, and so is everything else.
”A howling ray of light pierces my eyes.”
The thought of everything turning to that deep, devouring shade of blue makes her sick. She can’t bear the sight of that wretched colour anymore. Not in the sky, in the sea, anywhere. It reminds her. She hates remembering.
“The bells of parting toll.”
The thought of the truth, her being all alone even after escaping makes her sick. She can’t bear the longing, the ache, the loneliness anymore. She can’t bear to see Book and Ice Cube moving on with their lives while she’s stuck in the past.
“I start over with a dead variable.”
Pencil looks up at the sky, the maw of darkness looming over the blue above the past Dream Island, now but a distant memory on the breeze. It hangs over her, hangs over CloudYAY, like their impending doom, like the Grim Reaper with a collection of wayward souls— why is this so familiar? Déjà vu?
”Counting them made my temperature rise.”
Her stomach turns and twists, distorting like the rift between the stars and the sky hanging in the air, constantly glitching, repairing, breaking, and repeating. Pencil knows her fate, just by looking up at the anomaly before her, it’s cracks stretching out like vines— okay, this was too familiar, this happened before, right?
“I pose a question to the stars.”
She sees her entire life flash before her eyes. Even if it dies, even if it dies, even if it dies, will it go away!? She wonders, hearing those voices in her head, voices of her alliance. She knows they aren’t really there, she knows they’re dying too, slow, painful deaths from the inside until the rift swallows them all into someplace else.
“The same colour as someone's clear eyes.”
Her voice won’t come out, but she knows the words to say, like a poem, a script. Like she’d rehearsed this despite this being the first time this had happened to her.
I’m sorry, Book.
I’m sorry, Ice Cube.
I’m sorry, FreeSmart.