Work Text:
Evanescent
/ˌevəˈnes(ə)nt/
adjective
soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing.
"a shimmering evanescent bubble"
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It was a strange feeling, having all your memories torn away. Jane Doe would know quite well – it wasn’t just her head that was missing after all. She knew she had been someone before, logically speaking.
But could she truly count as a person without a single real experience? No memories to call her own, no feelings or opinions beyond the ones formed after death, everything having faded away the moment the Cyclone crashed.
She wondered if she was jealous in life – she certainly was now. How could she not be? Everyone around her, people that supposedly knew her, remembered everything about their lives. Yet they could not recall something as simple as her name. Why had she gone on the ride with them at all?
It really was unfair. She couldn’t say she was angry with them, they didn’t really seem like bad people. Constance seemed uncomfortable around her, yes, but it was an understandable feeling. Ocean seemed a bit annoying – but it very well could be desperation. After all, they were competing for their lives.
Jane liked Ricky. They were in a similar boat after all, nobody knew about their lives before this. He couldn’t talk when he was alive, wasn’t free to move around or be himself, and so everyone made assumptions about his wants and personality. Now they were doing the same to Jane, unable to know a single real thing about her.
Jane observed them, seeing them grow and change in such a short amount of time. She was guilty of making assumptions as well, she found. Mischa wasn’t just an angry boy, despite his introduction. As he sang of love and cried in Noel’s arms, she realized that she had been doing the exact thing that bothered her so much.
It’s not easy to define a person as one thing. Human beings are complex creatures after all, capable of many conflicting thoughts and traits.
But then, did she count as human? She didn’t even have those.
Every step she took was stiff, every movement stilted. Sounds passed through her ears, always slightly muffled. The only thing that was clear was her voice, and perhaps it was because the one thing they knew about Jane Doe was that she was a member of the choir.
Oh how she wished to know more.
The light was bright and beautiful, but not as much as Ocean’s words. Jane had misjudged her too – she wasn’t quite as self-centered as she seemed.
There was sadness, of course. There always was when someone was dying. But they were not angry with her for getting to live, and while her heart ached at the thought of their deaths, she was finally regaining her humanity. No longer would she be stuck in this void of nothingness, cursed with the knowledge that there could have been more, but having the entirety of her existence in darkness.
Jane Doe stepped into the light.
Penny Lamb awoke with a gasp, clutching a doll in her hand. Her head pounded, and for a moment, a quiet melody played in the back of her head.
Then it faded away into nothingness, never to be heard again.
Perhaps it had all been a strange dream.