Chapter Text
ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʀᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ᴍʏ ʟɪꜰᴇ
(𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩- 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘪𝘭)
A broken-down car is bad under normal circumstances.
A broken-down car is even worse when you live in the damn thing.
It was my own fault. It had been making odd noises for a month, but I stupidly held on to the false hope that the problem would fix itself. I had bought secondhand when I was seventeen, a few months before I aged out, and I’d been living in it since the system kicked me onto my ass. Now, nearly six years later, I was still society’s scum. Homeless with two jobs, I couldn’t afford to fix whatever’s wrong with my car, and so I ignored it until one morning it wouldn’t start.
My second mistake was leaving my broken-down car in a parking lot five blocks away from my night job.
I had stood on the curb a bit after midnight, watching as my manager turned the key in the lock. She had asked me if I’d like a ride home since my car was dead, and I had declined, ensuring her that I lived only a few minutes’ walk away and that I would be fine. A complete lie, but she didn’t need to know my embarrassing situation.
I watched her drive off in her beat-up Honda, watched as her headlights disappeared down the road, before I started off in the opposite direction towards the dollar store I’d left my car in front of. The road was pitch black, and I could barely see a thing. Streetlights were few and far between, a disadvantage of living in a shitty town.
It began to rain about ten minutes into my walk. I was unbothered; I’d walked miles in the rain before. It was nothing new. Uncomfortable, but not unmanageable.
I blamed it entirely on the town. There were no sidewalks and barely any streetlights. My boots had quickly filled up with water, causing each step to feel heavy. I had been doing my best to stay in the grass and away from the curb, but I selfishly could not stand the squelch of both my socks and the grass. The mud clung to my boots, and I gravitated towards the curb.
I heard the car before I saw it.
That’s a lie, actually. I never saw the car, but I saw its blinding headlights. When I took the next step forward, I wasn’t aware of how close to the curb I was. The wet mud on the bottom of my boots caused me to slip on the curb, and my stomach sank as I lost my balance. I don’t think I even had the chance to hit the ground before my side exploded with pain.
At first, there was only sensation. The burning of my eyes, blinded by the headlights. The chill of the night air, clothes completely soaked through and slicked to my body. The unimaginable pain in my right side. Then, numbness as the shock set in. There was no more pain, but I felt the cement road as my body rolled across the ground.
A few seconds passed. Oddly, I no longer felt cold or wet. Distantly, panicked voices overlapped, a mix of screaming and yelling. As I blinked, my brain muddled with heavy confusion, a much different scene greeted me.
It was now daytime. I was on my injured side, and when I moved my head the world waited a few seconds to catch up with my vision. I was in the middle of a busy city road. The air felt heavy, and smoke from the engines of crashed cars burned my lungs. Next to me lay twin pistols, positioned by my empty hands as if I had dropped them.
“Marceline, look out!” someone yelled from behind me.
Before I could process being deadnamed for the first time in six years, something grabbed my ankle and launched me into the fucking air.
It didn’t let go of my ankle. No, that would have been too merciful. Instead, I was swung upwards, then down onto something sharp. It pierced through my chest, right below my sternum; I could hear the disgusting squelch of my flesh before tinnitus set in. I didn’t even see what had stabbed me, or what grabbed me in the first place.
The tension from before melted completely. The pain in my chest dulled. My body slackened, my vision blurred and darkened. “Marceline!” My deadname came again, a desperate cry, but the voice sounded underwater.
I opened my eyes, but it was useless; my vision was too blurred to see anything of use. There was a flash of light, and I was released from the grip of whatever had attacked me.
A man in white dropped to his knees above me, speaking rapidly, though I could barely make out a word he said. Something told me I should recognize him, but between my sluggish thoughts and my blurred vision, I couldn’t. He was outlined in light; I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell even through my rapidly fading consciousness that he was speaking to me. If I focused hard enough, I could distantly hear him sobbing- “Stay awake, Marcy, oh please-”
Warm hands pressed against the hole in my chest, and the darkness invading the edges of my vision crept towards the center.
───✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧───
Something was wrong. I was in a bed.
I didn’t even need to open my eyes to confirm it. I lay flat on a firm mattress, a soft pillow underneath my head, and a blanket pulled up to my chest. My arms were uncovered, resting by my sides on top of the blanket; I could feel the chill of the air on them.
It wasn’t often I got to sleep in a bed. Sometimes, when my back hurt too much, I would spend a night in a motel, but it wasn’t often I could afford to drop $150 just to get a full night of rest. The bed I lay on now was definitely not the most comfortable one out there, but I was laying flat with room to stretch my legs. I would not be complaining.
My second observation came in the form of scent. The air smelled strongly of disinfectant, burning my nose when I inhaled. Next came the ambiance; steady beeping, bustling footsteps, the hum of voices, and the occasional intercom announcement. There was a dull throbbing in my stomach, arms, and legs, but I was able to ignore it in favor of resting my heavy eyelids. I must have laid there for hours, drifting in and out of sleep.
Eventually, I was disturbed by the click of heels approaching my bedside. My eyes would not open, so I resolved to simply listen. The person next to me paused, and I could hear the scratch of a pen against a clipboard. They shifted, sighed. There was a tug of something against the crook of my elbow, then something above my head clicked. About a minute later, my arm felt too cold, as if ice had been injected directly into my veins. The fog weighing my mind cleared just enough for me to finally pry my heavy eyes open.
Immediately, the lights blinded me. I felt a deep sense of panic as the memory of the road resurfaced- the rain, the light, the pain-
“Marceline, calm down. You’re safe. It’s over.”
The lights dimmed, and I was able to blink the world into focus. Distantly, I registered the frantic beeping of a heart monitor. I moved to sit up, but a hand on my left shoulder halted me.
“Don’t try moving just yet. You’re still injured.”
I glanced up and almost decided to go back to sleep.
A doctor stood over me, brows knitted in concern, hazel eyes narrowed. I was sure I was hit in the head harder than I thought, because as the fog cleared, I recognized those eyes. I knew that voice. And one glance at the identification clipped to his breast pocket confirmed it; Dr. Zayne Li.
A wave of dread washed over me, but I forced it down as best I could. I was most definitely mistaken, or high on whatever pain medication they’d given me. This was not Zayne from Love and Deepspace, just some poor doctor trying to do his job. But when I blinked, the name on the ID remained the same, as did his face. With a pit in my stomach, I realized how close I was to being admitted to the mental ward.
I wondered, briefly, if it was possible for a psychiatric facility to hook me up with a shelter.
The doctor- who was not Zayne, I reminded myself- fished a small light from his pocket. He briefly shone it in my eyes, one at a time, and furrowed his brows at the results. A moment later, he put the wretched thing away. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, alright?”
He even sounded like Zayne. Whatever medication I was on, it was strong.
“Alright?” he repeated.
Belatedly, I gave a nod.
“Alright. What’s your name?”
My name. That was a hard one. To my friends, coworkers, strangers, I was a boy named Bodhi Sterling, as I had been since I was fourteen years old. To the government, I was a girl, Marceline Castilho. Nobody knew me by that name except my employers, and even then, they still called me Bodhi at my request.
But I was in a hospital providing legal information, so I replied, “I’m Marceline Castilho.”
The doctor nodded, marking something off on his clipboard. “And what is your date of birth?”
“December 29th, 2002.”
He paused. His brows furrowed in confusion, then something deeper. He glanced at me over his clipboard. “What year did you say?”
“2002?” A pit settled in my stomach at his unnerving reaction. “I just turned twenty-three.”
“And what year is it now?” he asked, still frowning deeply. He didn’t glance at his clipboard for that one.
I hesitated. “...2026?”
He finally dropped his clipboard, unmarked since my name. With it no longer obscuring half his face, I could see his mouth was opened slightly in disbelief, just before he turned his head away from me with an almost imperceptible sigh.
“What?” I asked, my tone impressively calm given the situation.
“What’s your address?” he asked, glancing back to look me in the eye.
I hesitated. It was never pleasant to tell people you’re homeless; their entire demeanor will shift once they know, and I hated that judgemental look.
It seemed I had hesitated a moment too long, because the doctor leaned forward and urgently asked, “Do you know where you are right now?”
Maybe I was slow, but something felt deeply wrong. “...Hospital?”
“Which one?” he pressed.
I glanced around. “...I dunno,” I answered honestly.
He glanced away again, jaw tight and brows pinched. After a moment, he gently grasped my hand. His skin was cold, and his touch was almost reverent. Pleadingly, he asked, “Marceline, do you recognize me?”
The reality of my situation slapped me in the face with that one desperate question.
…Holy fucking shit. I was dead. I was dead or comatose, because there was no way this was actually happening. There was no fucking way I was in Love and Deepspace. I shut my eyes, registering as the heart monitor picked up, and took a few steadying breaths. When I opened my eyes again, Zayne had taken a step back in silent resignation, misinterpreting my silence as a negative.
His jaw was clenched, head bowed. His knuckles were losing color from how tightly he gripped his clipboard. His eyes were on the floor. When they refocused on me, he took a deep breath himself.
“You are at Akso Hospital. You’ve been here for a little over five days. There was a Wanderer attack just outside the University. Your team was called to the scene. Y-” He cut himself off, took a second to gather his thoughts. “You were thrown from a fifth floor window. Your Hunter’s watch sent an alert that your… your heart had stopped for fourty-two seconds. When your partner got to you, you were conscious again, but only briefly. A Wanderer had impaled you shortly after. Your heart stopped again en route to Akso, this time for twenty-seven seconds.” He paused, allowing the information to sink in. “Do you have any recollection of this?”
I vividly remember being hit by a car. The impact threw me into the road, and I rolled… and when I stopped rolling, I was somewhere else. I frowned, struggling to piece together the events. “I… ah… not really.”
Zayne glanced down at his clipboard once more, flipping through the small stack of papers. “Your clavicle and scapula, alongside the right side of your pelvis, suffered a comminuted fracture. Your humerus was displaced. You suffered lacerations to your arms, forehead, and side from the window, three of which required stitching. These injuries are… mild, for falling five stories. One would think you’d been hit by a car. As for the Wanderer… a single stab wound to the superior abdomen, thrust upwards into your heart.”
I stared at him, not truly processing the information. I was still grappling with the reality that he was even here at all.
He held my gaze. “Marceline… I am aware this is a lot to process-” He paused as footsteps passed the door. He strode over, peeking his head out. I could faintly catch a command- “page neurology” -before he returned. “This is a lot to process for anyone,” he continued, “so if there is anything you would like answered, I am here to help.”
There were a lot of questions, and Zayne could answer none of them. I stared blankly ahead.
“...Do you know who I am?” he asked again, the slightest bit of hope in his eyes.
Of course I did. But I didn’t reply. I couldn’t let anyone know I was not the MC, so if acting like a total amnesiac would keep me from being potentially ripped apart by her angry soulmates, I would do whatever I could.
Zayne closed his eyes, exhaling dismally. “My name is Zayne Li. I am your doctor and friend.”
“...I’m sorry,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if I was apologizing for pretending not to know him, or if I was apologizing for pretending to be the woman he knows. Perhaps both.
He opened his eyes again, and when he did, they were glossy. “No, Marceline, nothing about this is your fault.”
Hearing my deadname again, a thought occurred to me. If I was in the position of the main character, why did she have my deadname? And if the main character was supposed to be me, then why the hell was she a cis girl? As I mulled it over, I turned my head to the large window overseeing the city. It was nighttime, and the curtains were opened. In the reflection of the glass, I saw myself.
But I was wrong.
My face was correct. Same shape, same three moles on my right cheek. But my hair was long and undyed. All my piercings were gone. Startled, I sat up, ignoring the pain in my chest. I was no longer stick thin, either; I had muscle, I had weight on me, like I wasn’t struggling daily to buy meals.
“Marceline-”
Still staring at my reflection, my hand found my side. I tugged up the hospital gown, revealing the stick-and-poke star my old foster roommate had done for me in eleventh grade. However, the scars underneath the tattoo were gone. The whole point of the tattoo was to cover my scars; how was it still there, when the purpose was gone?
“Breathe.”
I realized with a start that I was hyperventilating. The fact that I recognized it did not help; in fact, it only made it worse. With each gasping breath, I panicked more and more until I couldn’t process my surroundings. The room blurred, tilted, and I could feel nothing but the sharp air heaving in and out of my dry throat. Desperately, I clawed the skin on my wrist in an attempt to ground myself. I barely registered the pain.
“Marceline, you are harming yourself. If you don’t calm yourself down, I will have to sedate you,” Zayne warned from somewhere. I could faintly feel his cold hands on mine, prying my nails away from my arm. “Please, try to breathe.”
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything anymore. I leaned into the feeling, allowing my body to make itself panic more. In a twisted way, it was relieving to no longer be in control.
Hands on my shoulders pushed me back onto the hospital bed. A second later, an artificial calmness washed over me and I sagged like a ragdoll. My breathing returned to normal, and the sudden rush of oxygen in my lungs had me dizzy. Sleep tugged at my eyelids, and I allowed it to pull me under.
───✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧───
Zayne was not there when I awoke this time. I sat for an uncomfortably long stretch of time, watching silently as doctors and nurses passed by my door. After what must have been hours, one of them paused. She frowned at my very awake self. “How long have you been up?”
“I dunno.”
Stepping into the room, she unscrewed an empty pouch from the IV stand next to me, leaving the needle in my arm. “Why didn’t you press the call button?”
“Sorry. Was I supposed to?”
She sighed. “It’s there for a reason, love. I’ll let Dr. Li know you’re up when he comes in later, alright?”
“Okay.”
“Would you like your phone? A sandwich? Water?”
“Um.” Too many questions at once. “Y-yeah, sure, thanks.”
“Alright. I’ll be back shortly.”
I watched her go. She, unfortunately, had a different understanding of the word “shortly” than I, because five hours later (I counted) she still had not returned. In her stead entered Zayne, his face showing significantly less emotion than yesterday.
“Are you feeling any better today?”
“Yeah.” A sudden wave of embarrassment crashed over me. “I’m… like, really sorry. I have no idea where all that came from. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s normal to become overwhelmed in situations such as these.” He pulled out the visitor’s chair next to my bed, resting that damn clipboard in his lap. “Now, I have to ask you a series of questions. Take as much time as you need to answer them, but do your best. Alright?”
I bunched a fistful of blanket, suddenly inexplicably nervous. “Yeah.”
He focused his attention on his clipboard, steeling his expression. “What is your name?”
Bodhi Sterling. “Marceline Castilho.”
“What is your date of birth?”
“December 29th.” I didn’t include the year this time, and I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse for the results of this test.
He hesitated a bit before asking the next question, perhaps giving me time to tell him my birth year. When it was evident I wouldn’t, he continued. “Where do you live?”
“...Linkon?” The MC lived in Linkon, right? Not outside of it? My knowledge of the story was fuzzy; it had been a while since I owned a tablet, and my Dollar General phone could not handle the sheer size of the game.
“Your street address,” Zayne clarified.
There was a brief pause. “...I don’t know,” I softly admitted, feeling more guilt than I probably should have.
“When were you admitted to this hospital?”
He told me this one, I was sure of it. How many days did he say? “Uh….” I truly couldn’t remember what he’d said.
He didn’t give me time to scramble for an answer. “How did you get here?”
“...Ambulance?” Did they send Hunters in ambulances or helicopters? Did it matter? I was failing this test anyway.
“What is the first thing you remember after waking up here?”
“You.”
“Me what?” He glanced up briefly.
“Asking me questions.”
The slight look of disappointment on his face didn’t escape me. “And what is the last thing you remember prior to that?”
The road. The car. But then, after that…. I frowned in concentration. “There was… something grabbed my ankle and flung me into the air.”
“The Wanderer,” Zayne muttered in confirmation. “Anything else?”
“Someone called my name.” I could recall, now, the blurred silhouette of a man, could recall the feeling of his warm hands desperately staunching the bleeding wound on my chest. “There was someone there with me.”
Zayne gave a nod. “That would be your partner, Xavier. He refused to leave the waiting room for the first three days of your hospitalization.”
The guilt caused by that single statement left me physically nauseous.
“Do you remember anything from before the attack?” he probed.
I shook my head. What could I tell him that wouldn’t immediately sound suspicious?
Zayne gave an imperceptible sigh. “Do you know what day of the week it is?”
I paused. Assuming my universe and this one were parallel, when I left work, it was Tuesday. Zayne said I was unconscious for at least three days. Meaning, it was at least… “Friday?” When Zayne didn’t give an affirmative, I asked, “No?”
“It’s Monday,” he said.
“Oh.”
“What month is it?”
“January.” I knew that for sure.
“And the year?”
…What fucking year was Love and Deepspace in again? The game supplied us with the Deepspace tunnel appearing in 2034, when MC was a kid. How old was she then? Seven? Eight? Assuming she was eight and is now twenty-three like me, 2034 + 23 - 8 would be… 2049? But, no, the story starts in 2048, doesn’t it…? Has it been a year since the story started, then?
“Enough,” Zayne sighed before I could even answer. I glanced up, confused. He shook his head. “I could tell you were thinking far too hard. If you knew the year, the answer would come naturally to you.”
I watched silently as he scribbled a few more things down, then flipped the page. “Marceline.”
“Yes?”
He straightened his back, lowering the clipboard to his lap. “Right now you have an official diagnosis of post-traumatic retrograde amnesia. However, we took you for an MRI and a blood test after you were sedated yesterday, and they came back negative. I do have a theory on the true cause of your amnesia, but before I confirm it… do you remember anything from before the Wanderer attack? Anything at all?”
Here it was, a window of opportunity to change my mind. Either I could make this ten times harder on myself and continue pretending to be a total amnesiac, potentially slipping up in the future and revealing my lies, or I could say I “remembered” bits and pieces. It would be easier that way, right?
I put my hand to my chin, glancing down to avoid eye contact. “I remember… just a little bit. I know names. Faces. But not a lot of detail.”
“Names and faces?” Zayne echoed.
“I know… I know you are Zayne. I know Xavier. And… Tara from work.” I tread as carefully as I could. Did the MC know any of the other LIs yet? She must have met them if it’s been a year, right?
“But you don’t know details about the people you named?” Zayne asked, attempting to follow my messy train of thought.
“I- I know you were my friend when we were kids. But I don’t know… like… what we did.” It wasn’t a total lie.
Zayne, though still visibly conflicted, looked a little more at ease. His tense shoulders loosened, and he sat a little straighter. “That’s… that is reassuring. It means you could get your memories back.”
That wouldn’t happen because they are not my memories, but I gave him a nod of acknowledgement.
“Now, Marceline… do you recall I mentioned sending you for both an MRI and a blood test?”
Another nod.
“The MRI showed no sign of brain damage, and the blood test only showed that you are anemic. There was nothing that would have caused your amnesia.”
Shit, he’s on to me.
“However… I believe I know what could have caused it.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “Seeing as there is no evidence of brain damage, I have reason to believe the aether core in your heart is the cause of your amnesia.” He watched me, head tilted downwards just slightly, for my reaction.
But I gave none. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, anyway. Was he testing whether I knew about the aether core? I was so lost.
Carefully, he continued. “You remember your grandmother, yes?”
“Josephine?” I said without thinking.
His eyes narrowed slightly, perhaps finding it odd that I- or rather, the MC- would refer to my grandmother by her first name. “Yes, your Grandma Josephine. Do you… can you recall what happened to her last year?”
“Last year?” I was confused. Was he talking about the explosion?
Nothing must have registered on my face, because Zayne sighed. “Your grandmother… passed last year. Do you remember?”
“Oh. Yeah, I… do remember something like that.” He didn’t mention Caleb, I noted.
“When she passed, she left me with a box to give to you. I gave it to you last year. I believe you still have it. If your memories do not return in the next few months, I think you should look through it again. For the record, I am recommending this as a friend, not a doctor.”
He rose to his feet, walking towards a small water dispenser near the door. He took his time filling the cup, then approached me with a small pill container he’d fished from his pocket. He handed it to me, along with the cup of water. “Here. Iron. I want you to take one every morning.” He watched as I took the pill, then made his way to the door. Before leaving, he paused to look back at me. “It is almost visiting hours. There is someone who has been begging to see you since you woke up.”
I watched as he shut the door, then lay my head back on the pillow and released a sigh as noisy as a 5.0 Richter earthquake. Talking with Zayne was tiring. He kept me on my toes; I felt the need to constantly have my guard up, to keep up the charade that I was who I thought he was.
And I would soon have a visitor?
It was going to be Xavier, I was sure of it; Zayne had even said Xavier didn’t want to leave the waiting room after I was brought in. Zayne knew the MC in this life, but I knew Xavier would be harder to convince. He’d been with her before, in a past life. He would be able to clock that I wasn’t truly his Queen.
To my annoyance, the heart monitor loudly announced my anxiety. I shut my eyes, resolving to rest for as long as I could before Xavier arrived.
It was less than an hour before there was a knock on the door. I watched silently as the knob turned and the figure behind it entered. As he stepped into the light, I couldn’t help the way my eyes widened.
“Hey there, Pips.”