Work Text:
Her phone rang.
Nothing changed.
“It’s getting late out already!”
Nothing changed.
She marched her path.
Nothing changed.
The gate opened, then the door.
Nothing changed.
“Ms. Holiday, where were you?! Do you even-”
Nothing changed.
Through her pupil through her iris through her lens through her retina through her optic nerve.
Nothing changed.
From one canal to one drum to one set of ossicles to one oval window to one cochlea to one auditory nerve out the other.
Nothing changed.
From the slow limps of hooves that felt the shore, from the subtle tremble of digits that clenched, from the breathing that nearly drowned.
Nothing changed.
...
In the dead of night, vocal cords strained.
Nothing changed.
Past midnight, bed sheets crumpled and were roughed up.
Nothing changed.
In the middle of the night, terracotta shattered, and a cactus fell.
Nothing changed.
Nothing changed.
Nothing changed.
Nothing changed.
She fell to her knees on the carpet, staining it with her eyes and her knees. “Nothing... nothing changed...” she repeated to herself again and again in a low, pitiful, breathless tone.
Nothing changed.
She clawed on the carpet, forcing her vocal cords. She tried to get out anything. Even if there was nothing left. She forced something in just to regurgitate it out.
Nothing changed.
For a while she curled and continued.
Nothing changed.
For a while, she stayed on her path.
Nothing changed.
For a while.
Nothing changed.
...
...
...
She closed her eyes. Everything went dark.
DO NOT BE
SO HOPELESS.
THINGS MAY
STILL
CHANGE.
She froze in place.
DO NOT BE
AFRAID.
I INTEND
NO HARM.
I UNDERSTAND
YOU ARE DISAPPOINTED
WITH THIS OUTCOME.
BUT THIS IS
NOT
THE ONLY OUTCOME
What did they mean?
IN TIME
YOU WILL WITNESS
SOMETHING VERY
VERY
VERY
INTERESTING.
JUST TRUST
THE PROCESS.
GIVE IT TIME.
How could she? How could she when she was so close? So, so, so horribly close?
Nothing changed.
I CANNOT
ANSWER THAT.
WHAT IS THERE
TO LOOK FORWARD TO
WHEN YOU KNOW
ALL THAT WILL
AND ALL THAT CAN
HAPPEN?
I CAN ONLY
TELL YOU,
ENJOY THE STORY.
Enjoy the story...?
She woke up. She was still fetally laid on the carpet. Time was frozen still.
...
She got up, cleaned the soil, and tidied her room.
...
She went to bed.
Something changed.