Chapter Text
Grime congeals in her lungs. A door creaks on its rusty hinges. Dust stirs around her with every scuff of her shoes. Pressure bears down on her face, like she's being smothered. She reaches up, to tear that weight away, but her hands aren't working anymore. Nothing is.
It's suddenly bright and loud, like the thunder of a passing motorcycle, and then it's dark. She draws in a breath, and she can't taste the mildew anymore. Instead she inhales lukewarm, sterile air, and there's a clinical sting behind her eyes that reminds her of how it'd felt when she'd woken up in a hospital bed.
She can't find the strength to move, much less open her eyes. If her assumption is true (which she hopes it isn't, that's not how this was supposed to go), she has no way of knowing. Her body feels light and unfamiliar. The most she can do is curl her fingers, but that doesn't accomplish much.
There's something plush underneath her. She purposefully squirms, to map out the sensation against her body, and the sheets don't crinkle. She doesn't think she's laying on sheets at all, actually. It feels too lumpy. She's curled up on her side instead of her back, laid down in the fetal position. She feels uncomfortably exposed.
With awareness comes an uncontrollable throb, pooling through her body like ink in water. It's not explosive, but it still finally gets her vocal cords working. A sharp, crackling yip breaks itself free from her aching throat. The sound is embarrassing, but she's too delirious to care.
It hurts. She needs to move. Why can't she move?
Light begins to swell behind her eyelids. There's a shift of cloth, a distant tinkling of bells, and soft, shuffling footsteps.
Someone's breath catches, and then there's nothing. Not a sound.
"Oh my God," a voice gasps. It's familiar, but she can't place it.
Their breathing begins to pick up into sharp, rapid gasps. The footsteps return, slamming against the ground. The surface under her dips as someone throws themselves down next to her. She can feel their warmth, pressed up against her back.
"Oh my God," they repeat. Their voice is thick with tears. "Oh God, oh my God."
There are gloved hands on her. The touch burns, branding into her skin, and she flinches away the best she can, protesting with a low, guttural moan. The touch tears away, and then returns, to grab her arm and violently roll her over onto her back. It startles another pained sound out of her.
She can't even peel her eyes open and ask them to stop. She wants it all to stop.
"Caine!" the voice screams. "CAINE!"
When her consciousness fades back in, the first thing she registers is the voices.
They're all talking over each other, tangling into incomprehensible mush. She couldn't even dream of putting them to names or faces. She's probably supposed to know who they are, but she doesn't.
She's been swaddled in a blanket, which is better than before. Someone's still touching her. Plush fingers card through her hair, and she's pressed up against a skinny thigh. The contact doesn't hurt anymore, but it feels wrong. Fake, almost, like it's something she's dreaming up.
That's— unusual, she knows it's supposed to be. Maybe it's the touch itself—
When was the last time someone had…
—or maybe it's the fact that she has hair. But that doesn't feel right. She hasn't had a buzz-cut since she was fifteen. Why would that be unusual?
You don't know anything, do you?
"—not hurting me now," the voice is saying. It's the same one as before, and she latches onto it, because it's the only consistent thing she has. "We just got him back, and you want me to leave? Do you know how much I've been—"
"—we're not forcing you, we're worried, what if he—"
"You're the one who took him from me the first time!" They're so loud it cuts through the unpleasant, dissociative haze, and shocks her back down to reality. "Are you really gonna do that to me again?!"
All of the voices go quiet. The person at her side is trembling. They've laid their palm flat against the side of her head, and she can feel them hunch over, like they're protecting her from something.
"I'm sorry," the voice says. "I didn't mean that. I know you had to."
"Hey, it's— shit, it's fine. You're stressed out, you're forgiven."
"I don't want you to feel guilty for—"
"I'm not." The other voice is strained, like they're lying.
It hurts to hear them keep talking. She's nursing up an awful migraine, and moving at all feels like she's jarring bruises. Her whole body feels tender and sore. She shifts, and grinds out a sob, and listens to it go quiet again.
A part of it hurts to know they're this attentive with her. They're not supposed to be.
"Jax?" the voice asks, in a warbling tone. "Are you with me?"
She manages to peel her eyes open. The light stabs at her retinas, and a fresh wave of pain rattles through her skull. She flinches, snaps them back shut, and burrows back into her blankets. She's not ready. She's supposed to be—
The hand on her moves to cup the side of her face. She can feel it shaking.
"Jax?" the voice sounds more desperate.
Is that meant to be her name? She may as well respond to it. How is your memory this bad?
"Hnn," she manages, which is a gigantic leap in progress from before. She's working her way up to consonants now.
The voice says something else. She tries to listen, but her senses are trapped behind a wall of static. It's her body's way of blocking out the pain, she guesses. She furrows her brows, trying to listen in, and waits for them to repeat themselves.
"Are you— can you hear me?" They sound like they're about to start weeping.
"Mhm."
"I'll leave," someone else says. "Shout for us if you think— yeah. Just don't think we should crowd him for now."
"Okay," the voice whispers.
Footsteps fade. Fingers return to her hair, and her tense muscles melt into putty. They shift, tugging her blanket up her shoulders when it starts to slip, and pull her a little closer. "How are you doing?"
This is the part where she's supposed to answer.
"Hurts," she grinds out. It's the first word she can manage.
The only response she receives is a broken sob.
She reattempts opening her eyes, and it's easier, now that it's dark. She's laid out in a nest of blankets and pillows, and she has to resist the instinct to burrow further, because it's a nonsensical one.
She's too weak to lift her head, but her eyes drift upwards, and she finally puts a name to the voice. The girl's appearance doesn't clear up any of the confusion, because she doesn't look real. She doesn't look human, all pure white skin and large, reflective red and blue eyes.
Where the hell is she?
"God," the girl claps her hand over her mouth. She tears her gaze away, squeezing her eyes shut, like she can't bare to look at her. "I thought— it's been— Jax, I thought you were gonna be gone forever, I—"
The only excuse here is that she's been in a coma. Maybe she still is.
Trying to move sets her body on fire. Her hand flails out as she tries to get a grip on the blankets, but she can't seem to get it. The girl sniffles, watching her carefully as she wriggles on the ground like an idiot.
"Oh," the girl says, and then she takes her wrists, helping her ease up onto her knees. "You're really naked, sorry. I mean, it's not like there's anything there, but- but— you probably should keep the blanket on."
It's Pomni, something sharp and sardonic hisses at her. How could she forget the name of someone so important to her? She tastes frustration in her tongue, and it stings like bile. She has to swallow it all down. She has many, many other questions she needs to ask first.
"What?" she mumbles. "Where…?"
"You're… we made a fort, after you abstracted," Pomni explains. "We're here right now. That was… I don't know if time's been passing for you, but it's been, um… two months for us. I was— I was getting you, to go to the aquarium for a little bit, but- but—" her voice breaks, and she trails off.
It all sounds like a bunch of nonsense to her. Her eyes droop closed, and she leans forward, her chin tilted down towards the floor. Pomni's quiet as she waits for her to speak, supposedly. She seems like the kind of person who'd be patient like that.
Instinctively, she manages to raise at her hands, to touch her face. It feels different. The weight she's expecting is noticeably absent. A pit forms in her stomach, as she grabs at herself more insistently. There was weight there, she felt it. A delirious part of her is so sure she still can.
"Jax?" Pomni asks, eyes wide in alarm. She sounds like someone would when talking to a scared rescue dog, and it doesn't make her feel any better about the situation.
"I- I don't—" her voice crackles like static. One of her hands remain on the side of her face, and then she moves to cover her eyes, trembling. "I don't know what's- what's happening—"
Pomni's quiet for a moment. "What do you remember?"
"I don't know—"
She cuts herself off with a disbelieving laugh. She doesn't know. It's all so overwhelming she can't piece it together. The name Pomni's using for her doesn't feel real, even though there's a part of her saying that it is. Nothing feels real.
How did she end up here? What happened? What year is it? Wasn't she on the street? Didn't she come here because—
"I don't know," she cries, louder. "I don't know who I am! I don't know!"
"That's fine, that's fine," Pomni breathes, but the look on her face completely contradicts that. She looks like her heart has been torn out of her chest. "I should- maybe I should get Kinger, or- I don't know if you'd wanna see Caine, but you're glitching—"
The words are coming from underwater. Pomni's still speaking, but it doesn't mean anything to her anymore. She claws at herself, at her stupid uncomfortable body. She hunches over completely, until her head hits her thighs. The blanket slips down her arms and frames her lap, but she doesn't care. She's so overwhelmed that nothing's processing.
Someone touches her. She tears herself away with a wail, shoving them backwards, stumbling until she hits the ground, flat on her back. The voice pitches up in shock, but she doesn't stop to listen, forcing herself upwards into a half stand and throwing herself to the floor, away from the little nest she's been situated on. She cries out as her butt makes impact with cold tile.
"Get away from me!" she screams.
She looks down to stare at herself, and pats along herself again. Darkness arcs off her body like crackling flames. She looks different, she doesn't look human either, she doesn't understand. There's a voice snarling at her to get it together, don't you realize how you look right now? but she can't even listen to it.
This can't be real.
It can't, it can't.
There's approaching footsteps. Overlapping voices, and confused shouting. She stares ahead, curled into herself like a wilting flower. She can only make out blurry, indistinct colors. She clutches at her rapidly bouncing chest.
Someone kneels down at her side. She swivels her head around to look at them, but she can't make anything out through her terror. Panic clings to her lungs like smoke. If she keeps this up she's going to pass out, or vomit.
"You're okay," they say.
She shakes her head, reaching up to bang a fist against her temple. The strike of pain gives her just enough clarity to see, and lock eyes with Pomni. She's still sat in the blanket pile she'd been in. Someone's holding her up as she stares ahead, just as out of it as she is. Her hand is glitching.
She's not making the effort to pursue. Because Jax had screamed at her, and pushed her.
"Don't leave me," Pomni bursts out, through her tears.
Jax's awareness begins to unspool like yarn, and she can't do much to fight it. She doesn't want to be here, not with how much it hurts. Not while she's listening to them scream about her, like she can't hear.
She doesn't even try to stick around. She lists to the side, and she lets the darkness swallow her whole again.
"Jax!" Pomni cries, with more desperation. "Please, don't—!"
She drops to the floor, and she seizes.
"—This shouldn't be possible. Abstractions are corrupted programs, I can't go back and fix them. It's— it's not like I haven't tried!"
"I mean, his body's back, mostly, but… what about his brain? Can that happen?"
"I… don't know. It'd be new."
"He was talking to me a little, so he's conscious, I think. He just freaked out because he- he didn't know what was going on. I don't think he even remembers… anything. I don't think he even knew what he… was?"
"Can our scans, like… reset, like the NPCs? Is that a thing?"
"I've never tried that. It… didn't feel right. If that's what happened, it wasn't me. I don't have the power to tamper with your minds anymore. I still have the program that makes you new bodies running, but that's it!"
"Wouldn't he just remember what happened before he got here, though?"
"Pomni? You said you saw some of that, right?"
"I… yeah, I mean, I did. I saw a little about it. I- it's not my place to say what happened, but I don't think it'd make him act like... I just, if that's not him, I can't—"
"It's okay. Just try to breathe."
"This can't be happening to me again—"
"Woah, hey. Maybe we should talk about this later."
"I just wanted to— I- I can't lose him again. I can't keep losing people like this! I can't. I can't!"
Upon waking up, there are two things Jax remembers.
The first, is that she is a killer. There is something wrong with her, and she is broken, and she is poisoned. There's something in her that pushes and tears and claws at everything that comes into contact with her, with the desperate fury of a cornered wild animal. But even then it would be foolish to truly make that comparison, because she knows she should know better. She is a killer, and she is too afraid to stop being one.
The second, is that she's supposed to be dead, in several ways.
She knows this for sure. She is dead, she's a dead girl walking. She's been that way ever since she'd seen her mom laid out on the floor. The clock had started ticking the moment she ran from her home. It has always been an inevitability, and it's why she'd never allowed herself to be loved.
In her ear, a voice whispers, do you think they'll love us anyway?
She opens her eyes.
Jax is cushioned by a proper mattress this time. She's still in the tent, which means it had to have been dragged in here, or— no, that's not right. Some of them can create things out of thin air. She'd learned that at some point, in the past. She could probably come up with specific names if she thought hard enough.
It still hurts when she sits up, but significantly less than before. The worst thing is that she's so dizzy. Properly comprehending anything feels like a chore, and her thoughts and memories are just outside of her reach. It's exhausting to keep trying.
Pomni's asleep on the floor, with only her upper body draped across the bed. Her cheek is cushioned in the crook of her elbow. She's positioned like she'd been watching Jax sleep, which is… not something she wants to ruminate on for too long.
Typical for her, she thinks. And then after, what do I mean by that? She's unsure.
Regardless, she doesn't want to lay here and watch Pomni while she sleeps. She's still trying to get a scope of the situation, and staying in the dark isn't gonna really help that. She doesn't know if she can stand, but it's worth a shot.
Jax is very careful not to shift the mattress too much as she eases her legs over to the floor. The springs squeak. Pomni doesn't stir, even as Jax finally rises to her feet, keeping her motions slow and unassuming.
Her knees wobble, and she has to widen her stance to try and find her balance. Her legs are killing her. Her joints ache the worst, and it's not much easier to bend her elbows. Shifting too much sends pain tingling down her spine.
She takes one trembling step forward, and then stumbles.
"Ah—!"
A hand strikes out like a snake, and snatches her wrist. Jax clomps around on the floor like a baby deer as she tries to steady herself, and then glances over her shoulder.
Pomni's awake. There's an icy expression on her face, but her eyes are intense. Jax turns around to meet her gaze, unnerved. She thinks she'd probably be skinned alive if she tried to brush it off with a joke.
"Don't go," Pomni demands.
"Just wanted to take a little walk, jeez," Jax croaks. "Not a good idea though, based on the little epic fail I just did there. I feel like I'm — hhh — gonna pass out."
Pomni tugs on her arm. Jax lets herself be pulled back to the bed, and only then does she realize that huh, she is naked. This is especially strange for her. With this avatar, she's not supposed to be.
"You had a seizure," Pomni says. "I don't really… we don't know how that works, but you probably shouldn't push yourself."
"That's possible?" Jax asks. She knows it isn't supposed to be.
"Apparently, yeah," she says. Her fingers lose their death grip on Jax's wrist, but she doesn't pull away. She's waiting to see if she'll run, maybe, and she relaxes when Jax doesn't. "I think it has to do with… you know… the abstraction, and everything. Caine can't fix it."
She's saying a lot of words that Jax doesn't immediately understand. It takes her a moment to rack her brain, and even then it all feels jumbled up with everything else. But she can get the idea, both through what she can discern, and context clues.
"Right."
Pomni searches her face, scrutinizing her.
"Do you know my name?" she asks.
"Think so, yeah," Jax responds, wiping at her eyes. Her head hurts. "Who names their kid Pomni, anyway?"
Pomni laughs, but it's edged with anxiety. "It was Abigail before I came here," she informs her. "We used to not know our names, but Caine told us. I don't know if you remember the brain scan stuff or what, but— I think you missed that."
"Brain scans," Jax echoes, softly.
She remembers, but she isn't soothed by it. In fact, she wants to scream and cry and bash her head on the floor, for reasons she can't really explain. Her hands are shaking, and she goes to hug her own torso, in a futile attempt to comfort herself.
This was the discovery that'd been the final nail in the coffin before, hadn't it? That has to be the reason she's panicking now, why there's bile climbing in her throat, and why her head feels like it's splitting apart.
I'm never going home. I'm never seeing her again. I thought I wanted—
"Shut up," she hisses, to herself.
"Huh?"
"Not you," Jax dismisses. "It's just— a lot."
Pomni's still watching her face, like she's expecting her to break down. Jax doesn't want to give her the satisfaction, so she lays down instead, turning away from her and curling up on the mattress. She's not going to be able to sleep, with the pain and whatnot, but it doesn't feel like she's putting so much pressure on her (non-existent?) spine anymore.
"You don't have to sit here and watch me, you know," she says.
"Don't say that," Pomni snaps, immediately. "I'm not going anywhere."
It sounds like the words physically hurt her when they come out. Pomni's already working herself into panic, by the sound of her spiraling breaths. Jax resists the urge to cower under the blanket.
"I don't know how much you- you remember, or if you're even the Jax I knew—" Pomni's voice is gutted, "—but you- you died. You died in my arms, I tried to hold you together and I-I— It's been months, and I've— spent every day here, thinking about you. I can't leave and lose you again, I— all I did was look away for a second, and let you walk away, and you were gone for good."
Doesn't mean you've gotta smother me, Jax wants to say, even though she knows it won't accomplish much. It's— rude, even. Apparently a part of her cares about that now, based on the way she bites her tongue.
"Please just… don't tell me to leave," Pomni whispers, defeated. "You can be as mean as you want. You don't even have to ask for me to stay. Just don't tell me to leave."
Jax's throat feels tight, for reasons she can't really explain.
"Fine," she whispers. It feels like the wrong answer.
Pomni sniffles, and then lets out a big, relieved sigh. Jax feels her turn around, and settle her back against the mattress. To stare up at the ceiling of the tent, maybe. It's a little easier to breathe now that she doesn't feel so watched.
"How can I help you?" Pomni asks, eventually. "Just for right now?"
Jax thinks about it for a moment. Most of her first answers are sarcastic, or unhelpful, or some variation of just kill me, which she's pretty sure Pomni doesn't want to hear.
In response, something in her mind shifts, and clicks back into place. She thinks about her body, instead, even though she doesn't want to. She wonders what Pomni thinks of when she looks at it.
"Can you, uh." Her face flushes. "Can I get some clothes?"
"Oh," Pomni says, lifting herself back up. "Yeah. Sorry, I don't know why that happened. That and the hair. You just kind of appeared with it."
"I knew that was new," she says.
Pomni hesitates. She glances back at the entrance to the fort, and then at her again.
"I'm gonna poke my head out for a second," Pomni says. "Like, not even five minutes. I won't even go far. And I'll be right back. So- so don't do anything while I'm gone. Okay? Don't go anywhere."
"Okay." She hides her face under the blanket.
Even with the flimsy cover, she still feels so exposed. She's used to hoodies and sweatpants and sometimes sweaters, on her more courageous days. Her mind supplies her with the fact that she's been wearing overalls with nothing under them for years, which makes her feel… strange.
Isn't she supposed to know that already?
"Yell for me if you need me."
"Okay."
Pomni's weight disappears from the mattress. She hears her footsteps retreat as a rapid pace, and her tentatively calling out for someone at the entrance. She doesn't even try to absorb their conversation, just happy to feel a little less crowded for a moment.
She's so, so overwhelmed. She yearns for the oblivion she'd promised herself.
Now that Pomni isn't so close, she squeezes her eyes shut, presses her face into her knees, and lets herself cry.