(Clarifications:
/-- [] --/ = Represents a thought, thought process, or inner realizations.
)
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I comfort Lyanna and she settles down. The engine hums below us, steady, the maze stretching past the window the same as it always does.
For a while neither of us says anything. Her breathing slows. I let the quiet sit there longer than it needs to.
"Wanna hear what happened?"
I don't answer right away. There's a part of me that wants this too badly, and I notice it before I let myself say anything. The same way you notice your own hand reaching for something before you've decided to take it.
I push the ‘want’ down far enough that it doesn't show.
"Only if you want to tell me."
She looks up at me for a second, then looks back down at her hands.
"...Maybe."
...
I wait anyway.
A while passes before she says anything else.
"It's kind of long-"
"I've got time."
She picks at the edge of her sleeve.
"You're not going to… tell anyone right?"
"No."
THERE’S NO ONE TO TELL CHILD. LIKE LITERALLY NO ONE. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN??
"Ok." She still doesn't look at me when she says it.
"I'll— I guess I'll tell you the short part."
/--------------------------------
We were home. Watching TV. Me, my mom, dad, my brother…
She stops there for a second.
My dad used to go in his study a lot. He never said why. He had this ring he never took off.
She glances at me, quick, then back at her hands.
My mom had one too. A bracelet. It was ugly actually.
A small pause.
I asked her why she never took it off once and she said something like, ‘we're not supposed to need them, that's why we do’.
I didn't get it.
She picks at her sleeve again before continuing, quieter now.
That night was normal. Until some things happened.
I woke up and there was something in my room.
Her voice drops almost to nothing here and I have to lean in slightly to catch it.
It had no face. Just… blank. It was facing me. Right in front of me.
I couldn't move.
She stops again. Longer this time. I don't fill the silence.
"You don't have to keep going," I say. "If you don't want to."
She shakes her head, still not looking up.
"No, I- it's fine."
She doesn't sound fine. She keeps going anyway.
My dad came in. He didn't look scared.
He said, "We’re late." Not even to me.
He grabbed me and we ran.
There were more of them. In the house. Just standing there, and then moving a little whenever we got close. Like they wanted us to go a certain way.
A breath. Her hands have stopped moving now, just resting flat against her knees.
My mom was already in the kitchen. She said something about wards holding longer than she thought.
I didn't know what that meant.
The wall started to melt. Not even burning. Like it was turning into gel.
She turned her bracelet around once and a ring of light came out of her hand.
"Go to the door, I'll be back in a minute.", that’s what she said.
/--She glances at me here, then looks away again just as fast. Like she was checking to see our reaction--/
We ran. The kitchen exploded behind us. I got a cut on my heel. My brother got hit on the arm. A piece got stuck in my mom's leg. But we didn't stop.
We got outside. There were more out there too.
My mom turned back to the house.
"I'll be right behind you."
She gave my brother a nail. Just a regular one. Except it was warm.
"If it comes to it, you'll know what to do with that."
He didn't ask. I didn't either.
She went back in.
Her voice catches slightly here. She doesn't stop, but it takes her a second to keep going.
The things outside started getting closer and there was this sound. I don't know how to explain it. It wasn't really a sound, it was more like it was inside my head.
My dad just stood there watching the door.
She came back out glowing. The light went all the way around her. There were smaller rings around that too.
She swung her arm and a bunch of them just stopped. For a second I felt safe. I’m pretty sure even he did.
Then something came down over the house. Not one of the blank ones. Something bigger. It went through the roof like the roof wasn't even there. It just… passed through.
Her hands tighten on her knees.
I… don’t think she got to finish whatever she was doing.
The rings broke. All at once. And then there was fire, but it wasn't normal fire. I’m not sure how to.. explain it, but…
She closes her eyes, taking a second for herself. Try to bring the picture of it up.
My brother stopped doing anything after that.
I have to ask if she wants to stop again, but I’m too invested. So many things I want to learn about her situation. So many questions. How exciting it would be to experience it.
I don’t get the chance to do any, she keeps going, faster now. Like she just wants this part over with.
I don't remember a lot after that. Things fell around us and nothing hit us, and I used to think that was lucky.
I don't think it was luck.
The last clear thing is both their heads. On the ground. Next to each other. And something went through my brother's stomach, the same way the wall did before.
He looked at me. Just for a second. He looked really scared.
Then everything got bright.
Then nothing.
Then white.
Then here.
---------------------/
I don't know what to say to that.
I scramble for something and come up with nothing, and the silence just sits there between us, ugly and unfilled.
"…"
I look down. She's asleep; Out cold mid-thought, like her body decided that was enough story for one lifetime and shut the door on it without asking permission.
My head falls back against the seat.
A bracelet that shouldn't work without a core. A nail that glowed on its own. Wards that held until they didn't. Something that cut through a roof without bothering to land first.
None of this is random.
I just don't know yet what it actually is.
...
I can't stop seeing it. The nail glowing in her brother's hand. The rings breaking apart one after another.
Every detail she gave me keeps replaying on its own, uninvited, and somewhere in the replay something starts to feel… good.
Not sad. Not horrified, even though I should be. Good, in a way that makes my skin feel too tight for my own body.
That can't be right.
I try to push it down and it doesn't move. If anything, it gets louder, my pulse climbing, my muscles humming with something that wants out and doesn't care what door it uses.
What the hell is this.
The engine rumbles under us, steady, indifferent to any of it. My gaze drops to Lyanna asleep on my lap and something in my head supplies an idea I never asked for. Fully formed, already halfway built before I can stop it.
Pupils dilating and constricting. Shaking as if a fever took me over. Eyes completely fixated.
The thought doesn’t leave, almost like my mind is actively wanting to reject that I might be losing my sanity; Rerouting the sensation I have to something else. To distract myself… from me.
My body actually shifts toward acting on it before my will catches up and locks everything down at once, hard, like slamming a door I didn't know was open.
I'm losing whatever grip I have left and I can feel it happening in real time, watching myself from somewhere just outside my own skull.
"WHAT IN THE FUCK AM I THINKING"
Lyanna jolts awake. I dig my knuckles into my own skull hard enough to hurt, disgusted at myself in a way that feels almost like relief. At least disgust is a feeling I recognize, a feeling that belongs to me and not to whatever the fuck I was just going through.
"Slap me! Or punch me, I don't care which, just do it!"
"Wait— what?"
"Just do it!"
The thoughts keep screaming underneath everything and the rest of the world goes quiet around them, narrowing down to just her face and the sound of my own voice asking for this.
"SLAP ME DAMN IT"
She looks more shaken by my reaction than by whatever I was about to do. She doesn't know what that was, thank god, and after one beat of hesitation, she swings.
It lands hard. My vision clears instantly, like something snapping back into place that had come loose.
She grabs onto my shoulder, stuttering.
"Jesus— why did you— I— what—"
I shake my head, try to play it off, and God, what a sick fuck I actually am. What the fuck could’ve happened if I couldn’t stop myself...
The feeling's still sitting somewhere under my skin, quieter now, manageable, but not gone. Filed away rather than dealt with, the same way everything else gets filed away rather than dealt with.
"Much appreciated.”
"What?"
"Conversation for later."
The energy drains out of me all at once, the adrenaline gone as fast as it arrived.
"I'm tired."
Her face does something between confusion and alarm.
I pass out before she can ask anything else.
"...Ok. What's going on here."
A sigh, somewhere above me.
"Not this again."