Chapter Text
You’re back in the White Space.
You can barely breathe. There’s pain, rapidly fading to a tolerable level. There’s nothing but the white void around you. The wire, the blanket, the door — all missing, gone as your life soon shall.
You take off your shirt. Familiar red stitching, which you recognize from the Stranger’s arm, covers your entire chest.
You want to scream, but you barely have the air for that. Perhaps you ought to lay down on the floor and let it take you, sinking into the everlasting quietude of the place.
Aubrey wakes up.
She opens her eyes. The mirror on the wall lets her see herself: clean hospital gown, head and right shoulder wrapped in bandages. It’s hard to think.
“Oh, you’re awake.” The nurse smiles. “Don’t move much, please. Your injuries— No, don’t stand up, please—”
Aubrey tries to stand up, but falls again.
“You need to rest. Please. The boy you were with is alive, don’t worry. Someone where we found you stitched him shut before he could bleed out. We don’t know if he’s going to be alright, though—”
“I need to see him,—” Aubrey forces out of herself, “—he’s—”
“He will be alright.” The nurse smiles. “Your friends are unharmed, don’t worry. The one who has been missing is shaken, but otherwise, she’s alright.”
You wake up in a black forest.
Your reflection is leaning over you impatiently.
Wake up, Sunny.
You’re pulled upright, forced to stand on your own legs next to your mirror image.
“How am I—”
You’re fine. Alive. Even though you do your best to kill yourself. Don’t you think you’ve caused enough suffering to those you care about? Do you want to keep hurting them?
“No, but—”
Then live. Live like they do.
“Are they—”
I don’t know. I am just your own voice in your head. But your sacrifice shouldn’t have been for nothing, right?
“And what should I do?”
Wait and see.
Kel stumbles out of his bed.
There isn’t anyone else in the ward, thankfully—
The door opens. Seven people burst into the empty ward, taking away his solitude.
“KEL, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING ABOUT?” His mother screams. “YOU COULD HAVE DIED!”
“I’m fine.” Kel blurts out.
“You’re not fine!” The father continues. “You have a concussion, and you got off easily compared to your friends? What if—”
“How are they?” Kel rolls out, and stands up, helped up by Hero. “I need to—”
“Aubrey’s mostly fine.” Kim says, looking aside. “Head trauma, sure, and she got shot in the shoulder, but she’s tough. She’ll be right as rain in a week.”
“H-hello.” A mouse-like girl Kel doesn’t recognize steps forwards, face framed with brown glasses. “Thanks for… all that.”
“You’re M-Mincy, right?” Kel asks, clutching at his temples. The pain refuses to go away. “Nice to f-finally meet you.”
“You got them there, right?” Cris says. “Kel, it was an awful idea. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“How’s Sunny?” Kel interrupts. “You saw him, right?”
“Sunny—” Mincy swallows down.
“He’s bad.” Hero closes his eyes. “He got shot in the chest. Fractured sternum. It’s a miracle he’s still alive. You nearly got Sunny killed, Kel.”
“I-I need to see him.”
Aubrey closes her eyes.
“Sunny, I don’t know if you can hear me,” the girl starts, “but I hope you’ll be alright. You need to be alright. Please. It’s my fault, you shouldn’t have…” She stops, to rethink what she was about to say. “...No. I’d do the same for you. This is why you did that.”
“She helped you, didn’t she? You’re alive because of her. I feel so fucking sorry for getting in the way. We shouldn’t have shunned her.”
A person enters the room.
You’re strolling through the forest. There’s not much to do. You’ve already done everything in this forsaken colourless void.
And yet, your legs carry you to a spot you know very well, with a tree that won’t fall and a father that is no longer yours.
You sit down on the grass, and watch him wail at the tree. Finally, it falls, crashing down between the two of you, branches snapping and leaves falling off.
“Hello.” The man stares at you. “I didn’t think the two of us would ever meet again.”
You don’t respond. You have nothing to say to him.
“That friend of yours has been persistent, but I got her to leave me alone with you for a while. I can’t do what I need to with her present.”
He approaches you, stepping over the tree, and lifts your chin.
You have nothing to say as the vague awareness of the passage of time decays even more, sentences melting with only some chunks surviving:
“...I’m sorry, son…”
“...I was wrong about you…”
“...Perhaps it wasn’t your fault. Perhaps it’s always been mine…”
“...I did what I thought I should have done…”
“...You deserve a future she won’t be able to have. Even now…”
“...Let this be my gift to you…”
The awareness fades away even more, and you collapse again as the shadow leaves you alone.
A man leaves the ward with his unconscious son behind.
Outside, he sees two women: one he left years ago, one he displaced mere moments ago.
“Don’t worry.” Kokuu says, not letting his expression change. “I’ll pay for all of it.”
“All of it?” Edna scowls. “What, did you have a sudden change of heart regarding our son?”
The man looks at the girl.
“I didn’t have a choice,” he says as he leaves the ward behind. “It is just what I have to do.”
“Happy birthday, Sunny.” Edna pats her unconscious son’s head. “We got you a cake, but, uh, I don’t think you’ll be able to eat it.”
The mother looks at the despondent girl, and lets Aubrey bury herself in her jacket.
“Aubrey—”
“I’m sorry.” The girl sobs. “It should have been me.”
“I wouldn’t want it to be either of you.” Sunny’s mother replies. “Wouldn’t be right for kids to be like this.”
“What now? What am I supposed to do? What are we supposed to do?”
“We’ll just have to wait.” She says. “He’ll wake up eventually.”
“How can you be sure—”
“I know it. That’s what mothers do.”
Someone knocks on the door. It’s Kel, again.
“Hey, Aubrey—”
“Leave.” The girl’s voice freezes the boy on the spot.
“I—” Kel takes a step forward. “I didn’t know it would turn out like this, Aubrey, I’m sorry, I—”
“It’s your fault, Kel.” Aubrey turns to face him. “He’s like that because of what you’ve done. You just make everything worse.”
“But—”
“Aubrey, you don’t have to tear into him like that,” Sunny’s mother says, “he clearly only wanted to help someone he didn’t even meet—”
“Get the fuck out, Kel.” Aubrey hisses. “I don’t want to see you ever again.”
“Aubrey!”
“No.” Kel sighs. “I understand.”
The half-moon is hanging in the sky. Most people have left the hospital by now.
Aubrey sits down on her bed, looking at the hairstick left behind by Charlene. The white orchid’s petals are bright in the night, as if they’ve been soaking the silver light pouring from the sky.
She closes her eyes, and falls asleep.
Seconds later, the ward’s door opens. A young woman enters the room, and sits down next to the bed.
“I’m sorry, Aubrey,” She says. “but I did what I could have done.”
She picks up the hairstick from the nightstand, and spins it between her fingers. The flower is painfully familiar. She’s grown them herself, in the forsaken past.
She stands up, and leaves the hairstick behind, closing the door behind herself.
There’s another person she needs to visit: one yet to awaken. And here he is, barely alive, thanks to what she’s done to him.
She runs her hand through his hair. It’s been so long. Her road, too, was ripe with pain and regret. Maybe, one day, they’ll be happy together.
“I can’t believe it’s come to this.” She says. “Maybe I’ll face you when you’re awake, one day.”
She stands up, and approaches the door frame. As she passes through it, she turns her head back, to the comatose Sunny:
“We’ll meet again…my dear brother.”