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Sorry for the long delay – life’s been using me as a punchbag. 

 

Sooooooooo

I don’t remember falling asleep.

But I wake up sore, ornery, hungry, bleeding, hurting, ready to fight whatever G-d Search and Thomas believe in and even more ready to go back to sleep and not wake up for another hundred years.

That’s actually a stupidly nice idea, I’m gonna do th…

Where’s Umberuin?

I can’t feel it where is it? I need it!

 

I smoke the room only

only it’s not a room. It’s

It’s nothing

A swirling, shifting nothing.

 

I test the ground with my hands – it’s not ground. It’s insubstantial.  It’s passing through my fingers.

I can’t feel it.

I snatch at my smoke desperately. Come back come back…

 

The swirling around me is my smoke. there is nothing else out there.

 

Okay. okayokayokayokayokayokay…

Breathe. Deep breaths.

What am I even breathing?

Okay. Bad, not-useful, counterproductive thoughts you can excuse yourself now.

 

What do I know?

 

a) I fell through a hole in reality. I met a bunch of mean people, survived a shooting, and had a window shattered on me. And a hole in my foot.

Always run. Always, always run…

Shut up!

b) I fell through another thrice-cursed hole in reality in to a room full of magic portal mirrors that were supposed to what? test us? And maaaaaaaay have an ally. Possibly.

c) The room was collapsing so I lead the way into a another hole in reality. Pff. Third time’s the charm?

Like, when – in the history of repeat events – tell me when, punks, when?! Has?! That?! Worked?!

 

Sooooo – I might. Possibly. Potentially. Even probably. Be stuck inside the hole in reality.

Maybe.

 

Okay, why would I be stuck in a hole in reality?

Um.

Maybe … I wasn’t supposed to lead the way?

But nobody else was doing anything! We were gonna die! I …

… I mean, I’ve got nothing worth living for, but Search might be irritated if I died without her permission.

Strike that. Vi’d bring me back and murder me! Scary tiny-punk.

Now, would she just stab me? Poison? Transform and break me like an egg between her teeth? Toss me up in the air like a cat and claw me before I hit the ground?

Hm. I’m almost – definitely morbidly – interested.

 

Honestly, I’d rather Vi get me than stay here another moment. Wherever here is. If here is. Why here is?

 

Okay. Stop rambling Burn. You are an adult. You can figure this out.

 

My foot is still bleeding.

 

Okay. I don’t feel any glass left. So I need …

… crap.

I left the bandages behind.

Of course I did.

 

Accept your greed and selfishness…

Well. I must be sooo greedy and sooo selfish that I couldn’t even be allowed to pass through to the other side.

Cause, ya’know, just trying to stay alive from one day to another is sooooooo selfish.

 

Okay. I’m selfish.

I killed people. You don’t have to lecture me on it.

I know. I heard it all from Search.

 

Look. I just …

Ya’know what. Whatever!

It’s been stacked against me my whole life.

Justice is a lie.

Peace. Freedom. Love.

 

Well. Maaaaybe there is something to love. Vi will let us cuddle her when she’s sick. Kid needs it though.

 

And Thomas drops his guard when it’s just us in the room. Ya’know? He’ll even walk around without his weapons. And actually talk about that G-d he believes in. Instead of saying something and waiting for some jerk to hurt him.

 

And Search. Search actually has finally stopped using psychometry to make sure the food isn’t poisoned. Well, what we make at home.

If ya don’t make it, ya shouldn’t eat it. Okay punks? Especially in high-crime, drug-riddled areas. Got it?

 

Yeah.

Still.

 

Where’s my weapon? I need that.

 

How do I get out of here?

What? Am I supposed to admit something?

Confront something?

I do that every thrice-cursed bright-shift.

What right do you have to lecture me? Huh punk?

You been that hungry? Scared? Desperate?

Just cause you looked different? Acted different? Didn’t fit into the common narrative well enough? Made people, what, uncomfortable?

 

I used to punch people for looking at me funny. Back when I could see.

Got tired of waiting for it. Ya’know? They were gonna hurt me anyway. Might as well give them a reason to fear me. Be the monster they made me out to be.

 

Enough rambling.

Enough ruminating.

No one’s here but you.

Stop talking to yourself.

No one cares. Have they ever? Ever since That Punk found acid…

 

Stop.

Don’t think about it.

Lost more than eyes that day.

 

Lesson time punks – what is the root of greed?

Needs not met.

 

If you consistently don’t meet someone’s needs, they have to do it themselves.

And then, why would they share?

How can they? There isn’t enough to go around.

Those who have more keep it because no one will help them when they have less.

Those who have less do whatever it takes to get more: butter up the ones with, steal from them, kill them.

Whatever it takes.

Because you have needs. Basic needs: Food, water, shelter.

Maybe someone gets enough of those needs met. Then they can get family. Friends.

But! But as soon as the food, the water, the shelter – the most basic of basic – needs are threatened, those family, those friends turn on you.

Because they have needs too.

 

So, the world belongs to the strong. The world crushes the weak.

 

I’m here.

I am not weak.

I am cunning. Greedy. Selfish. 

Alive.

 

Whatever it takes.

 

Well. I don’t know what it will take to get out of this … emptiness.

 

One step at a time. Find my weapon first.