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The last thing Till sees is searing lights clashing against one another. His vision blurs with every new color.
And, then, amber eyes, their soothing warmth dimmed but crackling, flickering with hope against streaks of tears.
Against the overhead neon backdrop, a fallen angel cradles his face in cold hands.
Her wings’ feathers have been plucked out unevenly and her halo, askew. But that’s not what concerns him.
Her wails crash over him as distant waves do. Where has her illuminating smile gone? The one that had shone for him a holy grail bathed in her brilliance, a path that he would carve out using his spite.
He reaches out for her touch to ask but doesn’t know if he makes it.
He hears, sees distant recollections: A xylophone. Games. Teeth. Bruises. A smile (Yes, that’s the one). A laugh.
.
..
…
Till gasps for air. His eyes blow wide open to a dim room. It takes a moment for him to adjust and another to stop seeing things in doubles.
Then, it hits him all at once that he’s awake– Alive. He’s alive and breathing.
Recent not-quite memories of an empty darkness and voices yelling over him words that he can’t make out spur through his mind. (Something about a failed plan. A mistake.)
They’re followed by vivid looping moments. Stage lights and music and blood. His voice ringing out in one ear through the other and boring empty lyrics into his numb brain.
Everything inside and out hurts. He goes again for air, but it doesn’t come, only a suffocating pressure. His lungs are crushed by the force of his own ribs and thick, convulsing heart.
There’s a monitor next to him that he becomes sharply aware of. Strangely comforting with its rapid beeping, though it worsens his headache.
Then, he’s pulled out from under with a soft squeeze to his wrist.
He flicks his shaking pupils to his hand, held tightly in the grip of a prayer, like that of the kids on mornings back at ANAKT, with pink strands of hair bent over it.
Mizi looks up at him, tears already pooling at the corners of her lashes. The same look she’d given him right before he blacked out but not quite at the same time. He can’t pinpoint the emotion behind the daunting swirl in her eyes or, rather, has trouble assigning it to Mizi.
Not a single thing about this look suits her. Not the clothes, not the hair, and especially not the crying, not like this.
Mizi has never shied away from her tears, nor has she ever been the type to shed them silently. Her wails would be long and loud, hearty, and full of emotion as she grabbed the nearest person into her arms. Watching from a distance, Till used to wish he could be that person.
Now, when she takes him by a shoulder and leans into him, face against his chest, his wrist aches from her unwavering grip, and his heart feels heavier under her ears.
He can barely hear her small hiccups, even this close, and it makes the prominent pain in his chest deepen, sink into the rest of his sore body. His skin is hot, branded, against Mizi’s touch. And yet, her hold tightens still, nails digging into him.
“It’s okay,” she says, over and over again. “It’ll be okay.”
Till’s not sure who she’s talking to. He’s inclined to think it’s himself, but he feels something, someone, else there, a presence skulking just past his peripheral vision, one which needs those words much more than he does.
He wants to reach an arm back around her but shies away before he can. His breaths grow shallow, seizing.
He squints through the haze overtaking him, sits stiffly while Mizi comforts what must be a ghost, and lets himself be lulled back into darkness.
Consciousness greets him from time to time after that, but it never settles fully; he never feels entirely awake, even as Mizi chats to him after long stretches of silence or the uncomfortable hands of strangers change the gauze around his throat.
Along the way, he is able to make more of the room around him: a medical bay; and the people that fill it: nurses, though not like the ones he knows.
It’s strange. Back in ANAKT, infirmaries (the ones which regular kids visited, not the ones Till often found himself fighting out of) were smaller, brighter, covered in drawings and colorful posters. This one feels bare in comparison: sterile and littered in mechanical parts. The shelves are emptier, and Till sees the way people hesitate at treating his wounds. At wasting resources on someone who rips out needles while asleep and digs open his wounds while awake.
He’s also too awed —and far too tired— to really care. Because these are people, real people, dressed in coats and masks, versed in medical treatment. Humans, not Sygien. It’s bizarre. Astonishing. Jarring, too.
“Cool, isn’t it?” Mizi says, at one point, pulling Till’s attention away from the nurse he was goggling at. They don’t like it when he does that, but he can’t help it. Mizi understands, at least.
She spends a lot of time by his side. Seeing her this up close, she’s a completely different person from that first night and from the lifetime he’s spent watching her.
He still remembers the first time he, covered in bruises and snot, saw her, eyes sparkling, hair dancing against the wind. Mizi had been laughing, in a way that rose and fell like music, grinning from ear to ear.
It’s a memory he would replay in his head to make himself feel something most days, to soothe himself on the worst of nights. Because, holding together what little he had of himself, he began to see that there were things in this world that were still whole, pure. And none were worth protecting as Mizi’s smile.
Now, her hair, being so short, makes her look more her age, less the girl that would chase robotic fish in ANAKT’s river. There are evident creases of worry on her face, and her glassy eyes are always searching for something.
Above all, the corners of her mouth only press into a troubled line, never lift up.
Most mornings, Till feels the urge to bury his face into his pillow and skip breakfast when Mizi brings him his tray because he is a coward, because he cannot face the evidence of his failure. Unfortunately, Mizi’s absence is more troubling than her company. It’s only when she’s gone that this elusive presence, a persistent shadow, traces his neck, watches him with sour judgement.
He cannot see it, or more accurately, chooses not to. The fact that he hears its voice and feels its touch is out of his control. Some days, it’s gentle to him in ways that make his stomach churn. He prefers to ignore it, then. Most days, it’s taunting, amused, cruel. That leaves him irritated, growling at nothing or throwing pillows and half-empty trays at the wall.
All days, he eventually curls up, tail between his legs, and begs for forgiveness until sleep pities him enough to quiet him.
So when Mizi’s around, Till lets her stay, talk to him, bring him books and food. It’s hard to tell whether the meals they serve him are better or worse than what he’s used to. It all tastes bland, awful, but Mizi eats it gratefully, so he can’t find it in himself to ask.
She does her best to explain how they’d gotten here, or most of it anyway. He blinks in and out of the conversation sometimes, and he’s not entirely sure they have it all in one go.
What had really happened on stage? How long has he been out for? She doesn’t exactly say.
It’s unclear what gaps in the story are left out by Mizi and which his hazy mind just doesn’t register. Either way, he doesn’t berate her for it. The words already seem hard enough for her to speak.
Sometimes, she needs to go off elsewhere and doesn't return for what is maybe hours or days. During that time, Till is left at the mercy of the shadow’s unwavering gaze until he feels Mizi’s grip on his wrist tugging him away.
After a few days spent mostly staring at a white ceiling, wavering between reality, a few thin books, and the violent side effects of his withdrawal, Till gets discharged from the med bay.
It’s upon Mizi’s request and her promise of supervision. At first, there are protests about his stagnant recovery, but then, she sits herself on the chair by him and refuses to move, eat, or participate in her list of duties.
A few days into this, a crowd of worried nurses gathers. Amongst them is a guy with bleached hair and a big frown, watching Mizi’s crossed arms.
“No wonder she went for you,” he says. “You’re just like her. Stubborn. Well, Jacob was like that too.”
“And look at where that got both of them,” says a second, snappy guy with a large scar across his face. Till doesn’t like him, if only because his words seem to wound Mizi the deepest.
Eventually, though, they give in to Mizi’s request. There are conditions, namely that Till has to cooperate better throughout his treatment and dressing his wounds, as well as contribute to the Rebel group. Since the deputy leaders —Dewey and Issac, he learns— supposedly have doubts about his stability, he’s not yet allowed into combat practice or their weekly meetings, whatever they talk about in there.
Till obliges, reluctantly, if not to occupy his dull mind, then for Mizi.
In this freedom of new white walls and hallways and rules to follow, she remains a kind presence, a guiding light, dimmed, wavering, but a light nonetheless.
He’s familiar with the way his heart would usually beat: uncomfortable but steady in his chest; pounding, trying to break free whenever he was angry or anxious, which was often, and a fluttering trill that only a well-tuned flute and a wonderstruck heart could make when around Mizi.
Now, It’s a set of rapid, successive crescendos at all times. His brain’s filled with cotton. There’s always a lump in his throat. His neck itches with a phantom touch.
It plagues him, grows, coils around his skeleton and knocks on his skull, refusing him any real rest. Because of that, when he’s no longer passing out from exhaustion every few hours, sleep gets harder.
Which isn’t to say it’s ever been easy for as long as Till has needed it. The dark bags under his eyes had become a constant in his reflection in the mirror. They must only be getting worse now, though, because he doesn’t sleep for days at a time and gets shit for it from every other person in lieu of a greeting. He only offers his tired glare.
Pet isn’t exactly the best thing you can be in a place like this. The other Rebels don’t make much of an effort to befriend him. He’d even go as far as to say some of them hold a silent grudge. Which is just fine by him. He’s spent more time in solitary than in not.
However, there is a missing buzz in his ear, and picking at his skin and forming feeble melodies in his head seems to only make the invisible shadow over him more suffocating.
At one point, when he’s in the Rebel’s bustling cafeteria, seated in the corner of a table on his own, and Mizi approaches, he can’t help but feel grateful, guilty as he still is. Her company becomes a moment of respite, even if she’s too nice to outright say he looks awful.
Voice a whisper, she asks, “Having trouble sleeping?”
He nods, poking at the food in front of him. The weight of the silence might as well crush his aching shoulders. He wishes he had more words to say. He wishes he knew which of them would make things better. The food in front of him only makes him want to retch his insides out.
“I had a lot of nightmares.” When Till looks up, her eyebrows are furrowed and arched up, sheepish. “I still do. It’s like that a lot. No one here doesn’t, I think. You’re not alone.”
As Mizi goes to put it, some moments make themselves easier than others.
For Till, that’s when she tours him through the base. Despite the fact that the more he sees, the more the Rebels seem to be purposeless and at odds, the one place where none of that matters is the archive.
There are many shelves he’s not allowed access to, not yet. That’s just the sort of place the Rebel camp is, somewhere you have to earn your place and others’ trust. He doesn’t mind it though because there’s more than enough books to keep him occupied in the few shelves he’s allowed.
He’s aware that the first books he picks up are significantly below his reading level, which is to say ones fit for a toddler. This gets him a look from the archivist he has to log his borrowed reads with, but he shrugs them off because these books, their covers, are familiar. They resemble the ones back in ANAKT’s library.
When he sits down to read them, he recognizes some stories from his younger years, but they always have bits and pieces that are entirely new to him, sometimes crucial details that complete the stories. Stripped, censored, then, were the versions they allowed back at ANAKT.
Back there, reading was never much his thing; the shadow recognizes that, and he expects it to taunt him for it, but instead, it seems pleased. At least, it quiets down when he flips through the pages. As he reads thicker books, he often stumbles across words and sentences that don’t make sense, concepts that only muddle the more he turns them over in his mind. Some of them are not entirely foreign, but in a world of just humans, ancient to the universe but new to Till, they might as well be. Cultures, their religion, and their diversity are some of those things.
Family is another. Humans as guardians, but not as owners. The more he sees it on paper, the more he sees it amongst the Rebels, those holding children, guiding them, scolding them. A thought that occurs to him every now and then circles through his mind. Eyes that look like his. Hands much bigger than his own, but dainty in nature. Gentle. Warm. Holding his as he lies down on the cold floor. The memory always ends with it all being ripped away. It repeats in his head, foggy. It seems, even in his own imagination, he cannot picture keeping something like that.
Worst of all is the meaning of touching lips –of kissing: loving, affectionate. It makes him want to laugh.
That’s not what it was. That’s not what it made him feel.
(For all that, sometimes, during cold nights, hearing the rain thrumming against his ears and feeling a ghost on his lips, the horror in his gut turns numb, and he's left with something else instead: a question. Of whether they'd been reaching the precipice of something, of what he would've seen if he just looked past the cliff at his feet. But then again, he wasn’t the only one too afraid to look, was he?)
When he’s not engrossed in a new book or playing through riffs in his mind or trailing a few feet behind Mizi, time and his own body are heavy, burdened. These moments are ones he has to make easier for himself despite everything.
For some, that looks like picking up a gun and shooting at a crude cardboard cutout of a Sygien. For others, it’s huddling in circles, drinking, partying.
For Till, it’s when he goes searching for the room where Mizi’s staying.
Him and most Rebels share spacious rooms with creaking beds and dusty sleeping bags. On occasion, people are given rooms in smaller groups, or even individually.
Mizi sleeps in an individual room, originally Hyuna’s —it doesn’t take a genius to guess that. On the door, the name is spelled out in big discordant cutouts of letters, amongst other things and a wanted poster of an infamous “terrorist.”
He didn’t get the chance to see much of her. Only in retrospect, her stories, her pictures, her music. Mizi insists they would’ve gotten along well.
(She even took him to visit Hyuna once. Hyuna had had more beeping monitors around her than Till ever did, as well as an oxygen mask. Mizi sat silently with her head downturned. Fists pressing into her knees.
On the opposite side sat Luka, IV connected to him and an untouched food tray on the dresser next to Hyuna. Luka’s eyes were glued to her face, and his hand laid next to hers, fingers reaching out, almost but not quite touching. He was placid, blank, and nothing like on stage. Still, Till couldn’t say he was happy with Luka’s presence, so despite feeling he had no place to be there, Till couldn’t leave him alone with Mizi, so Till stood by her and did his best not to trip over his trembling feet.)
The first time Till gets lost looking for the door. And when he does find it, he reaches a hand to knock, pulls it back, and runs in the opposite direction.
The second time, he finds his way much easier, albeit stumbling through the dark halls with bleary eyes. He stares at the door from a distance and then walks back. He finds more comfort in just standing by the door instead of gathering the courage to actually knock. Whoever passes by does him the courtesy of ignoring his awkward loitering.
However, by the eighth time or so, as Till starts making himself comfortable against the wall opposite to the door, it opens, and a timid Mizi looks out.
He stiffens, turns to run, pauses, and carefully looks back over his shoulder, realizing that he looks like a total creep.
Mizi sighs, small and full of relief. “I thought it might be you,” she mumbles.
He considers his options: Justification. I wasn’t Spying? That sounds suspicious. The fading shadow hums. Honesty, then. I Don’t want to be alone. Childish. I’m sorry. That just might be all that Till’s good for being.
He holds his silence, and so does Mizi, until she opens her door wider and stands by it, fiddling with her hands, eyes averted to the ground.
Till’s eyes widen, and he takes a step backward. Mizi looks saddened by this.
“Oh. Um. It’s okay,” she says, as usual. “Good night.” As she goes to close the door, Till’s mind flashes back to their shared meal at the cafeteria, to Mizi’s words of “I had a lot of nightmares.
“I still do.”
He hesitates until he feels his shadow grip him by the shoulders, pushing him forward. Till shrugs it off and reaches out.
Maybe Mizi’s not asking for him. Maybe she’s asking because she needs it too. As much as he does. He stutters out noises that don’t quite form words but the message seems to come across, and for once, a new expression is painted on Mizi’s face. Not worried or spaced out but eased.
Something long numb in Till’s chest comes to life once more, but only for a heartbeat.
As they shuffle into the room, Till eyes a tall dusty shelf scattered with books, scraps of music sheets, mistreated instruments. Half of the posters are crooked and placed far apart to cover the long cracks in the walls.
In the corner, there's a neatly made bed, and next to it are two blankets and a pillow. Mizi plants herself there on the floor, knees hugged to her chest, eyes trained on the only source of light: a small barred window.
Till stands in the middle of the room, awkwardly scratching his neck.
“Are you sure you don’t need anything?” she says, voice shaking the way it does most of the time these days. “You’ve been coming a lot…” Did someone outside snitch? “Your shadow! I could see it.” Till looks back at the door and the light filtering from beneath it.
After another long moment, Mizi says, “Hyuna kept me here with her, so now that she’s– Well, I get to stay here now. It’s a bit weird though.” Till nods. Not that Mizi is looking at him to see it.
“Things used to be different,” she says. And they were.For better or for worse, he’s reminded of that at every turn. Though, it didn’t matter in the end anyway. The way things used to be, they were all just livestock.
She turns to pat the bed she’s leaning against. “Get some sleep.” He feels bad. How can he let Mizi sleep on the floor?
“It’s okay.” She keeps saying that, like a prayer, like the chorus to a song, like a broken record. “You need it more than I do.”
From that night on, they form a routine. Till reads, organizes the archive; skips breakfast, lunch, and his prescribed medication; offers ungainly help in the kitchens and often gets kicked out for it. Sometimes, he even entertains the younger children against his will.
Mizi does much of the same, as she’s been banned from combat practice and missions since her last with Hyuna. Mizi often argues with Isaac about one thing or another, filters through plans with Dewey, then finds Till in the cafeteria. There, they share quiet dinners. Mizi opens and closes her mouth a lot, mumbles to herself, but mostly only talks to Till to ask how he’s doing.
After it all, she grabs Till by the wrist –always by the wrist– and leads him to Hyuna’s old room where they both spend nights lying down pretending to sleep, whether it's him or Mizi on the bed, and the other on the floor. Sometimes, despite herself, she encourages Till to try out the instruments on Hyuna’s shelves. Then, right after, she leaves the room while he considers it. The noise, she justifies. Till knows it’s more. Music may have been for him a means of freedom under tyranny, but for others raised in ANAKT, it was the very shackles.
It’s not until Mizi has to leave for a mission that he actually considers her suggestion. Most Rebels congratulate her. After all, her ban’s been lifted, and now, she can make up for her mistakes whatever that means.
Throughout the whole thing, Mizi looks utterly distraught. She asks Till if he needs anything, reminds him to keep the communication radio in their room turned to a specific station, asks if he needs anything, reassures him that she’ll be back soon, and asks if he’s sure he doesn’t need anything.
He’d be lying if he said Mizi’s concern wasn’t flattering. If not a little discomfiting. A reminder of his incompetence. He’s supposed to be the one protecting her, not the other way around.
Nonetheless, Mizi’s absence is felt and shamefully lamented by Till. He does finally, pick up the beaten recorder on Hyuna’s shelf. Tuning it with a stray nail on the floor is a task. He spends most of his time curled up in the archive. The archivist, for their part, is not so bad. They’re quiet, and they recommend Till good books, and for what it’s worth, they are enough company to keep his daunting shadow at bay. They once spot him with the recorder and guide him to a small storage room full of instruments in much better condition.
He bites the insides of cheeks. Mizi hadn’t shown him this room. Regardless, when he finally manages to tune the recorder, he opts for one of the guitars– Acoustic. He prefers electric, but he’s not going to be picky about it. It’s a temporary thing anyway. He cannot imagine picking it up once Mizi’s back.
Leading up to D-Day of the mission team’s return, the camp is bustling. It’s overwhelming, and halfway through, he recedes into the nearest dark hallway. He plans to only take a moment there, but it must be much longer because the next thing he knows he’s face-to-face with Mizi.
Excited and with purpose, she grabs Till, leading him through the halls. It’s sudden. No greeting. He doesn’t have the time to fully register her face caked in dirt and the bits of Sygien blood crusted on her vest.
She walks right past their room and through an unfamiliar stretch, adjacent to Hyuna’s current ward. As they go further, the ceiling lights become scattered lanterns on the floor and then nothing at all. The walls grow more cracked and then into bare bricks. Till’s about to tug her for answers when she abruptly stops, turns to him.
He looks past her to a spacious tiled area of the building, beyond deteriorated. There are traces of ripped, broken furniture that’s twice his size. In the corner, a staircase has given out on itself with boulders piled up where steps should be. It’s lined with a shabby fence of dying, potted plants. There are weeds growing out of the walls, or at least, what’s left of them.
Half of the room’s walls are gone, broken down, with the remains of a balcony just past one of them.
“They were talking today during the mission.” She slips her hand off of his, brings it to twist the short ends of her hair. “About a meteor shower.” He furrows his brows in curiosity, but he’s not about to seem stupid and ask what that means. “Most of them watch it on the roof or behind their windows, but I saw this place from the outside.”
She looks around before walking up to the balcony. “It seemed nice. It looks right out into the sky.” Of course, only Mizi would think that, would find beauty in a decrepit place, find a window to the stars where there is only a broken wall. As she had found life worth saving where there was only Till.
He tiptoes behind her, and when he catches her eyes, they have a shine which reminds him of entirely better days.
“Till,”–His name doesn’t stop sounding strange falling so easily from her lips–”do you believe in God?”
His breath hitches. He’d been asked this question before. Ridiculous, he’d called it, and it was. He doesn’t. Never has. He believes in people, in himself, in what he could make. He cursed out the soulless music of the Great ANAKT, rebelled with his own notes and took his beating for it with pride. For the Gods that fill the pages of the books he now reads, if they ever did exist, they have long forgone the world he lives in.
However, Mizi’s eyes, their shades of yellow flickering into orange and burning fiercely, tell him she’s talking about something that is beyond him.
“I do.” She smiles then, and Till doesn’t realize just how much he’s missed the sight until she does. It’s not quite the one he’s used to. But she tries, he thinks. Forces the corners of her mouth to twitch up all lop-sided and strained. It looks a bit painful. But genuine.
“And I’m going to bring her back.”
Before he can think more of what she says, something bright shoots overhead, startling him. When he looks up, the sky is spitting balls of fire against its red. They multiply in seconds, vary in sizes, and choke him with memories and pain and heat and the overbearing presence of a shadow that’s now more of a solid figure.
The world becomes a blur of flames, and then so does everything else before Mizi looks at him, and they both realize he’s crying. First, it’s just a few stray tears that brim over, then a quick descent into gasps of air, sobs, painful mumbles –a name– that scrape his injured throat raw.
Meteor shower. None of the books back in AKANT or in the archive had taught him that phrase, despite spending half his life looking for it.
The days after, Till and Mizi don’t talk about that night, each for their own reasons. Both can tell that things aren’t quite the same but still do their best to fall back into their duties, salvaging their old routine.
There are nights where Till doesn’t sleep in the same room, or does but wakes up somewhere else. Days where Rebels complain about his absence, his lack of succour, or give him an earful and direct him to the med bay. To which, he proceeds to walk off in the opposite direction.
“You need to get better and earn your keep,” Dewey reminds him. Till nods and disappears anyway.
When he’s asked Where to? He shrugs his shoulders.
This is a familiar state for him, where his body is no longer his own, where he’s one place then the other. His body is so used to pulsing with whatever grime the Sygien pumped into him that it must have forgotten how to do anything without it.
Sometimes he’s sure he’s finally woken up from this decrepit fantasy of escaping with Mizi, and he’s back in the experiment rooms, back to the constraints and the unrelenting watchful eyes, and he feels a sickening sort of relief. Then, he actually wakes, clinging onto a guitar in the instrument room. Or passed out in some hall. Or–
His eyes snap open to Hyuna’s room cascading with thin streaks of light. This is a rarer destination for him these days.
The air is hot, against his icy, aching body. His mind and heart race sickeningly. He turns his head, tries to swallow the coughs surfacing in his throat. He tastes bile and blood.
Somewhere below are strands of pink hair. He frowns and edges off the bed to see Mizi huddled on the floor, hugging the ends of her pillow. Her eyebrows are knitted, and she keeps mumbling, though it’s barely audible.
Till’s fingers twitch, reaching towards her balled fist. He pokes it with a finger, and it tightens in return. Carefully, hesitantly, he pries her hand open, placing his on top. Mizi’s hand closes over loosely. She quiets down, but her expression remains pinched. Giving her a quick squeeze, Till lets go and gets out of bed.
He begins dragging his feet through a familiar path, passes Hyuna’s ward, follows the lanterns with his eyes glued to the hand that had soothed Mizi’s just a moment ago.
Till was never one for kind gestures.His shadow, once rewarded by him in blood and bruises, croons in confirmation.
Mizi, especially, he had kept his distance from because drawing blood from her was the last thing he wanted, and it was the only thing his hands knew how to do.
When his feet halt instinctively, his eyes flick up.
He shivers under the cold breeze. His coughs are spears ripping through his lungs, but he can’t bring himself to care much anymore. There’s a thick fog following his train of thought. The weight of his heart makes him think it’ll drop out of him any moment now.
He looks down, by the opening to the balcony, at a round rock. It’s a little taller and much more uneven than the ones back in ANAKT, but it looks similar enough. On top of it is a red flower. Or, once again, as close as Till could get. It was one of the weeds he’d picked out of the walls. It looks more brown, and it’s probably still alive, with the way it clutches around whatever’s in reach. But it’s a flower, nonetheless.
The back of his nape is damp with frosty sweat, his breaths, labored.
He touches the rock, wincing at the rough texture against his dry skin. He’s not sure when he made this imitation of a grave. He’s not sure what it’s supposed to fix. But when he sits by it and closes his eyes, he hears the distant sound of children running. Of his own puny yells. Of robust laughter.
When he opens them again, parts of the room are translucent neon fields of grass, waning in and out of his vision. He can see his own grey-green hair pressed against prim black bangs. He sees small weak shoulders grow much taller and broader than his.
What remains of the room’s walls is covered in stars. The stars look like sharp pupils. Blood. Tears.
Through half-lidded eyes, he pulls his attention away from it all back to the rock, to the shadow over it, to the face that’s been haunting his dreams, his nightmares, and his every waking thought.
Ivan curls his hand over Till’s and smiles, the corners of his mouth stained with blood. His stupid tooth presses against his shaking lips.
That’s not what Ivan’s smiles are supposed to look like. They are even, perfected– At times, teasing or smug. He looks to the ghosts of their younger selves, then back to Till.
I don't want to die, Ivan’s creased, teary eyes say.
Idiot, Till thinks, you're already dead. He balls his fist. And for me.
He’d seen it. Seen Ivan’s eyes flickering to the scoreboard. Seen the triumph as his hair got doused by the rain and his hands circled TIll’s throat. He didn’t understand then, but enough mulling it over, and for the first time in a while, Till feels smouldering rage, and it feels good, miles better than the numbness he's grown accustomed to, than the haze, the hurt.
He scrapes his nails against the rock.
Why? he wants to ask.
Ivan gives the same smile, slanted, unpracticed but not cruel. Just small and scared. Till watches, breathless, with beads of sweat burning his cracked lips.
Knowing the brutish bastard, taunting isn’t out of the question, nor is morbid curiosity. Maybe one last-ditch effort at rebellion. Or, like everything else he did to annoy Till, it was just a whim. The thought makes Till scoff.
He thinks he’s about to get an answer when Ivan’s mouth moves, but no words come out.
His smile widens, and he leans in, curls over Till’s body. Instinctively, Till lifts a hand to push him away, then flinches, and pulls it back. He doesn’t want to test whether it’ll land on Ivan's shoulder or go right through. Instead, he brings his knees up to his chest and rests his pounding forehead on them, and shuts his eyes as tight as he can.
The bubbling anger in his chest dies down too fast, and now, he’s left with an empty sentiment.
We should’ve been together.
That’s how it had always been, as much as Till hated it, bled for it.
When he blinks open his eyes, his face is aching, and he’s beneath Ivan who’s smiling maniacally. They’re barely ten, their limbs are short and weak as they exchange blows. This time, it seems they’ve scuffled violently enough to make their nearby peers cry.
Then, they are older, knees knocking against one another. Till’s curled up on Ivan’s bed, under the covers, tucked against Ivan’s chest. He’s just run away from one of his drug trials, and he can hear handlers shuffling outside. So, he quietly ignores Ivan nuzzling against the top of his head.
Then, smaller again, he is young enough to be bent over stomped flowers, encouraging them to straighten up their stems. Ivan, sitting across from Till, says something dumb. He always says something dumb.
Then, they are hiding behind a tree –hiding from the watchful flowers, as Ivan’s crazed whispers had explained. Though it would not be difficult to find them with the way they’re shouting over each other. Till fails to follow the proper instructions to unlock Ivan’s collar, as he has been repeatedly for the last few minutes. The collar sends an electric jolt through Ivan. Till clenches his jaw at the deep purple bruise it leaves. Ivan laughs heartily.
Then, finally, dreadfully, they stand under a bleeding sky, its shades of crimson smeared by endless flashing lights. He watches his hand let go of Ivan, hesitates, and turns around about to run before stopping. He brings his fist up to where his heart pounds against his ribs.
When he looks up, the sky, and the rest of the world, has quieted, paused. The meteor shower hangs motionless above their heads.
Till has spent most of his days trying to get anything sensible out of Ivan and failed at every turn. Even in death, he has to be some convoluted enigma. And then, he has to come back and haunt Till for it like it was ever his fault.
Hesitantly, with bated breath, Till looks over his shoulder. He’s relieved to see Ivan still there, even if his bangs cover his eyes and the rest of his features look blurred. He stands still. Slowly offers his hand again.
Till turns back, both hands now balling up the fabric of his shirt. He gnaws the skin off his lower lip, sniffles wetly. Just past Ivan is an opaque darkness, where they had been headed.
Till takes a step, arm outstretched, brushes his fingers against Ivan’s.
This is where Ivan had offered to leave, and Till had, selfishly, chosen to stay. It’s no wonder, then, that Ivan left all on his own.
But not this time, not if Till can help it.
Light streams from behind him, and he tumbles back. Cheeks warm, he turns to see Mizi’s small figure glowing, long hair framing her wide smile and large glasses.
When he slowly blinks, her glow fades, and instead of a young, bright girl stands a weary short-haired woman with a scabbing cut on her cheek.
When Till looks down at himself, his short, awkward limbs are gone, replaced by a sickly adult body. Guilt taints the blood in his veins, and it’s a thick, heavy thing.
For a moment, he glances back at Ivan, but he’s the same, scrawny child. Faceless. Waiting.
Mizi, on the other hand, watches him with pleading eyes.
At a standstill, she’s the first to take a step.
When he wakes up, it’s with piercing pain coursing through his body in jolts. He’s on the floor, blood dripping out of his nose and some threatening to climb out of his throat. He spits it, along with some vomit, onto the floor before pushing himself up and clambering, staggering, running as fast as he can.
He passes strewn lanterns, sees neon grass and red, glaring flowers line the path by his feet. They flicker into ceiling lights, then everything looks like a dark room, restraints, and Urak’s fists. He shuts his eyes on impact and opens them just past Hyuna’s ward, blinks and is being crowded by ANAKT handlers.
Painful tears blur his line of sight and then wash away to Hyuna’s bedroom door in the distance. Fighting back ragged breaths of relief, he reaches for it.
The first thing he hears is screaming. It’s loud. Blaring.
He looks for Mizi. She’s awake, but she looks just as shocked.
He hears it again. Then, he realizes he can’t breathe.
Mizi gets up, slowly, approaching him. She’s talking, he realizes. There are others rushing into the room, as shouts rip themself out of his tired, drowning lungs.
Then, something is in Mizi’s hand— pointy, shining. She calls his name as he backs himself up against a wall.
He’s shaking his head in between gasps. He’s back in the restraint chair, with his mouth collared shut, has tubes of unknown drugs being injected into his arms and neck. Faintly, he sees a glowing light, his savior. And then giant sharp hands and clipboards.
As they get closer, Till flails, grasping onto them as hard as he can, ready to attack. Then, it’s pink hair tightly laced in his fingers, his eyes widen at the sight of Mizi, wincing with her hair in his hand.
Before any other thought could spur his deteriorated mind, a sharp pain sears into his neck, spurting through his veins. Everything shrinks into a speck as his entire body stiffens then relaxes, his pupils growing big and hollow.
All the while, Mizi carefully undoes her hair, soothing his neck where she’d plunged the needle. She hushes his choked sobs like she would a child, pressing their foreheads together as it all fades out.
When he opens his eyes next, he’s back sitting on a bed in the med bay.
He shakes his head. Gradually, he can recall the moments leading up to now: being led by Mizi and a pair of nurses, being dressed, being checked for wounds. He wasn’t exactly asleep but not awake either. He recalls it all from a distance, as if he were a spectator. His throat burns from screaming and his reopened injury. He reaches up to feel his neck and frowns at the thick wet bandages.
Getting closer, just outside the door are loud, contending voices. Cursing then— “There’s a reason Hyuna didn’t count him in!”
Mizi’s voice yells intelligible words back, louder than he’s heard it in weeks.
Then, she bursts in through the door. Isaac, behind her, stares at Till strangely. TIll glares in kind.
Mizi’s anger flickers as she rushes up to him and grabs his wrist, pressing her thumb down. He follows her gaze to the monitor to his side, moving in tandem with his heart’s drill in his chest. Grip firm, she falls back into a chair and buries her face in her other hand.
In between blinks, he can still see the meteor shower etched into his vision, and he wavers.
If he were someone else, if he were someone who had caught fish in the river with Mizi, or someone who had napped with her against trees, he might know what to do now. He might know how to bring back the smile that had shone in those moments, if he were ever the reason for it.
Just then, behind her, he sees a silhouette, a shadow, Ivan's silhouette, Ivan’s shadow, dressed in his ANAKT uniform. He leans over and loosely wraps his arms around her. He brings one up to pat her head before pulling away. Till remembers moments like this, hugs and piggy back rides exchanged between Mizi and Ivan back in the garden. Till’s not sure what he feels watching this flickering image now, what he felt then. Yearning or jealousy or desperation.
In a moment, Ivan’s shadow is in a far corner, tilting his head curiously, smiling.
Till’s hands shake as he reaches out for Mizi’s shoulder, pulls her a little closer. He holds her all stiff and awkward– it can’t really be called a hug. He feels an immediate need to let go, to run, to disappear entirely, but Mizi’s head falls onto his chest, so he stays, shuts his eyes. When he opens them next, Ivan is gone.