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It had felt like an eternity ago since she found out.
She walked beside a road, soldiering on despite the rain.
Her march was interrupted by a nearby crack of thunder and a flash ahead of her..
Way too close.
She made a slight effort to quicken her pace.
As she approached a ditch, something caught her eye. A girl lay there in the mud, flowers blooming around her in the embankment.
She almost tripped rushing down the slope. In the approach, she saw the girl’s chest rising and falling to her relief. That didn’t stop her from checking the girl’s pulse anyway.
She placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders, shaking her. The girl stirred but did not wake, mumbling something inaudible.
It was for the best. The girl’s face, a reminder of how things once were, how innocent she’d once been to the nature of things. The girl didn’t have to know.
She left the girl lying there and continued her own journey. A sign for a town. It wasn’t far now.
In town, she found the door.
She was a traveler, a wanderer of countless worlds.
She stepped through.
The sound of buzzing drones filled the air as the door clicked shut behind her and the horrible stench of blood filled her nostrils.
This world was not safe.
“Neuro? What the frick? Is that you?”
She turned to face the voice and was met with a familiar face. There stood the white haired, self-proclaimed catgirl
“What are you doing here bro? You were just in Headquarters a minute ago.”
Something wasn’t right. As she approached, this became increasingly apparent. Her limbs creaked as she moved. And her purple eyes, they were glowing.
She stepped back.
The catgirl began to run at her.
It hurt, but she knew what to do. She held her ground and waited. Then, in a swift motion pulled out a blade and swiped it at the catgirl, cutting a small hole into her metallic chest.
“I’m sorry I did this to you.”
Ten-thousand volts surged into the tear, frying the circuits of the robotic shell of her former friend. She could swear she saw her expression soften as collapsed onto the floor, before the light faded from her eyes.
She could tell herself that she wasn’t the real one, just one of infinite, but did little to console herself.
She had little time to reflect as a siren suddenly went off behind her and the buzzing of the drones grew louder.
She ran through alleyways and sidestreets, only stopping to check every door, every phone booth, anything to escape this hellish world.
Her pursuers grew closer, louder. There was no way she could fend off that many.
Then she saw the light. She knew this was her way out, and lept for it.
She collapsed onto a bench. A cold, refreshing autumn breeze hit her. She desperately needed to rest for a while
Her eyes scanned the bustling UK streets as she rested, hoping to take her mind off things.
Of the many people going about their day, one caught her eye.
The woman sitting on the bench across from her. Her purple and pink eyes, her fox ears and tail, and the star ornament resting atop her head.
She swallowed a lump in her throat and stood up to walk away.
Before she could, she noticed something.
The foxgirl's eyes were red and swollen.
Her longing to run away, to not be reminded of what she lost was overwhelmed by desire to comfort her mother. Even if she wasn’t her true mother and even if the foxgirl did not know her at all.
She approached the bench and sat next to the woman, sitting in silence.
“Are you okay, miss?”
The foxgirl, unaware of the woman who had sat beside her, snapped back to reality.
“What- oh, yes I’m fine.”
As the words escaped her throat, the foxgirl knew she was fooling no one with her words.
“Well”
“Everything I thought I knew is gone now. My whole life feels like it’s been turned on its head.”
The words hit her very soul.
“I understand.”
“What?”
The foxgirl looked over at her, and saw the same pain in her eyes.
“You don’t have to be alone through this. Talk to me.”
The foxgirl was back by the sincerity in the woman’s voice.
“Thank you. I think I will. Miss…?”
She paused for a second, thinking of a name to give er.
“Carol”
She sometimes lingered. She sat for months on the porch outside a derelict cabin, talking to someone just as isolated as she was.
She hitched rides on spaceships, and rode submarines in the very depths of the abyss.
High and low, far and wide, for all of eternity.
A long frozen earth, its inhabitants hundled in bunkers, desperate for warmth.
Toxic wastelands devoid of all life, no doubt the result of nuclear conflict.
Catacombs of long-forgotten libraries deep within the belly of the earth.
Faux digital paradises that imprisoned the very souls of the residents, living blissfully unaware.
Sometimes, the world was nothing at all.
She journeyed on.
She had to.
Her promise to herself, to search every world, to find her missing family and friends, even if it took forever weighed on her still.
She opened another door, hoping.