[FP] Finale (open to solo posters)

((OOC: Continued from [FP] Warhead.))

May 31, 2019, 23:40

There was nothing for miles except briny ocean... Briny ocean and Jude. The water lapped at the dingy in soft shoves, but they were anchored here. After they had reached their quota of approved Operators, the Controlled Burn elite had been shipped out. Literally. Each Operator and Controller had been dropped off in a dingy by helicopter and then rowed to the exact GPS coordinates that the Research Department had estimated for them.

Ghost was outfitted with a nifty new armband that would automatically deliver the pure sample of Haywire at exactly 00:00 hours of June 1st, 2019. All she had to do until then was relax and ready herself.

"We're going to change the world, you know."

It surprised Ghost that he bothered to talk out loud. In the darkness and complete silence, it had almost felt as if she were some place very private. Jude's voice had shattered that illusion. "I like your moxy, kid." He words were joking, but her tone betrayed her lack of enthusiasm. This was a heavy burden to bear and not knowing the outcome made it all the worse for her nerves.

Everything, every decision she had made in the last nine or ten years had lead her to this point in time. There was nothing more she could do the make this succeed. So she fret over every moment she had missed training or took a break instead of pushing herself. What if it wasn't enough in the end? She imagined her friends in similar situations. The ones who had made it thus far and wondered if she had hugged them hard enough and made her goodbyes properly.

"You're not dying, Ghost. Life will go on after the Gulf Stream is re-instituted." Jude's hands found her narrow shoulders. Funny. Sometimes she could still smell the synthetic plastic smell of her new body. She noticed it now for some reason as Jude kneaded her shoulders.

"Even if this does all work out for the best... in a way, it will be."

Ghost closed her eyes, but the image of Jude's watch haunted her from inside her mind's eye. She got the message. It was time to start emptying herself. The pure Haywire would be injected whether she was ready or not. It was best to be ready.

She followed her training imagining herself a glass, dense glass at the bottom with long and tall sides. Every worry and care filled that glass and was promptly emptied. Slowly and thoroughly she emptied herself of everything and left herself an empty vessel.

Vaguely aware of Jude's lips on her first thoracic vertebrae, she heard his last words before he filled her consciousness like a hand into a glove. "This won't be the end of us."

Click-hisssss.

There was no more world or face or thought or light. Only pain and the burning need to throw her power out and away.

~~~

June 1, 2009, 00:05

The fury of the wind rattled the windows all the way up to the 19th floor. Windows shattered all the way up to the 5th floor for nearly half a block. Trees bowed and lights flickered.

Tornado. It wasn't unheard of in New York, but it was quite rare.

Ghost had been sleeping incorporeally in her office. Her power, unable to break its way out through the plate glass windows had blown out the air conditioning vent she was partially through and she was soon released out into the late New York night. As soon as she was awake enough to realize that there was no Jude directing her actions, the wind abated, depositing a fast solidifying figure onto her knees and elbows on the glass strewn sidewalk in front of the Full Circle.

She sobbed.

It couldn't be true, but it had felt so real. The world, her life, her duty... She felt her still stinging arm for the Haywire module, but it was not there. Lucky New York, it wasn't there. The damage would have been more. Unfortunately for Ghost, most of the damage was internal...

Somewhere in the UK, an 11 year old Jude Coilin woke up in a cold sweat.

It was one of those perfect ends to one of those perfect days. Tarin still couldn’t help but wonder sometimes when he’d transitioned from nomadic scam artist, to content husband to, proud papa, but it had happened, and it seemed quickly. Sure it had actually been 10 years, but that time had flown by, and today had been an almost picture perfect family event.

They’d taken Alice to the zoo again. Now that she was immune to haywire by virtue of having survived it, it was a much less tense situation and they’d thoroughly enjoyed it. That had been followed by a picnic in Central Park, one of Alice’s favorite things because it was in the city. They’d left the park just as the clouds had started rolling in and had made it back to the mansion just as the raindrops started to fall. What had followed had been a night of movies, popcorn and Alice completely removed from anything that could be considered a drawing implement. If Tarin and Lee were still slightly in shocked awe of Alice’s powers, she was thrilled. The only problem was, she’d taken to playing with her own creations more than the other living children around the mansion.

The night had gone off without a hitch, with a lights out screening of the most recent Disney movie to come to blu-ray and popcorn. Alice had been asleep before the first musical number had ended. Tarin had watched the whole thing with Lee…as Alice had grown his love for chick flicks had spread to children’s movies. Some of them really did have touching and humorous storylines after all. By the time the end credits had rolled, Alice was drooling on the couch chusions.

Up Tarin had picked her, watching her face intently as he carried her to bed and tucked her under the covers before he and Lee had gone to bed. That’s where they were now, in fact, and Tarin found that he was probably as tired as Alice had been. It was hard work being a daddy, so 10:30 found a thunderstorm rolling in and Tarin Brooks cuddling with his wife in their room. A particularly bright flash of lightly lit the interior of their room followed almost immediately by a boom of thunder so loud that the window shook in it’s frames. Tarin groaned and sighed, “Three….two….”

knock knock the sound came at the door, which opened not even a full five seconds after the knock. Tarin sighed again, but smiled in the dark at the voice, “Mommy…Daddy…” it came, as small and pitiful as humanly possible, “The thunder is scary…can I sleep in here?”

(This should probably go after Slate's post, but it's all ready to go now, so here it is. I'll repost it after Slate's post is up.)
--

Sebastian had made a mistake. He had believed a young woman when she had said that she would be fine if he kept replenishing the energy within her body as she burned it up to create the illusions she hoped would save the world. She had either lied to him or hadn't known about the negative side effects such an extensive undertaking would have on her mind, side effects that the immortal had no way to heal.

It hadn't taken long to realize that something had gone wrong. She no longer responded to him when he spoke to her, she stared at things that were not there, she flinched at sounds no one else noticed and swayed and hummed along to songs no one else could hear. When she walked she swerved around empty spaces only to run into trees. To Sebastian it seemed as though the child was living in a world separate from the rest of them, reacting to the things in the realm her mind created for her rather than the things that existed around her physical body.

Feeling responsible for her situation, Sebastian had escorted her home to New York City in time to attend the Pax Academy graduation. For a brief moment as he sat next to her waiting for the ceremony to begin, that a glimmer of hope had sparked within the healer that she might be getting better. She had looked right at him as if seeing him for the first time, her eyes saw him rather than something that existed behind him or next to him. She reached out to touch his face, then looked at her fingertips as if trying to decide if what she had felt was real.

Once again she met Sebastian's gaze and spoke directly to him for the first time, “We're all corpses, you know. Even you.”

Sebastian's brow creased, disturbed. He grabbed her hand in his own, “Katrina, what are you seeing? Can you hear my voice?”

Her only response was to look at her own hand. “Rotting away,” she whispered before retreating back into her own private world. Her mind was slipping. It was getting more and more difficult to keep her conscious thoughts above the endless sea of her turbulent subconscious. It would be so much easier to stop struggling. She knew she was sinking, but was the real world any better than this one?

The ceremony was about to begin.

--

Sebastian wasn't saving the world for himself any more. In Australia he had lost hope; he had been ready to give up on everything and retreat to some quiet and unoccupied corner where he could be alone with the memories that were so much more pleasant than the real world. He had found hope again, at the graduation. He had remembered the real purpose of Pax: to build a peaceful world for the next generation.

This world was not his any longer; it belonged to the children. As long as there were children who could learn from the past there was hope. He would do everything in his own power to make sure the youth did not have to sacrifice their lives- or their minds- to make their world livable again, not when there were old and experienced men and women who could take up that burden.

The world had gotten so small. Only a few days after being in the Czech Republic, he had returned to New York City. Now he was in an airport just a few miles outside of St. Petersburg, the newly reinstated capital of Russia. He watched the planes landing and taking off out of the large windows as he rested in one of the seats, waiting for his turn to be checked, double checked, and triple checked by customs officials. The metal flying machines soared almost gracefully, albeit loudly, lifting off and landing with only the aid of metal flaps to replace the functionality of feathers. In the background rose the buildings of the city, gold gilded domes raised high mixed in with the more modern structures.

It was still remarkable to the immortal that people had figured out how to transcend their physical land-bound nature and learned to fly. It had taken thousands of years of dreaming about it before it had become reality. If humanity could struggle that long for flight, perhaps they would eventually learn to live in peace. Perhaps after another thousand years of struggling the dream of world peace could come true too. It was worth waiting around to see it, and even more worthwhile helping it happen a little bit at a time.

In a flash, the vision of the city and the planes disappeared from the window. A newborn sun had landed in the city, and its bright white light mercilessly seared unsuspecting retinas. Before there was a chance to react or even to process the sensation of being blind, a concussive blast hit the airport. The force of the wind scattered the molecules of planes and buildings like they were no more than dust to begin with. The heat was enough to melt sand and reduce rock to ash.

There was no time to feel pain. One moment there existed an ancient and gentle man with a spiral horn growing from his forehead. The next moment, there did not.

No amount of healing could regather the infinitesimal pieces and reform the earthly home of Sebastian's soul, so the spirit simply drifted peacefully into oblivion.

--

Oblivion isn't black.

Oblivion isn't white either.

Oblivion isn't anything.

At least, it isn't anything one can see or hear or taste or touch. Only one sense remains constant, carried over from life whilst the others vanish with one's mortal bonds. The final sense, intensified by the lack of all other senses, is the sense of the connection between souls.

Connections between two souls that are forged during life remain even after death. Some connections are intense, between two souls that bonded deeply in their lifetimes. Other connections are weak, made between acquaintances whose lives may have overlapped but never got the chance to really know each other. There is joy in the bright and strong connections and perhaps just a little regret for the weaker, dimmer ones.

Through these connections, souls share everything that remains of them from life: individuality, personality, emotions, memory, and knowledge. Each soul is beautiful in all its subtle complexities; it is impossible not to find them so, for each one is unique and fascinating. The shared experiences, thoughts, and emotions of a single event made each memory a treasure, a brilliant gem with multiple facets and beautiful from every angle. An entire lifetime of memories to share with loved ones was the eternal reward.

Here, in oblivion, the purpose of living is clear. The purpose is to love. Without love a soul is adrift in nothingness and so fades into nothingness itself.

If only those who were still alive could see the purpose that was so clear after death.

Once finding their place in oblivion, not very many souls go back. There are very few who intentionally sacrifice the peaceful all knowing existence to return to life. Few gave up the joy and love they felt in the afterworld in favor of starting all over again from ignorant nothingness. Even if they would regain the connections they had forged in their previous lives once they returned to death, most were not willing to suffer the loss of their loved ones again, even if they knew it was only temporary.

There was one soul who had done it many times; going back again and again to be with her loved one that could not join them in oblivion. Again and again, she became his daughter, his mother, his neighbor, his brother, his cousin, his lover.

Syrinx.

He noticed the absence of her spirit in oblivion only after he had adjusted to the brilliance of the connections, the crowd of spirits, the overwhelming plethora of love pressing in from the souls of his loved ones across the millenia. One of the important connections didn't lead to anyone. Where is she, he thought. Surely she had to be here. She couldn't have dissolved while she was waiting for him, could she?

Souls didn't laugh by themselves, but several memories of laughter were recalled very vividly by the older souls in his family. Pan felt strange being the young and inexperienced one, for once. Never fear, they assured him, she would be back relatively soon.

He had waited millenia to be with her; he could wait a little longer.