A Little Empty Attic (Solo)

The clock on the wall crept its way towards morning, and a slim figure slumped against the wooden desk in the guest room, cheek resting lightly on a half-finished drawing. Graphite smudged her cheek and pale hair, leaving little lines on her pale skin, but she didn't move to clean them. After days of fighting sleep, it final crept up in these wee hours and claimed her, taking hold of her mind, and filling it with the sounds of memories.

“You think that it’s that easy? You really think that it’s that easy?! Sam could have killed himself to save you and yet here you are.” A furred hand clenched the front of her shirt, pressing her back into the brick wall. Her legs couldn't reach the ground, and the snarling maw was too close for comfort...

Her brow frowned, her shoulders shifted, memories trailed onward and melted into new images.

"Your luck will run out sometime, and you'd better have some decent friends to save you when it does." The figure warned. The face was shrouded by darkness, but there was a shape somewhere between man and beast beneath the dark hood. The eyes looked out, cold with their warning, and she pushed aside the concern...

Warnings... Warnings she hadn't listened to. Signs she should have noticed. There were plenty of voices in her head trying to guide her. So many voices, she didn't know what to follow.

“One should generally listen to the voice of reason, that’s why there is reason in the first place. To, you know, follow it rather than blunder along.”

Perhaps she was just doomed to blunder.

Perhaps she was just cursed to never forget.

Sherlock Holmes had once said: “A man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.” But Sherlock Holmes, as much as she was compared to him, was not Evelyn Summers, and she did not have this luxury. Her mind was full to the brim, constantly trying to expand and contain what was there. It was something that seemed useful to a point, but eventually grew to haunt her, especially in the wee hours of the night.

Evelyn's brain was not an attic. It was a computer, with thousands of files and folders, boxes and containers where information was stored. Night after night, her mind de-fragmented all this information, sorted it, rearranged it, and made room for more. Dreams were nonexistent: there was no room for dreams in all that chaos. There were just halls, rooms, endless trails of experiences that replayed in her head. Every sensation came back, every pain, every tear. There was no little empty attic. And nowhere to hide from the images that found her.

For a moment she seemed to just be hovering in the air as Evelyn closed her eyes and braced herself for impact. Then the claws hit her arm and shoulder, and a cry of pain escaped her mouth. Each claw felt like a knife stabbing into her skin, the weight and momentum ripping through skin. Her echoes couldn't pinpoint where the claws moved, shock settling in and leaving her in numb bewilderment. Then a new sensation took over.

Falling....

Fear, pain... Her shoulders shuddered, her hands clenched the pencil in her hand, knuckles white under the bandage covering her fist.

Falling....

"You are spoiled, annoying, childish, and I have absolutely no clue why everyone seems to think that we should have anything to do with each other!"

Falling.

The tip of the pencil dug into her palm, but it wasn't enough to wake her. The playbacks kept going, tumbling her thoughts as the memories repositioned themselves.

She tumbled to the pavement, asphalt tearing where her shirt wasn't already torn by claws.

Fear.

"You are a mysterious young lady in your own right and it would be a pleasure to see what other mysteries await discovery."

Flattery.

"When all this is over, I'll take you into any movie you want."

Confusion.

"You've done well."

Regrets.

The pencil broke the skin, and she woke with a start. Images continued to process through her mind, trying to settle into place. Letting go of her artwork, she crept over to bed, and curled up on top of the comforter. She pressed her forehead against her knees, and tried to find the empty little attic she was missing.

She was reckless. Her sense of danger was twisted and it got her into messes she never should have been in. She was outspoken, and said things that hurt people without meaning to. She tried to blame the echoes, but wondered if it was just herself. There were plenty of people trying to help her, but she wandered around, directionless, stumbling where she may. Jensen had left. Jensen who was like a father, like her only friend. Now there was no one to help deal with her confusion.

She stared at the back of her hand where blood crept through the bandages. She tried to forget painful words. She tried to forget useless emotions. She tried to forget everything: cat-mutants, sewer monsters, vigilantes and knights. Especially knights. She tried to throw all the furniture out from her mind, and stared at the fresh blood on her palm where the pencil stabbed her. No matter how hard she tried, when she closed her eyes, they kept coming back.

She didn't have an empty little attic like Sherlock Holmes. All she had were memories, and problems she could not solve.