The Void 3 - Ashfall

Impossible but functional. Not my words. No brain to think them. No tongue to speak them. And yet, even dispersed at my widest, they are there. Words. Thoughts. 

Impossible.

Not really. I exist. I think. I speak. I change. I'm not impossible; the natural laws of the world just never took something like me into account. But I exist, so the laws need to change. 

Can I trust them? The scientists circling the Rangers, subjects, and projects both. Does it matter? It will if I want to walk that path. And if I don't, what am I doing here? Risking myself to help people? Without insurance, I'll be in trouble if I'm badly hurt.

Unless Charge bails me out again.

Baggage. I'm riding the electric fields; no need to move, just cling. Truly baggage now. Or protection. Or a weapon. The static charge tickles, no, no skin anymore, but it's close enough. Like a rash. The urge to scratch. The urge to lash out. I will restrain myself for as long as I can.

The sensation burns along my nerves, but I can't scream. Or, if I do, there's nobody around to hear me. It's not pain, not exactly. Not in this form. Words for senses fail me, just like words for body parts. Am I destroying myself every time I shift? Am I restoring myself every time I reform? What do I bring with me?

What would the scientists do if I told them my body comes back whole? The bullet hole healed? I haven't dared to tell them. There are limits to the freedom my association with the Rangers gives me.

Association. Maybe I should make the jump. Join. Become indispensable. That's a protection of sorts. Useful. Sidestep would laugh. They've got a point. I'm naive, but less so by the minute.

Hard to stay naive in this line of work. If you keep your eyes open. Can't exactly do that now. I used to joke that I was nearsighted in my ash form, but that's not true. Not exactly. It's not sight. Not touch. Just sensation. Part electrical fields, I can sense their pull on me as clearly as the noonday sun. That's why Charge is useful. Lodestone. Anchor. Magnetic fields too, for direction, for north and south. The rest, I feel. Stretch myself thinner, particles dancing around winds, around surfaces. People breathe. Their skin is sticky. No detail vision, no colors. 

It will be easier indoors; out here, I am blind until I feel them. A disturbance in my field. In my body. Yes. No friends here, so I finally let go and release the charge that had been building. Finally scratching that itch. 

Lightning. It tickles less than the charge, a sharp rip, like staring at the sun, licking a blade.

I can't smell the ozone. I can't smell the burnt flesh. Can Charge? Probably not through the filter. Are they dead? Are they boosted? I don't know the answer to either, and Charge moves on, and I feel walls surround me. Good. Borders. A space. I tense and breathe, taking stock as doors open and people enter my embrace. Charge discharges, and I amplify, reflecting the lightning through my body into theirs. Grounded. 

They breathe me as they fall.

The first time, I threw up as I changed back, but now I only pull myself together tighter, trusting Charge to lead us right. Down. Cramped. I can feel the walls as I press against them. Feel the steps as I surge downwards, roiling black. I imagine. I've seen pictures. I'm coating Charge by now. Sticking to the suit.

Not bare skin. Intimate. Rather not think about that.

How long can I hold this? Charge asked me as we tested. As we planned. Long enough, I said. Long enough to get the job done. Couldn't very well tell the truth. Holding it is not the issue; changing back is what is.

This feels good. Too good. Fire tears at my body and does nothing. No. Not nothing. Feels good. Like inhaled smoke. I can sense it. Fire in the shape of a woman. Holding it inside. Holding so much inside. There are others, but she is mine. Charge is burnable, and I am not. And it is so warm in there.

So wet. Inside. What would happen if I crawled deeper and solidified? What would it do to me? Would it hurt? Would I... like it? Would I want to do it again?

She faints before I am tempted to find out.

Electricity flares on the outskirts of my body, and I tear myself from the fallen and back to Charge. More bodies. Unmoving. Steel promised no civilians would be present. I wish I could trust him. I have no choice but to.

A scream? Like all sounds, it echoes strangely more vibrations than urgency. Charge is running. I cling to the current like a cloak, no roiling before now. Too fast. Clinging to the slipstream. Relax. Wait until there is a pause. Until there is a pause.

Until...

I don't see color, but I do. 

Green. 

Electricity fills me as Charge surges forward. Into the green. I fill the room with lightning. Impossible to survive.

I am not the only one that is impossible.

There is. Light? Light.

There is light, and it touches me. Not my body. Me.

I didn't know I was a me. Not like this. In my body, people are fighting. In my body, Charge is losing. With my body, I am stretching. Amplifying. Choking. But... 

There is a hand on my cheek in the vast reaches of my self. A hand of light warmer than what I could become. I can't help but think it's beautiful.

"Beautiful," it whispers back, a Cheshire mouth of smiles and teeth. "Oh, what are you?"

Everything is distant now as the hand is touching (not touching) me. Me. The smile grows wider, grows a face, and the hand grows a body.

She's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, filling my sight in ways the world can't. Senses I never knew I had spring into bloom. And yet...

"Yes," she says, her other hand now on my other cheek, my face more real than the world, heavier than the solar system. "I'm your enemy. This should be hurting."

"It doesn't." Cheeks and a mouth between them, and eyes to see her and tongue to speak.

"Birth should come with screaming," she says, and I have ears to hear in this moment between breaths. Between blows. "Why aren't you?"

"Do you want me to?" I reach out, and I have hands to touch. Fingers to run through her hair, a tingle of energy less kind than electricity. If I tugged it, could I blow up the world?

"Yes," she admits, pulling herself closer in ways that regular physics can't contain. "If it isn't paid for, it can't be trusted."

"I've paid." My forehead touches hers. A spark. A connection. Why could I never see this before? This way? "In a different way."

"Then tell me," she says, opening her third eye, looking at my scattered form. "You won't lie to me."

"I won't." I am nothing compared to her, but I am using her gaze to make me whole, like I've used everyone else. Charge. Sidestep. Filling in the world in this body where senses are muted. Lodestone. Mouth and eyes. And with her...

With her...

Oh Lord, what is she? 

"Void," she whispers, mouth into mouth. "The beginning." Her eye inside my mind and the world fit together in ways it never had before. "You're mine now."

"I love you," I say, and it's not a lie. How could it be when she is the first to truly see me? "But I'm not yours." A breath is not a breath. "That's the price I pay."

And then I shift. I tear myself from this place between places, out and back, directions true once more. I land hard, on stone, naked skin and goosebumps. Back up the corridor, behind a corner. Out of sight. I hear, with my ears, vibrations in the air. Charge goes down with a soft groan. They won't kill them. I know this.

I know it would be kinder if they did.

But I can't help. 

I don't dare to shift back, so instead, I run. On bare feet, on stone floors. Up winding stairs. I need to get up. Fast.

I need to get help. 

I need to get to Sentinel.