Chapter 1 - Escape

Last Changed on Februrary 8th, 2023

It was that time of evening where the sun no longer had the proper angle to illuminate the whole of the earth. As I watched it grow orange at my side, the shadows of the bare trees and water towers reached back into the structures which cast them, turning the foreground to a silhouette before the sunset. It was as though all of the color in the world was bleeding into the sky.

At some point, a new balance would be found, and everything would be exactly as dark. But for now there was contrast.

The birds had begun to sing again as they traveled northward back home. They were no exception to the sky's thirst for color, themselves shadows passing overhead, with only a few calls to let me know they weren't simply puncture wounds in the lights. I hadn't even noticed the birdsong was gone when I'd stopped in the midwest. Temperature didn't bother me so much any longer, but I still hated the memory of cold. With March wearing thin, I had it in me to enjoy the gentle reminder that the worst of it was over.

As I walked, the trees began to disperse, and the evidence of civilization faded further and further into the distance. The seemingly omnipresent hum of cars began to drift beneath the breeze. I stepped off the paved trail and onto a dirt one, still speckled with decaying fallen leaves. Hardly touched since the autumn. My feet sunk into it, the path seemingly not having quite yet dried from the melted snow. That was two different seasons, lingering upon it.

My next steps didn't fall quite so deeply, the breeze picking up in a column beneath me to carry the weight of my steps. I commanded it to fan out once it reached my waist so it didn't blow my shirt all over the place. I didn't have too many of those, and I didn't want them to get wrinkled, since people might think my mom didn't take care of me.

The trees continued to grow less prominent as the scene turned from that of a forest trail to that of a lakeside one, following a segment of land that slowly slanted to a point before crossing a stream that came from the lake and ran off into the woods. At the very end was a quaint wooden bridge, with a bench just before it facing the lake. If one sat there, they'd see the bridge on their periphery, with the majority of of the lake laid clear. It was well-placed. And, with the way things had felt walking through the trail, the idea that somebody left something for me felt strange. The trails were a necessity, not a touch like that- not made by someone who so obviously loved this place.

The sun, the shadows, the lake, the bridge, and the bench. I remembered walking to places like this back in Fairbanks, where you'd turn a corner on the path, and you'd run forward to get a better look, and the scene tore the cold off of your face and out of your bones for a little while as you stopped and stared. But the cold just didn't weigh me down like that anymore. The view was neither refuge nor reward.

So I didn't pause, and I walked up to the bridge with the same old steps I’d gotten there with. I glanced at the bench. I wouldn't fit. But the bridge was thankfully wide enough for me, if only just. My hands felt across the guardrails and I stopped in the center, turning around carefully, feeling the wind blowing around my legs and waist surge for just a moment.

I stared at the lake, and I could tell you all the details, I could tell you of the flashing light on the opposing shore or the single tire in the water or the spark of gold ignited between the falling sunrays and the placid waters. But I wouldn't have anything interesting to say. You'd get as much looking up a picture of a lake at sunset. Because, to me, in that moment, that's all it was.

I wasn't standing there. I mean, I was, but I couldn't have been. Whatever I saw felt like nothing more than a nice computer background. Whatever I was in that moment was nothing as significant as being.

I wasn't there.

I let go of my Aspect, and the wind supporting me disappeared. There was a single loud crack that immediately split into dozens, and both of my feet sunk into the bridge before it snapped between them. Large portions of either side of it were simply uprooted, but plenty of planks from the floor and rails fell loose during the split. I fell for a moment before I remembered the tablet in my pocket, and the air formed around my back and beneath me as a cushion, while hundreds of splinters of wood sunk down into the lake. The two intact ends of the bridge began to slide in as well, after some time.

I laid back with my head nearly upside down, staring back at the sky, letting my hair fall into the water without concern. The part of the sky I was looking at was such a rich, deep navy. I think the most I'd ever wanted something up to that point was right there in that moment. With the whole of my being, I wanted to let myself sink into the water, all the way to the bottom, and watch the wood from the bridge slowly fall like poorly-made paper planes around me. I thought about what that would look and feel like.

It would've felt like the stars I'd seen one day with Morgan.

-

He and I had been walking through New Mexico, and, as people often did in the desert, we got lost. We came across a rickety abandoned shack at night, right in the middle of nowhere. No paths leading to it, nor any away from it. A sandy floor and square holes for windows, complete with a roof without an overhang, making the shack essentially cubical. Morgan suggested we stay there so we didn't have to set up a tent that night, and I'd agreed. But, after we'd pulled out our sleeping pads and blankets, I'd decided to go outside. At first, it was just to take a piss, but then I looked up.

By then I had seen stars like that more than a few times. Morgan hadn't- he couldn't exactly 'see' much of anything. The fact that he'd killed a monster despite that should tell you everything you need to know about the kid- he barely escaped from some reality-warping creature taking the form of an old building, beaten and bruised. And went back the next day with a knife, empty glass bottles, and branch cutters. He came out of it without a new scratch and with a dead monster. Spent the next few weeks practicing his hearing and trying to learn to see before more detail on Aspects came out. Oh, yeah- this was before the public even knew that monsters had begun to appear.

Anyway, the point is he could do a lot of things I couldn't, but he didn't particularly care about any of those things compared to being able to see. But when I looked up at that box-shaped house, I wondered if I could help him see what I saw. Sometimes the stars were about their beauty. Other times, they were just a part of the moment.

I laid with my feet touching the wall and the back of my head against the sand, and I waited for him to come out and ask what the hell I was doing.

"You'll get your hair all sandy," he said to me.

"Wanna get yours sandy too?" I asked in return. He laid down with his feet against the wall on the other side of the door

We laid there for a minute.

"So what are you doing?"

"Same thing you are," I teased. He groaned. A few seconds passed.

"What are we doing, then?"

"Standing on a ledge,"

I imagine Morgan looked confused after I said that, but he never did me the courtesy of turning his head to show me.

"We're standing on a ledge facing out to the stars," I elaborated, "With the whole of the Earth at our backs,"

"Nope," he said, quickly, "I don't see it,"

"It's in my head as much as yours. Don't see it, try n' feel it,"

A couple seconds later, down became back and up became forwards. My stomach dropped for a split second. I couldn't help but glance at Morgan, and I couldn't quite see his face. He had already begun to walk up the wall.

I tentatively stepped in line with him and we inched up the wall on our feet. I knew the rules- if I did something unexpected, Morgan's Aspect would fail, and I'd fall to the ground.

"When'd you learn to do that?" I asked as we made it to the ceiling.

"Just now,"

"How about that, huh?" I laughed, "Just a slight change of angle and I feel like a fucking astronaut,"

I gazed out at the clear sky, no cloud nor moon in sight. It felt like standing on a dock, with the up and down of water currents replaced with the spin of the earth causing the stars to rotate a few inches at a time.

"Hey, when we hopped that train to Canada, you could point out all the constellations, right? Which ones are out there right now?" I asked.

"Just a bit below our feet and to the left, there should be a particularly bright star," he said, without hesitation. He was already visualizing the stars. "Can you see it?"

He pointed toward where he described. I picked out the closest star. Even if I was wrong, there were so many of them in the sky that I figured I'd be able to trace out any constellation I wanted to anyway.

"...let's say I do,"

He grumbled, so I started seriously looking out for it, but I didn't find a better star to bet on.

"Oh, hey, actually. I think I do see it,"

Morgan snorted.

"I don't believe you,"

I rolled my eyes, pointlessly.

"Just tell me which one you were trying to point out. I can use my phone to look it up or something,"

"Betelgeuse. Brightest star on Orion, makes up his left shoulder,"

I pulled out my phone and looked up a diagram.

"How'd they get a hunter out of this? Even saying that's a man is kind of a stretch. Looks more like a dress than anything," I laughed, pointing at the constellation like I was gossiping about a classmate.

"The constellations are Greek. It's probably more of a toga,"

"I thought Ptolemy was Alexandrian,"

"I thought Alexandria was in Ancient Greece,"

"Hell if I know," I admitted.

"You could look it up,"

"I could. But they probably both wore togas,"

I leaned backward against my hands and sighed harshly with contentment. Morgan didn't make fun of me, which was the closest to assent that I generally got out of him. Morgan seemed satisfied to stand there in silence. Minutes passed as we bore witness to an unchanging sky in motion.

And then I sat down, dangling my legs over the ceiling of the lonely structure. He sat beside me, granting me an opportunity to start another conversation- the fool.

"Hey, can I ask you a question you've heard a thousand times before?" I asked. I hated to ask to ask a question, it sounded so cliche, but he'd know well the type of question I was referring to.

As if to prove me right, he sighed without a hint of contentment.

"If you're willing to hear an answer I've given just as often," warned Morgan. I didn't hesitate.

"What's being blind like?"

He didn't hesitate either.

"Not everything has to be like something else,"

"That's a good answer,"

"I've had a thousand tries to come up with it, after all."

A lapse.

"Then what did being able to see feel like?"

"Like the world reached so much further. The stars can't be heard nor felt, only seen,"

He'd been asked that before as well, it seemed.

"Or imagined," I corrected, not wanting to bring down the mood.

"I guess," he spat.

We both fell down onto the sand.

After that, every time we reached somewhere I wanted to see, we'd sit there, and I'd tell him about where we were. On the best days I even told the truth. And then, for a time, we could watch the same sky. I always wondered if I was rubbing salt in the wound, but later on he would tell me that those moments was the closest his powers ever came to granting his wish.

-

I stopped remembering. And as I floated there, atop the gentling ripple of the water, I knew that the novelty had worn off. I'd never look at an Aspect with that same sense of wonder again. I'd grown out of it. By now, most people had.

In exchange, I'd traded even mundane moments, like the one I should have been having on the bridge I'd ruined, in exchange for being able to punch a skyscraper down. Without Morgan around, there wasn't much of a point to that. He always saw more in Aspects than I did. I never needed these powers for anything other than being his muscle.

I didn't know what else there was for me to do. I wondered if I'd ruined the parts of life I cherished the most by seeing this journey through. Whatever the case, I was nearing its end.

I saw another bird in the sky making its way home, this one alone. It'd probably drifted from its companions. I hoped it could find them when it made it back. I thought about that bird while I thought about me, and I figured we were in the same place.

Nobody on God's green Earth knew where we were, only where we would end up.

I flicked the moisture off of my arm, sending ripples through the water just as it had begun to calm, before taking my laptop from my pocket and folding the keyboard back around the screen. I had to scroll a fair few names down in my messages before finding the person I was looking for, which stung a bit.

>mindfulselfindulgence: Hey! I don't really have anywhere to go, mind if I stop by your town?

Yeah, I was kind of a dry texter. But I'd heard somewhere that real-life and online social skills were incompatible, so I'd figured out how to hold some pride in it. I didn't know if that was *true*, strictly speaking. But it could have been, and it wasn't like I'd ever find out.

I closed my laptop and watched the sky turn completely dark, not a star in sight, as I drifted off to sleep. I didn't get a text back that night.

-

As far as I know, nobody found me laying on the water.

I woke up to a text back. There was no reason to worry so much that I wouldn't, but something inside me felt as though each of our talks could be our last. We had both been in a very different place when we'd met than we were now.

> Marginalia: neat^^

> Marginalia: when?

She was still online, as she always was, when she wasn't sleeping.

> mindfulselfindulgence: I've had too much going on to make my way over there before, sorry. But I can now! I can be there whenever.

> Marginalia: yeah.

I waited for a minute. I hoped she'd realize I wouldn't respond to that and maybe I could get a little more out of her, but after a minute passed I decided it wasn't worth it. I could always say something if it was a problem. I wouldn't, though, so I shouldn't do anything at all.

I thought about it for a minute. I could be there in a few hours- a dozen or so minutes, even, if I didn't care about being detected. It would be pretty rude to just show up like that, though, especially when she wouldn't argue.

> mindfulselfindulgence: Does three days from now sound ok?

> Marginalia: prolly

> mindfulselfindulgence: What do you mean?

> Marginalia: i live alone so

When did she start living alone? I knew her dad had died and her mom wasn't present, but she lived with her grandfather. I didn't want to keep asking questions to narrow it down, so I called upon Cunningham's Law.

> mindfulselfindulgence: Where'd you move to?

> Marginalia: nah, same house

It was like I'd forgotten how to talk to her, and I couldn't tell if she didn't want to talk about it, or if she just wouldn't unless I asked. I didn't want to risk prying while things were still like that.

> mindfulselfindulgence: Oh, and, before you have me, it's probably important to mention that I'm Aspected. And it's... noticeable, to say the least

> Marginialia: same^^

> Marginalia: not noticeable tho

> Marginalia: it's like what they do in the matrix but with everything

> mindfulselfindulgence: So it's like technopathy?

> Marginalia: hold on

> Marginalia: yeah, it's that

Huh. I wondered what kind of monster she'd killed- she was never the type to do things like that. Although, with an aspect like hers, the monster could've been an inert one. I wondered if maybe she stepped on a bug with an Aspect it had no idea how to use or something. I saved that line of questioning for when I might need a conversation.

> mindfulselfindulgence: Anyway, I was gonna say that my Aspect itself isn't visible, but I was already tall and I used that a lot. I'm like twenty-one foot something now, last time I checked. Might have to sleep in the yard.

I was hoping she'd say something like. 'Not counting inches anymore? You sure you're a guy?', or ask if my dick scaled up too, or even just ask me a genuine question about how I'd used the height. Just, I don't know, I wanted something more than the bare minimum.

> Marginalia: thanks for telling me^^

> Marginalia: my dad had a barn out back

> Marginalia: if you cant fit in the house you can sleep there

I almost didn't want to go. I'd been avoiding it for so long for a reason. I could've done it months ago, I was just hoping things would get better between us. I'd end up doing it, though. It could be my punishment for stalling if it ended up being a shitty end to things.

> mindfulselfindulgence: Sounds great, thanks!

I'd expected that to be the end of the conversation, honestly, but soon enough I got another message.

> Marginalia: why do you text like ur writing an email now?

> mindfulselfindulgence: Didn't I always?

> Marginalia: kind of

> Marginalia: i mean you always typed kinda stiff but like

> Marginalia: i thought u wouldve said smth like 'Because I'm your new boss. Get to work.' or sum

I typed in 'Were you hoping I would?', before deleting it. I went back and forth with my response enough times that she actually followed up.

> Marginalia: you're either typing a paragraph or you really have been writing a lot of emails

I thought about it.

I didn't reply.

The sun rose over the woods behind me, casting my shadow for nearly a hundred feet over the lake.

-

It was hard to not let one conversation ruin your confidence. Especially if you were like me, and in part defined yourself in part by your ability to make friends and have fun. One mistake or lapse, at that point, could mess with your own understanding of who you were. You ended up with some thoughts about yourself that could be tough to get away from.

As you can tell, I love saying 'you' or 'your' to pretend I'm not just talking about myself.

Yeah, that kind of thought.

I shook my head and stared up at the sun, tracing its edges as it slowly slid across the sky. I could see ribbons of orange weaving up and down through the golden circle. The sky was so big there, the lakes and plains doing nothing to narrow it.

I figured that I should get going.

I didn't move, though. I was kind of out of ideas when it came to how to get there.

Well, I did know how. It had just only hit me then that all I could really do was run there. I didn't want to.

It should be about the journey, not the destination, but at this point I couldn't hitchhike or take a train or even buy food on my own. I had no reason to wander there, since it wasn't as though I would meet anyone, and I couldn't see myself experiencing anything worthwhile as I was. So I slammed a foot forward, feeling the force and air pressure beneath it hold in place before blasting back up toward me. I shot over the lake and trees faster than a bullet, with not even a breeze left to mark that I'd ever been there at all.