Rena's Reflections

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

[2009/04/25 17:20]( Read more... )
    

Rena sat curled in the huge chair by the window, fingers wrapped around a steaming mug staring out across the Midian skyline. Tea, she didn't usually drink it, but people said it was soothing. Somehow, the red haze that hung over the city was soothing as well. Familiar. Home. She turned attention drawn by a small sound from the sleeping form on the bed. She watched him until he calmed, breathing returning to that slow steady rhythm. Was he having nightmares too? She couldn't help wondering.

Slowly she slid out of the chair and onto the floor. On her knees, she bent over the small table and the book lying there. She'd recovered it the night before, from the bottom of a chest in her room. Fingers traced the gold lettering on the cover. It had been given to her as a girl, by someone who was well meaning, but hadn't had the guts to really help her. She'd read it, knew the pages and the text intimately, but she'd never found anything of herself in there. But now...now a memory tugged at her. Changed. She opened it slowly and began skimming, first one letter and then the next. She poured over it as he slept, searching for that small bit of text that was tugging at her memory. When she finally found it, she felt as if the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room.

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.

She remembered the trumpeting sound of Laz's cry. "HUMANS FIRST" and the blood. The screaming that filled her ears as they died around her. Her own agony as Masha's blood splattered her. Smoke, then suddenly the voices of the dead, coming back to life. She knew now what had happened, but all she knew in that moment was that the dead were rising around her.

Changed. All of them changed ...some so subtly others might not even notice, with others it was glaringly obvious to anyone who saw them. She knew she'd been changed in ways she couldn't comprehend yet.

Death has been swallowed up in victory. 

She closed the book and reached for the mug and crawled back into the chair, curling in a tight ball. The tea was cold now, but she drank anyway, watching the sky turn from blood red to a warmer crimson as the sun rose. She never thought she's miss that sky, but she had.

www.youtube.com/watch

Rena sat silently on the empty rooftop, looking out over the city. She could see movement here and there and occasionally voices drifted up to her, but they were too faint for her to make out what was being said.

He was gone and it was over. They'd finally admitted, to themselves and each other that they were trying to hold on to something that wasn't there anymore. Circumstance had torn them apart and time had changed them both too much. There was no going back now, and if they tried to stay together they risked destroying the one thing they did have left, their friendship. So they'd parted as friends.

She decided then and there, on that silent rooftop that overlook a city alive and buzzing below her...she couldn't look to the past any longer. She had to look forward and figure out who she was and what she wanted. The problem was...she wanted it all. A wicked grin curved her mouth and she rose, leaping down into god knows what...

Whispering
Hear the ghosts in the moonlight
Sorrow doing a new dance
Through their bone, through their skin

Listening
To the souls in the fool's night
Fumbling mutely with their rude hands
And there's heartache without end

See the father bent in grief
The mother dressed in mourning
Sister crumbles, and the neighbors grumble
The preacher issues warnings

History
Little miss didn't do right
Went and ruined all the true plans
Such a shame. Such a sin.

Mystery
Home alone on a school night
Harvest moon over the blue land
Summer longing on the wind

Had a sweetheart on his knees
So faithful and adoring
And he touched me. And I let him love me.
So let that be my story

Listening
For the hope, for the new life
Something beautiful, a new chance
Hear its whispering
There again

Rena stared at the crumpled note, unfolding it like it might catch fire...

There were lyrics, written in a frenzied handwriting and an address for a website on the Grid, Midian's equivalent of the Internet from years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfSu_TGqn3g

Later, when she was alone, she flipped on the laptop in the HQ and looked it up.

The address on the Grid turns out to be a rapidly failing repository that houses hundreds of thousands of old A/V clips. After getting several failure errors, the link above will play this specified A/V clip on the viewing screen in a continuous loop. The recording itself has maintained most of its integrity, though on the guitar solo's the distortion is a bit more extreme, due to fade. The video remains shot in black and white, though in sections there are jigsaw creases that flicker down the length, probably because someone a generation or two ago had digitized this video of its original format.

---

Beat's so lonely
I bet it's lonely at the top
She hesitates
But the beat will never stop

Wanting him only
But the people never see
Her heart burning
That's the secret that she keeps

Come on baby
You know there's something missing
Don't find nothing
No more coincidences

Pretty baby
Look in his eyes and you will see
Things will happen
But only if they're meant too...

Beat's so lonely
I bet it's lonely at the top
So lonely at the top
So lonely

She said
Beat's so lonely
If you let it be that way
She can't tell the difference anyway

She thinks hold me
But she's scared to say
She paid dearly
for the answers of her days

Answers of her...

Answers of her days...

Answers of her...

So lonely
So lonely
So lonely
So lonely

So lonely
So lonely
So lonely
So lonely

Come on baby
You know there's something missing
Don't find nothing
No more coincidences

Pretty baby
Before you give him all you got
You got to come closer
You got to give it one more shot

Beat's so lonely
I bet she's lonely at the top
So lonely at the top
So lonely

So lonely
So lonely
So lonely
So lonely

So lonely
So lonely
So lonely
So lonely...

She looked down at the rest of the note again and just read in stunned silence.

The man was perceptive beyond what she'd given him credit for.

 ((most of this written my Lance))

Rena woke with a start, eyes blinking against the cold light of the Med Center. God she hated it here. She glanced at the sleeping kitten next to her and slid quietly off the gurney, careful not to wake the girl. A grimace, not of pain, but of disgust, appeared on her features as she looked down at the awful clothing from the church. A sparkley sweater and butterfly covered jeans. She was going to have to shoot anyone who saw her like this.

She only got a few steps before pain overwhelmed her and she went to her knees. A nurse she'd never seen before appeared out of nowhere and knelt before her. Soft voice. 'You took quite a beating.' She'd just grimaced and fought to rise. The nurse put out a hand to help, but she'd apparently been here long enough to know, some people didn't want help, no matter how well intended, and the hand fell back to her side.

She stood. Wobbly on her feet, but upright. "I'm going home." It wasn't a question, merely a statement of fact. The nurse sighed, tone resigned then she disappeared for a moment. When she came back she held two bottles. She pressed them into Rena's hand. 'I shouldn't do this, but you are going to hurt a lot worse very soon. These will help. The body heals faster when it's not fighting pain.' 

Rena's hand closed on the bottle and she gave the woman a grateful look before simply turning and beginning the long, slow, walk home. The woman had been right. By the time she reached her door, the pain was excruciating and nausea threatened to overwhelm her. She managed to get the door open and stumbled in. There was a wine bottle on the table. Open...one glass. She didn't remember pouring it, but she tossed one of the pill bottles on the table and struggled to open the other. Yes, even in Midian there were damned child proof caps. She finally got it open, and managed to get two in her mouth. She tried to set the tiny container down, but it tipped, slipping it's contents across the table as she grabbed for the wine bottle.

She tipped the bottle up and just...chugged. Drunk and drugged. That was the ticket. When the last drop was gone the bottle dropped from her hand and she staggered to the couch. Just sitting caused pain to course through her. The burns were mild, they wouldn't even blister, but her body felt like it was on fire. She felt like she could feel every stitch. Shoulders, abdomen, back, thighs....all cut and bruised. More wounds than she could even remember. She silently prayed for the wine and painkillers to kick in.

Finally she slept, but it was a fitful sleep, filled with dreams of fire and demons, relentless torture, and abuse. Voices accused her, telling her in detail how she was going to spend eternity paying for her sins. She woke screaming, calling out for him, only to wake fully to the realization that she was utterly alone.