"..."
"Do I know you?"
A question, quiet, almost whispered. Monotonic, like the asker doesn't quite care for an answer. Unfortunately, perhaps more for herself than for the other, she doesn't really know the answer.
She feels like she's been asleep for weeks, months. Even once her eyes have adjusted to the light, she still doesn't recognize the girl.
Three words, slowly, with pauses between each: "Are you okay?"
Sore throat, she rubs at it. After a few seconds, the girl offers her a half-full cup of water.
"Thank you," she rasps, with some effort.
The water goes down nicely. Trickling through her throat, it's not cold anymore, but not quite room temperature yet. Would she have cared if it was?
"I don't think so." A delayed response.
The girl stares out the window.
It's beautiful outside. Her vantage point is poorer than the girl's, sitting across the room on a small chair, but she can still see the spring light illuminating a city outside. The buildings here are vibrant; it's not even late afternoon, and yet it already has a distinct 'night life' aura. A soft, consistent rumbling emanates through the floor. It's somewhat soothing.
"It's beautiful outside," she says, voice a little flat.
No response.
After a few minutes, the girl speaks again. "Who... are you?"
She doesn't answer.
Their conversation continues in a similar vein for what feels like hours. But it isn't boring; they share a melancholic peace, a sort of silent understanding.
"Who are you?"
The words are the same; their speaker, tone, is not. Between a calm, apathetic whisper and an angry yell, the contrast is like a bucket of ice water to her face.
A woman is standing in the doorway. For all that the girl exudes a calm apathy, this woman is vibrant, energetic. Her voice has a dangerous pitch to it, like a razor blade sliced off the ends of each syllable.
She's also holding a gun.
This is interesting. It's the first clear thought she's had in... well... a while, probably. She isn't particularly inclined towards violence, but there's something about the woman's fury that's, well, enticing.
It makes her feel a little more attentive, more alive.
She considers an answer. I don't know - mediocre. Who are you? - maybe a touch too antagonistic.
"I-"
Maybe she was too slow, maybe she hadn't had a chance either way, but the woman makes the choice for her. She's ducking backwards when the bullet hits, already trying to avoid it, but the movement is delayed, sluggish. There's a flare of pain, pinpricks flickering across her skull...
Then nothing, even as she recoils, tries to scream.
This nothingness is familiar. She's been here before, which doesn't really make sense as she doesn't feel like she 'is' anywhere.
And yet, this complete lack of agency, unable to even blink... where is she?
Memories start to come back, starting with the most recent, the immediate past. She remembers vividly the girl and the woman, the calm room and the metal gun, the snippets of not-conversation. It's all there, clear as day.
Slowly, older memories trickle in. She remembers being hit by a truck; she recalls the paradoxically heavy sensation of weightlessness.
They keep coming, but she's bored, distracted. The woman and the girl, they were exciting. Interesting. She wants to go back there, a vague wish coalescing into a single thought.
...
"She wasn't your friend, Elle."
"..."
"I'm sorry that... that had to happen. But letting someone have the first move is dangerous. Have you seen her before? Do you recognize her from your dreams, maybe?"
The girl's name is Elle. It's a nice name. Very distantly, she wonders if she once knew someone with a name like that. Maybe not Elle, but something close? She speaks it out loud, sounds it out: "Elle." The word plays across her tongue, smooth, but somewhat distorted.
The woman spins on one foot, gun coming up without hesitation. "You - "
It's almost like looking in a mirror. Not when she looks at the woman - no, when she flinches, turning her head to the left, inadvertently taking in the body propped up against the wall. It's her, even if she hasn't looked at a mirror in forever, even if she doesn't quite remember what she looks like, she can still recognize herself. Strands of thin hair cover her... its face, snaking around dead eyes. A bit of black-red blood is pooling out onto its shirt, but not a lot, not what she would have expected from a dead body. She wonders briefly if it would be more disconcerting if it was still alive.
With not a small amount of trepidation: "Hello?"
"Talk." The woman gestures with the gun. "What are you?"
"I, well." It's a good question, one worth thinking about. She doesn't really know what she is, other than apparently not dead. Not dead as far as she can tell, at least. But making the lady with the gun wait seems a poor idea, so she leaves that for later. "I'm human." I hope.
The woman seems to almost roll her eyes. "How did you get in here?"
Another question that deserves consideration. If she knew where she was, she might have been able to hazard a guess; unfortunately, that's not something she's been keeping track of recently. At least it's easy to be honest. "I don't know."
"How do you not know? Do you know where you are?"
Now that she has a moment to think, she notices that the rumbling sound from earlier is a bit louder. Music, maybe. And given the other buildings she'd seen on the street... "Maybe a dance club?"
The woman still doesn't look happy, but her expression shifts more towards frustration than... whatever that had been. "You're in the Palanquin. I'm not sure how you got up here, but I've got a bad feeling I'm going to have to have a talk with Neuter."
"The... Palanquin?" The name rings a bell, and she pauses, thinking, fighting through the fog. It's difficult to make the connection, but something seems to be helping her, making the connection just that small amount easier. "Is this Brockton Bay?"
A blink. "Yes."
"In Earth Bet?"
"...Yes."
She leans back a little, contemplative. "Huh. That's strange."
"Why - why is that weird?"
After a few moments, she realizes she doesn't know. "I think... I was in Aleph, before."
"You're from- no. This is ridiculous. You're a parahuman, it's not relevant." You have some bizarre superhuman ability that lets you resurrect after being shot to death, in other words.
She turns her head ninety degrees to regard the maybe-decomposing, definitely-dead clone (or original) of herself. Dead eyes stare back. It should be scary, but death doesn't seem to bother her as much as it once might have. "A parahuman... that does sound correct." An understatement. She'd been suspicious before, but this is more than enough confirmation.
Something in woman's stance shifts, not obvious, but noticeable. One foot back, bent slightly. Gun held a little tighter.
"Okay. You're going to tell me what you're doing here. And then you're going to leave."
It's hard to argue with a woman holding a gun. So she tells her. Not everything; she doesn't have the slightest clue how she ended up in this room, anyways. Instead, she tells her about Annette, the nice woman she met in New York. About how she'd felt lonely, isolated. About how she had wanted to come back to what she vaguely remembered to be her hometown, to try and live life again.
This was not a particularly long story. Nor was it delivered well, in any sense of the word. It was a jumbled outpouring of confusion, stress, and anxiety, to someone who almost certainly hadn't expected to hear it.
The first time she could remember really being open with someone else.
When she was done, she looks up, meeting the woman's eyes. She's standing there, looking thoughtful; to her left, the strange girl is still staring at the dead body, rocking herself back and forth.
"I see," the woman says, seeming more interested than she would have expected. "Why don't we get you something to drink, and maybe you can tell me some more? About what you remember, and how you got here. The details, if you will."
The gun is no longer being held nearly as tight.
"Why?"
"Let's just say I'm curious."