Shwindu

It was like an explosion. Sudden, bright, disorienting. A cerebral splash of water, shocking her out of Now and kicking her sense of orientation out from underneath her.

It felt like what she imagined falling off a building would be like. A sudden rush and loss of balance, followed by a split-second of her whole life, rolling out like rope, right before her eyes. Except it wasn't her life. Not just hers.

Ancient sisters she had never met, sisters she had. Sisters she had only ever heard of in legend. A mother, and a mother, and a mother she never knew, yet felt such a deep, aching connection to—like a knife plunged through her chest—that just a glimpse of them made her vision blur.

Family, betrayal, hurt—her eyes burned—justice, responsibility, ego—she couldn't breathe—abandonment, lies, revolution—

And then, with a crack, Cocoa felt the ground meet her feet and she stumbled to her knees, sacrificing her shins to make sure her mask stayed in place.

Before the world tilted 90 degrees to the left, Cocoa had been among her sisters. Standing hand in hand against their Red kin, trying to buy as much time as they could for their chosen sisters, their ace in a hole, only a select few of them had the strength to hope were still alive. Only the select few that were brazen enough to believe everything they'd been told was false.

But she didn't understand how she ended up here. It didn't make any sense.

Behind her was a wall of glass. To her left and right were chairs and tables. And in front of her was an empty bar. None of the lights were on, the shelves weren't even stocked. It was a dead sight, chilling and dread-inducing.

A dream was the best explanation she could muster up, but none of this felt like her mind playing tricks on her. If it was, her sisters and Jiao clones would be filling the seats. If it was, the Outside Sky above them wouldn't be dead.

If it was, she would be here.

But instead, Cocoa was alone.

Chuckling weakly, she shook her head, forcibly making herself move on from that thought. She couldn't get bogged down in her feelings while her family was in danger.

But her heart wasn't listening. She put her hand onto the counter, right where she would rest it. With a pained squint of her eyes, Cocoa brushed her thumb over the dimmed surface, hating how cold the glass felt under her palm.

She hadn't let herself think about it since it happened. Survive at all costs, don't let the ocean drown you.

But standing here was like an occupant training drill, daring her to stay upright while the world shook around her. The world where the one she loved bled out for a justice taken too far.

Exhale. Stop trembling, stay steady.

From hand to fist.

She closed her eyes, missing the figure materializing in front of her.

She was oblivious to it until a hand covered her own.

And that was all it took.

That was all she needed to understand why she was here.

"...Hello, dear one," she whispered, still not looking up. Her bird-like heart fluttered inside its ribcage, and she couldn't separate her heartbreak from hand any longer.

It was real. She didn't understand how, but it was real.

"Hekki, sunshine," Bartender responded, as foxy as ever.

Cocoa laughed. She shook her head and let out a miserable little laugh, sinking down until her forehead met the cold—solid—hand encasing her own.

"You never learn, do you?"

"What?" Bartender asked, so much softer than she usually spoke, squeezing Cocoa's hand and trying to catch her eye even though the woman in grief was very adamantly hiding her face away.

"You still do not know how to keep your mouth shut."

The silence should not have been as uncomfortable as it was reassuring. Shouldn't it? Wasn't that strange? This was a dead woman. Not a plant that wilted and bloomed with the seasons, but a person that Cocoa had been ruminating on for every waking second since her soul parted from their enclosure and took a part of hers with it.

And still Cocoa felt that this room, with her, right now, was home. She was infuriated with her, her emotions blending together into a murky brown, and yet with one hug she knew it would bleed out of her too.

"What's the goal? What is this??" Cocoa asked, turning her hand to meet Bartender's palm, curling her fingers around the appendage, locking them together.

"I don't think that's for us to know." Tender and apologetic. Cocoa let out another wet laugh. Apologetic didn't suit her one bit.

"Why are you here?"

She couldn't look at her, that's what Cocoa thought (decided), and yet she had never been good at resisting her. With just a finger pushing her chin up, Cocoa met Bartender's smoke bush eyes. And just like that, she was trapped.

"Do you want to see some ne'er seen before dance grooves?"

Oh this woman.

This silly, ridiculous woman.

With a choked bark of laughter she let her tears fall upon Bartender's knuckles. Her free hand was bracing against the counter to keep herself from tumbling back down to the ground. She couldn't believe her.

"You are impossible."

"Join me for a dance, blossom."

"What?"

"You've never joined the sisters in dance before. I want to see it."

"I will step on your toes, you do know this?"

"I welcome the risk if it means holding you in my arms, sweet one."

How could Cocoa say no?

It's an old dance that she knows well by this point.

A sister is recognized. She is given colors, a title, and her shell is filled in.

She rises above her station. She helps the orchard grow, helps its denizens live, protects them from the bogeymen that lurk in the dark.

After days or years of sharpening, when she is finally ripe and grown, when her colors have turned vivid, she is plucked. Sent away in an apple crate with the sole privilege to lay her eyes on our creator.

When Knower was cloned, she knew nothing, and yet aspired to follow in the steps of her foresisters.

She was overwhelmed by knowledge. As a shell she had barely touched the texts they had the gift and honor to study. She had neglected the written word in favor of their bunker; Back then she had acted more blue than purple. What use was the information that other people collected for you?

She investigated every corner they had access to, inspected the walls, the decorations, the statues, the lights, the fluid supplies.

She inspected the tunnels and the train tracks. Whenever a sister graduated, she was there to watch the train come and go.

Then, she'd walk back up the stairs, and walk to what had become her own little place of respite. A large, circular room. Smooth floors, nothing decorating the walls. The only thing in there was a large statue of some kind of animal.

When she looked at it, she felt determined.

She knew nothing about it, but she crafted endless theories in her head. She studied its hooves and muscles, thinking about what its function was. She'd look into its eyes, trying to divine what the ancient humans would've called this beast.

The determined shell knew very little would come out of her hypothesizing without any actual facts to work off from, but she could remember having fun in that room. Sitting on the floor and letting her mind wander. Sometimes a Sister would come in to check on her. A Healer that worried or a Watcher who noticed. Sometimes a Fixer came down to fix some light, or a crack in a panel that a clumsy shell wrought. But largely, the shell spent her days alone, daydreaming.

Until one day, a sister, a nosy shell, convinced her to finally "end her suffering" and just look up what that animal was in the library. Fulfill her function instead of pretending that she was lower on the light spectrum.

Goaded into it, practically pushed past the doors of her sworn domain, the determined shell made her way into the den of knowledge and began looking.

She found nothing.

...

That was an important turning point for that young shell. A sobering moment.

The archives that had felt endless, now felt miniscule. She had assured herself that the knowledge would be there when she finally decided to seek it out. Finding a gap in what she had mistakenly believed to be a perfect encyclopedia was...terrifying.

Not too much later did she ascend from shell to Sister. Turned from a sister who never read to one who constantly had her head buried in a book. She had finally decided to gave her all to perform her function.

Even if it meant turning down the ALLMOTHER's call.

Even if it meant sisters she knew leaving her behind.

Even if it meant running into a sister that was similar to her, who she grew to care about, who she opened herself bit by bit to, to end up losing through knowledge she had no access to.

The graduations will come and go, and Knower will stand to the side and take no part in it.

As Fixer leaves, she will watch the cycle repeat from afar. And then she will walk back up the stairs to her domain without taking any detours.

She will stand outside of this cycle. She will remain to record what is left, for impermanence is not in her future. It will not be.

There Iris sat, at her bedside. She was losing her.

Breathe in, and out. Stay calm. Don't break. You're the one who told her to never break her mask right? So don't you dare break, Fixer.

She knew what was going to happen next.

Idiot.

Even with the fluid transferals, Jiao's body was slowly deteriorating. The loss was too great. Soon she wouldn't be able to talk anymore. (Not that she had been saying much this past hour.)

I kept telling her to not be so naive.

Then, even if she held her hand, tried to warm her up, she would grow cold.

Why does she never listen to me?

She was so quiet.

She's so quiet.

Breathe.

I wish she'd wake up even if it meant hearing her argue again.

Even if it meant never speaking to her again.

Isn't that what I said I wanted?

That'd be ok. It would be great actually. Wouldn't it?

Her accepting that she's the one in the wrong?

Her finally piecing it together in her head that Iris was not someone she should hang out with?

Even though we got along so well before.

Even though she had to fight back smiles around her sometimes.

Even though we made each other laugh so hard we got tears in our eyes.

She...

Why do we say tears are useless when they can feel like that?

Don't break.

...Don't break.

It was over.

She took it too far and now it's done.

She knew what was going to happen.

I know what I have to do.

If things were different.

Things were different once...

If Iris was different.

If we both weren't so stubborn.

Maybe we wouldn't be here.