#digma

Somewhere though, there must be a Phi living something different. Somewhere, Diana believes, she is living happily. Diana, Sigma, Phi and Delta, all peacefully in one place. No turmoil, no games, just the picture of a normal family.

This world is far far from that ideal. Diana feels a bit like an animal, laying down wounded. There’s a sense of peace washing over she recognizes as acceptance.

In a few hours, she will sleep. Following which, she does not expect to wake up.

Diana frowns down at the paper doily. It’s not exactly the best suicide note, but it’s not exactly a suicide note either. Everything’s half done here, half a life lived, half a romance she shares. What’s the point in worrying about it any more?

With the end so close, Diana finds her fears washed away. After living so much of her life in a constant drone of worry, it’s almost startling how still she can find herself.

Acceptance, even of her inevitable demise, can be a beautiful thing. The fading of her colours becomes a soft pastel, so it’s still beautiful, isn’t it?

Her pains have become nothing but a dull ache in the back of her mind. Yes, her stomach gnaws away at herself even as she tries to satiate it with water. She hasn’t eaten in a week, it’s unsurprising. But what had felt like her organs being pulled into a black hole at first has faded now. Not because she isn’t hungry, but because there’s nothing left she can do about it.

It’s just acceptance now. It’s all washing away.

The pencil slips out of Diana’s grasp as she finishes the note, rolling right off the table and onto the floor. There’s no reason to pick it up, so she leaves it. Let the lounge feel a bit lived in. Let there be prove she had lived for once in her life, even if only for a short time.

Diana slumps back against the couch, tucking Phi in closer to her chest. The baby stares back at her, bright wide eyes, taking in everything about her mother’s face. Diana smiles, giving her daughter another kiss on the head. She deserves so many more than Diana can give her. She deserves so much more than this.

They all do.

She’s too tired to mourn anymore. After the mania and madness of the past 10 months, it’s just… going to end. And it’s a strange feeling, because in some ways this had been the primary thought in her mind ever since Sigma had told her about the food supplies. Even with everything, the fights, the sex, her own children- every thought she had was accompanied by a shadow, a reminder that soon, it would all go away.

If there’s one comfort Diana can take, beyond knowing that Sigma will be there with her, is that they’re taking it into their own hands. Agency is a comfort, particularly in a place like this.

(In the back of her mind, she knows she never had any true agency. She knows everything, each step she takes, the precise positioning of each molecule of her body holds the exact space in time someone had calculated for. It makes her feel like each of those atoms are scratching up against each other, buzzing with an urge to lurch, to send reality spinning out of place, if only to be free for a fraction of a second.)

Phi fusses in Diana’s arms, somewhat restless. She’s not fussy, not usually, though Diana supposes she doesn’t have much ground to stand on with that claim. Phi is merely days old. Still, Diana just knows. She’s her baby, of course she knows. For everything she’d studied, for all the scientific data she’d memorized in college, for every dissertation she’d read, nothing compared to really holding her own daughter in her arms and knowing the power of a mother’s love was both real and magic.

She’s being far too idealistic than she has any right to be, but she’s earned the right to have a little misguided optimism by now.

A mother’s love is real. A mother’s love is magic. And with her magic, Diana rocks side to side, rocking Phi with her, and whispers her spell.

“Let them be safe. Let them find their happiness.”

Maybe she spends a few minutes in that daze, a murmured half lullaby, maybe longer.

It’s only when Sigma sits down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pulling her in a touch closer, that she’s pulled out of reverie.

Once it would’ve startled her, but there’s something about Sigma’s embrace that she finds herself relaxing into without even thinking about it. If Diana ever mentioned it to Sigma, she’s sure he’d explain it as the morphogenetic field, her body remembering the other lives they’d had together, or such and so. And perhaps that is the case. Diana won’t rule it out. Personally, however, she’d pinpoint the cause as something simpler.

Sigma makes her feel safe. That’s all.

“Everything’s set up,” Sigma murmurs, pressing his words to the crown of Diana’s head. “If you’re ready.”

How do you ready yourself for something like this? No matter how much she’d been preparing for this, mentally or physically, she’d never be ready.

But the note she’d been writing was finished, and that was all that was left to complete, so in that sense…

“Mmhm.”

She can’t get the words out, but she nods anyway, humming in affirmative.

Sigma squeezes her a little tighter.

“We’re going together. Don’t worry.”

The worry has long since bled out of Diana, pooled at her feet and spilled across the floor. So she won’t worry. She won’t.

She stands, slowly so as not to disturb Phi too much. Sigma follows, bringing his arm down to help support Delta, carried on his right shoulder. It’s probably not the safest way to hold him, but it won’t matter soon.

They walk out slowly, Diana casting glances around each part of the room as she bids it farewell. It’s not exactly like she’ll miss this place, after everything she’s been through here, but in someways, she supposes she will. Contradictions like that only make sense in a place like this.

“It was a good letter.” Sigma whispers, in lieu of a farewell to the space. “You did good.”

Diana nods. She’s appreciative, and flattered, but it’s getting difficult to express it.

And slowly, step by step, they make their way through the halls until finally. The last room. The relaxation room.

Diana steps in carefully, minding the large box-shaped contraption set up on the floor. It resembles a fog machine, in fact most of it was a fog machine, but with the modifications Sigma has made… it couldn’t be called that anymore. It’s function had changed, the weight of it’s worth was altered. No going back from that.

A long black cord runs out from it, up towards one of the beds in the corner. A chunky “on/off” switch breaks off the clean line of the cable, sitting right at the foot of the bed.

Diana tries not to think about it yet. Not quite yet. She turns her attention to the dial on the wall.

“What environment would you like?” She asks, though they have already had this conversation several times, and settled on an answer long ago.

“The sky pattern.” Sigma answers, though Diana’s fingers have already begun to twist the knob. It clicks, clicks, and the walls, floor, and ceiling all distort around them until finally coming to the sky pattern. Diana’s favourite, even now.

The clouds soar past them, off into a non-existent distance. Freedom that has never been, and never will be.

“Perfect.” Diana murmurs.  “Shall we go, then?”

Sigma nods.

Carefully across the room now, Diana keeps away from the walls though she knows the sky is only fake, the drop off into the sky unreal.

(She’d tried it once, less than a month into confinement and in a drunken haze. Turned the pattern to clouds and stood near the edges. Closed her eyes and let herself tilt, teeter forward. Willed herself, begged for something to just slip. Slammed her head against the wall and sunk to the ground, sobbing. Hits her head against it again. Again. Maybe this time something will change. But it doesn’t, it never does. Until Sigma had found her, and simply carried her back to the lounge, lying her to rest on the couch. He’d been so gentle. So warm. She’d almost considered doing it again just to feel that kind of embrace.)

Sigma passes Delta over to Diana, and she settles into the hold. She clutches both her children to her chest, feeling the miniscule sound; their hearts beating in sync.

“Let them be safe. Let them find their happiness.” She thinks without even trying, even when she knows it’s got to be too late.

Sigma settles down onto the relaxation room bed, taking a moment to position himself comfortably. Carefully, he keeps the “on/off” switch tucked into his right hand, but doesn’t hit the switch just yet.

“Join me,” He says once he’s settled, “Love.” He finishes, and Diana’s heart could just break in two when he talks like that. It’s enough to make her want to slap him, try and claw her way out just a little more.

But… Diana is so tired. And so hungry.

Gently, Diana positions herself tucked into Sigma’s body, pressed so close they might as well have been one person. Her head rests on his shoulder, positioned so that she could look into his eyes. Phi lies against her chest, and Delta is shuffled over so most of his body lies on Sigma’s.

Sigma’s embrace is warm and tight, as he reaches his left arm around his family. Diana feels, if just for a moment, that everything was worth it if she got to hold this second within herself.

“Ready?”

“One second…”

Diana tucks her hand into her shirt, pulling out the necklace she’d kept tucked away. Her fingers are shaking a bit, so it takes a bit of effort, but she manages. Slowly, clumsily, Diana turns the key for the bluebird music box. And turns. And turns. She turns until the box cannot possibly take anymore, and the springs inside the device whine in protest. Then, she releases it, and tinny music notes begin to fill the room.

Sigma smiles quietly.

“Needed a bit of mood music?”

“Ha ha.” Diana deadpans, but she’s smiling at him, “I just… wanted to listen to it one more time.”

“I know.”

There’s a moment of silence, or rather, the quiet melody of a music box filling such. Phi’s eyes widen a bit as the tune goes through, seemingly enamoured by the sound.

“I’m ready.” Diana whispers, before she can change her mind. So before anyone can say anything else, Sigma flicks the switch from “off” to “on”, and the room begins to fill with Soporil B.

“This’ll keep us out for… how long?” Diana whispers, voice nestling in between the melody and the quiet fssshh of the Soporil smoke machine.

“The canister I found in the transporter room had approximately… 25 litres in it, give or take, and the machine is set to run at steady intervals to prevent it from burning out the supply.” Sigma replied, whispering the explanation in Diana’s ear, “As we are already exhausted mentally and physically, and none of us have eaten or drank in the past few days, it should knock us out pretty hard.”

It’s not the Soporil that does the killing, Diana knows. It’s the starvation, and primarily, dehydration they’re banking on. Collapse the internal organs, let heart failure kick in. Sleep through all of it. That had been the plan ever since Sigma had managed to find the canister of Soporil in the transporter room, tucked in a lower cabinet. It was strange how they hadn’t noticed it before. Almost as if it had been placed there deliberately after it had been clear there was no chance of complete survival. Even when the plan had been to transport themselves, not their children, they’d worked to set this up for those left behind.

If it was deliberate, just Zero cleaning up close ends, then Diana supposes she’s grateful it’s something cleaner like this. Slow, maybe, and even in a haze of drugged-up dreams, she’s sure the pain won’t completely vanish… but it’s better this way. Better to go together, to dream anything, and simply slip further into that dream until nothing remains.

Diana blinks.

It’s a slower thing than she’s used to, the weight of her eyelids grows stronger with each moment.

“Ss-Sigma.” Diana says, words starting to slur slightly, “I love you.”

Sigma just hums quietly, for a moment. Then,

“I love you too, Diana.”

“I love you.” Diana repeats. “I love you. I love you. I wantta be the last- last thing… I say. You… and Delta and Phi, I- I love you. I love you.”

It’s such a messy love. She’d call it broken, but that would imply there was ever a time that what they held wasn’t tattered. It’s always been like this. A bit charred and melting. Like a moment frozen in time, like a snow globe, like a bird in a cage, the sort of love captured in this bubble. But it’s really love. The details are blurring away in the Soporil fog.

The music box notes distort and shift, they twirl into birds songs on the breeze. Diana doesn’t feel the weight of Sigma’s arms, of Phi lying on her chest. Her body dissolves along with them, until they’re all nothingness together.

Maybe she’s dead now. Maybe she’s still dying. It’s all a fog. It’s all fog.

The play is over now. The story is done.

It was all for nothing, and yet it was so integral, to everything.

The actors have bowed; said their goodnights. The lights on the stage have all shut off.

One day, Diana thinks, someone might find them. Four bodies in a state of decay, find their bones all on top of each other and not be able to tell who is who.

But for now, for the rest of her life, Diana listens to that music box. To the sound of her family breathing.

Her thoughts don’t make sense anymore. Her mind is a cloud, the room is a cloud, it’s all a harmony of abstractions.

It’s a field of white.

It’s the absence of anything.

It’s over now.

…

Goodnight.