Fabricated Chapter 26

 When PC wakes, he is whole. That is the first thing he is aware of. He feels the rough line of stitches down his front and back, can feel them aching and burning as awakening flows through them. 

That is... good, he thinks. The thoughts are slow, disjointed. 

He remembers Eylion’s words: “hunting”. Urgency runs through him. He sits up, blinks in the low light and presses his hands against the soft thing beneath him— he is in a bed. In a room. 

That’s not right. He should be outside. In the woods? No that isn’t right either. The base never fell, there never was a base, that wasn’t real. Was this real? PC’s head hurts. He blinks, tries to clear his blurry vision. It does not go away. 

“Alice?” he calls, and he is just barely Awoken again, a terrified half child in a world he does not understand again. 

A reply, somewhere tucked against him: “I’m here. I’m here.” 

His hands roam against the space between his self and the bed, find Alice, brings her up into his vision. Her usually upturned mouth is downcast; her ears droop. Wordlessly he brings him close to him in a hug, and he feels her little paws press deep against his jacket. 

“Do you feel that?” she asks. “Has the sensation of feeling returned?”

“Yeah,” he says thickly, “yeah, I felt that. The stitched areas are kind of numb besides the matchstick burn feelings.”

She lets out a long, relived sounding sigh. He looks around; it’s a cramped hotel room, messily made bed he’s sitting on, curtain drawn on the window. He doesn’t see the humans. Doesn’t see Espeon. 

“Where—“

“Went out for food,” Alice answers. “Brought Espeon in case they ran into the Emissary or its people.”

He sinks back into the bed. “I’m supposed to protect them,” he says, half a mumble. “I’m supposed to.”

“You are not supposed to protect anyone except our Beholden,” Alice says, and he expects it to be chiding, but it is just tired. 

“We have to get back in there,” he says.

“I know,” she says.

“How are we going to do that? How are we—“

A paw on his chest, pressing through fabric to where his printed mouth is. “Worry not,” she says. “When the humans return, we will figure it out.”

He doesn’t really believe her, doesn’t really believe much of anything at the moment, but darkness tunnels his vision, and he lets his head loll onto the other pillows. 

“Were you afraid?” he asks. 

“Of course I was afraid,” she says. He think he hears her voice catch. “I very narrowly avoided destruction, and you yourself did not escape unscathed.”

“But I’m here,” he says. “I always end up being there. Here. Whenever we are. No matter what happens.” Base falls, I’m there. Earth falls, I’m there. End of everything, I’m there. 

“You are a incredibly lucky man,” she says. “I fear that your luck will run out.”

“Me too,” he says. When he goes to gently wrap his fingers around her, he finds his hands are shaking. Why are his hands shaking? 

“Are we sure we are alive?” he asks. “Are we this is not some...some punishment for human sin, that this is not...” He trails off. 

She shakes her head at him. “I think that is very unlikely,” she says.

“But it’s a possibility.”

“Bradford, please.”

“Sorry, I—“ For a moment he cannot breath, cannot phantom how is possible that he exist and not breathe. “I don’t... feel well.”

“You have had some very traumatic experiences in the past couple of days,” she says. “I would be surprised if you felt good.”

So have you, he wants to say, but he knows Alice does not speak of such things, that she will retreat into some quiet place and figure it out on her own, that she only asks for his company. Instead, he asks, “Do you think they’re safe? Are we safe?”

Alice hums. “The Ethereal spoke with us while you were out,” she says. “It is trying to mask its, ah, Psionic footprint, but...” She makes the approximation of a shrug. “It is doing its best. You should focus on doing your best, too.”

PC takes a deep breath. In, out, ignore everything in you screaming you don’t have lungs you aren’t alive so you can’t possibly be real, in, out. 

“I don’t feel safe,” he says. “I don’t feel real.”

“Then what would make you feel that way?” asks Alice. 

Faintly his memories overtake him— of self injury after flashbacks because he has nothing else to prove it, of alcohol to make it quieter, of personal encounters to distract. 

But none of that was real. 

He gently removes Alice from her spot on his chest, stumbles to the bathroom. Alice calls after him, and faintly he hears the concern. He rolls up his sleeves, grasps the edge of the sink like he’s falling, stares into the mirror.

What would make you feel safe? What would make you feel real?

The aching in his heart kicks and childishly cries for his Beholden, for the Hoard, for the safety and known of the dorm, of pre-Awakening.

It was so much easier then, he thinks. 

“John?”

Again, the name so rarely used. He leaves the bathroom, sits on the bed, gathers her up into his arms.

“Don’t leave,” he says, as if she can go anywhere anyway. 

“I won’t,” she answers. “I’m right here. I’m here.”