Post by paizlee on Nov 1, 2024 9:52:44 GMT -6
The Millennium Academy party was in full swing, after imbibing in some state altering substances before the party with her very favorite Martian, Paizlee was starting to feel the ground beneath her turning to shadows, as she looked across the room at the party goers, things started to take a turn she hadn’t prepared for, grabbing at her wrist she realised suddenly… The bracelet was gone. With her high wearing off and no sugar in her system, reality was seeping into the walls and she felt an urge to get out of the room as quickly as possible. Her wrist felt like it was burning as she half walked half floated - well, stumbled - out of the room and towards the courtyard. Her mind was still thick with the fog of hallucinations that locked in her sudden panic.
She didn’t even notice crashing into someone on her way out of there and continued on her path to the courtyard. Loudly humming a song, the kind that is variety familiar but you can never quite put your finger on. Once she reached the outside, cold air smacking her in the face she dropped down to crawl on her hands on knees, picking up random stones and discarded trash. None of this was what she was looking for, the sound of the party in the distance warping into sounds of wrestling inside an old gymnasium.
The present and the past mixing together, a flashback tied into a trip all wrapped up in her ever shifting reality that kept her afloat. In that moment she couldn’t differentiate real from memory, the cold air feeling like freezing hands gripping her throat, robbing her of the breath in her lungs.
”Hey kid, you lost something?” It wasn't real concern in Olly’s voice, more like a genuine curiosity. Even someone as detached as he had been all night couldn’t help but notice Paizlee at the party. First of all, hers was quite the striking presence. The colorful outfit, her loudness and the weird interactions with that other chick dressed like Terminator. Her erratic behavior throughout the night made him wonder if she was under the influence of some kind of drugs. Any doubt he had disappeared the moment she raised her gaze.
Dilated pupils, sweating and all the marks of a panic attack. He had seen that before, he had been there before.
”I mean besides your damn mind..” His movements were slow, his voice low and calm. If she was experiencing some hallucinatory episode, the last thing he wanted to do was to scare her and trigger a violent reaction.
When he spoke she looked up immediately, planting her butt on the floor and staring at him with a confused expression. She waved her hand in front of her face to make sure he was actually there, in the dark of night and her already untrustworthy vision for a minute he looked like someone else.
”My uh… bracelet?” She giggled at his follow up to his own question, shaking her head. ”My mind is right where it’s supposed to be… it’s just a little confused right now.”
She remained sitting on the floor, her giggle disappearing as quick as it happened and she started searching the floor around her again, picking up anything and everything she could grab, her searching quickly descending back into the frantic search she was conducting before he interrupted.
Olly let out an audible sigh as he crouched down next to the Academy student. ”What kind of bracelet are you talking about? Gold? Silver?” Why was he even helping her? He asked himself that question as his hands tapped the cold ground. The courtyard could’ve used some maintenance, crumpled pieces of papers and cigarette butts were hiding under the wet leaves he moved away as he helped Paizlee in her search.
”Older than age itself…” she murmured the words as she crawled forwards, aware that he was still there and now helping her. He looked so much like someone he couldn’t be she still needed to know he was real and so she walked over and prodded his cheek with a damp finger from searching the floor.
”You ARE a real boy.” She sounded almost amazed at the realisation, stopping her search to kneel up and look him over. ”But who's the real boy? Who are you?” She gasped and looked up at the sky with a voice that was laced in wonder. ”Did you come from up there too?!”
He chuckled to himself, she was really tripping. ”In a way, yes, I come from the sky.” He chose to tease her, he wasn’t even sure why. The truth was, the recent events as heartbreaking they were for the parts involved amused him and lifted his spirit. The ‘Ooohhhh’ of surprise coming from Paizlee stopped his train of thoughts and brought him back to reality, whatever that might have been for the young woman in front of him. ”But before getting on the plane, I was in LA. I came with the Crucible students. I’m a trainer there.” He raised his head from the ground for a minute, eyes travelling to the moonlit old school building where his second life started. ”And I was here before, four years ago. First Academy class”
The caterpillar demanding WHO ARE YOU was the loudest voice in her head until he spoke again. Her initial amazement at him coming from the sky was quickly cut short as he explained further. She dropped to her butt again, her finger still poking at his cheek in a sort of repetitive way now as she stared at him with wide eyes. Wonder and hallucinogens lighting them up as she held his gaze.
”You look like an Angel.” She squinted, trying to really stare at him for a long moment before she sighed. ”No. Your eyes are wrong.” She could see beyond the initial amusement and right into the depths of them, she saw pain and torment twisting him up inside through those eyes.
”His eyes never looked like that.”
He had been called many names in his twenty-four years on this planet, but Angel was never one of them. ”Whose eyes?” He asked as his hand moved up to his face to lightly swat her away, putting an end to her prodding at his cheek. He was trying to make sense of her delusion, somewhat intrigued by that odd girl. Was he reminding her of someone she used to know? Someone linked to the bracelet she had lost, perhaps?
”Don’t tell him I lost it.” Her eyes suddenly welled up with tears and she began frantically searching once again, getting to her feet and sprinting to the other side of the courtyard, she stopped dead at the edge of it, staring out across the back and then turning on her heels to stare over at Olly.
”Don’t…” she called out one word before stopping and looking down at her wrists, the noise coming from the party began to overwhelm her ears again and the sounds distorted to hallway chatter. People dancing became footfall in a school hallway and as she heard the loud thud of a head against metal, a sound only she could hear.
A haunting remnant of the past ringing through her ears as the spot on her wrist where his bracelet should be felt like fire. Like the devil himself reached from her worst memory to drag her down with him. All of this happened in silence, her teetering on her toes, as she just repeated that same word, like a soft whisper.
”Don’t.”
Confused didn’t even start to cut it. His eyes moved away from her for the first time since she suddenly darted away and landed on his right wrist, where his bracelet was creeping out from under his white button-down shirt. The left hand moved on its own, animated by those undying feeling for his Faith. The thumb caressed the bloodstained leather, a caress sent to the love of his life wherever she may be. This bracelet had become in the past few months the most important thing in his life, the one thing he would never give up on. He was never a people person, under any other circumstances he wouldn’t care about a stoner kid. But she had lost her bracelet, and that was something he could relate to.
”Fuck me..”
He muttered under his breath, walking toward Paizlee with long strides.
”I won’t kid. Come on now, let’s take you back inside, ok?”
She shook her head quickly and turned to face him, her eyes locked on his and for a moment there was absolute clarity in them and tears welled up and threatened to spill over.
”No… I have to find it.” Her sentence trailed off as she sat down again, plonked right to the ground and hugged her knees, heavy breathing either from crying or a quickly oncoming panic attack shook her upper body for a moment and then she dropped her head back and looked up at him.
”You look like a memory I don’t want to have.” Her tone was the soft, almost too quiet tone of someone who didn’t know if they wanted to be heard. And then, recognition, like she had finally seen him for him in that moment and that caused her to slap her hands over her face and bury it in her palms.
”Fuck, Olly I’m sorry.” She was speaking into her hands and not looking at him. ”I can’t go back inside. I lost the only thing that means anything. You’d get it, you’d understand.” Still she spoke into her hands, as if looking at him would rob her of the clarity she was experiencing. ”I was 17 when the only person I’ll ever love died and that bracelet is it! It’s all that I have, it’s the only thing that I’ve kept no matter what or when or where…” she paused, memories that she spent her life running from pushed at the edges of her clarity.
”But it’s not here and if I go back in there…” she finally dropped her hands from her face. ”It’s like accepting he’s gone.”
Getting to her feet and shaking off whatever clear moment she had been experiencing. When she finally met his gaze again, she seemed to wobble just a little. Finding her balance she grabbed his hand and started to match them back towards the party.
”Come on, come on! We’re going to miss it!” She looked back at an imaginary watch on his wrist as she made every attempt to drag him back towards the party. ”It’s no wonder you’re late! Your watch is exactly two days slow!”
The brief moment of clarity she had hit him like a ton of bricks. The desperation she showed while searching for the bracelet in her altered state not only was real, but even more brutal and hopeless without the kaleidoscopic lens of her hallucination. In that fleeting moment, he wanted to reassure you, he wanted to tell her that things will be fine, that she could ask to look at the footage to pinpoint when and where she had lost it. But before he could think of that, before he could shake off the feeling of looking into a mirror, she reverted back to that erratic behavior.
Words seemed pointless now, he just decided to ride along, walking behind her as she dragged him back to the party.
”She’d be fine there.” He thought to himself. ”At least until the high lasts.”
As soon as they stepped back into the party she let go of his arm and gravitated back towards Mars who was still doing the robot in exceptionally slow motion despite the fast bear of the music playing overhead. As if nothing had happened at all, Paizlee went right back to dancing with her friend and forgetting all about the lost bracelet.
When she woke up in the morning, sober and faced with reality, her heart would break all over again. Frantic searches and doubts about whether she could even wrestle without it would take up almost the entire day, but for tonight and for right now, it was all forgotten and there was dancing to do.
She didn’t even notice crashing into someone on her way out of there and continued on her path to the courtyard. Loudly humming a song, the kind that is variety familiar but you can never quite put your finger on. Once she reached the outside, cold air smacking her in the face she dropped down to crawl on her hands on knees, picking up random stones and discarded trash. None of this was what she was looking for, the sound of the party in the distance warping into sounds of wrestling inside an old gymnasium.
The present and the past mixing together, a flashback tied into a trip all wrapped up in her ever shifting reality that kept her afloat. In that moment she couldn’t differentiate real from memory, the cold air feeling like freezing hands gripping her throat, robbing her of the breath in her lungs.
”Hey kid, you lost something?” It wasn't real concern in Olly’s voice, more like a genuine curiosity. Even someone as detached as he had been all night couldn’t help but notice Paizlee at the party. First of all, hers was quite the striking presence. The colorful outfit, her loudness and the weird interactions with that other chick dressed like Terminator. Her erratic behavior throughout the night made him wonder if she was under the influence of some kind of drugs. Any doubt he had disappeared the moment she raised her gaze.
Dilated pupils, sweating and all the marks of a panic attack. He had seen that before, he had been there before.
”I mean besides your damn mind..” His movements were slow, his voice low and calm. If she was experiencing some hallucinatory episode, the last thing he wanted to do was to scare her and trigger a violent reaction.
When he spoke she looked up immediately, planting her butt on the floor and staring at him with a confused expression. She waved her hand in front of her face to make sure he was actually there, in the dark of night and her already untrustworthy vision for a minute he looked like someone else.
”My uh… bracelet?” She giggled at his follow up to his own question, shaking her head. ”My mind is right where it’s supposed to be… it’s just a little confused right now.”
She remained sitting on the floor, her giggle disappearing as quick as it happened and she started searching the floor around her again, picking up anything and everything she could grab, her searching quickly descending back into the frantic search she was conducting before he interrupted.
Olly let out an audible sigh as he crouched down next to the Academy student. ”What kind of bracelet are you talking about? Gold? Silver?” Why was he even helping her? He asked himself that question as his hands tapped the cold ground. The courtyard could’ve used some maintenance, crumpled pieces of papers and cigarette butts were hiding under the wet leaves he moved away as he helped Paizlee in her search.
”Older than age itself…” she murmured the words as she crawled forwards, aware that he was still there and now helping her. He looked so much like someone he couldn’t be she still needed to know he was real and so she walked over and prodded his cheek with a damp finger from searching the floor.
”You ARE a real boy.” She sounded almost amazed at the realisation, stopping her search to kneel up and look him over. ”But who's the real boy? Who are you?” She gasped and looked up at the sky with a voice that was laced in wonder. ”Did you come from up there too?!”
He chuckled to himself, she was really tripping. ”In a way, yes, I come from the sky.” He chose to tease her, he wasn’t even sure why. The truth was, the recent events as heartbreaking they were for the parts involved amused him and lifted his spirit. The ‘Ooohhhh’ of surprise coming from Paizlee stopped his train of thoughts and brought him back to reality, whatever that might have been for the young woman in front of him. ”But before getting on the plane, I was in LA. I came with the Crucible students. I’m a trainer there.” He raised his head from the ground for a minute, eyes travelling to the moonlit old school building where his second life started. ”And I was here before, four years ago. First Academy class”
The caterpillar demanding WHO ARE YOU was the loudest voice in her head until he spoke again. Her initial amazement at him coming from the sky was quickly cut short as he explained further. She dropped to her butt again, her finger still poking at his cheek in a sort of repetitive way now as she stared at him with wide eyes. Wonder and hallucinogens lighting them up as she held his gaze.
”You look like an Angel.” She squinted, trying to really stare at him for a long moment before she sighed. ”No. Your eyes are wrong.” She could see beyond the initial amusement and right into the depths of them, she saw pain and torment twisting him up inside through those eyes.
”His eyes never looked like that.”
He had been called many names in his twenty-four years on this planet, but Angel was never one of them. ”Whose eyes?” He asked as his hand moved up to his face to lightly swat her away, putting an end to her prodding at his cheek. He was trying to make sense of her delusion, somewhat intrigued by that odd girl. Was he reminding her of someone she used to know? Someone linked to the bracelet she had lost, perhaps?
”Don’t tell him I lost it.” Her eyes suddenly welled up with tears and she began frantically searching once again, getting to her feet and sprinting to the other side of the courtyard, she stopped dead at the edge of it, staring out across the back and then turning on her heels to stare over at Olly.
”Don’t…” she called out one word before stopping and looking down at her wrists, the noise coming from the party began to overwhelm her ears again and the sounds distorted to hallway chatter. People dancing became footfall in a school hallway and as she heard the loud thud of a head against metal, a sound only she could hear.
A haunting remnant of the past ringing through her ears as the spot on her wrist where his bracelet should be felt like fire. Like the devil himself reached from her worst memory to drag her down with him. All of this happened in silence, her teetering on her toes, as she just repeated that same word, like a soft whisper.
”Don’t.”
Confused didn’t even start to cut it. His eyes moved away from her for the first time since she suddenly darted away and landed on his right wrist, where his bracelet was creeping out from under his white button-down shirt. The left hand moved on its own, animated by those undying feeling for his Faith. The thumb caressed the bloodstained leather, a caress sent to the love of his life wherever she may be. This bracelet had become in the past few months the most important thing in his life, the one thing he would never give up on. He was never a people person, under any other circumstances he wouldn’t care about a stoner kid. But she had lost her bracelet, and that was something he could relate to.
”Fuck me..”
He muttered under his breath, walking toward Paizlee with long strides.
”I won’t kid. Come on now, let’s take you back inside, ok?”
She shook her head quickly and turned to face him, her eyes locked on his and for a moment there was absolute clarity in them and tears welled up and threatened to spill over.
”No… I have to find it.” Her sentence trailed off as she sat down again, plonked right to the ground and hugged her knees, heavy breathing either from crying or a quickly oncoming panic attack shook her upper body for a moment and then she dropped her head back and looked up at him.
”You look like a memory I don’t want to have.” Her tone was the soft, almost too quiet tone of someone who didn’t know if they wanted to be heard. And then, recognition, like she had finally seen him for him in that moment and that caused her to slap her hands over her face and bury it in her palms.
”Fuck, Olly I’m sorry.” She was speaking into her hands and not looking at him. ”I can’t go back inside. I lost the only thing that means anything. You’d get it, you’d understand.” Still she spoke into her hands, as if looking at him would rob her of the clarity she was experiencing. ”I was 17 when the only person I’ll ever love died and that bracelet is it! It’s all that I have, it’s the only thing that I’ve kept no matter what or when or where…” she paused, memories that she spent her life running from pushed at the edges of her clarity.
”But it’s not here and if I go back in there…” she finally dropped her hands from her face. ”It’s like accepting he’s gone.”
Getting to her feet and shaking off whatever clear moment she had been experiencing. When she finally met his gaze again, she seemed to wobble just a little. Finding her balance she grabbed his hand and started to match them back towards the party.
”Come on, come on! We’re going to miss it!” She looked back at an imaginary watch on his wrist as she made every attempt to drag him back towards the party. ”It’s no wonder you’re late! Your watch is exactly two days slow!”
The brief moment of clarity she had hit him like a ton of bricks. The desperation she showed while searching for the bracelet in her altered state not only was real, but even more brutal and hopeless without the kaleidoscopic lens of her hallucination. In that fleeting moment, he wanted to reassure you, he wanted to tell her that things will be fine, that she could ask to look at the footage to pinpoint when and where she had lost it. But before he could think of that, before he could shake off the feeling of looking into a mirror, she reverted back to that erratic behavior.
Words seemed pointless now, he just decided to ride along, walking behind her as she dragged him back to the party.
”She’d be fine there.” He thought to himself. ”At least until the high lasts.”
As soon as they stepped back into the party she let go of his arm and gravitated back towards Mars who was still doing the robot in exceptionally slow motion despite the fast bear of the music playing overhead. As if nothing had happened at all, Paizlee went right back to dancing with her friend and forgetting all about the lost bracelet.
When she woke up in the morning, sober and faced with reality, her heart would break all over again. Frantic searches and doubts about whether she could even wrestle without it would take up almost the entire day, but for tonight and for right now, it was all forgotten and there was dancing to do.