I apologise for the VERY long hiatus. There were too many things I had to sort out IRL and I never could get into the mood to write, especially a heavy fic like this one.

So thank you all for being patient! I really appreciate it. And crits are always welcome.

Warning: Angst, self-mutilation, graphic descriptions and other related themes ahead. Also long chapter is long.

Emerald Evanescence
Chapter 3: cut

cut: (v.) to make an opening, incision or wound in a surface, such as skin, with a sharp-edged tool; to remove or exclude something undesirable.

She was falling.

Everything around her was empty, dead. All she could hear was her hair whipping in the air by her ears as she plummeted through the darkness. Pieces of dream and memory shot past her, all whispering voices and dying colours, up towards a lucid circle of light like the moon far away. Shrinking. Fading.

She raised her arm. Tried to catch the light with her fingers. But her back hit what seemed like the bottom of the pit with a loud rumbling thump. A sharp pain flared through her entire body, and she cried out in pain.

The light above winked out. The darkness around her melted away with the echoes of the crash. She heard a curious sound: the low hum of electricity and glass, growing louder and louder, until she saw the squares of pale light sliding fast into view. They slotted and stacked themselves flat underneath her and all around her, each piece of floor and wall sealing into one another with the soft pinging note of a champagne flute. Sealing into a room that would soon imprison her with their sterile brilliance.

A gasp caught in her throat. With what little energy left in her body she pushed herself off the floor, but the light burned into her palms and faded away to become nothing but mirrored tiles. The face behind them — her face — was splintered. Then smirking. Then cackling in a shrill voice that wasn't hers.

She tore her eyes away from the tiles and struggled to stand. But the last piece had already fallen into place: her cell was complete. She stumbled past the closest walls, but there were even more beyond, more images of her desperate, deranged self echoing back at her. Each time she reached a dead end she could only helplessly draw in her breath; each time she tried to propel herself into the air and over the walls she realised she couldn't.

She was trapped.

Her knees wobbled, and she collapsed onto the tiles, smooth and cold through the thin cotton of her pyjamas. They rippled like quicksilver, then gradually stilled. But there came a pain deep within her head just then; she raised a hand to her forehead, and stared as her fingers came away sticky — not with blood, but a liquid as silvery-grey as the tiles were, flowing thickly down her arm and melting into the floor.

Snowflakes started dancing before her eyes. She shook her head to clear them off. She tried to lift herself up, but her arms suddenly went leaden, and dragged her further into the tiles. The floor stopped rippling and turned into ice underneath her, stinging her face, pricking her hands, and driving thousands of tiny needles into her very skin.

She couldn't move.

The tiles were eating into her. No, someone was eating into her, eating her away from the inside like a parasite in the gut. She could feel it all falling away — her body, her mind, even her will to fight back and get on with the rest of life. Worst of all, she could feel that someone gripping her by the neck and tearing off the masks on her face. Layer by fragile layer they came off, until the very last one came to light and burst out triumphant from her raw, burning face.

The mask fluttered down like paper, glowing and growing bigger until it was the size of the human child, and landed softly on its two feet. Feet clad in black Mary Janes.

It was herself. Her past self.

She stared at the child as its glow faded. It had the same shoes, the same clothes, the same hair, even though it was shorter than she wore it now. But the wicked grin and eyes that she knew she once had were not on the child's face — for those were melancholic eyes that stared back at her, and lips that were pressed together with nary a hint of a smile. And it was clutching at the rims of its dress with trembling hands: a mere girl timid and helpless, looking for someone who might understand her, at last.

Someone who never was there.

She screamed as another jolt of pain from her chest raked through her entire body. The child vanished, and she found herself back inside the psychedelic room of walls. Her fingers clenched, shaking, into the fabric of her shirt and found something wet, but this time she could not see what it was.

The snowflakes still danced before her eyes. They were multiplying, stretching into a film of frost that threatened to completely obscure her sight. One of the flakes — an exact replica of all those around it — suddenly shattered, its six arms breaking away like the spokes of a busted bicycle wheel. And each of those arms started poking around her cornea like the tiniest of knives, miniscule red tails of blood trailing and flicking, until the maze gradually painted itself a dull, dark red. She couldn't see, couldn't move, couldn't think—

Her eyes squeezed shut, then opened again.

At once the snowflakes vanished. This time she could see everything clearly. Too clearly, in fact — there was an actual knife half-embedded inside her chest, the same silvery liquid from before cascading from the wound, swelling and bursting like a sticky bubble with each painful pump of her heart.

Her mind swirled into an oleaginous rainbow of colours. She staggered, and fell at the base of one of the walls, her whole body shaking.

A shadow fell over her just then, and she slowly raised her head. A familiar figure was standing before her — not the child, but someone much taller. A young man. She recognised his dark-coloured clothes, the mirror shades propped above his forehead — its lenses catching the kaleidoscope of lights in the maze — and his black hair in its slick, short ponytail.

Someone who never was there.

She choked back a gasp. She tried to reach forward and call out to him, but nothing came from her mouth. As she stumbled onto the floor again the snowflakes started creeping back into her vision, beckoning one another to look out through her eyes, to look inside, at her self deep within—

And then he was pulling her up, away from the deathly chill of the mirrored tiles. She gasped. She couldn't see his face properly — she never could, for it always seemed to be in shadow — and tried to touch it with her hand, but all she felt was cold air as her fingers simply went through his face.

He cradled her body in his arms as he knelt down, cupping the back of her head with one hand, and closing the other slowly around the hilt of the knife still sticking out from her chest. Now she could see his eyes: deep green, unblinking, but strangely calm as they gazed back into hers.

It's not going to hurt, they seemed to be telling her, even as his mouth stayed firmly shut — and with a swift jerk he pulled out the blade.

She screamed.

The snowflakes vanished. The pain inside her chest erupted, and ebbed away just as suddenly. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep, ragged lungful of air — something she almost lost the chance to do again — and let her hand curl against his own. It was warm, reassuring, and still wrapped tight around the knife. The silvery blood that clung on to the blade was now flowing down the hilt, seeping thick and hot into the spaces between her fingers and his.

The seconds dripped by, and he neither moved nor said a word. She willed her breaths to quieten down, counting slowly to ten before forcing her eyes open again. "Butch—" she started softly.

The blade slashed right across her neck in a flash.

She froze. Through her burning vision all she could see was his arm outstretched, still gripping the knife he had just slit her throat with. Her blood was gushing out in torrents now, splattering from both her neck and her chest and the corners of her eyes, in exactly the same way as everyone she had killed before.

Why? she screamed at him. Why are you doing this to me? I didn't mean to kill anyone! He made me do it . . . And he told me to because of you! Because of all of you!

The lights faded from around her, and from the darkness came the one voice she had always wanted to hear:

"Lights out, BC. Sweet dreams."

– – –

9 September, 2002

Tap, tap, tap.

She opened her eyes, two rings of green glowing in the dark.

A dream . . . It was all a dream.

She let out a deep breath. It plumed in the faint sunlight peeping in from a slit in the curtains, and disappeared. Everything was still again.

The door creaked open.

"Buttercup?" A face peered in through the small gap in the doorway, pink-coloured eyes blinking hesitantly.

Her eyes flickered shut.

The figure at the door slipped quietly into the room. In her bed she heard the groan of the door, a clattering of glass, padded footsteps making their way towards her bed. A slender silhouette came to her view, crisp against the yellowish light that flooded in from the open doorway.

Blossom set the tray in her hands down on the small table beside the bed. The scent of hot chocolate wafted across the room. "Are you awake, Buttercup?" she asked softly.

Buttercup said nothing. She imagined herself fast asleep, her breaths rhythmic, her chest rising and falling in time with them. But her mind's eye stayed wide open behind her eyelids.

The chair creaked as Blossom pulled it over and sat upon it. Then there came a small sigh, a tinkling of earrings, and the clicking of nails as she tapped her fingers against one another.

"I don't know if you're listening, Buttercup . . ." she started quietly. "I don't know if you want to listen, but there's something I really have to tell you."

For a moment she wondered if Blossom was reprising her role as the eldest sister in the family, the one whose words, whose advice should always be heeded. But as far as she remembered the conversations between them had waned over the years — prompted, perhaps, by the vague, one-worded answers she always gave Blossom.

And here she was, about to give her a little speech, about things. About life.

As though she cared.

– – –

2 September, 2002

She remembered someone carrying her. The wind, harsh and freezing against her face. The wails of sirens drifting in and out of her ears.

She remembered choking back her tears. She felt the arms that tightened their grip around her. The small weight off her arm — the Pendulum crystal — swung from its thin cable. Powerless.

She remembered the voice of the person holding her. "We're going home now, Buttercup. You'll be all right." She heard the uncertainty in his words. But her fingers reached out, and found his shirt sleeve flapping in the wind. She held on to it for the rest of the flight.

She remembered the curtains caress her cheeks as they passed through the window, and into their home. Home. Where she belonged. She didn't know what home meant anymore.

She remembered two cries that greeted her. Suddenly she was in someone else's arms, enveloped in her embrace and the faint scent of her perfume. "I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . ." she heard that person sob, over and over. The coolness of tinkling jewels kissed her skin.

She remembered another pair of hands unclasping the Pendulum from her arm. It clanged, a harsh note of metal against glass as it was tossed onto the coffee table. Her eyes refused to open, and her throat went dry even as she pleaded to have the Pendulum back. "We— we should keep it somewhere for the time being . . ." a voice stammered, small and high and afraid. "Right?"

She remembered someone else's fingers brushing away the drying wetness on her face. It was a touch almost familiar, but not quite. She tried to open her eyes to see who it was, but he only laid her body, gently, into the soft warmth of the couch. "Let her rest now," he was saying. "She needs it."

She remembered hearing four voices. There was one more. One more. But she felt something lukewarm against the wounds on her arms, and something else even warmer drape over her chest. She sank back into the cushion under her head, and tried no more to speak and see. There was nothing more she could do — not unlike all those times she had gone through these few years.

They had all amounted to nothing.

– – –

9 September, 2002

"I don't know why you did all that to the city the other day, Buttercup. Honestly, none of us know . . ."

I don't want to listen.

". . . but I wish I'd talked with you more. If I'd bothered to set my own stuff aside and just— just asked you how you were, if we'd gone for a walk together or something, just the two of us . . . Maybe you'd have told me what's on your mind. And I would've helped you. I really would. Remember when the Professor said—"

Blossom stopped and drew in her breath sharply. Then she went on, in a smaller voice than before: "Remember when we took the antidote, Buttercup? We promised we would take care of ourselves, and stay with one another, no matter what happened . . . And we would still protect the city with our powers even though there weren't as many monsters as before. Because this place is our home."

It used to be. But not anymore.

She heard a stifled sniff, a small exhale. "They . . . they're convinced it was a localised tremour that wrecked the city that night," Blossom said softly. "Brick wanted us to keep mum about the truth for now, but we really shouldn't . . . And Tara— oh god, Tara didn't— Tara didn't deserve to die at all, no matter what . . ."

What about the others? What about that scumbag in the alley? Did he deserve to die more than the others I've killed? Didn't all of them deserve to know who it was that murdered them?

She felt a warmth slip onto her hair: Blossom was stroking her gently, over and over. But her fingers were shaking, hard, as she shuddered and tried to hold back her sobbing with her other hand. "I don't want you to go around killing anybody else anymore. I'm your sister, I trust you. But you have to prove to me that you can do it, Buttercup . . ."

I don't have to prove anything to anybody. I don't have to listen to you. I don't—

"I'll leave this drink here. Take it while it's still warm." She sniffed again, and let out a deep breath. "They . . . they've given you a break from school and even sent a counsellor over, but we told her we'll take care of you ourselves. You just take a good rest. Call out for us if you need anything. And—"

There was a familiar clink. Not Blossom's earrings, but something heavier, more solid, and it came from the bedside table.

"I'm leaving this here as well. Bubbles wanted it locked away somewhere, but . . . we trust that you'll not use it again. At least, not for anything bad or dangerous. We don't want any more . . . things to happen again, but we still trust you. I still trust you."

No, you don't. I don't even trust myself. I don't even know why I'm doing all this. I can't even see what I'm doing. I see nothing . . . I have nothing. I just need . . . someone. Someone who will understand. Someone—

"Sleep well, Buttercup. I— I've got to go for my afternoon class. But I'll pop in again when I get back . . ."

The chair creaked again, softly. Footsteps padded away, and then the door closed with a metallic click.

—Someone who's never here.

– – –

She did not know how long she slept after that. But when she opened her eyes again the chink of light by the window had already mellowed into a soft gold. The mug of chocolate on her bedside table had long stopped steaming, but there beside it was her Pendulum. One of the emerald's facets caught the light, and reflected it into fragments all over the wall.

With unhurried ease she pushed herself from the depths of the covers, and reached out to close her hand around the weapon. Its metal burned against her skin, cold at first, but warming up quickly as she cuffed it back on her arm, its belts clicking almost with approval. A tiny glow flickered in the eye of the crystal: the machine was alive once more.

Her lips eased into a smile.

She cradled her right arm with her hand as though it were in a sling and, with a small trembling in her shoulders, pressed the tip of the Pendulum against her forehead. It was cold, much colder than when she had touched it just now, but the light in the emerald grew brighter still, until she could see it even from behind her closed eyes.

"Tell me," she whispered into the Pendulum's light. Her arms were shaking. "Tell me how I should stop this madness . . . I need a way out, and I need it now . . ."

The Pendulum shot out suddenly towards the window. She managed to slam her feet against the footboard before it could wrench her clean off the bed, and ended up half-kneeling with her right wrist dangling high over her head. As she stared up at it the Pendulum morphed — no longer a machine, but the hypnotic pet of a snake charmer, all emerald eyes and metal scales that slithered down towards her on the trails of an invisible melody. Past her forehead, down her nose and mouth, and finally curving around her chin to hover over the soft flesh right underneath.

Its fangs dipped into her skin, and her breath hitched.

And then she was high above the room, floating upwards like ice in water until her back bumped into the scratchy boards of the ceiling. She couldn't feel or hear anything, but she could still see — and down below was a dark-haired girl slumped like a graceless puppet over the bedcovers, barely held up by her arm still locked over her head, and the crystal snicked under her chin. An electric blue-white glow engulfed both girl and machine in a volatile sphere of energy, singeing the very air alive with lashing tongues of light and a deep buzz that crackled just beyond the edge of her hearing. A splinter of white light leapt up towards her, and—

She snapped her eyes open with a gasp.

She was back on her bed again. No, she was still on her bed, and the emerald still under her chin. But the light that had flickered in it before had long died, and her arm, suddenly free of its invisible shackles, fell to her side with a soft thump. She felt the tip of the emerald leave her skin at last with a tiny pop. Spots of pain bloomed in its wake as it went back the way it came, each loop and bend in the steel rope tethered to it unravelling as the crystal slinked over her lips and eyes, in a smear of glass green and honey red.

Her tongue darted out to catch the small wetness coating her lips. It was thick, and warm, and salty, and it blended with the pulsating pain under her skin into the strangest recipe of pleasure. As the crystal clicked inside its holster once more she smiled to herself. Her eyes, the same unblinking green as those from a now distant dream, went on burning in the half-darkness of the room.

She had found a way out.

– – –

For once she was glad that Blossom still chose to trust her. It meant that she could delay having to face what consequences of her unexplainable urges to purge the world — with the walls of her home prison standing between herself and them — and it meant that she could spend more time with her Pendulum meanwhile.

If it could answer her plea the day before, then there was no reason it couldn't do the same for the many, many other questions she still had.

She sat on her haunches, staring at the three white candles burning on the floor before her. She was in the small space that made up the basement — half the size of a classroom, but made even smaller by the crusty shelves built into the walls, stacks of boxes sealed but unmarked, and dust covers draped carelessly over some of them. The candles' flickering flames threw their haphazard shadows all over the walls, gathering around her like a horde of curious onlookers.

What those boxes contained she did not know. Memories perhaps, hoarded by her sisters and the Professor himself. But they weren't important. She was there for the privacy her own room couldn't offer, not when Blossom still could unlock it from the outside. The latch on this side of the basement door was crude and clunky, but it worked. And that was all that mattered.

She closed her eyes. The entire household was silent for the night, but she could still feel the low hum of electricity flowing underneath the stone tiles pressed into her bare calves. It came from the wall behind her, where the Professor's laboratory took up the rest of the basement space.

She didn't know what happened to the laboratory. Nobody did. It had been locked for the past few years and the key to it nowhere to be found, but right then it seemed as though some of the machines inside there were still alive. Improbable . . . but a comforting thought nonetheless. She let the background hum wash over her.

The candles continued to burn, trails of wax dribbling into the shallow dish at each of their bases. When she finally opened her eyes again there was already a sizeable mound coalesced in the dishes, and a million questions jostling for attention in her mind. Some of those she might have asked Blossom or Bubbles, if they ever managed to coax them out of her. Some she never would have voiced to anyone, for even she was afraid of the answers to them. And some she would have reserved for the Professor himself . . . if she still could.

She swallowed back the growing lump in her throat. She pushed the sleeves of her pyjama top up her elbows, and raised one arm across her forehead. The Pendulum on her wrist clicked once as though in reply. The emerald slid free of its holster and swung down on its cable, hanging in the air and spinning like a true pendulum would. Its facets glittered in the sparse firelight like eyes to the blocky shadows around her. A true audience that would never betray her and any word she said in this room.

"There are some questions I have for you," she murmured to the Pendulum, "and you will answer them truthfully."

The emerald stopped swinging at once.

She drew out a sigh of relief, and went on. "If the answer is yes, you will spin clockwise. If no, then counter-clockwise. If it's anything else then . . . just give me a sign. Point. Make a marking. Anything. Is— is that clear?"

The small light inside the crystal's heart burned. Then it started spinning on its own. Clockwise.

She smiled tightly to herself. It was working. But first she had to make sure.

"Am . . . Am I alone now?"

The emerald swung randomly for a few seconds, before it settled into a leisurely spin — again clockwise.

"Is it daytime now?"

She paused to glance at the basement door at the end of the small flight of stairs to her right. The latch was still in place, and the rim of space where the door didn't quite meet its frame pitch dark. When she looked back again the emerald was turning counter-clockwise.

There, she whispered to herself silently. Now she could ask it anything, anything she wanted. A face materialised behind her eyes at once, but she forced herself to push it aside. Right now that constant murmur of electricity in the basement was seeping through her skin into her very mind, and planting a question other than the paramount one she wanted answers for in this secret midnight vigil.

"The Professor," she heard herself saying. "Where is he now?"

The emerald's spin slowed down. Seconds later it fell still, even though her outstretched arm by then was wavering ever so slightly.

She tried again, this time in a smaller voice: "Professor John Utonium. He used to— he lives here, in this house. Is he . . . Is he still in Townsville?"

The crystal did not respond. But the light inside it dimmed, and the emerald started retracting up into the Pendulum with a soft whir. The shadows around the room rustled in the quivering candlelight and threatened to smother her entirely.

"No, please—" She flustered, clutching at her right wrist as though it were a separate appendage from her own body, trying to hold it steady in mid-air. It knows, she whispered to herself. It knows that wasn't what I came here for. "I won't ask about him again. But I have other things I need to know from you. I really do."

It was foolish, really. Pleading with this little machine on her arm like it were a sentient loved one she had just lied to. But it was, in a way. She just had to tread her way into its psyche carefully.

"My sisters, Blossom and Bubbles." The names came out queer from her mouth, like chocolate too pure. "Where are they?"

The shadows ceased their shapeshifting. Then the emerald, so close to the lip of the Pendulum's holster, swerved suddenly towards the basement ceiling with an almost inaudible whoosh. It hovered there for a second or two before swinging back down on its cable like a yo-yo, until it finally settled into its original position some five inches off the floor.

She ran the side of her left hand across her temple and drew her breath.

"Do they care for me?" she asked the Pendulum.

Clockwise. Unbearably slow, but definitely clockwise.

". . . Do they love me?"

The emerald flared into life again But this time she could see flickers of pink and blue mixed with the white of the miniature fire through the green facets of the crystal. It continued spinning in the same direction as before, albeit at a growing angle until it was tracing an invisible circle around the air above the middle candle. She heard a tinkling laugh inside her ears, a little girl's laughter, and it faded the moment she tried to place an identity on that voice.

What's the difference, anyway?

She went on. "Am I alive?"

The circle grew bigger.

"But do I live?"

The emerald shuddered to a stop. It tried to turn counter-clockwise but couldn't, as though it were suspended in oil and not air. Finally it gave a frustrated tug on the wire cable, and started swinging in a plane instead. Back and forth. Back and forth.

A dry laugh escaped her lips. She didn't live. That part was true enough — she was simply one-third of an experiment gone wrong. But unlike Blossom and Bubbles she had failed to find a place for herself in this world, even after so many years since they were created. She could not lead, she could not follow. She could not reason, she could not empathise. All she knew was to solve problems by force and force alone.

Was that how she was made to be?

What that what the Professor would have wanted out of her?

Was that why he never thought she was ever worth noticing?

"Does . . . does Butch care for me?"

The emerald continued oscillating. But the single line it was tracing in mid air contorted, gradually, until it became a small ellipse. An ellipse going clockwise.

She did not ask her next question out loud. But the Pendulum heard anyway, and in reply the emerald spun once — counter-clockwise — then shot back into its holster with a violent click that almost tore her arm right off. The flame inside the crystal extinguished itself.

One of the sheets over the boxes slipped and tumbled onto the floor somewhere behind her, sending a cloud of dust her way and snuffing out all the candles save for one.

The dowsing session was over.

No . . .

Her arms fell, as did her eyes that she had even allowed to glimmer with hope only moments before. She drew herself into a ball, and for the many long minutes after that she wept, tears witnessed only by the lone flame of the remaining candle and the remnants of silhouettes lingering by the walls.

The Pendulum, she knew, had spoken the truth. She was alone — not suddenly, not from the very beginning, but ever since she chose to grow up like the rest of them into an adult. A regular, human adult. Yet each passing year that she spent living under the same roof as the others only saw the growing disparities between them and her.

Brick and Blossom, the most ambitious of their lot, naturally made a worthy sparring and study partner for each other. Boomer's incredibly Panglossian view on life often worked like a big brother's hug for the ever-timid Bubbles. There was no use hoping any of them would understand her, because they had never been without each other. There was no use putting up false fronts before them, because they would not know there were any to take off.

And there was no use revealing any fragment of herself to him — the one person she had once hated with a vengeance, then foolishly fallen in love with — because he would not return any of it.

She jerked her head up with a sharp, ragged breath, and swept away the last of the tears under her eyes. "Show me," she whispered fiercely, pressing her curled fists hard into her forehead. "Show me where all the pain is . . . I want to see it, and I want to see it now."

With a muted series of clicks the emerald slithered out from the Pendulum. Its tip touched her right wrist — just beside the belt that lashed the machine to her arm — and sunk right into her skin. A sharp tingle laced across her scalp. The floor tipped onto its side, and her body started to spiral away. The next thing she knew she was floating against the ceiling, looking down at an empty circle of candle stubs and a lone flame spluttering atop one of them.

A single spot of blood bloomed from under the edge of the crystal. It grew, long and fat, into a lush crimson bubble that swelled bigger still. From above she watched, waiting to see how large it would become before it burst. And the moment it did she felt a sudden release of energy from deep inside her, and let out a deep breath as she floated down once more.

"Go on," she murmured.

Slowly, almost deliberately, the emerald inched away from her wrist, the Pendulum's belts undoing themselves as it did. It glided down her lower arm and towards the inside of her elbow, clear green against vivid red, as the river it drew forked into braided streams that wrapped all the way around her arm. Her folded right sleeve fell apart into two under the keen edges of the crystal, as did the two buttons on her top as it crossed her collarbone, though the leather cord she wore around her neck stayed curiously unbroken. The giddying river of blood went on running, soaking into the fabric of her shirt like overzealous flowers. From bubble into blossoms it grew, and still it went on spreading, and spreading, and spreading.

Truth and strength. That was what the Pendulum had given her. It had lit a path of escape for her the day before, and its answers today an affirmation of all that doubt and shame haunting both her conscious days and dreaming nights. And now it was showing her how to retaliate. Pain. Not towards other innocent people like before, but into herself. A euphoria of weakness leaving her body, but also a chastisement for all her wrongs before.

At last the green crystal stopped just above her heart. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her skin was clammy under her pyjama top and her breaths raspy in her throat. But she could hear herself laughing. A dry, desperate laugh that sounded uncannily like the shadowy voice of the spectre from so many nights before.

It hurts, she wanted to cry, even as she pulled her lips back in a rictus of agony. It really hurts. But it was nothing. Compared to that pain inside her heart, this was nothing.

She cracked open an eye. In the facets of the now glowing emerald she saw her own self: pale, sallow, and matted with sweat and blood and tears all glistening in the candle's light. She forced a smile down at it, and the spectre's face grinned back in approval.

– – –

26 September, 2002

Sharps. That was what she called them. She had meant to gather them in one place for some time now. They were small, easy to displace, and risked another volley of questions from Blossom if she ever were to see them. Better to stash them somewhere safe.

In the depths of her wardrobe she had found a white cardboard box. It was about the size of a magazine digest, with a laminated matte surface that was slightly worn at the corners. A flurry of familiar images flashed across her mind when she lifted its lid and saw the small green towel tucked inside, and her heart gave an involuntary lurch. But she only pursed her lips, tossed the towel aside, and scrutinised the empty box in her outstretched hands.

It was good enough.

Since then, whenever any of her siblings popped into her room — be it to bring her something to eat, to chat with her and 'keep her spirits up', or even to ask her to a walk around the neighbourhood (which she complied with a few times, just to avoid suspicion) — she would make sure the box was tucked away between her mattress and the headboard, and then covered by the bedcovers before they could even open the door and see her in bed, listless and silent as before.

To the four of them this was an upsetting sight. If Buttercup still refused to talk, she might just lose herself in all those emotions and frustrations pent up inside her. Yet — and this none of them admitted out loud — it was far better than her going all around the city and killing everyone that so much as caught her eye.

And it was with this in mind that they contented with giving her more time alone. Time which she chose to spend carefully behind the closed door to her room.

She sat down in the narrow space between her wardrobe and bed — the furthest spot from the door — and emptied the box's contents onto the throw rug on the floor. A miscellany of small items scattered out with tinkles and clinks, not unlike the loot from a magpie's nest. There was a thumbtack, the snapped-off end of a razor blade, a few shards of bottle-green glass, a pin broken off the back of a Student Council nametag she had found in Brick's room, a pair of silver embroidery scissors, a half-empty disposable lighter, and scraps of wire with tips finer than a needle's.

She wanted to laugh. What a paltry collection. It was almost not worth the effort of filching each item from here and there whenever she could. But they were discreet, far more than her Pendulum which still sat innocently on her desk since that night down in the basement, and sufficient for the minor relapses she'd been experiencing several times a day. And without her sisters or anyone else in her face so often, she didn't have to keep reminding herself what they kept expecting of her . . . or who she expected to see instead. Nothing the slick pain from a pin dragging up her calves couldn't satiate.

At least that was that she convinced herself, as she absently fingered through the sharps with her eyes closed. She could easily have slipped back into the basement room and repeated the ritual. The latch would have promised her more relative safety, and the emerald's effect would have lasted longer. But somehow she didn't want that electric thrum from the laboratory around her again. It was so close, so constant, as though it were watching her every move and judging her with every other swell of energy from behind the mortar walls. It reminded her of too much. And she needed all the focus she could get.

She closed her hand around the piece of razor blade, and opened her eyes with a faint smile. That would do for today.

Her other hand slipped under the rim of her sweater, and she slowly tugged it over her head. Her upper body — now clad in only her bra and a grey tank top over it — was going numb in the coolness of the air, and ice-cold at the spot where the silver ring on her necklace lay between her collarbones.

And over that semicircle of skin, along that of her arms and even up towards her jugular, was a brand new geometry of lines. They shimmered in the daylight from between the drawn curtains, criss-crossing every which way towards her shoulder blades and back again. Most of them were already healing, albeit still puffy with pink scar tissue, but she didn't mind. It wasn't as though anyone would be seeing them at all.

They had felt good. And that was all that mattered.

The Pendulum had been the first to show her what the pain was like, and now she was growing addicted to it. It was different — more definite, more raw — than that other source of agony she could still feel inside of herself. The sharps helped draw her attention away from that agony. They helped her forget. And every time she trailed another one along her body with a fresh ridge in its wake, the entire room would burst into cascades of colour. It would raise her into the highest skies, even as her own power of flight lay dormant, and cradled her back down laughing and crying into the sweetest slumber.

It was always beautiful.

The blade between her thumb and index finger gleamed, rhombus of light glancing off its surface. Beckoning. Just a couple of lines, she murmured to herself, as she draped the sweater over her knees and leaned forward, tongue flicking out to moisten her lips. Then no more.

She raised her left hand and ran a finger along the back of the blade. It was smooth, hard, cold; once round the corner the metal stung hot, slicing past her skin and into the pink flesh beneath. Her fingertip shot to the gap between her lips, and she sucked on it until the tiny spark of pain went away. But the tang of blood still lingered, and she couldn't help but grin.

Do you remember? her own voice echoed inside her head. You gave me the Pendulum. And so far all it's given me are these scars. But it's okay, because they won't last. In the end everything will still be the same.

She pulled at a stray piece of ribbon sticking out from under one of her wardrobe doors. With her head tilted to one side as if in a trance, she touched the ribbon to the upturned blade. At once it unfurled into two and slipped into her lap. Twin trails of red, marking the fallen soldiers in the ongoing battlefield that was the web of lines over her body.

Still smiling, she went on to trace the rest of her body with the blade, fingers light as a leaf gliding over water. Every intersection of new wound against old only drew a pinprick of pain and a small sigh from her lips. At last she found a new unmarked spot: the knob of bone at her right ankle. It had a strangely pleasing contour over which shadow danced with light from under the curtain. She held the blade to it and slowly drew it across the skin there. A thin line of blood streaked into being in its wake, shining as the ribbon did before. Relief coursed through her body, and her smile stretched wider than before.

Do you see that? It's so small, so harmless . . . But you don't know how much it's hurting now.

Because I don't either.

She broke into a rancorous laugh, leaning back and tipping her head until the top of her head pressed hard into the patch of wall behind her. Her black bangs, splayed all across her face, tickled her into more laughter that made her shoulders shake and her fingers curl around the length of the blade, tighter and tighter.

There was nothing she could see now. Nothing — except the same snowflakes that had once plagued a dream of hers. They flew in flurries like those of a Christmas glass globe. Shrinking. Swelling. Spinning. Twisting. Their antics behind her eyelids, together with the fast dulling pain inside her entire body, left her giddy and gasping for air.

The room started to spiral again. She clutched tight at her forehead, and felt her hands come away sticky and wet. "No . . ." she moaned weakly.

A tiny prickle came to the back of her head just then. It grew with every passing fraction of a second until the tingling rose into a distinctive hum. Only then did she realise it was not from inside her head, but beyond the walls to the room — a hum that could only come from the presence of another person.

Someone was coming.

"No—" she gasped. Her body gave an involuntary shudder as it snapped out from its hallucination. In a frenzy she fumbled for her sweater, but it had been pushed by her feet to a corner out of direct reach. And the sharps kept falling through the spaces between her shaking, bloodstained fingers as she tried to stash them back into the white box.

Hide.

Hide them!

Hide hide hide hide hide—

The door creaked open.

"Buttercup?" came a girl's voice. "I—"

– – –

18 April, 1999

"Well, 'fess up already!" Butch snapped. "Whose ruddy idea was this?"

Buttercup kept her arms folded and her eyes firmly trained on the ground. "I shouldn't have come," she muttered for the umpteenth time.

Beside them, four youngsters stood in a row — their red and blond hair tousling in the wind — and smiled up at the ride that sprawled before them in candy hues and the ever-pleasant splashes of water. Glittering on the giant signboard just above the entrance were the words Love Cascade, its blue and purple script luring over hordes of couples, young and old alike.

Butch spat in disgust at the sight of the tittering crowds. "Are you guys crazy? We're not three-year-olds anymore! When— if we ever come to a stupid theme park like this, it's for the adrenaline. Meaning every other ride except this. Get it?"

"But it really looks like fun!" squealed Bubbles. She clasped her hands and bobbed on her heels in delight.

"This is for total wussies, man!"

Brick held up a hand before Butch's fuming face. "Butch, you'd best keep your mouth shut if you're just out to ruin everyone's mood for today. And besides—" he tipped the brim of his cap just a little lower "—Bubbles is right. A slower ride like this ain't too bad a thing to end the day with."

Blossom gave a knowing chuckle from beside him. "We can all take this as a chance to do some reflections too," she added helpfully, before turning to smile at the girl sulking behind her. "You especially, Buttercup."

"I might as well just dunk my head right into the water if I wanted to reflect anything."

"Oh, come on, BC." She hooked an arm through Buttercup's and pulled her closer to the rest of the group. "I meant reflections on the bigger things. Our life, our doings, our happiness, the people we love . . ."

Brick gave a poorly hidden cough, and Blossom rolled her eyes with a smile. "And things like that," she finished.

"Augh!" Buttercup snatched her arm away from her sister's and rubbed furiously at it. "Can you all just stop being so— so—" she made a garbled sound from her throat "—so mushy? It's disgusting as hell!"

From behind her, Boomer laughed and nudged her with an elbow. "It won't be as bad as you think," he assured her, winking. "Butch'll be going in there too — so you two can just smash up the boat together after the ride's done."

"Boomer! You're not helping at all!"

He threw up his arms at Blossom, who now stood glaring with her hands on her hips. "I am! I'm just suggesting how the two of them can spend more time together, no?"

"That's the whole bloody problem!" Butch yelled. "I don't need to spend any more time with her. And I'm not gonna sit through some lame-o lovey-dovey ride either! Why can't we just go try out the Spaceshot instead of—"

"Butch, if you want to know what that Spaceshot feels like, you can always go up into the air yourself and power down. But don't expect me to scrape you off the sidewalk if you forget to switch yourself back on after that."

As Brick turned to saunter over to the ever-growing line of people before the water ride entrance — followed closely by Blossom and Bubbles in their skirts and strappy sandals — Boomer turned to look at the two green-eyed youths one last time.

"Look, I tried," he said with a shrug. "We all thought you guys could give in just for today's outing — well, I bet ten bucks with Brick that you would — but apparently—"

"Wait a sec — 'give in'?" Butch cut in, narrowing his eyes. "What do you mean?"

A devilish smile crept up Boomer's face as he pinched his fingers and touched them briefly to his lips: "Kiss and make up." And with a wave and a laugh to the dumbfounded duo he turned and ran to the others waiting in the queue.

– – –

"Did you have to do that?" protested Boomer. The bruises on either side of his face glowed fresh and red, and he winced each time he so much as touched them.

An empty boat rounded the corner, and bobbed gently along its painted track towards the wood-planked boarding platform. The ride attendant, a perky teenage girl in a blue uniform, beamed and nodded at Butch and Buttercup, who were next in line and equally fuming.

"Shut up." Butch turned around to glare at Boomer behind him. "Or I'll smash your face into the bloody boat."

"I'd prefer that girl over the boat, actually," Boomer promptly said. He threw a wink at the attendant, and she looked away blushing.

Bubbles slapped his arm and, laughing, nudged her siblings over to the edge of the platform. "Come on, you two," she said cheerfully, as Buttercup dragged herself into the waiting boat, followed by a very reluctant Butch. "There're people waiting to get on, you know."

"My pleasure." Butch tried to wriggle his way out of the seat and towards freedom, but Boomer shoved him back in — with just a little more force than was necessary. The entire boat rocked like a trawler at sea caught in a storm, and sent Butch flailing over the side and straight into the canal. Water splashed all over the platform and onto Buttercup, who still sat unmoving in her seat with her arms folded.

A second later Butch emerged soaking wet and gasping, as he clutched to the side of the boat. "What the hell, Boomer!" he yelled.

Boomer leaned over the canal as he slipped his hands calmly into the pockets of his hoodie. The grin on his face grew smug and suddenly devious. "We'll be right behind you watching," he said in a low whisper, "so you'd better stay together in that boat with Buttercup until the whole ride is over. Or Brick and I will give you hell." Then, in his usual bright voice as he stood up straight and waved his hand: "We'll see you later, folks!"

Bubbles stared between him and the still-rocking boat, her hands clapped over her mouth. The ride attendant, the front of her uniform now quite drenched, gave a stammering smile at Butch and Buttercup.

"E . . . Enjoy your ride."

– – –

The ride was unbearably slow. It meandered around the fringes of the grounds, passing through artfully arranged hedges and thickets that gave the couples in the boats both privacy and glimpses of the many other rides in the distance — rides that were a thousand times more exciting than this.

Butch, still dripping wet from head to toe, sat at one side of the boat as it gently went past bushes bursting with technicolour flowers. Screams of people in the roller-coaster and reverse bungee rides drowned the birdsong coming from the hidden speakers all around, and he clenched his fists against his jeans, swearing under his breath.

If it weren't for Brick and Boomer, he thought, he would have been the one screaming his head off on one those rides right now. Hell, he would have broken— no, burned the boat to a crisp, were it not for the canal water on his skin sapping his sheer energy, that damned safety bar stuck across his lap, and her.

He sneaked a peek at the other side of the boat. Buttercup had not moved an inch ever since the ride started. Her T-shirt still looked damp, and so was her hair that hung like thin icicles about her face. She was staring straight ahead with an elbow propped against the edge of the boat; then, suddenly aware of Butch's stare, she turned to scowl at him.

"Moron. Thanks to you I'm stuck here for the stupidest ride in my entire life. With you."

"It . . ." he spluttered. "It wasn't my idea, okay? It was your darling sister's — and now she's with Boomer at the back spying on this boat!"

She gave a snort. "Singing with her, more like. And I bet them two up in front are discussing stuff about world peace or whatnot. I don't know who'll even bother about you."

"Well, you're talking to me."

Buttercup flushed. She folded her arms tight across her chest and looked resolutely away. "Fine," he heard her mutter.

For a long time the two of them held their silence. Only the trickling of water, the rustling of leaves, and the calls of insects in the depths of the foliage filled the space between them. Butch kept himself busy by squeezing the water out of his clothes and hair, and cursed when the boat passed through a cove of small trees. Overhead, the branches wove into one another like an arched trellis, fragmenting the late afternoon sunlight that fell upon the two of them in the boat.

And it was in this light that Butch quite unexpectedly caught Buttercup in, from the corner of his eye. She had long dozed off: her head was rested against her shoulder, her hand lay curled on the seat between herself and Butch, and her eyes were shut. For once her face was free of scowls and frowns and, in the golden glow of the waning sun, it looked almost . . . angelic.

His heart skipped a beat.

He turned away at once, grabbing his head in his hands. What was he thinking? What had he been thinking for the entire day? First he agreed to go for this boat ride; now he was there admiring her face. Hers, out of the gazillion prettier ones he'd seen. That was a face he had always wanted to punch. He hated that face.

But—

Butch peeked through the slits of his fingers at Buttercup again. She still had not moved, even as the boat stumbled towards a corner — and then rocked its way around it.

With a startled yelp he felt himself lift above the seat and crash down into it again. His hand grabbed the closest thing it could find, and he scrambled to get up. But this time he suddenly realised he could see Buttercup up close: the shadows shifting across her features, the lashes fringing her purple-tinged eyelids, and, most clearly of all, her lips slightly parting as an irritated mutter escaped them.

"What the . . ."

"B-But-But-Buttercup!" he spluttered. The rest of his body was frozen all of a sudden. "Damn, I wasn't—"

She gave a half-snort, and her head nodded away from his own.

Snapped out of his trance, Butch scooted back to his side of the boat — only to see that it was her hand that he had grabbed when the boat turned the corner. He snatched his hand back as though it was fire that he had just touched, but already he could sense the heat spreading all the way to his cheeks. And it felt nasty.

"I don't know what the hell you did to my brain today," he snarled to her, "but you're a bloody—"

In a flash she raised her arm, and his right hook that was aimed at her face went smashing into her palm instead. She still did not turn to look at him, but her head was tipped low, and a curtain of black hair now hid her eyes. Whether they were open or shut he never did know.

"I saw that," she said softly.

Butch could suddenly feel his insides squirming like worms in hot acid. "You . . ." he gawked. "You saw what?"

But she never said another word, for the wooden platform came into view once more, along with the familiar silhouettes of two very amused red-haired teenagers. The ride — and the entire day out — was at last coming to an end.

– – –

26 September, 2002

Butch couldn't help but smile at the thought. That was something he remembered surprisingly well — it was the first time he admitted losing to Buttercup, both in combat and beyond. And it spelt the last time he saw her as a mere opponent he felt the urge to pummel into the ground.

He opened his eyes.

The walls to his room were now a darker shade of grey, even with the windows thrown wide open to catch what remnants of sunlight from the falling evening. He had slipped in from there after walking Dion home after class — partly to avoid anyone else who might be in the hall — and lay on bed for hours on end, just to lose himself in thought.

He had long forgotten the earliest years of his life. Only after realising that he — and his brothers — had the chance to grow up like regular people did he learn to live it to the full. It meant keeping his inbred destructive streak in check, and it meant adhering to the volatilities of the adolescent world, girls amongst the most intriguing of them all. One date had led to another, until he found his recent memory so full of pretty faces he could hardly remember any of them. Dion was the only exception . . . and perhaps Callie, for a little while there . . . and her.

He prised himself off the bedcovers and reached for the third drawer in his desk. The Pendulum emerged first, cool and heavy in his hand, its diamond glowing bright in the half-shadows of the room. He set it aside and rummaged through the drawer, until he fished out a small bundle of letters. At the sight of their yellowed papers and the god-awful handwriting on them he paused, and a small smile curled up the corners of his lips.

Most of those letters were written after that eventful boat ride, draft after embarrassing draft that had found themselves stashed away into the depths of his desk. But once, on a whim, he had picked the best letter of all, stuffed it into an old envelope, and scrawled a single word on it before slipping it into the house mailbox.

The letter never got read.

Buttercup had torn it to shreds the moment she saw her name on the envelope. Blossom and Bubbles teased her relentlessly, and Brick never once made Boomer drop his wolf-whistling at her. Butch himself had joined in the fun, of course, for there was no way anyone would have guessed that the letter was from him — not when he had taken extreme care not to even mention the ride in it.

And it drifted back into his mind once more, that awkward but vivid image of her fast asleep, on a tatty little boat in a brilliant sunlit fairground. He sunk into the corner between the desk and bed, clamping his eyes shut while he tried to shake off the memory. It did go away at last, but in place of it was a hazy darkness behind his eyelids, and from its depths came an all too familiar voice. His own.

She doesn't dictate my life, and I don't dictate hers.

It was a lie. And he knew it. Bubbles had Boomer, and Blossom and Brick had each other to tide through all these strange adolescent years. He knew she needed someone too, even though she never would have admitted it, but he was not there for her. He never had been.

A small flash on his bed caught his eye: the Pendulum had crackled into life, blue forks of electricity flashing inside the green diamond. He could feel its heat seeping into his skin even as his hands, by sheer instinct and memory, started strapping the device onto his right arm. As the final buckle snapped into place the diamond slid out of its holster with a soft whirr, and slowly floated towards the closed door.

"Why?" It felt strange to be talking to the Pendulum again, after so many years. "You want to make some practice shots outside?"

The green diamond turned around as though to look at him, and it was then that he knew.

"You're looking for your friend, aren't you," he said quietly.

He gripped the frame of his bed, its metal creaking in protest, as he stood up and slowly swung open the door. The hallway beyond was quiet, tossed into light and shadow by the sun angling in through the window at the other end. The Pendulum led him along it with a tug on his arm, slight but persistent. He could hear only the machine feeding steel rope to the green diamond, his footsteps echoing firmly on the polished floorboards, and — as he went closer to the stairway that split the hallway into two and led up to the second floor — someone wailing.

It came from the very last door above.

He broke into a small run. The diamond flicked itself back into the Pendulum and his body jerked back with the recoil, but he made it to the stairs. He leapt up it three steps at a time. The cries only got louder.

The barest scent of flowers hung about the corridor as he reached the top. The walls along it, painted pastel orange, now blazed gold in the twilight. His feet slowed down as they approached the room at the very end. Its door slightly ajar. And from behind it he heard that same crying voice from behind it, tinged with panic and desperation and grief all at once: "I trusted you, Buttercup!"

The door suddenly flew open, and a figure burst out from it in a flourish of pink and brown. In her arms she clutched a small cardboard box, a cold glint of metal sticking out from just under its lopsided lid.

"She . . . she . . ." Blossom tried to speak. Tears were streaming down her face, and she could not stop shaking her head. "She really needs you!"

She clapped a hand over her mouth as she stifled back a sob, and ran down the stairs still sobbing.

He turned back to the open door. The ever-shifting shadows inside Buttercup's room seemed to slink out and curl around his feet, but he closed his eyes to them. A strange wave of calm washed over him. The only presence he felt was the weight of his Pendulum on his arm. It guided him one step forward, then another, until he was through what seemed like the doorway. Then he opened his eyes.

The curtains at the windows at the far end of the room were drawn. Sunlight that was streaming in from behind it cast the small, green-painted space into a mottled bronze. The desk and cabinet, pushed against one wall, were stashed with bulging folders and well-worn boxes alike, filled with mementos and trophies of past glories: newspaper clippings, machine blueprints, an overalls pocket in one glass bottle, a coil of black hair in another . . . Her bed saw the same clutter, clothes from behind the half-open wardrobe doors peppering and almost melting into the bedcovers in the same blacks and greens.

And then he saw Buttercup, slumped against the corner of the same bed, half-hidden between the light of dusk and night. Her knees were drawn against her chest, and her head bowed as she huddled in nothing but a sleeveless grey top and sweats. She was shaking, hard, the tears smearing her cheeks glinting even from behind her matted hair.

He stood in the doorway. The light slanting in through the corridor window dipped further still, framing his silhouette like a painting and throwing his face into shadow.

"Why did you do that?"

The words came out flat and quiet from his mouth, less of a question than a passing remark. She said nothing in reply. She did not raise her head to even look at him. But both of them knew, and saw, the tears that went on falling down her face.

He marched over to the girl and grabbed her by the wrist. A small gasp of protest escaped her mouth. She tried and failed to pull herself back, for his hold on her was firm, and much harsher than she expected. But her arms were exposed all the same, and he saw nothing but a glaring labyrinth of lines, burning crimson against death white.

– – –

"Why did you do that?"

She couldn't bear to look at him. She couldn't even move a single muscle, to draw back her arm and hide it again, even though it was too late.

You see it now, don't you?

She wished her tears would just stop. They were hot, and they stung like needles cutting scars into her face, the way the Pendulum and all those sharps did to her arms, and her legs, and her body. But the next thing she knew those same needles were slicing into his skin instead — he had pulled her whole into his arms, and buried his face into the side of her head.

Something caught in her throat then. She choked back a cry as he held on to her even more tightly, the pulsing of his heart hard against her own, hindered only by her necklace ring trapped between their chests. A rhythm — not electric, but human — echoing the pain that still lay inside, seeping it out of her and into himself instead.

"You're so stupid," she heard him say quietly. The bump on his arm pressing into the back of her shoulder gave a snick, and fell in a metallic clatter onto the floor.

"I'm sorry, BC. I'm sorry for everything . . . And you wouldn't have done all those things if I didn't— if I hadn't—"

"Butch . . ." she started, faintly.

"No. It's all my fault." His whisper was harsh against her skin. "I shouldn't have neglected you. Or anyone, or anything else. But I'm here now. And I'm not going to leave again."

She closed her eyes. In that instant she remembered someone else holding her — carrying her against the winds, and deep into the night — but the arms now were different. She knew whose they were.

And she was happy.

– – –

He stared at her arms, those horrible red lines swarming all over them like an infection, slicing into her flesh and simply breaking her into pieces like hammer against glass.

A pulse from the Pendulum arced from his arm right into the back of his eyes, and they burned a vivid green as he gave her a stinging slap across the face.

She said nothing. She heard nothing — nothing but how his breaths came out so short, and furious, and savage. She saw nothing but how everything before her was exactly the same as what she had seen in her dream before: his stance, his outstretched arm, the throbbing pain behind her eyes, the rapid thumping of her own heart that was now suddenly empty and broken and gone.

"You know something, BC?" he said quietly.

She felt nothing but the same hotness threatening to spill from her eyes, and a dread at what was to come next from his mouth.

"I thought I was the most selfish bastard alive. But I was wrong. It was you. It was you all along. And there's no point in me coming here trying to make up for things if you don't even look at what you yourself have done."

A step back. A turn of his heel. Then he was gone.

For a moment she hazarded a hope of him returning. But the doorway stayed empty, and only fell a deeper and deeper brown as the last rays of light finally died away into night.

-tbc-

I'm terrible with accents and dialogue. But while rewriting all of them I somehow ended up being just a little more sympathetic towards Butch as well. Hopefully the story works better that way.

Many thanks for reading!