All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 1: Paper Cookies ~ Willow Polson

Music - "Rearranged" by Spock's Beard

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David's POV

I'm floundering, flailing, groping for something to hold onto. I think my hands and the rest of me are gone, I can't tell. A million colliding pieces of thoughts are drowning me in nothing and everything . Up is down and up and sideways and there is no up, and I'm going somewhere. Falling in all directions at once. Maybe my molecules are shattering, and I'm about to see God.

Emma...

My body jerked so hard the whole futon rattled. Shit, I hate those kind of dreams! You've had that happen, right? Just as you're getting to sleep, you feel like you're falling and then WHAM! Wide awake and your heart's pounding.

And this time I was really, really awake. And sick to my stomach. So I figured to hell with trying to sleep, I'd get up and get some air. But something was bugging me. The edge of a dream started coming back to me as I got up and started walking around my little dump of a crash space.

The experiment!

But nothing was different. Well, except I was in my apartment now, and the last thing I could remember was being in... the lab? Or was it... It all seemed so dreamlike, part of my memories and yet kind of not, with this distance to it. Like off a little ways in a fog, the way dreams are.

I had no idea what time it was, only that it was dark, so I flipped the light switch and then just stood there, kind of disoriented. Nothing happened. What? I flipped it off and on a few times, and nothing. Well, great. Bathroom? Same thing. Motherpussbucket, the landlord probably just took my money and kept it, and never paid the back bills. And since it was cash, I didn't have any proof I'd ever paid it. Wasn't Pepper supposed to take care of these things for me?

I turned the handle of the bathroom faucet and all that came out was some groaning squeaks. The toilet lid was down, and there was no way I was lifting that sucker to see what was in there.

I sniffed my clothes and decided that, for everybody's benefit, I better put on something clean. I threw on a Futurama tee and skinny jeans, then threw a plaid shirt over that since the air coming in the bathroom window was kind of chilly. At least they smelled halfway decent. Deodorant, yeah. Check. Then I started fishing through the closet, looking for my denim jacket. It was completely MIA, along with my good leather one.

"What the hell!" I yelled into the empty room. I must have been robbed on top of everything else. I looked in my wallet, and would not have been surprised if cartoon moths had flown out of it, because it was completely empty. Robbed and probably drugged and left there to rot on my goddamn stupid futon in the dark with a fridge full of stink and a toilet full of worse than that. Fuck. My. Life.

I jammed on my old boots since my good Converses were gone too, and stormed out the door. I had to clear my head, and the cool night air seemed perfect for it. That, and I had to find food and a bathroom.

A familiar cloud of exhaust hit my lungs and somehow it made me feel a little better. No matter what the problem was, Los Angeles had everything a person could possibly need. Okay then, first order of business, food. Then bathroom. Wait... bathroom first. Definitely... yes, bathroom.

A few minutes later, in the back of a familiar coffee place, I'd managed to do a quick commando wash job on my stinkiest parts and do a lightning round on my hair, fluffing it out the best I could under the air dryer. Mission accomplished! But damn, that coffee smelled good, and the breads...

My stomach growled loudly, so I punched it a few times to shut it up as I headed for the lab on the off chance somebody, probably Pepper, had stashed some crackers in a desk drawer or something.