Short Stories and Oneshots

~Treehouse~ (part one)

There was so much of her old life that Jesse had completely lost. She wasn't sure of what had happened to most of her other companions from various adventures, where they had gone and what they were doing now. She was still in contact with Ivor, when he decided to grace Beacontown with his presence, but that was about it.

That was alright, though. Jesse had her new life now, no matter how tedious it may be. She had made several new friends in Beacontown, though none could ever come close to her friends in the Order. None of them could come close...but as of now, all she had was them and herself.

Herself, herself. Before, she had never been alone, not for hardly a second. Anyone who said they were better off alone had never felt true loneliness. Being lonely wasn't just not being with people. It was deeper. Knowing that you could be with someone, but that you aren't, either by your choice, or theirs, or some cruel twist of the universe. She, Axel, and Olivia had been as close as siblings, but it hadn't just been them.

Reuben.

The first one to go in the cycle of loss.

Before her friends, before her grip on time, before the freedom and exhilaration of adventurous youth...she had lost Reuben. Her precious pet and almost-closest friend.

He's just a pig, Jesse had told herself, eclipsed by the shadow of loss. He wouldn't have been around that long anyway. But no matter how many times she had repeated it in her mind, she had never managed to believe it. The flood of tears, nightmares, and impractical wishes that came after had seemed to last forever. There had been times she had been inconsolable, crying herself to sleep, not even comprehending her friends' comforting arms and words.

She identified with each of her friends in a different way. She understood all four, was able to communicate easily with them. But Reuben had understood everything she said, and even the things that she didn't say. He may have been 'just a pig', but he was more to her than she ever could've imagined.

Sometimes you don't realize what you have until it's gone.

That was her first real loss. Before him, all the rest of the damage left in the wake of the Witherstorm hadn't really sunk in. Once he was gone, everything hit at once, and the cycle of pain began.

Now she lost little things every day, especially her feelings. She had become almost numb, to the loneliness and sadness and fear that came with being a leader on her own.

Jesse pushed herself upright, leaning backwards and using her elbows for support. She took a good, hard, look around the treehouse. Everything was so familiar, and yet so far away. She didn't remember forgetting...but she had.

The books, chests, posters, Redstone experiments...it was as if they had never left. Never left the treehouse. Never left each other. Never left their lives behind.

Her eyes grew misty as she thought about it all. She was barely twenty-two years old, and yet it felt like she had lived for a thousand years. A thousand lost memories and adventures, gone up in the smoke of change.

Change could be good. It could shape amazing new things out of worlds, make people into heroes and legends in the beat of a heart. But change can chip away too much, and alter a person in ways that they don't want. Then they have no choice but to adapt, and change even more.

Jess didn't yet know if the changes made to her were good or bad. They just were, she supposed. Life was a rainbow of grays, the shades between traditional black and white, and she felt like she was in a gray area now. Not bad. Not good. Just existing, trying to move forward in the fog.

She sighed heavily and got slowly to her feet. She needed to be back in Beacontown soon, before Radar started wondering where she had gone. He was a great assistant, but could be a little high-strung sometimes, and she didn't like making him worry.

She started down the ladder, doing her best to hold onto the memories that had sprung up from visiting her old home.

But even as her armored feet touched the soft ground, and she began her short trek back to the town, the remembered emotions of times before were already slipping away, turning to mist in the morning sun.

Time and memories were the same. They slipped away, into the cracks of a perfect world, and were forgotten. If you find yourself not needing them, they disappear, and you are left with a void deep in your soul. You may not realize what you've lost, but you know you've lost something nonetheless, and the emptiness grows.

Jesse had left a bit of herself back at that treehouse, a piece that she would never get back. New things may come to fill the void that her lost happiness had left behind, but it would never be the same.

You can pick up fragments of a bygone time, but it's impossible to put them back in the right order.

Ever since she left that treehouse, her life had never been the same.

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I mentioned that this was feelsy right

And don't worry, not all of this is going to be as abstract as that part was

-Rush💙