There was nothing.
The familiar feeling of comfortable, yet somewhat boring peace made you realize you were unconscious.
It was nice. Very nice given the fact that you couldn't force yourself to open your eyes, so you had that excuse going for you.
Your body had given out to the point where not even you could force yourself awake, but to be fair, you were running on nearly empty for half the night. It was a miracle you didn't collapse during your first battle with the Titans, and everything onwards was you pushing yourself until you couldn't even raise a finger.
Poetically though, the silence you had earned was interrupted. A sharp, quick sound echoed in the space around you.
It was a clap.
Through the fogginess and constant feeling of nausea, that same sound repeated itself.
Slowly but surely, with each clap, the rhythm got faster and faster, and you could feel the giddiness in each one while you struggled to force yourself out of unconsciousness.
As your eyes finally opened, laughter accompanied the claps, and you found yourself sitting on a chair across from a woman who's hair was blood red.
She was laughing hysterically, a look of amusement and unyielding joy present on the parts of her face that were visible, her crossed out eyes making her contorted expression even more unnatural.
The pure blackness and null of anything around the two of you added to it, with the only way you even knowing where the ground was being the chair you and her were resting on.
'I'm back? Back here?'
"I- oh god- I HAVE TO SAY YOU'VE REALLY- pfft- REALLY OUTDONE YOURSELF!!!" She wheezed, seemingly unable to talk in between her uncontrollable fits of giggle.
"I mean I was expecting a LOT of things but for you to regress SO EASILY?! AND EVEN PUTTING ON A SHOW LIKE THAT?! BRA-VO BRA-VO!"
She let out a tired yet delighted sigh, her head looking downwards so that her scarlet locks hung over her face. Then she looked back up, the joy on her face replaced with a silent rage and indifference.
"Why?" She asked, her voice not holding a semblance to the exasperated one from a few moments prior.
You stared at her for a few moments, your face uncharacteristically matching hers, blank.
"Why now? Why here? Why did you embrace it all as you like to put it? AFTER"- She stood up, her voice raising before she caught herself, her mask coming back on.
"After all this time of me trying to tell you, both here and back home, to accept yourself. Why?"
She didn't receive a response, as all was silent for the next few moments. Your state never changing.
Finally, you spoke. "Shouldn't you know? You're apart of my mind, you said so yourself"
She rested her head on her hands in response. "True. But even so, you've separated my consciousness from yours, whether unconsciously or not I'm not allowed access to your memories" She started.
"It's fascinating, I wonder if this is something unique to you? Or maybe you all could've done this and just hid"-
"Just........just stop talking" You muttered, your head hanging.
She looked at you with a surprised expression, but that turned into a look of realization, then finally, amusement.
"Oh?" She questioned, her head cocking to the side in an innocent manner.
"Don't tell me you're not in the mood to discuss your "family" as you all like to put it. What? Bad memories?"
Drops of snow began to fall onto the ground from the corner of your vision, materializing out of sight yet making themselves known.
You hated it.
"Although I have to say, I didn't expect that to be how Adam went out"
You flinched, but didn't say a word nor move to get up. The veins in your arms made themselves known as your hands turned to fists, but that was all.
"I always wondered how he bit the dust. But for him to do it himself? How.........how fucking wasteful" Her almost innocent-like voice morphed, and a genuine voice of hatred left her.
"How dare he. For someone like him to go out like that. For the future of our race to choose to go out like that. It's utterly pathetic"
Her nails dug the chair, the silent anger conveyed by her general body language clear, but you didn't react. Not to that, nor anything she said.
"But..." She let out a sigh.
"I guess out of you 7, he would be the one to give up first" Her voice shifted back to her more light-hearted one, despite the nature of the conversation being anything but.
"He was too........too hopeful"
For the second time, you opened your mouth and spoke. It was nothing more than a faint mutter, but it caused the woman's face to contort into a maliciously curious grin.
"How so?"
"He was the only one who hadn't at some point, given up hope of living a real life in the world. Our light, that's what we called him" You spoke quietly, your eyes never going up to meet her face.
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"If you knew that he was our hope, what would you have done?"
Your head raised, and a certain dullness, yet underlying anger could be seen in your pupils.
She smiled.
"Fair enough~. Although I guess it didn't matter in the end" Shrugging, she waited to see your reaction. In return, you simply shifted your head to it's former position.
She stared at you, her coy expression going blank in an instant as a certain intensity engulfed her crossed out gaze.
"The reason he's dead, is the reason you'll soon be as well" Her voice was serious. "If you keep resorting to using your real natures as last resorts like you did just now before you went unconscious, you'll die. That's the reason he's dead, because he couldn't accept that"
"He wasn't too hopeful, he was too human. Something he, nor you are"
"Why do you keep coming back to that?"
"Wh"-
"NO! TELL ME, WHY?! THAT'S ALWAYS BEEN YOUR GOAL, TO MAKE ME FEEL LIKE I'M NOT HUMAN, THAT I DON'T NEED TO HAVE A CONSCIOUS. WHY?!"
She didn't respond to your outburst, only staring at you for a few moments. Just as your breathing began to calm, she spoke.
"Because you're a mask, Y/N"
You spat at her after that remark, but she kept going.
"The you I'm talking to right now, the you I and the others have known, it's a mask. You're the mask, and you know it"
"That's not true"
"The you that feels indifference, the one that feels nothing whether physically or mentally, that's you"
"It's not"
"The you you unleashed at the auction, the one that takes joy in others suffering, that's you"
"It's not"
"This personality, this persona, is an illusion. Your desperate attempt at trying to be human"
"It's not"
"It's messing with your mind. So much so that you've separated yourself into two and added in a third side, if this goes on you'll go insa"-
"Who do you think you are?"
Your voice shifted, turning more demanded as you looked at her with disgust. Something she looked almost happy at.
"Well, I'm human. Something below you, Y/N" She smiled, a content one.
"Humans aren't below each other"
"Ah that's right, your little philosophy. That we're all just human, no matter our actions or status" She almost laughed.
"You know, even within that logic, you're a hypocrite?" Her question prompted no reaction from you.
"No matter our actions, there is no good or bad human. We simply have beliefs we force on others or do things we believe are right or wrong in our own minds. That's a short term definition of how you view the world. But you made that up in your mind to justify what you've done, the atrocities you've committed"
"And for what? So you could stay human in your own eyes? So that when you feel nothing or too much that you can excuse yourself for it as human nature? It's just an excuse so you can justify your real natures and hide behind this one"-
"If I made up my view on the world to justify my own existence, then isn't that true for everyone?" You interrupted her, and she sneered at you.
"Doesn't everyone have their own set of beliefs that they use to push forward? I mean without them, what's the point. If we don't believe, don't hate, or don't cherish anything, then why are we here? To exist? Is that what you want from me? To simply exist as myself?"
She remained quiet for a few moments before responding.
"Then tell me, what does the real you think? You're seeing things through the logic and teachings of a human. But what about beyond that? Because that's what you are, beyond. How does the next step view the world- no, how does something existing above humans think?"
"I'll never know Y/N, but you will. You do, but you just won't accept it. That's what makes you different from the others. Out of everyone left, you're the only one who refuses to admit they aren't human, and still sees the world through our eyes"
You both just stared at each other after that. An unreadable expression on both of your guys' faces that were eerily similar.
"But that's just what I think. We have at least a week more to discuss this~. You're pretty banged up after all" She clapped her hands, humming a bit as a smile grew on her face.
"No"
"What?" She questioned, looking at you with a bit of shock.
"No" You repeated, which caused her to look at you in confusion.
"What do you mean no?"
"I'm waking up. Now"
The darkness and blankness surrounding the two of you began to shake.
"What do you mean you're waking up?! It's only been a few hours since you collapsed- you're not even close to being heale"-
"Shut the fuck up"
She recoiled at the tone of voice you used, but, slowly, that look turned from shock to.....joy?
"You don't have the right to tell me who I am. You don't have the right to tell me what I can do"
Before she knew it you were in front of of her, hand roughly gripping the roots of her hair so that her face was meeting yours. A look of pure impassiveness in your eyes.
"You don't have the right to judge me" There was no hint of emotion in your voice, which contrasted the space around you two that was literally caving in on itself.
"That's-......that's right"
You continued to stare, and for a split moment the scribbles stopping you from seeing her eyes blinked out of existence, and you could see a look of pure happiness before they were quickly scribbled out again.
Gently, and almost lovingly, she placed the palm of her hands on either side of your face, a look of glee written on her expression .
"This, this is you"
At her almost whisper-like words, a realization dawned in your eyes, and you blinked a few times before backing away, emotion finally showing on your face in the form of disgust.
"You're not even real" Was what you said, before the world broke and you disappeared.
"I'm as real as you are, Y/N. I'm as real as you are"
You were awake.
Well awake wasn't the exact word. You were conscious, but your eyes were shut closed and you were unable to move your body.
'I'm drugged'
You could feel it, that and the sound of a machine that beeped in unison with your heart told you that you were somewhere with medical equipment.
'I'm on a bed, there are two other people in this room by what I can hear of their breathing, and I'm heavily drugged. Shit'
'They want me alive if they've decided to give me medical care, they're even giving me a blood transfusion'
'Okay. Focus, what did they pump in you?'
Keeping yourself calm, you focused on your body, the one thing you had complete control over or more specifically, what was being pumped into your blood.
'Buckets of general anesthesia as well as analgesic so I'm not irritated. That's all they're using but I've got bucket loads in me right now, are they low on variety? If they are then that means I'm not with a government group or Waller, they can afford to spend on something less proficient. Someone's trying to heal me and I'm sure as hell not with Hugo'
'Alright, I've already done it once so there's no need to restrain anymore. I've already broken that promise'
"This is boring" A man spoke, his face being concealed by a featureless dark mask with eyeholes.
"Yeah, but it's an easy payday at least" A person, this time a woman, shrugged in response.
"True. It's just that compared to what I heard Jim tell others about what this guy did at the auction, this is a bit of a let down y'know?" He motioned to the person laying down on a hospital bed a few feet away from them, with tubes going from their body into different medications hung up beside the bed.
It was you.
"I mean I know he's not supposed to wake up for at least a few weeks, but I was expecting some magic bullshit with the way Jim was preaching. He was hyping this guy up like he was the second-coming of Batman"
"He's probably one of those meta freaks" The woman responded, to which the man grunted back in agreement.
"Yeah. But if what he did at the auction isn't Jim over-exaggerating, then why'd the boss not hand him over to the authorities and claim the bounty? It's only been a few hours so he won't wake up any time s"-
The rhythmic beeping of the machine beside the two of them, within just a second, sped up so that it caused their ears to wring.
"What's wrong with heart monitor?! It shouldn't be malfunctioning!"
"I don't know!!"
Both of them rushed over in a panic, each yelling over each other as they checked over the machine which continued to beep beyond a normal pace.
"Wait"
"What?"
"The machine isn't malfunctioning"
"Then why is-.............fuck"
The man muttered, and turned his head to the bed.
His eyes were met with the sight of you sat up in the bed with your head hanging down.
I'm back after a little longer than a month. A lots going on right now so in case I don't get a chapter out by next week I worked overtime and gave ya'll 2. Enjoy.