Sacrifice Is The Only Way

Participants:

eve2_icon.gif vf_eve_icon.gif

Scene Title Sacrifice Is The Only Way
Synopsis When the past of another world overlaps on this one, Eve gets an ominous warning from herself.
Date December 25, 2018

Cat's Cradle


Standing in tip toes, Eve prances down the hallway in a white nightgown, throwing her hair into the air and landing in a crouch lightly in front of the fireplace, a fire crackling in the hearth. Lights turned off or low, the seer grins to herself as she moves to the music in her head. "Ah.. ah… yaaaaa." Bare feet sweep the floor and she exhales a deep breath. Practicing her movements, keeping herself going.

Formal rehab was still a thing but she was a move anyway, always on the go. Stretching and keeping active was the way, always the way. "Yesssss moombimoombi." She whispers to herself and kicks a leg out in the air, some sort of faux cha cha happening in the room. Coming home after the Christmas festivities felt right, the day with Gilly and the rest of the family but she needed some time. She was thinking of her parents tonight. The Oracle Room warm and hazy as ever.

“I’m glad to see you’re having a good time,” a tired voice says quietly from the right side of the room. No one had been there a second ago. There’s still no one there, really. As Eve turns to look she finds herself face to face with… herself.

Her hair is a ragged mess of unruliness. She’s holding a shotgun in her arms. She doesn’t look like the others. Not the bright shiny one, not the old one, not the one with dyed hair. No, this one looks dark, dirty, and tired. “Expiration date quickly approaching, I think.”

With a shake of her head, she looks up toward the ceiling for a moment, but no doubt she was seeing a very different sight. “Sorry I had to come to you now, Chicken.”

"Oh! Sister— sister," she didn't look like Leather Eve or the Shiny one and certainly not the Old Egg. "Expiration, oh no no no but you just got here!" Leaning forward Eve can all but touch her and wishes she could in this moment. Sadness washes over her face. "Where are you sister?" Whispering fast as she picks and pulls at her fingers nervously.

"It's better to come now than not at all. Can you see who's coming? Who brings the stamp of the end?"

The seer squints and holds her arms out uselessly, "We've been looking for you. All your sisters and a crazy old lady." She's been mourning her already but seeing her now so close to her own death marks a shift in Eve's core.

“In the city, searching for supplies to bring back to my people,” the younger Eve responds with a small smile. Her clothing is ragged, looks as if it’s three time hand-me downs and doesn’t quite fit right. It’s actually too big for her, she hasn’t been eating as well as Eve was used to. “Don’t cry, Chicken. Death is the only thing that gives any of our lives meaning.”

It seems in this world, she’d been a different kind of crazy. “It’s what makes us human.”

With a shake of her head, she looks back at her. “They’re here with me now. The two who fell out of your world. Won’t be for long. Otter Eyes will take them away, just as he brought them. They will make it back to you, someday. I dreamed it. Kept it to myself. Locked away. Buried deep.” She pushes a finger against her temple, as if to show where she locked it away, but the force at which she pushes is much more than necessary, as if that finger was trying to burrow into her skull.

"What use are our gifts if we can't prevent these things?" It's a bitter and rhetorical question that she's asked before and come to reconcile with but not in this moment. Eve grabs the side of her head and slowly pulls on her hair there, eyes widening as she tries to fight this.. Doomed Eve's logic but if anything she can't help but understand. "I've died twice, I can't remember what was on the other side. I wish I could tell you Sister." Wiping at the corners of her eyes the dark haired woman is faced with a problem that there is no solution for, this was past.

"Buried deep." Mimicking the gesture to her own temple with a snort. Leaning forward she nods her head hurriedly, "Know this Sister, they are almost here to me! Your Otter.. my Other Otter he's on the way!" It's news to let her younger counterpart know that her visions had come true, she was right. "They bring something with them though." A dark look enters Eve's eyes, "It is the First of us. You will never see it and that is a good thing. I'm not sure how to stop it from coming with them though. It's more powerful than…" Eve looks off to the side and thinks what to relate the Entity to.

"More powerful than the Company, Peter, Sylar and Adam combined. It is all of us and none of us. I'm drowning in symbols and metaphors with no clear cut way, the echoes are whispering.. shouting! But I can't hear it all the way." Her tone turns desperate and it seems she looks to the version of herself that's on a ticking clock for guidance.

“Everything dies,” the younger Eve recites. “Even that which thinks itself forever.” For a moment, she glances up at something again, as if she spotted movement in the corner of her eye. There’s nothing there for this Eve but the ceiling, but that doesn’t stop her from looking.

When she looks back, she sounds a little more awake, as if she knows she needs to say what she wants quickly. “Things will get harder. Do you still want them to make it through, even if you believe something worse might follow?

The younger Eve has the older contemplative. Everything does die, one day she will for good. "Maybe you're right.. these Immortals.. they just have to wait a bit longer than the rest of us.

Being asked a question like that causes Eve to stiffen and she looks away considering, "I.." she had been set on this path the first dream she had of Otter Eyes. "I want them through." She has to believe, "I have to believe it will be okay, we can face this together."

For a moment, the other Eve smiles brightly, as if she just said something that made her very proud. “I love you. It might sound weird, but I think you’ll need to remember that later on.” Maybe she wished she had heard it in the past herself. Or maybe she knows something. Seeing her own future had always been difficult for them, but they could gather some information.

”To get them through, there will be a price. Sacrifice is the only way, chicken.” She looks up again, in the same place that she had been before. “Make sure that Miss Mind is there when they come through. That might lessen things.”

When she looks back, she’s no longer smiling, really, “And remember to remind them of the message I left. I know he found it.” Whatever that means. “Goodbye, Chicken. I’m dying now.”

And as soon as those words are finished before Eve can ask any questions or get any answers, the other Eve falls back as if punched. The gunshot was never even heard, but the center of her chest blooms with an explosion of flesh and blood, darkening her already dark clothes and pooling blood around her on the floor of the Oracle Room.

Until that too fades away.

It's a feeling that she can't pinpoint or say she knows it's there but the feeling of time running out, since this first started from the younger Eve's first words. "A price.." Brow furrows and Eve faintly nods, "There must always be a sacrifice. A debt for a debt. Penny for a nickel, it's all fair."

"I.. I love you too Chicken— I don't want you to go." Maybe she will need to remember her saying this later, tears spill from brown eyes and she takes a step forward, "I'll tell her, I'll tell them. Don't worry you live on through me, you will always be remembered my sister. I won't forget me."

The shriek that erupts from Eve is filled with devastation, sinking to her knees she crawls forward through hiccuping sobs to lay next to the apparition of herself the blood leaking out onto the Oracle Room floor, "Time and distance.. never matter.." singing in a whisper as the younger Eve slowly fades, "Well I miss you now.. I have so many questions.." holding herself she rocks back and forth staring at the space the blood occupied moments ago.

Eve lays there, cradling herself and singing to herself. Singing for the Lost Sister.


Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License