Participants:
| Scene Title | Faces In The Fog |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | When Kay dreams of a broken promise mended, this time there's more than one fondly-remembered face that emerges from the fog. |
| Date | November 7, 2020 |
Kay would have thought the cycle of the years continuing on would somehow make the recurrence of this period of time somewhat easier to bear.
But it doesn't. It's never gotten any easier. Maybe it never will. Perhaps the pain will just get worse with time, perhaps ghosts just grow heavier, forever, with each passing year.
She doesn't know.
Kay can hear the click of her boots on concrete as she walks forward, and she can hear the sound of the falls in the distance. A heavy fog surrounds her, but it bothers her none at all. She knows where she is. She knows why she's here.
She knows that much.
The air is balmy, and it’s more than just the fog. It coats the exposed skin of her face, her hands, and her legs from where her pencil skirt ends and her kneehigh brown leather boots begin. She’d dressed in her favored colors — not her power colors. Not the shade of red — 赤 — meant to represent strength that she dons for her work interactions. No, when left to her own devices, she prefers indigo hues and warm shades of brown. It signifies that she can just be herself.
‘Ella says 紫 — purple — is a color of nobility and claims it says something about her mother that it’s her favorite color. Kay feels so much less than royal and she would never want the responsibility that would come with it. What she has is enough. The burden is heavy and isolating.
And she is alone as she stands at the observation deck. There’s no tourists here. Not today of all days. It’s a national day of mourning, so maybe it seemed inappropriate to have a day of recreation. That’s not what this is for her. Everyone mourns in their own way, and this is hers.
Every year, she fulfills this promise to meet him. Every year, she waits for the ghost she can’t shake. Every year, she stands sentinel.
And every year, she leaves alone.
Out of the mist, though, is suddenly someone else. They bump into Kay at her shoulder, one hand lifting in apology. "Sorry," a woman says breathlessly, like she's just gotten done laughing. She's not alone.
A man whose features are hard to tell in his fog is off her other arm, and it's him she returns her attention to as they head back off into the fog.
Kay had thought she was alone. But a quick and sudden survey down into the fog, further down the fencing on the observation deck reveals the outline of another couple, one person in it pointing off into the distance. Like the first couple, she can't hear them, can't really see them, but their togetherness in the here and now is something that goes beyond that.
“Oh, no,” Kay is quick to apologize. “My fault. I didn’t see you there.” She smiles tightly. “Have a good day!” It’s always good to be polite when you fuck up.
Glancing around, she starts to note the others that seem to be gathering on the deck. What she determines from her observation is that she’s the only one who’s here alone. Kay laughs bitterly to herself. That fuckin’ figures.
Striding toward the railing, she grasps hold of it, letting the chill of it against her hand provide some kind of anchor. She stares out at the falls and frowns. This would have been easier if there was no one else around. It’s not impossible now, but it’s not ideal.
It's impossible not to notice the outlines of the others now that she's seen them. They and their togetherness are an oppressive thing from which there seems no escape. The skies above comparatively turn greyer, duller, even for the balmy weather. The sounds of the falls, the cascade of the waters far below, grow loud. It's tense, like a slow heartbeat without a proper break between moments. Just one… continuous… unending… deafening…
Solitude.
The other couple moved away at some point, and Kay's grip on the railing shifts. She looks that direction to confirm once more they really have gone, and a look to the right reveals another solitary figure in the fog. They're on approach, heading in Kay's direction.
The sound of those approaching footsteps somehow cancel out the call of the falls. They restart her heart again.
Kay knows better by now than to hope. Ten years she’s been coming here alone and ten years she’s gone home alone. This is no different. If anything, whoever’s on the approach is simply going to ask her for the time. Or it’s a security guard going to ask her if she’s okay, recommend that she step away and maybe observe from the safety of the walls and sturdy windows of the tower.
But she takes in a breath like she’s been holding it for a thousand years. Everything resumes, life most of all. Patiently, she waits to see who’s coming to claim her attention.
Against all odds, against all hope, the outline of the figure proves familiar as they near. It's his posture, his gait—
His face emerges from the mist, and on seeing her, Kain Zarek stands up a little straighter. He seems as surprised to her as she is to see him, but there isn't just relief or happiness to see her. There's guilt, too. Guilt he's missed out on their meetings for all the years that have passed, especially the very first.
The fog manifests between them, darker than the damp wood of the deck. The mist surrounding them dims like lights being drawn down on a stage, leaving only a drift of light covering the space she and he separately stand on. They're so close now. He's here.
Kain takes in a breath to provide any kind of explanation, a half-formed fragment of a word failing to come in the end. His brow furrows together and up instead, and he regards her from that distance with a small, sad smile.
It can’t be. Kay lets out a small sound that she wouldn’t have thought was her if she hadn’t felt the way her abdomen shifts from convex to concave. “Kain!” She sees that guilt on his face and she’s quick to shake her head, to dismiss it and will it away. It doesn’t matter where he was before. It only matters that he’s here now.
But the fog gets thicker, like it means to create a wall between the two of them. “No,” Kay whispers and surges forward, meaning to cut through that ephemeral barrier and reach him. To take him in her arms and promise she will never let him go again. She’ll never, ever make the mistake of letting him walk out of her life because he thinks it’s kinder to her.
“It’s okay,” she assures at a volume meant to carry to him. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain a thing, sweetheart.” There’s desperation in her tone, in her brown eyes. Kay reaches for. “Kain, I’m here.”
At first it seems like it'll be too much for him to reach out. He starts to turn, like he means to go, like this is somehow enough, or he'll make it be enough. But then his expression sours with his face half-turned away, and a different kind of determination replaces it.
One to close the distance between her and him for good.
"Kay—" Kain chokes out, turning to face her. He steps forward into that fog, begins trying to make his way through it to her. He's so close and yet so far. He makes the distance she can't through the dark.
But out of the shadows behind him, another figure appears. One who holds a gun in the grey lighting, pointed at Kain's back.
Kay's only a few yards from Kain now, but that distance at once feels like an eternity, because it's too far to stop that person with the gun.
The sky grows darker and more oppressive still. Kain notices it none at all. "Kay, 'Ah—"
Bang.
One arm stretched out in front of her, she means to reach him that much sooner. Win the race by a nose. He says her name and she chokes out a sob. “Don’t you ever leave me again,” Kay half begs and half scolds. She can nearly touch him. Swears she can smell his cologne.
Now she can see the shadow. Maybe she’s just been on the opposite side of one too many of those shadows. Chased down and apprehended them. Been chased by them. Whatever it is, she knows what’s coming.
“Kain get down!”
Kaydence dives forward to try and tackle him out of the way.
Kain's expression shifts, like some thought has suddenly entered his mind and taken him a thousand miles away. He stops closing the distance to lift one hand, to touch his abdomen. It comes away with red-tinged fingers, and he looks up again to Kay with sadness in her eyes as she finally reaches him.
The figure behind him begins to create their own light as they lower their gun. Eyes begin to faintly glow in the dark as auroral lighting coruscates around them, cutting through the black. Godfrey Wells steps forward from the shadow with one of his wicked smiles, ever so pleased with himself.
So focused on Kain as she is, on holding him, on touching his face, verifying his wound for herself, she doesn't see the knife Godfrey carries until she hears it.
She hears Kain's breath escape him in a wheeze as the blade slips between his ribs, and then he falls to a knee. Godfrey stabs him again in the back, in the shoulder this time. Standing behind the Cajun, he leaves the knife sunk to caress better Kain's neck and jaw from behind with an alluring touch, then looks down to Kay with a broadening of a smile, a flash of his eyes.
He retrieves the knife from Kain's shoulder, brandishing it anew while he bares the Cajun's neck upward.
There is nothing now except them. No observation deck, no falls, nothing except the horror of this moment.
"Hello, luv," Godfrey says with that winning smile.
“No,” Kay pleads in a whisper to whatever higher power might hear her. “No. No, no, no, no.” Shaking her head furiously, her breath comes to her in sharply pitched, hitching gasps. “Oh god, no.”
Not again.
The light catches her attention first, but her focus is on helping to stanch the flow of blood. She’s pulling off her coat so she’ll be able to press it against the wound — wounds in his abdomen. That’s a through-and-through. Medically, she’s seen enough of these to know that’s better. It means there isn’t a bullet lodged into anything that will result in further damage. They can work with this. She can—
The sound of the knife between ribs is unmistakable. She’s heard that more than once, too. “No!”
A voice whispers into her ear, "What will you do now?"
She doesn’t even look for the source of it. It’s just heard, accepted, absorbed. “Godfrey,” Kay breathes out. The betrayal is killing her. Cracking open her ribs and putting her heart on display to become the next victim of that knife of his.
“Please don’t do this,” she begs. “I’ll give you anything you want. I’ll do anything. Anything. Anything.” Her voice cracks and she knows she’s a mess. She can feel it in the warmth of tears and more on her face that should be trying to freeze in the chilled November air. “Please!”
Paralyzed by her own grief, because how can she possibly save him now? He’ll lose too much blood before an ambulance can arrive. Did someone already call? Surely someone heard the gunshot. First responders are likely enroute, right?
“Why?” He was her friend! They’d opened up to one another, connected in a way she’d never managed to with anyone else since—
“Oh, Kain,” Kay sobs, almost doubled over by her anguish. “No.”
And Godfrey just tilts his head back and laughs rather than answer.
"This is unacceptable," the feminine voice by her ear whispers. It might as well be her own conscience. "No…"
"You can't let him walk after this."
Kain sags lower, the only thing he's held up by being Godfrey's hand. "K-Kay," he stammers out urgently, meeting her eyes with misty ones of his own. "Ah lov—"
Godfrey plunges the knife right into the side of Kain's neck, arresting those words from being spoken. The darkness around Kay now is so intense, she notes the white edge of a robe on the ground next to her, behind her, but the horror in front of her feels impossible to look away from.
"Kay…" the voice whispering in her ear murmurs sympathetically, right before it twists into an angry, wrathful thing.
T̷̨̬̫̳̝̣͖͘ͅḁ̵̢̽͌̏k̵͇̟̭̱͋̍̍̇e̷̹͛ ̴͔̲͍͓̰̳͈̂͘y̴̢̢̛͓̤̗͆̇̾̉͐͑͝o̷̝̽̄ư̶̡̟͌͘ͅr̴̢̛̭̤͙̰͈̆̾̄ ̷̲̪͇̼̂̔͜r̵̡̥̩̠̞̝̥̽͗̂̈́͊͘͝ę̵̯̲̞̦̅̓v̶̼̙̱͍̯̺́́̐͐̽̆̚ͅë̶̱̯́ṅ̸̘̓͛́̌̋̍͘g̸̱͕̪̟͈̗̉e̸̢̩̮̻̹̹̤̽̏.̵̡̹̃̈́̀̚̕
Kain vanishes away, dust motes on a breeze, leaving only glowing Godfrey and his gleaming knife.
It was a hostage situation before. She couldn’t rush in, because he would certainly be dead if she did. But now she’ll wonder if her inaction killed him. Kay doesn’t even register her own screams of anguish. The way she shouts until her throat is raw as she tries to reach out and catch Kain as he falls.
Falls away to nothing.
And Kay is left only with her grief.
With her anger.
With the target of her revenge.
Now it’s a feral cry that tears free from her throat as she rushes forward, ready to tear him apart with claws and teeth if she has to.
Or maybe he’ll do her the mercy of wedging that knife of his in her breast and end this pain once and for all.
"Why so serious?" Godfrey wonders with a chuckle, his smirk widening as he takes a step back, all so his arms can spread wider. "This is all ancient history."
"This is all dead and buried."
The spectre of revenge is at Kay's shoulder, a supportive, pale hand helping to guide her actions. At Kay's side, the woman's ghostly features are contorted into a snarl, and she too lunges for Godfrey, her movements mirroring Kay's own.
M̸̡̧̙̈̅̄ư̶͉̏r̵̤͉̎͠d̴͍̯̀͝ě̴̟̻͕͛̍ṛ̷̻̃́̚ ̷̣͝͝h̶̻͇̺͆̐i̸̩̯͂͑m̷̱̤̯̔!
Kay wraps her hand around Godfrey's jacket, and his glow reflects his shock that she's made it to him. She punches him across the face, and she can't even feel the impact it comes with such satisfaction.
È̴̳͊͝n̷̲̙̖̼̪̋d̶̘͕͖̜͒̿͝ ̸̲̬̝͆͆͝͝͝ḧ̶̭͇̼́͒̈́̇̓ĩ̵̧͓̝͈͆́m̸͔͇̪̻͠͠!̶̞͕̰̆̿̒͝
She sees the moment his expression turns to fear. The knife he bears is tried to be turned on her, but she grabs his wrist, twists until he drops it.
T̷̨̬̫̳̝̣͖͘ͅḁ̵̢̽͌̏k̵͇̟̭̱͋̍̍̇e̷̹͛ ̷̲̪͇̼̂̔͜r̵̡̥̩̠̞̝̥̽͗̂̈́͊͘͝ę̵̯̲̞̦̅̓v̶̼̙̱͍̯̺́́̐͐̽̆̚ͅë̶̱̯́ṅ̸̘̓͛́̌̋̍͘g̸̱͕̪̟͈̗̉e̸̢̩̮̻̹̹̤̽̏!
Then she keeps twisting, and in his pain, she sees retribution. Her other hand goes to Godfrey's perfect neck.
Kay feels herself begin to smile.
4:09 am
It's with a sudden gasp that Kay wakes, tears streaming down her face. Her fists are clenched tightly, and she swears she can feel a windpipe being crushed in her palms.
But the residual anger is nothing compared to the grief that it's mired in.
She’s glad now that she forced ‘Ella to stay with her parents. Glad she’s not around to hear her cry. To come to her and ask her what’s wrong and try to console her when, yet again, she won’t tell her why.
Or worse, she’ll lie to her and say that she had a nightmare about her father.
Sitting up and tenting one knee up under the covers, she draws in a shaky breath and reaches for a tissue from the nightstand to blow her nose. “Fuck.”
Of course tonight of all nights she would have that nightmare. She’s had it before, hasn’t she? But… But not like that. Not like that.
Without thinking about it, Kay reaches for her phone, unplugging it from the charger and thumbing open the lock, entering her pin, and scrolling through her contacts. Her thumb hovers over the one she wants. A smiling photograph of Godfrey Wells staring at her from the illuminated screen.
But he’s not there.
Kay locks the phone and tosses it onto the end of the bed. She couldn’t bear to delete his number from her phone, holding onto the hope that Monica would succeed in getting him out. Holding on to that hope for him like she did for—
Throwing the covers aside, Kay swings her feet over the edge of the bed, pushing up to stand as soon as they touch the floor. “Fuck it,” she mutters. She’s up, so she may as well get a start on her day.