Participants:
| Scene Title | Paper Love |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Just a day in the life of Eve Mas. |
| Date | July 3, 2018 |
I believe, I believe in the things you do
And I wanna believe you believe that too
All the noise in my ear that I hear about you
Pray it can't, pray it don't, pray it won't come true
6:00am
“Again.” Is the gentle prod from the female physical therapist working with Eve Mas. A blonde with a tight bun as she moves Eve’s leg back into place, “Stretch up, you can do it.” Marlene insists to the deflated precog lying on the mat on the floor.
Eve’s deep brown eyes stare straight up at the ceiling, glaring. The stench and weight of frustration hang heavily in the room. Empty except for the two, the seer didn't like to rehab in front of everyone. They were distractions and she was trying to be laser point focused as she explained to Gillian a few days prior and she really did mean it, she was trying.
Sweat gathers on her brow as she stretches her leg out and starts to lift it upwards with Marlene’s help, her breathing labored as she pushes with a closing of her eyes and a wince as she reaches the point they were at before, toes pointed straight forward and the hisses of breath in and out in time with the rhythm of her heart. There's a tightness that Eve feels but she pushes through with the encouragement of the Benchmark staff member. It's in this moment a voice pops in her head, her own.
I know you were thinking
Bad things when you kissed me, oh
Your tongue told me every lie
//Come on TurkMaGert push that leg up, it's time to jump around!!/
“No!” Eve’s outburst comes at the same time that her leg drops, lucky for her Marlene’s hands are there and the blonde gives Eve a look before smiling softly and rubbing her shoulder, “You're getting there honey I swear.” Lucky for the seer also that Marlene just attributed her outburst to her leg. Brown hair swept out of her face with a pale hand those doe brown eyes study Marlene’s face and Eve leans up with a quizzical expression, “Everyone has gotten better with you haven't they?” The question rhetorical but Marlene shrugs with a grin, “I’d hardly say it's me. I just make sure I'm a pillar you can push off of. You're lifting your leg if you don't remember.” To which the seer snickers and lays back flat on the mat with renewed determination etched on her face.
“How about some stretching?”
Sad song, warm occasion
Last week, swear no matter what
I'll be stretching out the time
12:00pm
“Sixty.. sixty-one…sixty-two bananas!” Can Be heard coming from the room Eve has been residing inside of the Benchmark facility. Currently her focus is on the sketch in front of, one of the immortal Adam Monroe. She keeps her brown eyes open and steady on his smirk as she completes another sit up, legs lifted in the air.
Oh, I know that boy's gonna rip me up
'Cause he ain't that nice, he won't do right
He'll leave a nasty cut
Oh, I cry until I just dissolve
Come on watch my heart turn to pulp
The metal staff she favors leans against the closet door, she's been trying not to use it when she's in Benchmark, relying on her own strength. It's successful until it's not. But she persists. Stubborn like her grandmother. She remembered her father saying. At eighty the seer taps out with an exaggerated exhale as she lays on the floor but her gaze still centers on the blonde man. Brow furrowing she tilts her head, “Where are you?” Maybe Michael really knew, since he was a liar. “Liaarrrrrrr.//” expressing her annoyance outwardly and with a small pat on the floor but she really wants to throw a chair.
All in due time.
Like paper (paper-paper)
Paper Love
(Paper, paper, paper, paper love)
She had a focus. She had a goal. But there were still other things in Eve’s way, herself. There's a sensation that creeps over her and she shudders at the thought. Hands. All over her, on her face, neck, arms… “Nope, not there.” Telling herself while she’s willing the sensation away, her eyes peek open and peer down to see a hand indeed on her arms, one the gloved hand of a Horsemen another a hand made of light. “No no no.” As the sounds of rushing water rise up and Eve sees and feels herself immersed in the water. Squeezing her eyes shut the seer pushes herself away into the darkness rocking back and forth humming to herself loudly trying to drown out the sound.
Eventually the sound stops, the hands aren't anyway to be seen and the water, is gone.
Patting herself down with a bewildered expression on her face as her eyes fade back to their brown from that jet black. It happened beyond her control but she was managing.. as well as could be expected. Looking over shoulder to be met with the white, cold wall. She thought she felt fingers trailing on the back of her neck.
It's another step, why you so bugged out? Get a fucking grip.
That voice again and Eve shuts her eyes and sets both hands in her lap, gathering her breath and throwing herself down to the center clinging for dear life. The raging storm of her mind as loud as the rushing waters from her vision. The precog continues her breathing, her centering. The place in her mind she's curved out for safety, away from the perpetually ajar door and the other locked one on the other side of the room. A crawl space that she could hide in. She crawls there in her mind. Away from them. Could you really escape the voices within?
A question that Eve hasn't really been able to answer on her own.
Are they all her? Aren't they all her?
I believe, I believe in a line so thin
There's a light, there's a light and it pulls me in
Going down, going down 'til I chip my chin
**Take my head in your hands, pop it with a pin
(With a pin)**
Eyes slowly open as her mind settles and the world rights itself. She crawls over to the bed, climbing on top with a shiver through her body as if still feeling the cold splash of the waves washing over her. Eve’s eyes land on a bunch of polaroids that she brought over from Cat’s Cradle. Memories.
A shaky hand goes out and pulls the group into her lap turning them over to be met with the smiling faces of PARIAH. Trask stands on the left with that scarf covering his face, they insisted he take the pic. A rare moment of friendship between Eve and the negator, no distrust for his ability. Next to him stands Alexander, brilliant red hair under a calm look towards the camera with Daniel’s smiling form next to him dressed in a mechanic’s suit head canted and almost touched the blonde of Helena’s small smile. Cameron Spaulding sits in the middle, on the stoop his expression contemplative, maybe he was running an op in his head. Eve’s wild smile and full on goth dress clutches onto Cameron’s shoulder and Monica's shoulder who stands on the other side of her. Kathleen Brooks’ shy look towards the camera next to Monica. Claire Bennet rounds the group out on the other side of Kathleen, the brunette squinting at the camera with a shotgun at her side. A few other faces standing behind them.
The good ol days.
I know you were thinking
Bad things when you kissed me, oh
Your tongue told me every lie
A small smile brings the ends of Eve’s lips up, a few other polaroids, Eve and Monica dancing on a table while the others roar with laughter. A solo candid of Cameron staring off the roof of the Condemned Tenement they called home. It was rough. Claire checking some of the ammunition before they went on a run.
There are few photos of the Phoenix days but she smiles at the faces of Teo and Cat, a finger going to slide down Teo’s face. A picture of the two of them in the library, snickering at some joke one of them must of said in Italian. Eve probably hitting on him.
Sad song, warm occasion
Last week, swear no matter what
I'll be stretching out the time
There are many photos of Eve and Gillian, Gilly practicing her shooting in the Ruins of Midtown. The two in Mas Mechanics sitting on one of the cars that were left there after the Bomb.
One of Peter Petrelli, standing ironically in the same place as Cameron did in the previous rooftop photo.
Just under that one is another photo in Mas Mechanics but older. Eric and Valerie Mas stand together in front of a car in the middle of being open, resting on the open hood of the car, the engine just beyond. In the arms of the smiling woman is a baby, Eve. Eric has his arms around Valerie’s waist and they seem to be happy. Maybe the fights hadn't started yet.
The real old days. Rubbing the faces of her parents she thinks, she never found their bodies. Never knew where they were when the bomb hit. She was too busy being committed. The memory makes Eve look around her current surroundings, much different but also the same.
They were legally dead at this point. Just a few of the nameless corpses that were never found or burnt to ash. Whichever. Neither gave Eve comfort.
4:00pm
The clicking of Eve’s staff proceeds her as she makes her way through the Safe Zone, leaning heavily on the thing she's come to rely on heavily. Eyes scanning the sky above her as she passes by gangs of children running the streets. Bodegas that can afford to be open trying to sell anything they could, there wasn't much food. But an apple from the pale woman with the devilish smile was certainly not turned away by the children, two for them to share.
Or to fight over like savages. The oracle is stern as she tells them to share, warning them about the ‘spirits’ that come for greedy little children. They shriek in a mix of terror and delight running away to do with their prizes as they wish. A light hum emits from her form as she clicks and clicks towards the Memorial Garden. A place she's come to frequent most days. Resting among the people working on their individual plots, or watching the people work together. The work was soothing and this is what Eve’s time at Benchmark was all about right?
Learning to cope in different ways. Her destructive nature to be put on a leash. Eve couldn't say the break wasn't nice.
Now seated on a bench with her leather bound journal open and a half eaten apple in the other hand. Nursing the black eye that she earned for trying to save the plots from the robbers earlier in the month. It's like a badge of honor, she fought for them. She would continue to do so, with Delia. The dreamer on her mind as she looks around the garden. The precog’s attention gone from the old entry she was pouring over.
Lovely day ain't it?
A snicker echoes in the far reaches of her mind and Eve barely twitches to her credit. That door was still locked. Wasn't it? The raven haired woman doesn't dare to look. She has faith.
Oh, I know that boy's gonna rip me up
'Cause he ain't that nice, he won't do right
He'll leave a nasty cut
Oh come on girl you know better than that. Don't play yourself. Remember But instead of remembering anything Eve pushes that voice and feeling out of her mind. Hey wait! We had a de—She was at peace here. Or she tried to be. There in silence for hours on end either reading old entries, writing down something new or she sketches for long periods of time. The sounds of her humming and putting charcoal to paper fill the air in a rhythm that is just out of sync with the people here to garden. A crunch of the moist apple soon joins the chorus of unlikely sounds. Birds land near, a brave rabbit springs by and Eve takes a moment to jerk away.
Bunnies oh hell no.
The dark haired woman misses the woods on the island… but she did not miss the bunnies. Creepy little things. She didn't dare tell anyone of that fear, perhaps Gilly and Chicken. Eve was much more interested in unicorns and how they could be brought to life with sparkly horns. A whisper of another kind enters her mind slowly uncoiling like a slumbering beast, her usual. Setting the charcoal to the side and closing her journal she tilts her head. Brown eyes squint but she doesn't move further before shrugging her shoulders after a few long minutes. Not today. She was at peace. She was at peace. She was at peace. She was at peace. She was at peace. She was a—-
11:00pm
White teeth bared at herself in the reflection of the mirror, her hair a mess from being pulled on and yanked. But there is nobody in the room but Eve.
She was alone.
Sweat pools on her upper lip as she stares intently at herself in the mirror. A twist of her neck and a shudder running across her shoulders gives the woman an unnatural posture. Teeth chatter as she shakes her head to and fro mouth open in a silent scream. It's bedtime for most of the others in Benchmark and after dinner Eve found her herself fast asleep soon after. A lone tear falls from her left eye as she shudders again and a ragged sighs comes from her lips.
Oh, I cry until I just dissolve
Come on watch my heart turn to pulp
Like paper (paper-paper)
The oracle wasn't aware if she was in a dream or not. She didn't know where she was. The storm inside of her head rages on as it always does and Eve finally sinks into the chair opposite the mirror and gasping forward suddenly. Snapping awake and breath caught in her throat she claws at it before the air passage opens again and Eve takes in a cold breath. The woman leans back in the car and gives a look over her right shoulder and then her left, her pointer finger twitches in a loose loop. After a few moments, breaths steady and her chest slowly rising and falling in time with the lap of her finger. A low whistle sounds from the woman’s lips as she settles into the chair and reaches out on the table nearby for a brush.
Her whistle echoes in the room and down the hall as the pale woman drags the brush through her hair, “One, Two, Three, Four…” She whispers tapping her finger on the handle in light pitter patters. Her face catches the moonlight seeping in from the curtains and she smiles in the reflection, eyes buzzing back and forth.
Paper Love
(Paper, paper, paper, paper love)
A tilt of her head as she makes it to a hundred and only once her hair is neatly tied into a ponytail does the seer look satisfied and she leans forward to plant a kiss on the mirror with a manic grin on her face. Stretching her hands out wide and shaking them off, probably from the time she spent standing in front of the mirror sleepwalking Eve climbs over from the chair to her bed and lays down with one last in the mirror just to the left before she loses herself,
“Perfect.”