Rising Shards

Mother arriving in the morning to check with me was rare in its own way, but two days in a row was surreal. Especially on a weekend. I wasn't sure if she didn't trust the results of my bloodwork that I'd submitted each morning by myself, or if she just wanted to be completely sure her findings were accurate. It was also possible she didn't trust her fellow Taramin lab workers, but I hadn't heard her complain about them before.

I watched as she stared ahead at a laptop monitor, typing in different sets of data. Each number she added changed a sidebar's color. I wasn't exactly sure what it all meant, but from what I understood there was a range of color hues that meant I was stable in the "Atria" dimension, and another that signified I was still being drawn to the void dimensions on a molecular level.

Mother was never one to convey intense emotion, but I had grown to understand her tells. She clenched her jaw at one data set, and I hoped it didn't mean any more time with the mask.

I had been living in the stable dimension for a few years now, but it didn't feel like it. It felt like I'd only just arrived, after one of the longer stints living with Mother.

Much of my childhood was spent where I was born in the void. I actually didn't even know if I had a living Mother for the first few years of my life, as my father raised me. The farmlands of my first home were a distant memory, a place long gone, lost to the void. My earliest memories were happy ones though, running across grassy fields, puffs of dandelion seeds blowing past me. Father trained me to be strong, and I owed every ounce of my might to him.

When my mother entered the picture, I realized even at a young age that my parents' relationship was as rocky as it was complicated. Even more complicated than my own with Nikki, but if we were together as long as my parents were, maybe we'd get there. From the day I was introduced to my mother, my time was split between the two, traveling across various void dimensions. As time went on, I heard less and less from Father.

I had been living in the facility, my only parental contact my mother, for quite some time. I had learned a great deal about myself, as well as what it meant to be a Cani, past just being someone who has fangs and powers.

"Alright," Mother said. "I think everything is still in line with yesterday."

"So I can stop wearing the mask?" I asked.

"I just want to test a few more things," Mother said. "I think it'd be best if we tried this out in a low stakes setting."

A day out without the mask. In a way, it was terrifying. The treatment's success so far could be deceptive, and I could find myself flung far into the void, something my parents had prepped me for plenty from their own experiences. But  it was also incredibly exciting. I trusted my mother more than anyone, if she said I was stable then I was stable.

I found myself at a mall in the massive city of Litus Empirica, no helmet. I was accompanied by Sai, Myles, Ash, Charmaine, Esther, and Chickadee.

"It must be strange for you to see me like this," I said to the others as we gathered in front of a fountain, unsure of where to start. Charmaine and Ash were pushing to visit a water park, but I didn't want to start there, that felt too risky. Intense emotions can trigger void incidents, and with my stability issues I feared that a big water slide would bring me someplace I didn't want to go.

"We're used to how you look, it's more how you feel right now," Sai said.

"It's...also strange," I said. "It's kind of vulnerable."

Everything felt so open. My field of view wasn't greatly hindered by the mask, but without it I could see so much more. Instead of the distant feeling of an observer, it felt like I was really there, that I was finally genuinely present.

"Maybe we can try just finding a store to take your mind off of it if it's overwhelming," Sai said.

"Ah, then let's go to Beyond Gothic!" I said, pressing my fingertips together. "For Tower merch, obviously."

Sai did not look pleased at the idea, but they came with anyways. With the new group of devil Cani that arrived at the lab, I had bonded the most with Sai. After some heated arguments about the greatest show of all time, Tower of Hate and Love, Sai was the only one who didn't leave the room whenever we watched. They were not a fan of the show by any stretch, and frequently mocked it. Them putting up with my outbursts was a consistent trait that went past TV shows as well.

It hit me how much more clearly I could see without the mask as I looked through the shelves at Beyond Gothic, which were overflowing with fandom merchandise. I knew the view taking off the helmet in the lab, or times in the void or hanging out with Nikki where I took my mask off, but something about being out in a store without needing to have it on within a half hour made it feel better.

"Oh, gosh, look at this," I said, showing Sai a notebook with a cartoon cat on it.

"A cat...cool?" Sai said.

"Do you not know Frilly Cat?" I asked.

"I've been in this world like five minutes," Sai said.

"You've been here months," I said.

I tried to help Sai find something in this store they'd like. I started with the Tower section but that obviously didn't appeal to them. But they didn't stop me from my usual geeking out about Tower.

"Arlit is kind of bait for the lesbians, but with how incredibly gay her actor is, it kind of works on the show, I think at least," I said.

Sai rolled their eyes.

"If you just make it to the midseason finale of season three, that's pre-first reboot season three, you'll see that some of the allusions to it are more than just allusions." I was certain this was a winning argument.

"They could just like. Make it gay. Instead of just kind of alluding to it." Sai said.

Ah, well. One of these days I hoped I could convince Sai to finish Tower. And if not, I did appreciate their view on it.

I stayed in the Tower section while Sai moved to the music, where they found some band shirts they liked. While they searched, a random man started talking to me without so much as an introduction, overhearing me talking to Sai and deciding that he needed to weigh in.

"You actually watch Tower of Hate and Love?" He said.

"Tch, obviously," I said. In some ways, not having the mask made arguing harder. If this was a stranger at the rock club and I had my mask on, it wouldn't have mattered as much if I let loose shouting. But it also felt empowering to tell someone eye to eye exactly how I felt without a helmet in the way.

I argued the entire way to check out. Mother had given us all money to spend, and I had some saved up from the tips we'd gotten at gigs (the last concert we received approximately $1.13 in tips, which felt like more than what we earned).

After Sai and I successfully shooed the annoying man away, I froze a few stores down from Beyond Gothic, at a video board. One of the ads playing on it was a still image of a girl with pinkish hair with a green streak in it.

"That's her, isn't it?" I asked.

"Who?" Sai asked.

"The singer from the concert!" I said. "She was amazing, you had to have seen her."

It looked just like her. Was she famous? My stomach fluttered just seeing a picture of her.

"There were lots of bands..." Sai said.

Sai apparently didn't have the life altering experience seeing that girl play that I did. The ad frustratingly didn't have any info about her, and searching it online yielded no results. But I did snap a picture of it on my phone.

"OK, we've watched this thing come by seventeen times, let's go do anything else, please?"

"Sure, yeah," I said.

We went around checking any other store that caught our eye. While I was looking through clothes, Sai leaned over to me.

"Hey, have you told Nikki yet?" They asked.

I almost said, "About that singer?" But I was able to hold my tongue. Suddenly, the image in my phone of that girl felt heavier.

"I...haven't," I said. "I don't want to get her hopes up in case it doesn't work." That's what I told myself, at least. It sounded better than, "I tried to tell her, but she didn't care."

When we were beat from shopping, the only chair we could find was a big one, a gag chair for people to sit on together and look like they're on the set of a children's TV show.

I realized that without my helmet, I could treat this like I did when we'd stay up too late watching shows on the couch in the lab, leaning on each other. I rested my head on Sai's shoulder.

"Cat mode activated," Sai said with a yawn.

"Mhm," I said. Shortly after meeting me, they told me I was very cat-like, and always had to remind me when I exhibited any cat behaviors.

We sat like that for a while, people watching and thinking until the others found us. We all attempted to sit on the big chair, just barely fitting long enough to get a passerby to get a picture with my phone.

"How was the water park?" I asked as I looked through the pictures taken of us, scrolling to the picture of the rocker girl and lingering on it.

"When you've actually rode a raft down a river, a safe version is a bit less thrilling," Myles said.

"Always gotta brag about that, don't you?" Ash asked.

"It's not bragging, just like, logic," Myles said.

"I thought it was plenty thrilling," Ash said.

"I am with Ash on this," Esther said.

Charmaine looked a bit pale, as though her red hued skin was almost pinkish around her face. "I ate too much of that cotton candy stuff before we got on the ride. Then I ate some more between rides..."

"Maybe we should call it a day, then," Esther said.

"How'd you spend the trip?" Myles asked.

"We just went shopping," I said.

"Maybe too much shopping," Sai said. "Shopping at a store with Tower of Hate and Love junk."

"Let me guess, Ana got all hot and bothered about it," Charmaine said. "Probably started a fight with you."

"At me and some random guy," Sai said. "But the guy was being an ass, so I was on Ana's side for that one."

"I don't know how you put up with her," Myles said. "When she starts shouting about Tower, I can't be in the same room."

"I'm sitting right by you, you know," I said.

"Right, and you're not talking about Tower, so I can handle it," Myles said.

Soon after, Mother picked us up and brought us back to the lab. It was kind of a relief to be back, and I was happy to report there weren't any void related incidents, which meant that there was a very high probability that the treatments were working.

I thought about what I wanted to do first as soon as we were certain as I sat on my bed. I looked to the corner, where the photo of Zeta and Stella Faleur was. I couldn't see it from my bed, but I could sense their odious presence even in the form of an image.

As soon as I know for sure, I'm telling them immediately.

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