Columba figured her stealthy abilities to slip past rescue crews, allies and enemies alike was an incredible skill. Or, another theory, that it was just karma returned to her in spades for the onslaught of endless monster attacks in a row that she’d endured all day long in what she was sure was the worst day of her life.

It was also her first taste of mass slaughter the Negaverse was capable of. And worse, it had to happen in this way. Games, toys, lights, music, the entire atmosphere of a carnival was that of a safe place where people played and ate crappy food. It was supposed to be a good day; Evie was supposed to have the day off and they were supposed to spend the whole day together.

Instead Evie never showed up, and lots of unwelcome company did.

The chibi senshi of correspondence had parted ways with Irene on an artificial note of happiness supplemented by the glittery sparkles of her magic she had almost used to exhaustion on just herself all day long. She kept up the spring in her step and the music in her voice for a long time. Long enough to find herself on the rooftops she loved to scale, long enough to be halfway across town from the homage to destruction and death that used to be a carnival.

The exhaustion of that effort became unbearable. Her shoulders slumped, and her heart felt like it was going to drop out of her chest and crash through the building beneath her feet. Everything ached, like the emotional distress was somehow translating to physical discomfort. She didn’t know how to name her feelings, she didn’t know how to think about them. She stopped moving and stared down at her feet in an attempt to halt everything. She just needed it all to stop, just for a minute so she could breathe. But it didn’t, and the nausea above all things crashed straight through her willpower until she wrapped her arms around her stomach and ended up bending over to vomit until there was nothing left.

And even after, painful, involuntary heaving continued until she was too physically exhausted to perform the action and the retching was interspaced and caught up in sobs.

She powered down to the loose shirt and shorts she’d set out in that day and stepped away until her back pressed against a wall. From there, with that little security behind her, she slumped down to hide behind her knees. Tears had formed in her eyes ages ago, or at least it seemed like it, but now they were freely flowing as she clenched her eyes shut and grit her teeth. Things were rapidly flashing through her brain and none of them were very coherent. As she cradled her head in her own arms, spikes of messy hair making its way through spaces between her fingers, she tried to make sense of everything and no revelation or understanding coming. The only thing she produced were ugly, gasping noises that caught in her throat and made her shoulders jerk with every attempt to breathe through them.

The absence of her sister today, even though it had never been something she never lamented much before and even welcomed often in her daily life, suddenly brought on overwhelming feelings of anguish and loneliness that twisted in her gut and only got worse as her thoughts moved on to her dad and what would happen if he just didn’t come home one day. It had happened before. With mom, with Tara, it was going to happen to hundreds of people tonight, and the irrational sense of loss was unbearable. She hadn’t lost anything today, but she felt empty and exhausted and used up. The bruise on her cheek and cuts down her legs were all but ignored for the much more prominent aching in her head and chest.

There in seclusion and unable to comprehend a thing in the world, Dana Caffrey continued hiding in the barrier created by her own clutching hands and wailed all by herself.