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 Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 11:01 am
Word Count: 1559
Stressed, that’s a perfect way to explain the tension that’s seeped into the shoulders of James Ryan Cheney.
Worried, is a perfect word to describe his concern over the reckless behavior his teammates had been exerting. Tourmaline in particular, after she called him suddenly and demanded that he fight her.
Overworked, is the exact thing that the man is. Between grad school, student teaching and lesson plans, writing for the paper, attempting to date Katrina, and all of the nega business well, James is simply exhausted. He’s bone-weary but there’s a prickling in the back of his mind that urges him forward.
He can’t stop thinking about that interaction with the Mercury knight - Babylon he thinks. He can’t stop replaying the conversation, or reliving the twisting feeling in his gut when the knight had told him what he should have been.
But Babylon is wrong. He has to be.
James can’t be a knight of Chronos, he’s hardly a knight of Metallia so he can’t be a knight of Chronos. There’s no way that he serves- should be serving he supposes - the princess of the Surrounding.
Besides, Chronos was the reason they all died. He’d been a ghost for most of that time and yeah - he didn’t remember things as well as he used to but it’d been traumatic. How was he supposed to remember?
But - James distinctly remembered writing pages and pages about what he’d experienced and he also remembered that he’d opened a blog, on tumblr, where he’d transferred those thoughts from paper and onto the internet in the hopes that he could connect with some of the other missing civilians upon their return.
And yet - he didn’t remember what he’d called it and he couldn’t find any of his notebooks. In fact, a lot of his memory surrounding the whole spaceventure was hazy, and the strangest thing about it?
James could pinpoint the exact moment when things had shifted from something clear, to something he could barely navigate. The day he met General Ilmenite and his hand reached into that space he never knew existed…
Things had been fuzzy ever since.
What the hell did that mean?
His temple throbbed when he thought too much about it, but James was determined. There had to be a reason out there.
So, with his school work mostly caught up and lesson plans for the week drafted, the man slid into the chair at his desk, booted up his laptop and began digging.
First, he started with his various email accounts to see if there were accounts of correspondence between him and any of his fellow survivors. Unfortunately, two hours and four accounts checked later, he found nothing. Not even a confirmation email from Tumblr telling him he’d set up his blog account. In fact, there isn’t anything for him to find that isn’t from the last three years which, in itself, is very troubling. Perplexing even.
James takes a break because he’s got a killer headache, he hasn’t eaten, and his eyes hurt from scrutinizing a computer.
Said break only lasts for about five minutes before he’s digging through boxes again. His parents had brought over a box or two from what he left behind when he moved from their house to this apartment when he tried to use school as a distraction from, well, going missing and having memories of death.
Apparently, he’d left pages of gibberish in notebooks and when he finally finds one of them, anything that’s been written is completely blacked out. He can make out faint etchings of something but it’s illegible. Every single page with anything written in it has been either whited out or blacked out, with a thick sharpie that’s clearly gone over the entire page four or five different times.
What. The. ******** notebook clatters to the floor, slipping from his hands when he swallows hard, starts digging through the box again, a subtle panic churning in his stomach and climbing up his spine.
No, no, no.
What in the name of Metallia, Cosmos, or Chronos for that matter, had happened? Did he do this?
The mere thought makes him visibly ill as he continues to rummage through the box, heart pounding in his chest. There’s nothing to find that isn’t either in a similar state to that first notebook, torn to shreds, or obviously missing. Well, that is until he stumbles upon his kindle fire, a gift from his parents when he first started grad school.
There’s a tingling of hope that hits him, hard, when he scrambles to find an unused outlet so he can plug the tablet and it’s charger in. A few minutes later and the screen flares to life and James remembers how to breath. He spends at least twenty minutes going through the pages of notes the thing houses, only to find that they’re nothing but school work and his hopes are quickly dwindling. That is, until he slides to the next screen over and sees a very old, outdated Tumblr icon.
Trying not to hold his breath and hope for much of anything, since everything else has been crushingly disappointing, he presses his index finger to the button and is instantly relieved when what he assumes is his original blog flares to life. There’s a giddy feeling of delight that flares in his stomach because there’s a red icon over the mailbox icon that he clicks, only to find that they’ve expired because, well, it’s been years since he’s logged on.
Then, when he clicks on the link leading him to the blog itself well, all he finds are pages and pages of what he thinks are text posts only - they’re nothing but gibberish. The same kind of s**t that banshee girl on Teen Wolf scrawls in her notebooks, chalkboards, whatever she can find really, whenever she goes into a fugue-like state.
James feels like the wind has been literally knocked out of him, that thrill of anxiety and panic surging through him as he shakes his head.
What the hell happened to everything he’d written?
Why can’t he remember anything?
Something was wrong, so very, very wrong and the journalist in James Ryan Cheney is demanding answers. If he can’t remember details, if the people he’s met are telling him that he’s wrong about what he remembers - that Metallia saved them, brought them back to life and back to Earth, her kingdom - then he needs to do some investigative journalism and find the answers.
Picking himself up off the floor, and disconnecting the tablet once he’s certain it won’t just die immediately on him, James returns to his desk and begins furiously tapping away at an email to the paper he writes part time for. It’s nothing special, just a local paper that delivers to most houses and at least leaves copies at the schools, but he requests to place an ad.
It says;
WANTED:
ANY AND ALL INFORMATION ON THE 51 MISSING CIVILIANS FROM 2011. ANY SOURCES ON WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE 6 WEEKS THEY WERE MISSING IS GREATLY APPRECIATED.
EMAIL WRITERLOSTINSPACE@GMAIL.COM OR TEXT (980)-457-7223
JRC
Once the details are typed up he focuses on drafting something for the blog in the hopes that any of the people who originally followed him, even wrote back he presumes though he can’t find anything that wasn’t tampered with, could help him with his search for information.
The text post reads;
Dear followers,
If any of you are left that is; I am looking for any information that can provided about the event in which fifty-one civilians went missing for six weeks back in 2011. If you were present, or know someone who might have been, please direct them my way. It is of utmost importance that I receive prompt feedback.
Any information I receive will not be widespread or include names of my informants. If you do not have information to provide if you could at least signal boost, that would be greatly appreciated.
That being said, please direct all inquires to the email writerlostinspace@gmail.com or text (980)-457-7223. Please do not text any emojis or pictures, my phone is not that fancy.
Sincerely, JRC.
He opts to use his initials rather than his name, even though he’s pretty sure anyone with even the bare minimum of hacking experience could track him through his phone number or email but - these gaps in memory are terribly alarming and well, he needs answers. Desperately.
It takes about three minutes of debate before he hits the submit button on the post, adding tags like Destiny City Ads, DC Missing Persons, Lost in Space 2k11, etc in hopes they’ll reach a larger audience. He’s not really sure how the hashtags work anymore but it’s a start.
And James is really, really hoping he finds some answers because he’s been living in the dark for too long and he needs whatever light is going to be shed on the situation.
He just hopes it’s not something blows his entire world up.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 2:38 pm
Don't Forget
Word Count: 1010
James feels like he’s fraying apart; like he’s an old piece of tapestry that’s been caught on a nail, a loose piece of wood, too many times and it’s edges are fraying in an irreparable way. His stitching is coming undone, splitting open and spilling out everything that makes him James out to be laid to picked over until there’s nothing left. Or at least, that’s what it feels like as he lays on his bed.
There’s paperwork everywhere, strewn across his bed and floor with pages even lying atop him as he stares up blankly. James is looking at a corner of the ceiling, where it meets the wall, but there’s a smattering of glow-in-the-dark stars and planets across the surface. They were something his sister had insisted upon when he first moved out.
So you don’t forget about space, Jackie had told him.
James hadn’t the heart to tell her he didn’t want to remember. (Because who wanted to remember dying?)
Now, the man would give anything to remember. It’s terrifying, a fear that’s swirling in his stomach and crowding his lungs, the inability to trust his own memories of what he thought was one of the single most important, defining things in his life. He felt crazy, certifiably insane, every single time he talked to a ‘survivor’ whose information conflicted with what he thought he knew, remembered.
For a moment, James forgets how to breathe and his mind fills with fog and haziness that spreads through his limbs and leaves his fingertips prickling. It’s only when he feels the light headedness that he remembers how to breath, mouth opening like a fish that’s pulled from water; gasping and swallowing desperately for that last bit of oxygen.
Everything settles around him strangely as he shifts, papers crinkling beneath his body when he rolls over to his stomach and presses his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his noise. A headache is knocking upon his temples and his vision swimming, little multi-colored spots darting to and fro across the line.
It takes a bit of effort but James drags himself off his bed, quite literally, and hits the carpeted floor with an, “omph.” His muscles ache and his joints creak when he picks himself up off the floor slowly. His too long limbs are stiff and feel weighted when he stretches them above in an attempt to get the crick out of his back. It’s ineffective and when he lumbers from his room to the kitchen, because his mouth is dry and throat coarse like sandpaper, he staggers because he’s trying too hard not to let intrusive thoughts invade his mind.
”What are you --?” Chase’s mother asks when Aluminite’s hand goes through her chest.
“No - don’t. Please!”
James shakes his head, closes his eyes and tries to think of something, anything else. Katrina. The Surrounding. Space. Space Whales. Turning purple. Dying. Death.
No, no --
One hand is on the general’s jaw, fingers digging into cheek and bone in an attempt to force his mouth open. The other holds a glistening gem, Lara’s slouched in her chair. Unresponsive.
He trips, falls into the counter that separates his kitchen from his living room. His palms hit the side of it hard and he hisses in pain. The headache is getting stronger, a rhythmic pounding in his skull demanding, listen, listen, remember.
He’s looking for a girl, she’s gone missing and there’s a group of them going to find her. He doesn’t remember what happens next except - everything hurts...wait is that blood?
His breath comes out in a slow hiss between tightly clenched teeth. Grass green eyes are unfocused as the stare at a flyer on the counter’s surface, it’s got some blurb about a final back to school party but the details are unimportant. It’s just a tool to help him focus again. Once he feels like his chest isn’t constricting, he rounds the island and grabs a glass from the cupboard.
The sound of water splashing within the glass is oddly soothing and ultimately grounding, everything comes into sharper focus when he watches the water pour from the pitcher. It’s cold in his hands, another grounding effect, as he lifts the cup to his mouth and drinks it entirely.
It’s hard not to look at him and see the hatred in that gaze of molten gold. Fear, panic shivers up and down Aluminite’s spine as he stares back, palms still pressed against a bloody mouth. His hand hurts, it’s bleeding he thinks, and he should pull away or move back but he can’t.
Fear keeps him rooted to the spot.
James looks down at his hands, his right one is wrapped in bandages and the left has bruising along his fingers and side. It’s like seeing the wounds, the reminders of what he did, open them up again or remind him that they hurt and the glass in his hands slips.
It hits the floor and shatters.
He can only stare at it blankly, brows furrowing and lips pursing because he knows that he should clean it up but he can’t. Movement appears to require more energy than he has to give and it’s taking all of his strength to stay standing, even then the counter is supporting most of his weight.
With considerable effort, he lifts his unbandaged hand and rubs at his temples before another memory flares.
Weightless.
It’s the only way to describe how he feels, floating above the surrounding as a being that is no longer human. He thinks he might be light now, but light can’t interact with things like he can -
Oh. That’s bright.
Wait --
James can picture his sister the day he showed his family his new place and she’d shoved a pack of glow in the dark stars and planets at him. So you don’t forget about space, she’d said but he forgot anyway.
And remembering now hurts.
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2016 10:47 am
Don't remember
Word Count: 1100
Jackie shows up at his door on a Wednesday.
Luckily, since it was only the beginning of the semester, James had a half day and had been home when she knocked on his door. It doesn’t stop him from being surprised to find his sister standing in front of him looking a little more haggard than he remembered.
“Jackie?” He says tentatively, door barely cracked open with his large frame resting against it while his head peeked around the edge. “What are you doing here?”
“Let me inside,” his brass sister demands, palm pressing against the wood and pushing enough so that it creaks in resistance. “Seriously Jamie, let me in.”
He does, because she only calls him Jamie when something’s wrong.
His sister steps into his apartment, toes her shoes off and makes her way towards his bedroom like it’s her house instead of his. James follows, because he doesn’t know what else to do, but lingers at the doorway. Clothing is scattered all over the place along with books and folders and lesson plans. It’s a mess and he feels like he ought to be ashamed of it but he’s not.
Jackie doesn’t seem to notice anyway, because she crawls onto his bed and shoves textbooks off of it before sprawling across it.
“Did you come to see me just so you could steal my bed?” He asks cautiously, leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest.
“No. I came to look at space,” she snaps, paler green eyes snapping to look at him with a glare.
He can’t help himself when he says, “that’s not space Jackie.”
“No, but it’s your space.”
So you don’t forget about space, she had said to him years ago, tacking the first star right on the space above his pillows.
“I don’t understand,” he says plainly.
It takes a minute but he crosses the room, sits carefully beside her. Jackie won’t look at him, gaze fixed upon the stars that are threatening to fall and the planets that are barely staying in place. I should take them down, he thinks absently.
“You don’t remember it, do you?” She asks, her voice quiet and tiny. It startles him. James has never known Jackie to be tiny.
She’s loud and brash and barrels through things like a whirlwind. He’s glad to see that she’s still as confident as ever, while he’d receded into something more cowardly than he used to be.
(Where had his sense of adventure gone?)
“I do - “ he tries but even he can hear how empty and hollow the words are. “Sort of.”
“Why did you forget?”
“I didn’t forget,” he replies, too quickly because Jackie is looking at him curiously. “Why are you asking?”
Jackie sighs, sits up and bumps her knees against his. “I follow your blog. I - “ she stops, chews on her lip instead, averts her gaze and picks at her nail beds.
James thinks he sees slight bruising beneath her sleeves. What happened? He thinks, squinting as he chose chew on his cheek than pressing for her to finish.
“I think you should be careful Jamie,” she says after a beat. “It’s very easy to lose the truth when you’re looking at too many people for answers.”
James does not stop himself from opening his arms so that he can pull his sister against his chest, lips pressed to her hair. “I’m okay Jackie. I’ll be okay,” he says. He doesn’t say, I’m only trying to find the truth. It doesn’t take a lot for him to realize she’s afraid for him, but he can’t figure out why.
He doesn’t think he can ask either, so he doesn’t.
They sit on his bed for a while, with Jackie’s knees drawn to her chest and her cheek against his. James thinks she might be crying, because his t-shirt is damp and she’s sniffling but he doesn’t know what to do about it.
Suddenly, she’s pulling away from him and standing atop the bed, reaching for the stars she’d so carefully arranged on his ceiling. For some reason, James is surprised that she can reach them with such ease; he remembers how she had to stretch onto the tips of her toes to be able to even press them into the ceiling. Now, she can grab them effortless.
He’s more surprised when she starts ripping them down.
“Jackie! What are you doing?” He’s standing now too, but on the floor because he’d hit his head if he were on the mattress too. His hand catches her wrist, then the rest of her but it’s too late. Dozens of the plastic stars litter his bed. “Jackie,” he says more softly this time.
Jackie looks at him angrily, knuckles white from the way her fingers grip the saturn-shaped plastic in her hands. Her eyes are red and puffy. He was right about her crying. “Jamie,” she replies curtly. His name sounds too harsh, like it’s being churned out a grinder when she says it like that.
“What are you doing?” He tries again, gently pulling her hand back open and collecting the pieces she tore off his make believe sky.
“I’m taking the stars and planets and things out of space,” she snaps, like it’s so obvious but he’s let more confused in the aftermath.
“I don’t understand,” he admits, but she’s tearing them down again until there’s nothing on the ceiling and they’re all just ruins on the ground around him. “You loved space. You didn’t want me to forget. What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?”
Jackie says nothing, just looks at him with an expression that made his head spin. Then, she’s climbing down and stomping out of his room. “Jackie!”
James catches her when she’s about to rip open the door. Somehow, for whatever reason - Jackie is crying again.
“You need to forget about space.”
“But - “ he starts, then stops because the words are sticking to his throat, choking him and all he can think is -
”So you don’t forget about space!” Jackie had said, finishing tacking the final star to the ceiling.
“What if I don’t want to remember?” He had asked in return, unable to keep from frowning.
“But you should!” His sister had insisted.
“Please, Jamie,” Jackie begs, shaking her head and backing out the door, lip pulled between her teeth. “Forget about space Jamie. Please.”
She leaves before he can respond but the aching in his bone goes, I can’t Jackie. I can’t.
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