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Rating:
Mature
Archive Warnings:
Graphic Depictions Of ViolenceMajor Character Death
Category:
Multi
Fandom:
Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Characters:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverLisa Wilbourn | TattletaleAlec | RegentBrian Laborn | GrueRachel Lindt | Bitch | HellhoundEmma Barnes (Parahumans)Sophia Hess | Shadow StalkerAmy Dallon | Panacea | Red QueenVictoria Dallon | Glory Girl | AntaresUndersiders (Parahumans)Brockton Bay WardsThomas Calvert | CoilMadison Clements
Additional Tags:
Mystic Eyes of Death PerceptionConceptual DeathHorrorPsychological HorrorBody HorrorCosmic HorrorExistential DreadSad girl hoursAlt-Power Taylor HebertPower CorruptionIdentity CrisisCharacter StudyBeing Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver Is SufferingTaylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver Needs a HugMagicInsanityMurder
Language:
English
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Published:2025-06-21Updated:2025-11-06Words:56,264Chapters:9/?Comments:252Kudos:757Bookmarks:292Hits:29,578
She Who Sees Death
TheSmilingFox
Summary:
Taylor Hebert can see the lines that end all things. For years, she kept it a secret, a hell she preferred to suffer alone.
Now, the restraint is gone. The lines of death are a siren's call, and Brockton Bay is full of things that deserve to die. But the first kill is never clean. As the bodies fall, so does her sanity wither, each cut carving away another piece of the girl she used to be.
She's not interested in justice. She's not worried about being caught. She only knows how things end… and for the first time in years, she wonders how it would feel to cut them apart.
Chapter 1: A Study in Restraint
Chapter Text
DISCLAIMER
This is NOT a crossover, but a Worm alternate universe (AU) that draws heavy thematic and conceptual influence from the Nasuverse, particularly Tsukihime, Kara no Kyoukai, and to a lesser extent, Fate. Elements from these works are reimagined within Worm's setting and metaphysics.
This is a reinterpretation, not a fusion.
CONTENT WARNING
This story will contain graphic violence, psychologically disturbing imagery, morally ambiguous to villainous characters, and sexually suggestive content, including manipulation and obsession. Themes of death, identity loss, trauma, and cosmic horror are present throughout. Reader discretion is advised.
She Who Sees Death
by 'TheSmilingFox'
.
Blue Blue Glass Moon
Beneath the Imaginary Sky
1/The Girl Who Didn't Die
A Study in Restraint
My tray hit the floor with a crash that silenced the cafeteria for a single, beautiful second. Sound and movement resumed in the next second, but I didn't pay attention to them. I was too busy watching my lunch die.
Chicken-thing, mashed green something, a splash of brown that might've been beans. Colors and textures…
…Splattered on the floor like a failed dissection.
I didn't flinch. Didn't cuss. Didn't cry. I just watched the mess. Let my hands hover at the edge of the spill like it might bite me.
I hated messes. Hated disorder. Even a drop of that slob on my fingers could put me in a bad mood.
But I wasn't looking at the food. Not really.
I was looking at the lines.
Black. Twisting. Wrong.
So sharp they felt loud.
They ran across the floor. Through the puddle of juice. Along the crack in the tray. Lines that didn't belong in a cafeteria or a high school or a normal life, but there they were.
"Taylor! What are you doing on the floor, you? Clumsy as usual, dummy."
Emma. Of course.
I shifted, got up on my knees, and looked at her.
Sweet, lively Emma. Bright as a supernova. Sharp voice, all presence and noise. The star of her own stage play. She was beautiful… almost glowing, even. Hair the color of a burning flag; skin like a pharmacy ad; teeth that knew they were perfect.
She had her pose locked. Chin up, chest out, one heel forward, daring. Her arms crossed, her hips angled just so. She was proud of what she'd done, as if it'd been a brave thing. I wasn't sure what her accomplishment was but I could tell it made her very, very happy.
Her friends snickered. The cafeteria turned its back on her. On me.
I kept looking.
Not at her hair or her clothes or her whole ensemble. They were noise. More colors and textures put together in the shape of something. If I tried really hard, I could probably name the one or two abstract concepts they were standing for.
Beauty. Social hierarchy. Life, maybe.
I didn't bother. I wasn't admiring her, wasn't interested in her.
I was examining her.
The lines were there, too. All over her.
From her wrists to her shoulders. Around her collarbone. Up her neck. Across her cheek. Segmenting her face into neat little murder puzzles. A marble statue with cracks like vines carved into her skin, parts so distinct I could almost name them.
I stood up slowly. Slid my hands into my hoodie.
Took the paperclip between my fingers. Felt its shape, its flaw. Its edge, if I could call it that.
I bent the paperclip. Straightened it. Bent it again.
I stared at the line that crossed Emma's throat. A string waiting to be plucked.
All that noise. All that life. All that insistence on being seen. And yet… she had lines like everything else. Black lines. Jagged lines.
Waiting lines.
So easy to just…
…I blinked. Squared my shoulders. Tried to meet her eyes instead.
"…This is childish, Emma," I said, voice low. "You didn't have to make a mess just to bother me. There are cleaner ways to be a pain."
The girls behind her snickered again like I'd delivered a punchline. Emma herself didn't even blink.
"Mess? Childish?" she parroted, drawing out each word, savoring them. "Taylor, from where I stand, it's ob-vi-ous you tripped and fell all by yourself. The only childish thing here is you, blaming other people for your own clumsy little mistake. But I guess that's normal for a weak girl. Can't own her faults."
I rolled the paperclip between my fingers. Bent it. Straightened it. Bent it again. My gaze wandered, not to her eyes, but to a line.
It ran horizontal across her nose. Clean. Neat. A scar waiting to happen.
"I guess you're right," I murmured. "Why admit you're a bitch when you can just be one and everyone applauds?"
Emma held her smile, calm, unflinching. Her eyes locked on mine, waiting for something.
A reaction. A crack. A twitch. Was it the challenge she liked? Or was it just the thrill of watching her prey squirm?
I didn't know. Didn't care.
What I knew was this: there were lines on her skin. Dozens. Crawling down her arms, creeping up her throat, bisecting her face into fragile, flawless fragments. It would've been too easy. One step forward, a hidden paperclip in hand, a gesture that could pass for a touch. A brush of hair, a caress, a mercy…
One second was all I'd need.
"Careful there, Emma. Flea-bitten mutt bites back."
A new voice. Lazy, in a way, but also sharp.
Sophia slipped in beside her, one arm slung over Emma's shoulders, a serpent coiling around its mate. She grinned at me. Ugly grin. Daring grin.
She was beautiful too, in a different way. Hungrier, maybe. Where Emma shone, Sophia smoldered. Muscular, tall, relaxed in how she leaned… but I knew better. She could spring the moment she saw fit. Her posture didn't hide her strength.
Lively, too, yet not loud like Emma. Not quiet, either. A kind of life that didn't need to scream.
Fangs did the talking.
Sophia also had lines.
My fingers froze on the paperclip.
She wouldn't let me get close. She'd break my wrist if I tried. I'd have to move faster, much faster. And even then, jabbing the tip of the clip into one of those lines in time…
Not likely.
I glanced at her free hand, where her fingers played absently at the seam of her jeans.
My head throbbed.
More lines. Finer ones. Winding over her knuckles, across her palm. If she grabbed me, or punched me...
Yes.
That would be enough. Enough time to line up the paperclip. Enough of an opening to end this absurdity.
I blinked. Closed my eyes. Tried to breathe through the pressure building at the base of my skull.
"You two…" I said finally, voice low and flat. "Stop wasting my time. If you want something from me, say it."
They laughed in unison. Like it was all just a game. Like I was the joke.
Emma gave me a look. Not cruel. Not mocking.
Warm.
Unbothered.
Affectionate, almost, as if we were still friends. As if nothing had happened.
"Why would we want anything from a failure like you?"
The laughter came again. Louder now. They were having fun.
I let go of the paperclip.
Turned. Walked past the mess of my lunch without a second glance. I wouldn't clean it. Wouldn't even pretend to care.
I stepped out of the cafeteria.
"I wonder the same thing," I whispered. "Why?"
I kept my grades passable. Not worth praise. Not bad enough to get flagged. Just… steady. Enough to keep anyone from asking questions about focus or distractions or what it's like to stare at a page too long and get a migraine.
I could've done better. A-student, probably. If I'd tried.
But focusing meant paying attention. And paying attention meant noticing the things I wasn't supposed to.
Too many lines on the page. Not margins or underlines. Just… interruptions. Slashes through the letters, curving between words. Always in motion at the edge of my vision.
If I looked too hard, the world got loud. Not sound. Not really. Just something in the back of my eyes. Pressure. Like I was being watched from behind the paper.
I was used to it, mostly. Like my mom used to say about her ears: there's a kind of ringing you stop hearing after a while. Doesn't mean it's gone. You just get tired of flinching.
The board was a mess of chalk dust and geometry. Mr. Hallward's voice droned somewhere to my left. Something about Pythagoras. I could still hear Emma behind me, whisper-laughing with her latest best friend. Paper balls occasionally tapped my hair. I ignored them.
She hated that more than yelling.
My thumb rolled the eraser under my desk. Just something to do. The rubber was smooth. The lines weren't.
I didn't look at them. Not directly. Just felt.
I shifted. Let go. Picked up my paperclip instead.
Bent. Straightened. Bent.
Something pulsed behind my eye, brief and sharp. A small warning. I closed my hand. Focused on the numbers on the board.
No tracing.
Only in my room. Only alone. That was the rule.
Anywhere else was… not okay.
Another paper ball hit my head. Snickers followed.
…I'd once asked Emma, back when it still felt safe to ask, why she suddenly became the poster girl for all American high school mean girls. A redhead Regina George.
She used to be cool. Stylish. A little too talkative, sure, but I appreciated that back then. I tried to meet her halfway, even if I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer when it came to moods or social cues. I tried.
Now? She handed out insults as compliments. Threw in a 'good for you' as if I'd survived something funny. One or two hollow smiles. Never any words to fill the silence; not like before. Not when it felt… easy between us.
Maybe I offended her somehow. I didn't know what I did, but I also never asked for forgiveness. Maybe that's what this was. A test. A signal. Some backwards way of asking if the friendship was still alive.
Because people didn't turn on their best friends out of nowhere.
…Did they?
Huh.
Did Emma know about the lines?
Had she ever noticed I was keeping something from her?
Was that why she was angry?
I never told her. It hadn't felt necessary. Like a weird trait or an uncomfortable kink, you didn't need to say it out loud. It didn't feel relevant.
At least, not to us.
…Did it?
Maybe it wasn't the secret. Maybe it was the fact I'd kept one.
But by now, I didn't even want to ask. All this drama felt artificial. Forced. A moral dilemma I was too dense to decode.
Maybe I was just messed up. Things really don't get more transparent than 'oh, I see lines I can touch, and if I'm feeling extra unwell, I can cut them.'
I'd run out of patience for subtlety. And maybe that was the real flaw.
Maybe I should've tried harder. Pushed myself. Asked her, really asked her.
Bump.
Another paper ball.
I tapped my paperclip against the desk. Blinked.
Maybe she just wanted to play rough, and I was playing the game wrong.
I gave myself a little pat on the back. Put the paperclip in my pocket.
Got up. Stretched.
Mr. Hallward paused mid-sentence.
"Hebert? Something wrong?"
I didn't answer. Just stepped out from behind my desk and glanced at Emma. She was laughing with her new friends. A great time was being had.
I grabbed my chair with one hand. Lifted it.
Hurled it straight at her.
The thing clanged off her desk and clattered across the floor. A girl screamed.
Pencils. Notebooks. Chaos.
"What the fuck, Taylor?!" Emma shrieked, hand to her chest, eyes wide with outrage. "You fucking psycho!"
"Hebert!" the teacher yelled, voice sharp and high. Said something else I didn't bother processing.
I just stared at Emma. At the girls beside her. At the students now staring at me like they'd never seen me before.
My lips curled at the corners. I imagined the shape of a smile. Ugly, toothy, involuntary.
I turned to Mr. Hallward.
"I want to go to the principal's office."
And as the teacher reeled back in silence, as the room stilled in confusion, as I stashed my hands into my pockets, I could only keep thinking one thing—
—Why?
Sophia slammed my locker shut. Nearly caught my fingers. Might've broken them.
I let a second pass. Rubbed my knuckles. Then turned.
She had that little smile again, one only she could pull off and make it look simultaneously warm and threatening. Her arms crossed, weight on one leg. Up close, I could see just how carefully she presented herself. She was clean, and sharp, and efficient. Not pretty like a model. More like a tool. Something honed for a job.
I respected that.
The same way you might respect a pedophile for admitting what he is. Or a suicide bomber for seeing it through. Honesty is honesty, even when it's disgusting.
Maybe that's what Emma had seen in her.
Maybe that's what I didn't have: the honesty.
She watched me in silence. Smiling. Just a twitch of her lip.
"What's the matter, Hebert? Weren't you grabbing something? Go ahead. I'll keep an eye out."
I said nothing. Reached for the lock.
Didn't even bother to shield it. Emma would get the combo again anyway - maybe from a teacher. Maybe from a janitor she smiled at too long.
Click.
Sophia's fist crashed into the door again. A shock of wind brushed my hoodie back, the clang rattling up my arm. I stared at the dent. Right in the steel. Right where my head could've been.
It was dark green. And on its surface, dark lines spidering all over.
The paperclip was still in my pocket. I didn't reach for it.
Not here. Not yet.
"Sophia," I said.
"Yeah?"
I slid my hands into my pockets. Didn't face her right away. Then I turned.
Smiled.
"Don't."
That wiped the smirk off her face for a second. Not all of it. Just the corners.
"That a threat, Hebert?"
"No," I said, calm, flat. "Just a heads-up."
She didn't respond. Not right away. Just stood there, staring. I stared back, straight into her eyes, unblinking.
After a long pause, she scoffed, pushed off the lockers, and walked away without another word.
I turned back to the dent she'd left behind. Looked at the metal, at the lines scrawled from the point of impact.
I lifted my hand and pressed my knuckles into the mark.
They fit. Almost perfectly.
I closed my eyes.
"Why, really…?"
I bit into my sandwich.
For a second, I felt the lines on the bread, the ham, the cheese. Faint textures brushing against my teeth like silk threads snapping.
I swallowed and stared across the courtyard from my little patch of shade.
Students were talking, laughing, chasing each other, basking in the midday sun.
So many smiles. So many warm words. So much joy.
So many lines.
Life was fragile. That was the first truth. But it was also beautiful, absurd, euphoric, agonizing. A dream stitched together by a frantic god with trembling hands, desperate to preserve the illusion just a little longer.
The lines only made it clearer. But you didn't need to see them to know.
All those boys and girls, savoring their 'Blue Spring.' That's what they called it in Japan, right? The season of youth. The bloom of adolescence. The shimmer of life at its brightest.
I took another bite.
A school shooter could show up any second and paint the cherry blossoms a dark red.
Tragic, sure. But not shocking. Not anymore.
It was happening somewhere else, right now. Probably a few states over. Probably a few cities over. And the irony of it all? In a world where someone could turn your blood to crystal or reduce a forest to ash with a blink, some lunatic with a rifle wouldn't really make it to the news.
How… quaint. The teenager with a gun missed the memo that he'd need a costume and a codename to really matter.
We had lockdown drills. Escape routes. Safety handbooks. We had names for every flavor of catastrophe.
Somehow, murder with a manufactured tool sat lower on the scale than the kid who kissed you and made your heart explode. Or the girl who cut you in half with a thought.
The talking heads still argued the causes. Still debated the fixes.
Ban the guns. Treat the minds. Save the children.
Meanwhile, no one noticed the quiet little fact...
...Dead is dead.
Whether it's by bullet or power or accident. The method's just another flavor in the horror show.
It was the truth. And they all danced around it, or pretended it wasn't there. God forbid anyone say it aloud. Maybe if they had, things wouldn't have turned out so ugly.
Maybe the kids would've been forced to think, really think, about what happiness meant, who they were sharing it with. Maybe the adults would've stopped pretending there was a safety net. Accepted that the end was always right there, waiting. Guns or no guns.
If Death didn't take with a scythe, it took with plague. With famine. With sword. With beasts. Didn't the Bible say something like that?
Maybe then, the world would've gone a little quieter. Maybe they would've appreciated what they had before they lost it.
And maybe, just maybe, Emma wouldn't have been so fucking stupid as to rush the end of what we had.
It was always going to happen. But why speed it up?
I took four bites from my sandwich. Small ones. I chewed slowly.
The school shooters never scared me. Neither did the guns. Not really. And if there was anything about them unsettled me, it was this: at some level, I think I understood them.
The news, the experts, the parents... they always said it was anger. Bullying. Something broken. But that never felt like the whole story.
It wasn't just revenge. Not just rage. Not even the desperate bid for twisted justice. I mean, let's be honest. Nothing anyone could've done to them ever truly merited death.
Death was too easy.
I'd seen the footage. Teenagers—kids, not much older than me, sometimes younger—armed to the teeth, cornering their classmates. No conscience. No hesitation. Holding the moment hostage.
Maybe that's what they were really after.
The silence.
That still, breathless hush after the screaming stops, when no one talks back. When no one dares laugh. When everything stands still. And the only thought left is: I made this. This is mine now.
My eyes drifted across the yard. I saw Emma, basking in the sun. Laughing with the other girls.
A line ran down her temple.
I didn't want to make her bleed.
I just wanted her to shut up.
…Then again, it'd have been too easy. And what was Emma, in the end, but a stupid little girl? What were years of friendship, whispered secrets, and hollow trust in the grand scheme of things? On a planet billions of years old, in a universe older still...
Less than nothing. Dust pretending to matter.
It shouldn't have rattled me. Shouldn't have taken up so much space in my head. Should've been like everything else. Disposable.
I bit down—
"—Ow."
Not on the sandwich. On my finger.
I shook my hand, mild pain pulsing.
Blood welled up. A single drop. Fat. Heavy. It ran, followed a line along my skin. Veered slightly. Then surged forward again, carving a delicate path.
I watched it. Not horrified. Not even annoyed. Just… interested. The way it gathered, bloated, crept forward like it was alive.
I popped the finger into my mouth.
"Ewww, that's gross."
New voice. Not Emma's cold lilt. Not Sophia's dry sneer.
Something chirpy. Too bright. Too loud.
Too… alive.
I looked up.
Emma. Again.
No Sophia. No clique. Just her… and a new girl.
Painted lips. Painted nails. Painted everything.
Wearing what a fifteen-year-old might think looks elegant: midriff-baring T-shirt, denim shorts so tight they looked like they were punishing her hips. She struck a little pose beside Emma, one hand on her waist, glaring down at me the way she'd glare at a gum stuck to her shoe.
She was covered in lines, too.
And seeing them on someone trying that hard to be cute... it felt like holding a Barbie doll.
So fake. So fragile.
"It is gross," Emma echoed, her voice saccharine. "Oh, Taylor! Don't worry, it's not the blood. That's normal. It's just you."
They laughed together. High. Sharp. Grating.
I stood. Dusted off my pants. Looked at them.
"Emma," I said, not sparing a glance at the thing beside her. "I see you still have nothing better to do with your life."
She crossed her arms. Still queen of her own empty kingdom.
"And I see you still don't have one," she snapped back. "I make friends. This is Madison. Say hi to Taylor, Mads!"
"Hiii~" the other thing drawled, giving me a lazy wave.
"Taylor's fine," Emma added with a grin. "Smells like ass, but you get used to it. Or not. That's why I had to leave her."
More laughter. More performance.
I stopped sucking the blood from my finger. Slipped my hand into my pocket. Found the paperclip. Bent it. Straightened it. Bent it again.
I smiled.
"You should use some lip balm, Emma."
She tilted her head, smiling sweetly. "And why's that, T?"
I shrugged. "Your lips'll crack if you keep talking so much shit. Combine it with the constant ass-kissing, and we're looking at a chronic case. Might want to see a dermatologist. Or a therapist. Or a surgeon, if you want your face sewn back together next time it breaks."
Emma scoffed, smug as ever.
Madison blinked, covering her mouth with long-nailed fingers like she wasn't sure whether to gasp or giggle.
"Oh-em-gee. She's so… rugged," Madison said with a wince. "Was this really your friend, Ems? I don't see it."
Emma flicked her hair over one shoulder.
"Friend?" she laughed. "No. It wasn't like that. It was more like holding hands with your baby cousin. The dumb one. Making sure she didn't choke on her juice box."
More laughter.
I watched the lines shift across their faces and bodies as they moved, breathed, laughed.
I breathed.
Clenched my fist.
Tensed.
Then lunged.
My fist cut through the air, stopped an inch from Madison's face.
She froze. Squeaked like a cornered mouse. Emma flinched.
Madison stared at my knuckles, wide-eyed and trembling, her shoulders shrinking inward like her body was trying to disappear.
I leaned in, close enough to smell her perfume. Close enough to feel her breath stutter.
"What the fuck," I said, voice low, "are you laughing at?"
Then I flicked her forehead. Hard. She jerked back, clutching her head as if I'd hit her with a hammer, eyes watering.
"Owwwww…"
I straightened. Turned to Emma.
No smirk on her face now. Just a tight jaw, shallow breathing. Irritated. Caught off guard.
"You were my friend," I said. "At least, to me, you were. And that's the only reason I won't knock that pretty little jaw out of alignment. Not today. Not unless you make me."
I took a step closer.
Made sure she was looking at me. Trying not to look at the lines.
"You want to expand your social circle? Go ahead. Be my guest. But keep screwing around, and you'll learn something ugly. Something real. So be a good girl, Emma. Stay out of my way."
Then I spat in her face.
She recoiled with a sharp gasp, wiped it off with the back of her hand, and glared at me like she couldn't believe I'd done it.
I didn't look back.
Just kept fiddling with my paperclip.
Thinking about the lines.
Thinking about life.
And what comes after.
Why, Emma?
Third Period. World Issues.
The heater ticked like it was chewing gravel. Dust curled in the window corners. Overhead, a flickering light buzzed just enough to make my jaw clench every few seconds. Mr. Gladwell droned about geopolitical conflict in a tone that suggested he was half-asleep. Probably was. I pretended to take notes, though I already knew everything he was saying. The page beneath my pen was filled, two columns deep, with observation.
Madison sat behind me, chewing gum with her mouth open, as usual. She whispered every few minutes to the girl beside her, too low for Gladwell to hear, just loud enough for me.
The seat next to mine was empty.
Emma used to sit there, before she moved to the front where everyone could see her, admire her, laugh at her clever little jabs. Now it was just an empty desk between me and the world.
I never let my bag stray far from it.
Sophia was diagonally behind me, two rows over. I always knew where she was, even when I didn't look.
The bullying had stopped.
For a while, they tested the waters. November started strong; one petty, day-ruining stunt after another. And then… nothing.
Emma still laughed from across the room, her voice pitched just high enough to carry. Madison tagged along, chirping like she wanted to sound clever, but I could practically hear her brain short-circuit every time the topic wasn't me. Sophia gave me those looks, body loose, casual, mouth twitching into either a grin or bared teeth. A predator, waiting for a signal.
But the hands-on mockery? The sabotage? That stopped.
No more missing notebooks. No more shoves in the hallway. No more ruined supplies or 'accidental' spills.
Just silence.
And for a moment, I enjoyed it. The stillness. The quiet ache of solitude without the sting of a slur or shove. Some faint, foolish part of me thought… maybe this was a trade. Maybe losing the only person I could talk to meant I'd finally get to be left alone.
Ridiculous.
They thought I was stupid.
There's no universe, no roll of the cosmic dice, where creatures like them just stop. I hadn't scared them off. I'd only bought time. And if there was one thing I knew, it was that neither my spineless father nor this corpse of a school would lift a finger when they came back.
So I stood my ground. I moved forward. I stayed alert.
Because every time I let myself relax, even for a second, I focused on the lines again.
No one else saw them. But they were there. Like nerves beneath skin. Like fractures under paint. Waiting. Always waiting.
Just like Emma. Just like the rest of them.
I toyed with the usual paperclip, scraping it against the desk.
It was slightly deformed from the constant attention. Bent, straightened, bent again. Ad mortem.
They'd come back. Eventually. Somehow.
How?
What shape would it take this time? Were they biding their time? Wearing me down from a distance?
Was this lull its own kind of cruelty? A moment of stillness designed to break me in the end?
I closed my eyes.
If I knew anything, it was that anxiety played into their hands. I had to stay calm. Cool.
I would never give them more space in my head than absolutely necessary.
Just enough to survive them.
Just enough to recognize them for what they were... an annoyance.
They would never break me.
That part of me was already gone.
I bent the paperclip again. Twisted it. Massaged it into a jagged wire.
This time, I didn't straighten it. I slipped it into my pocket.
It would be enough. In an emergency. A flick of the wrist. A moment's hesitation. And I could cut their lines.
I squeezed the wire. My fingers trembled.
I could do it.
I would do it.
But still—
Am I allowed to?
The thought hung there, thin. Barely spoken. Not for anyone else.
A pause.
A breath…
Why pretend anymore?
December passed in a blur. So did winter recess.
Life continued. Classes happened, until they didn't. I skipped a few while we still had them. Called it maintenance. Recharge.
I could handle watching lines in my bedroom, or scanning the subtle fractures spiderwebbing across my father's shoulders.
But at school? Seeing the same ugly faces, miraculously stitched together day after day… it was an eyesore.
Even then, the faces started to fade.
Blurry edges. Forgotten names.
I tossed the old pictures of Emma I'd kept in my desk drawer. They were leftovers from a different life. They hadn't meant much when I first brought them home. With time, and repetition, and a string of disappointments too long to count, they became pointless. Dead weight.
It was… nice, in a way.
Not happy. Not whole. But nice, the way a plant might think life is nice. Wake up. Sunlight through the blinds. Push through a workout. Drink water. Shower. Sleep. Maybe a book, if the silence got too loud.
Nothing extravagant. I didn't go out. Didn't travel. Didn't feel the need to. Going out meant change. Change meant stimulation. And if all I was going to see were the same sights, lined with the same cracks, then what was the point?
Better to stay where I could control the angles. My house won by default.
Going back to school felt spiritually painful, too. Not scary. Not even stressful. Painful. Like stretching a scab until it tears open again. Or worse, like making a habit out of getting whipped across the back and feeling bored by it.
The ritual of repetition turned sharp things dull.
Not less painful. Just… expected.
I didn't even bring my schoolbag. Just a thin, spiral-bound notebook I'd tucked inside the waistband of my jeans. A pencil in my back pocket.
No pretense. No armor. Just enough to take notes if I needed to fake it.
As I walked, I slipped my hands into my coat pockets. Cold air bit at the seams, found its way under the layers.
And there it was. The wire.
Bent. Slightly twisted. A faint smear of oxidized grey against my fingers.
I'd forgotten it was there. Or maybe not.
Maybe I left it there on purpose.
Maybe I knew, somewhere under the silence, the routines, the numb rituals, that this day would come.
I walked through the doors of Winslow.
The cold followed me in, caught in the seams of my clothes. I could've pulled my hoodie up, shielded my eyes, softened the glare of the lines that flickered at the edges of my vision. But I didn't.
I preferred a clear view. Just in case.
I turned down the hallway toward my locker. My fingers brushed the wire in my pocket. Gripped it. The metal had warmed against my palm, but I could still feel the sharp edge where I'd bent it too far.
Sophia leaned against the wall ahead. Phone in hand. Brows furrowed. She looked bored, perhaps feeling the world didn't deserve her attention.
I didn't glance her way. I stopped in front of my locker. The lines pulsed across the door, thin, dark, trembling.
I didn't open it.
Something dark smeared the tile below. Dried. Rust-colored. More of it pooled under the door, tucked in the crevice like a secret someone tried to forget.
I felt my lips twitch.
Behind me, Sophia still tapped at her screen. Her thumb moved slow. Lazy.
A predator at half-mast.
I turned my head. Just a little. Saw the line run from her temple to her collarbone, a clean, inviting mark.
I tightened my grip on the wire.
"Early bird catches the worm," I said quietly. "Don't you think so, Sophia?"
She didn't look up.
"Hmm? What?"
I blinked. Once. Twice.
"You're pathetic," I said. "And weak."
That got her.
Her head lifted. One eyebrow arched like she was bored at a math problem. Not impressed. Not yet.
"Don't project, Hebert," she muttered. "It's bad enough I'm freezing my ass off in this shithole. If you want your spine rearranged, book an appointment."
"I'm here."
My hand rolled the wire slowly in my pocket. Pressure. Release. Pressure again.
Sophia snorted. She gave me that grin - equal parts condescension and boredom. The kind animals give when they think you've forgotten what their teeth look like.
"You don't want to do that," she said. "You wouldn't live."
I didn't blink.
"Don't project, Sophia."
We stood there, locked in silence. Eye to eye.
I had already counted how many hits I'd take. Two. Maybe three. She was fast, but not enough.
It would hurt.
But I'd win.
My fingers tightened around the wire in my pocket.
Then Sophia snorted. Smiled. That smug, lazy grin.
"Skedaddle, Hebert," she said, flicking her phone at me like it was a leash. "Go on with your sad little life. Don't ride my ass this early just 'cause you can't handle a dead raccoon."
I didn't move. Just stared at the smear on the tile below my locker.
Dark. Dried.
The kind of brown-red that used to be something alive.
"…A raccoon," I echoed.
"Or a goose. Or maybe a fucking chow, I don't know," she muttered, not even pretending to care. "You think I'm gonna poke at a dead animal just to remind you you're beneath dirt?"
I licked my lips. Cold air stung the inside of my mouth.
Stole a glance at the locker. Then back at her.
Liar.
The wire itched against my palm.
"So childish," I said softly. "This is meaningless."
Sophia grinned wider. A flash of white, feral and amused.
"For once," she said, "we agree."
I didn't answer. I turned to my locker.
I didn't really need to open it, but I wanted to see what kind of joke they thought was funny this time. Morbid curiosity to kick off the week, right?
I dialed in the combination with calm, deliberate clicks. The door creaked open.
The lines inside the locker pulsed, sick and sharp. Like veins under skin.
And within…
No raccoon. No animal.
Just a mound. Wet. Shapeless.
Dark blood congealed with shredded paper, bile-stained pads, half-melted trash bags. Something viscous hung from the hook, like a tendon.
The stench hit me with the force of a slap. Sharp and rotten and human.
My eyes watered. My stomach twisted, knotted tight, then dropped. Bile climbed fast, hot and bitter.
I swallowed it back. Stepped away.
Fingers curled tighter around the wire.
Footsteps behind me.
And in that nanosecond, I thought—
—Boring.
I drew the wire. Whirled.
Her line flickered in my vision, clean and dark, just above her brow.
Just a second and I'd...
"Hah!"
Her hand cracked down on the back of my head. Hair twisted in her grip.
The wire slipped from my fingers. Clattered on the tile.
She yanked.
I stumbled forward, caught the lockers with both hands.
She shoved again. I hit the metal hard.
When I didn't go in on the first try, she smacked me again. A sharp knee drove into the small of my back.
"What were you gonna do with that little thing?" she breathed, hot and close. She was grinning. I could hear it. "Whatever. Now get. In. There!"
Each word came with a blow. A shove. A snap of her knee.
I held on. Gagged once, swallowed twice.
The smell from the locker was unreal. Clogged every breath. Soaked into my sinuses.
Rot and copper and something fleshy.
I reached back with one hand. Grabbed her wrist.
Tried to trace the line with my thumb. So close.
Another knee to my spine. My grip slipped.
I stumbled again, closer. The smell thickened. My head swam.
"Stop fighting, you pitiful piece of sh—"
I slammed my elbow back into her ribs.
Crack.
She gasped, stumbled. Her hold loosened.
I twisted. Tried to fall with her, drag her down.
But the nausea crashed back like a wave.
I slapped a hand over my mouth. Stumbled.
Sophia snarled.
She punched the back of my skull.
Stars burst behind my eyes. I dropped forward.
Then, her final shove. All weight.
I crashed face-first into the locker, into the pile.
I kicked. Scratched. Tried to find her line again, trace it with my nail.
Missed.
The filth squelched beneath me.
She pushed on the door. I stopped it with my foot.
She slammed it.
Pain knifed through my ankle. I gritted my teeth. Shifted. Blocked it with my knee.
She slammed again. One. Two—
—Three.
It clicked shut.
I heard her slap the metal.
A muttered curse. Steps fading.
I tried to breathe.
The air was thick. Warm and wet with decay.
I twisted. Curled my legs. Something soft and yielding slid beneath my heel.
I pressed my forehead against the door. Searched for the crack near the hinges.
Cold air whispered through. Thin. Almost nothing.
Still.
I smiled.
"…It sure is dark in here."
Time passed. I couldn't say how much.
Didn't care, either.
For once in my life, I tried to look on the bright side of being stuffed in a locker full of rot.
No class today. No lectures, no stares. No forced small talk with people who didn't know whether to pity or ignore me. So in a twisted, backhanded way, this wasn't the worst alternative.
Still. If this was the 'positive,' I probably should've stayed home.
I kept my forehead pressed to the cold steel. Tried not to shift. Tried not to disturb the grotesque gift my lovely classmates left for me.
Something oozed under my leg when I shifted wrong.
I didn't shift again.
There was a tiny gap in the door. Cold air slid in, just enough to keep me from passing out. I breathed through it. Centered myself. Counted. One breath. Another.
Every now and then, I'd accidentally inhale too deep. The stench punched through my nose like a fist: wet rot, old blood, bile.
And yet… I was getting used to it.
Footsteps. Voices. Laughter.
I lifted one hand. Knocked. Once, twice, hard.
"Hey," I said, loud enough for the echo to carry. "Get me out of here. Bring help. I'm dying. Or something."
Silence.
Seconds passed. Maybe minutes.
Still nothing.
"So much for the whole 'social animal' thing…" I muttered.
That had been my third time asking. Third time's the charm, right?
I didn't bother again. Just leaned back. Sank into it.
Tried to think of something clean. Cats. Puppies.
Anything not covered in blood and filth.
Didn't work.
I smiled anyway.
Sophia had won. Pathetic, cruel, small-minded… but she'd listened to her instincts better than I listened to mine. She hadn't hesitated. Hadn't overthought it.
She waited. She struck.
If she wasn't a killer, then she was something adjacent.
She'd tasted violence before. You could see it in the way she moved, in how relaxed she was about it. This wasn't stress. This was dominance. A small, theatrical display of power. A petty horror show.
And yet… It was all so boring.
Was this really what they came up with?
Did they think I'd cry? Scream?
Beg?
There were more creative ways to break someone.
Take my lunch. Call me my mother's name. Ask me to divide by zero in front of the class.
That would've been worse.
The thought came with another whiff of decay. I gagged… then laughed, sharp and sudden.
"God," I breathed, between shudders and amusement. "This was supposed to hurt. That's so cute."
I imagined Emma in here instead.
Would she scream? Thrash? Tear her throat raw screaming for rescue?
I didn't know. But if this was their idea of fear… then they'd never truly felt it.
I should've seen it coming, though.
They'd ended their adorable little terror campaign not out of mercy, but strategy. To get me to relax. To lower my guard. All so they could deliver their chef-d'œuvre in adolescent cruelty.
In a roundabout way, it worked.
I remembered December. A girl I didn't know sat next to me at lunch. Too much smiling. Too easy with the laughs. Told me she liked my hair, like it wasn't just hanging limp and frayed at the ends.
I asked her if Emma helped her rehearse her lines.
She didn't come back the next day.
In hindsight, that wasn't the mistake. It wasn't that I missed the signs, but that I wasn't paranoid enough.
A lion's no match for a pack of hyenas, if they jump him just right. This wasn't much different.
Their only real mistake was leaving me alive. And even then, their work lacked finesse. It had all the subtlety of a second-rate horror flick.
Just blood. Just gore. Just the kind of viscous, foul mix meant to jab at some ancient instinct.
This is diseased. This is wrong. Get away.
It was cheap. And primitive. And too predictable.
I let my forehead rest against the door again. Cool air trickled through the gap. Thin. Metallic. Just enough to keep my head clear.
I breathed in. Counted the seconds.
Considered my options.
No one was coming. I'd banged the door. Called for help. Even humored them with a plea.
Nothing.
I wasn't asking again. So they'd forget I was here.
Honestly, I could've napped, if not for the fermented trash I was nestled in. Rotten fluids. Slime. Something wet beneath my thigh that shifted when I moved.
It made staying here any longer… less than ideal.
So... what now?
There wasn't much I could do in a locker. Not much except one thing.
I opened my eyes.
The lines were there.
Crawling across every surface. Veins of light in the dark. Here, in this claustrophobic little box, they glowed faint red. Pulsing like embers under skin.
I watched them shift across metal and rot. They were beautiful, in a way.
Always had been. Truthful, too, in a way nothing else was.
I closed my eyes again.
"No."
Three years.
For three years I'd seen the lines. Everywhere. All the time.
And in three years, I had never traced them in front of another person. Not at school. Not outside.
Only when I was alone. Only in my room. Only on small things, like erasers, or scraps of paper. Insects, sometimes. And it was always me. Me and my hands. Me and my conscience. No one else.
That was the rule. No exceptions.
Three years of control. Three years of silence. Three years of pretending.
All of it unraveling because of three stupid girls playing horror movie.
"…No."
I wouldn't break for them. Not for this.
To be honest, the bullying wasn't even the problem. It was noise. A distraction that reminded me to keep a lid on it.
Maybe I needed that pressure. Maybe the universe was warning me.
'Don't get comfortable. Don't let the lines become a toy.'
Maybe this... this locker, this filth, it was all a cautionary tale. A reminder.
I'd accepted it. The burden. The boundaries. Just because I could see the lines—touch them, cut them—didn't mean I got to escape my life through them.
Emma would still be Emma, cut or uncut. Sophia, the same animal. The world wouldn't shift just because I did.
And yet… under that same logic… did it even matter if I held back?
They'd try to crush me either way.
I opened my eyes.
The lines glowed softly in the dark. I stared at them.
"No…"
I had been ready to cut Sophia.
Mapped the lines across her body. Every path. Every end.
It would've been swift. Clean. Final. Not revenge... just reflex. She wanted to hurt me, so I'd stop her. A simple, natural reaction. I didn't want a drama, or a mess, or
I failed because I hesitated. That's all.
But this?
This wasn't reflex.
This was a choice.
One I never thought I'd make. One I didn't even need to make.
But again…
Did it matter?
Did anything I chose still matter?
I slid my fingers into my pocket. Fumbled. Empty. Then, I remembered I dropped the wire outside.
I bit my lip.
Back home, it was easy.
Tracing the lines kept me sane. Cut once, the world quieted. Like popping your ears after pressure builds up.
Every time I followed a line to its end, I remembered how to breathe again.
But this wasn't that. Not a habit. Not an urge.
A decision.
Was it the wrong one?
No. There was no wrong anymore. Just... different flavors of moving forward.
I had chosen restraint. Chosen to pass. To blend in. To keep living, even when I didn't deserve to.
I turned my pockets inside out. Nothing.
I let my forehead tap against the locker door. The smell hit me again. Sour. Wet. Decay thick in the air.
Didn't matter.
I'd endured worse.
But that was always mistake, accident, consequence. Tragedy.
This?
This would be on purpose.
Three years of silence. Three years of holding the line. Three years of punishing myself for things I couldn't fix.
Surely… surely one cut was fine. One cut. Then I'd walk out. Go home. Sleep on it.
I knocked my head against the metal again.
"No," I muttered. "That's not how it works."
Because if I cut now... then what?
Pretend I could walk away unchanged? Pretend I hadn't chosen this? Pretend that sin by ignorance and sin by action don't weigh the same?
Could I really accept that maybe… none of it meant anything?
"…Ah."
Something clicked in my lungs. In my skull. A gap opened where the pressure had been.
Yes.
It really was all for nothing.
And I'd been too stupid to see it.
Three years of this. Three years seeing the truth in every line, every crack, every person. Three years spent pretending it mattered. That restraint meant something.
It didn't.
All that posture, all that silence... useless. The worst kind of performance: the one nobody saw. If I didn't cut, I'd stay the awkward, pitiful girl everyone wished they could ignore.
If I did? I'd be a monster.
…I was a monster.
I'd just dressed like a sheep. Played at being human. And what did it get me? A locker. A metal coffin.
A burial, minus the eulogy.
I clenched my jaw. Felt the pressure settle behind my teeth.
Then, a memory.
My back pocket.
I slipped my hand in. Felt the filth clinging to the fabric. Warm. Wet. Fingers closed around plastic. I pulled it free.
A pencil. Cheap. Blunt. Just sharp enough.
I looked at the lines again. Really looked. They pulsed, deeper now, crimson threaded with black, like veins under a bruised sky.
Should I cut it?
I gripped the pencil. Tension flared in my wrist.
Will they see me if I do it?
This wouldn't be like the paperclip. That had been play. A ritual.
Will I… still be me?
This was a blade.
I inhaled. Didn't smell rot anymore. Or blood. Or bile.
Just felt the cold clarity behind my eyes. Just felt the stillness that comes before a decision.
"If I'm going to die again…"
My hand stilled. The pencil lifted.
"…Then I get to choose how this ends."
I drove it forward.
Aimed at the line running down the center of the door.
Then stopped.
Too messy.
If someone found a steel door split in half, they'd ask questions. They'd look too closely. They'd see more than they were meant to.
Not yet.
I scanned again. Tracked new paths.
There... along the hinges.
Yes.
I steadied the pencil. Drove it forward into the line.
It sank without resistance. No friction. No sound. Only steel parting around truth, and me, reaching for it.
My breath hitched. My lips twitched into something too sharp to be called a smile.
I plunged deeper, right to the knuckle. That was the limit, bone too wide for the path I carved.
Then, slowly, I dragged the pencil downward.
One clean motion. No hesitation.
The door groaned. A metallic clang echoed down the hall.
A crack opened. Cold air rushed in.
I shifted lower. Found the next hinge line. Pressed in. Drew it down.
Somewhere in the distance, someone laughed.
Not at me. Just at the situation.
The final joint gave out.
The door crashed down onto the tiles, loud and final.
I stepped through, out into the light.
Alive.
My knees buckled slightly. I caught myself on them. They were trembling. So was I.
I looked down.
Filth smeared across my legs. The ruined locker at my back. The corridor ahead, washed in gray.
My pulse thundered in my ears.
And there, at my feet, my wire. I bent. Picked it up. Ran my fingers along its curve. It hummed against my skin.
I slipped the pencil back into my pocket. Let out a breath that shuddered on the way out.
"Next time," I said, low, steady, "I won't hesitate."
I pocketed the wire. Straightened up. Looked around.
Eyes were on me, half-confused. Half-horrified.
They didn't look so ugly with the lines now.
They looked… easy.
I turned. Walked.
There were things I needed. A shower, first. Then… a knife.
Why? I wasn't sure.
Couldn't explain it. Couldn't even find the words.
Maybe that was always the problem.
I smiled.
"Why not?"
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