antebellum [t. riddle]

lv.

january 1945

over the course of human history, there has been no question more debated than this: what happens when we die?

there have been many different interpretations of what the afterlife is. in many belief systems, it varies for good and bad people.

for those who are good, it is reincarnation as a higher being, or a utopian society, or bliss, or nothingness.

for bad people, there are many depictions of the forever punishment.

some conclude that it's hellscapes of fiery volcanos and lava and eternal burning.

but others say that hell is much more personal and much more specific. hell is an amalgamation of the specific horrors that haunted someone in their corporeal life.

so if sicaria was going to hell, the landscape would just be the headquarters of macusa.

the lobby reminded her of the muggle grand central station. it was where passengers from all over the city converged through one enormous room to get to another part of the city. each of the boroughs of the city correlated to a different department of macusa in sicaria's mind. the people who walked through the lobby always had on suits or business-formal clothing to showcase their shallow, performative self-importance. owls and paper planes flew above their heads, dropping piles of bird shit all over the floor, though it was immediately cleaned by unpaid house-elves. in the center sat a large machine that looked somewhat like a clock, showcasing different levels of threats that macusa was imminently dealing with. right now, the large hand sat at level three: high alert, as it consistently had since grindelwald's initial rise to power. everyone spared a cursory glance to it as they passed, though it always was on the same setting. aurors walked proudly through the crowd; chests puffed and shoulders back, reminding her vividly of how gryffindor and slytherin boys acted when they crossed each other in the halls of their school. secretaries, interns, and assistants skirted through the crowd trying desperately to balance the tasks that they were likely underpaid for, as well as avoiding confrontation with any of the higher-ups. the people who had their faces covered by identity charms were never spoken to, which was unsurprising due to the fact that anyone who may have recognized them wouldn't know who they were talking to. if there was one upside in sicaria's mind, it was that people rarely bothered her after she had been given clearance to be under constant identity protection.

by far some of the lowest points of her life had been giving testimony to lawyers while still high, giving mission reports as healers tended to her wounds, or being in the process of withdrawal and having to listen to people who didn't know her tell her all of her problems.

there had never been a good reason to enter this building, that much was clear to her. all of the positives stemmed from rectifying negatives. every problem that macusa solved in sicaria's life had stemmed from something that they caused. oftentimes, they didn't bother— leaving her to deal with her problems on her own.

she never had any reason to hide her drug addiction from macusa— they didn't care. the first time she had been reprimanded for it was after a situation in which she had botched a mission or some paperwork or some legal bullshit (she couldn't remember which; most of those points in her life were blurred), following which a different handler had essentially told her to do what she wanted, so long as it didn't affect her work.

she could be as high as a cloud on a mission and macusa wouldn't care as long as she was the executioner they wanted her to be.

sicaria couldn't help but feel dumbledore seemed to be slightly too invested in that portion of her life. it was none of his business, after all, and it didn't affect her work in the slightest, so why the hell did he care so much?