Sentiment of a Witness

𝙿𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜

Eavesdropping.

It's something I hate.

And yet, my entire life, I've managed to do it.

It's nosey and meddlesome.

And for my nine-year-old self, thus far, eavesdropping had brought me nothing but pain and suffering, so why the hell did I do it again?

Because curiosity gets the better of us – humans are naturally curious creatures after all.

One night, a few days after Jason left, I went to look at the pink sailing ship late in the night again. It had become quite a habit for me to do when I couldn't sleep, which I'm ashamed to admit was most nights. And if I did manage to sleep, strange dreams haunted me. Either fears of the future – another abusive family, another orphanage, or being abandoned by the people at the Hotel Deucalion, or strange, familiar and bone-chilling reveries. At first, these reveries were of unrecognisable yet familiar, blurry humanoid figures, walking and talking in low undistinguishable buzzes. It was probably a few years later when they began to clear up, turning into faces of the past.

The ship's pink light pulsed, and I'd follow that rhythm, drumming my fingers on the railing along with it, trying desperately to distract myself from everything else that was going on. The stress and anxiety of what the next day had in store for me, the blinding Gossamer, the fear of a new family.

But that night was different.

As I stood there, looking at the chandelier, I heard muffled voices coming from a door down the corridor behind me.

"I just... don't know what to do with him."

It was Jupiter's voice.

"I-I can't just send him to another orphanage, and... I don't want him to be taken away by another family-"

That caught me by surprise.

One, whoever Jupiter was talking to, he was talking to them about me. And two, Jupiter didn't want me to find another family? I wasn't sure how to feel.

Why didn't he want me to be taken in by a new family?

I bit my lip and tried to block out the rest of the conversation – I didn't want to be a nosey Witness, whether I was using my knack or not.

After a while – possibly minutes, possibly hours – I was leaning heavily on my arms, trying not to fall asleep on the railing, when I heard the creak of a door behind me, followed by light thuds of footsteps and the gentle hum of a conversation dying out.

Both the footsteps and conversation ceased, and I could feel eyes looking at me. I remember flinching subconsciously as a hand found my shoulder and a voice muttering something along the lines of, "come on, let's get you to bed."

Due to my drowsy state, I don't remember much other than nearly falling asleep on my feet and being carried the rest of the way to my room.

When I woke the next day, I felt surprisingly refreshed, which I traced back to no strange dreams that night. However, I still felt a bit weird about what happened last night... the thought that the reason Jupiter didn't want me to go with another family was because he might want to keep me here had occurred to me at some point as I fell asleep in his arms the previous night.

But of course, my little nine-year-old brain was preparing me for the worse possible scenario in fear of getting hurt again. Pain didn't disappear overnight; I knew that – both physical and emotional.

I went about my day as I usually did – sitting around in different locations feeling strangely out of place, but at home. Like I didn't belong here, but I wanted to.

I was lounging on the loveseat in the lobby with Jupiter when a tall, thin man with a moustache strode in, eyes scanning the foyer before fixing on Jupiter. His lips curled up in what I supposed to be a 'friendly' smile but looked more like a snarl.

He walked up to us, and as he drew nearer, his eyes glinted. I immediately took a disliking to him.

"Ah, Captain North, just the man I was looking for."

"Good evening, Baz."

Written: 19 August, 2021

Published: 21 August, 2021