BLACKOUT

Chapter 13- apologies

I was all alone, sitting by myself in the shelter. The air was humid and it was hard to breathe. It was only the start of May and for some reason, it was about thirty degrees outside. I was sitting at the desk, just staring at the wall, no thoughts in my mind. I thought to myself, "this isn't like me? I always overthink. Why was my mind so blank?" but this didn't last for long. I spent an hour looking at the springlock scars and thinking about them. I guess that glance of them sparked a trigger in my thoughts because now all I could think of was about them. They were very much healed now and turned a pinkish-red colour. My fur had overgrown them so they weren't seen as much. They had circle and diamond shapes which was the way the edges of the locks were. Many people always ask me about them but I never answer. You shouldn't ask people about their scars anyways.
I always wished I never did that to myself because now I'm scared of robotics. I was so intrigued when Magenta and Callie would show me their projects but I would be so afraid to even touch them. I always wondered how Magenta wasn't afraid considering he's been springlocked before too.
He had scars all over his legs and arms. It looked awful. The story of his scars wasn't pretty. It was basically because my father had a blackout.
My father was also interested in technology. He was an architecture designer. His brother worked in the Scarlian Knight Forces for about four years before he also started to have blackouts. His brother worked on robots and other kinds of animated technology that helped with the Scarlett army and usually helped Magenta and Callie with their engineering and robotics assignments after school.
It was the 20th of November, 3171. We were all at my father's brother's house and he was helping Magenta and Callie build a large animatronic together. My father was helping with the measurement since he was especially good at mathematics. The animatronic was almost finished and the whole body except for the arm had the shell. The animatronic was a german shepherd with black and brown splotches and a long snout. Magenta decided to put on the suit even though the sheet told him specifically not to. He walked around for a bit, being especially cautious of the springlocks and his surroundings. Both Callie and my uncle were watching over him. I was watching over my dad. But something was wrong, he started to have an unusual blackout. One in which the symptoms were not noticeable. He started to act tired or drunk at first until he started to get closer to Magenta, we tried to back him away but it was too late. He pounced on the goat and the whole room became bloodier than ever. He had to get some stitches and had to walk on crutches for two weeks.
My uncle became afraid of this happening again so he ditched technology and became a knight instead. But this didn't last for long. His appointment as the captain of the Scarlian knight forces was terminated.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen him in years. Around six years he's been gone. I haven't seen any of my father's family in an extremely long time.
I tried to stop thinking about negative things and focus on positive things, like the necklace Valerie gave me and how I met Ava again but the only thoughts that could go through my head was the name "Zephyr." I always recognise the name but never who it was. Nobody in my family remembers who Zephyr was but for some reason we recognised the name. Nobody could remember anything. I stopped trying to think about it because it was probably useless. There was nothing important to think about so I decided to do some praying.
I got up out of my seat and went to the middle of the room and sat on my shins. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply in and out as I put my head on the floor and clasped my paws together in front of my head. Praying in Xanixian is like writing a letter to an important person so usually you start with dear and end with from. This was to the gods Zoren and Kaave. I then finished the prayer and put my head up. Only for someone to be standing right in front of me and staring.
Of course, it was Charlotte.
"What are you doing?" She asks.
"What does it look like?"
She then snickered and led in a deep breath.
"Pfft. You? Praying? Didn't expect that."
As I stood up to face her I smiled a little bit.
"Isn't that normal? For Xanixians to do that?" I said before walking out of the shelter.
But she followed me.
"I never knew you'd feel guilt. I always thought you were the rebellious type. The 'no remorse' type." She said as she caught up to me.
"It's because I don't like to show it. I find it difficult to feel that way but I use different ways to express it. Sometimes I can't tell if it's an uncomfortable feeling or a relieving feeling to get it out." I replied.
"Well yeah! It's supposed to hurt."
"I think I'm just trying to avoid it. But I eventually have to feel it."
Unexpectedly, she started to act a lot more sympathetic towards me which wasn't very common for my foes to feel.
"Y'know, I'm glad you feel that way, Panic. Not because I hate you and I want you to feel pain, but because this means that you genuinely see that wrong in your actions. And now listening to your prayers makes me realise the wrongs in mine."
I turned to look at her in a surprised way. She was smiling a little bit. Her small bear teeth poked out from the side of her mouth.
"I've researched more on this 'blackout' case you've talked about and thought about what you've told me and I realised that you really are genuine. Apparently it's very common between your family and some others that are possibly related to yours. I think we should start looking into this more because it's concerning since you've hurt so many people from it."
"Panic, I think we should apologise to each other. I think I should apologise for the way I treated you here."
"I think I should apologise for how I treated you, too, Charlotte."
We both then took two steps back and did a traditional two-way Xanixian apology.
We bowed together closely and put both our paws in a diamond and a circle shape. Our noses touched each other on the tips and our eyes were closed. We both looked back up at the same time after we laughed a little and smiled and hugged in a deep and tight grip.
"I'm sorry." We said at the same time. We then let go.
"Thanks Panic." She says.
"Thanks charlotte. HOOH! I've never done that before!"
Charlotte then snickered a small laugh and held out her paw in front of me.
"Yeah! Heh! Oh!"
"Hm?" I asked.
"Hey, you don't have to call me Charlotte anymore. You can call me Cher or Charlie for short."
I then stuck my paw out and shook Charlie's hand.
"Alright then, Charlie, feel free to call me whatever you want! Or Nova, if you'd like. That's my middle name."
We both laughed for a few seconds until she replied again.
"Well, Nova, I think it's time we settle these disputes and childish conflicts and take things to a new fresh start between us! I'll see ya later." She says, walking off and down the stairs.
I suddenly had a burst of excitement from that moment. I felt so much more calm and free than before. I never had any of my enemies forgive me like that. I genuinely felt so good.
As I walked over to the outside area of the courtyard, I could see people from the corner of my eye weirdly staring me down. It felt uncomfortable but that's what you should expect from a place like this.
I glanced over to the left side of the courtyard to find Charlie approaching the rest of the group. They didn't look too pleased to see her but it looked like she was explaining something. She then turned around and waved at me to come over to the table as she sat next to Taro so I rushed over and took a seat next to Ava, who grasped my shoulder and looked at me with a cheesy, but adorable looking smile.
"Okay! So me and Panic have discussed some things and we've come to the conclusion to not have any fights anymore. I learnt a whole bunch about what's going on with her and I'm just wondering if I, or you can share it with the others? I think they should know about it too."
I looked up at the others as they all turned to face me.
"Of course I can. I really wanted you all to know too."
I had another look at the scars on my right arm and back at the others. They all were ready to listen.
"When I was a child I started developing these things called blackouts where my body would be taken over and I would do horrendous things against my will that I didn't even know of. During these I lack all my senses and can feel nothing but pain. I also hear a lot of voices that are awfully familiar but I can't tell why. Everytime, something horrible would happen. I've hurt family,I've hurt friends. I don't know why. It's basically ruined me. Even my father and my friend Magenta go through these and it makes everything worse. That's why I've decided to investigate it. I'll investigate because no one else can. And I won't stop until I find an answer to this bullshit!" I say.
The others look worried for me. I'm not surprised.
"Have you found anything at all about it?" Jaquelin asks me.
"Most people who have these have light grey eyes and usually some random splotch on them somewhere. It's usually purple. I'm not sure if the colour has to do with anything, but i'll have to keep it in mind. There must be a reason for this. I've also seen some things about 'mind-reading' in some ancient Xanixian books. But these books always have important information ripped out of them that I can never seem to find. There must be someone hiding something from us. Possibly those voices I hear have something to do with it?"
Then Ava leans forward and looks at me with a surprised face.
"What did those voices sound like? Did they have some kind of posh sounding accent?" He asks.
"Yeah? Why?" I replied.
She gasped noisily for the rest of the shelter to hear and then slammed her paws on the table.
"I hear those too. They always sound so glitchy and broken. It's always some broken english. Sometimes they call for my name."
That reminded me of when they would call for my name in broken english. That's when I started to panic because then Ava could possibly be having these blackouts too but I knew that wouldn't be the case because they didn't have the features that could possibly determine that they could experience these.
But then again, we don't know much at all about it.
Then Ava started to ask things about family but it just didn't seem right? And for some reason, she mentioned that name.
"Panic, do you know anyone named Zephyr?"
Everyone looked at him in such a weird way. They were all confused why she had been asking this. But I knew.
"What the fuck Ava? My mum asked me that too. How'd you know that name?"
"I don't know! I just heard it through those weird voices one time. They kept chanting that name. Dunno who the hell Zephyr is though."
That's it! That's where I heard it from! Maybe that was useful?
"Maybe that could help us. I don't know, search the name Zephyr on something later."
The pound had three small tablets that could be used by anyone to search something specific up. It was placed just in front of the shelter blocks so we headed over there to search it up.
Unfortunately, the only thing we could find was the meaning of the name, which is just a type of material. The only images were pictures of old-fashioned cars from the human ages.
"Maybe it's a clue? Oh my god... are the humans taking over again? I don't want to have plastic straws in my fur again!" Taro cries.
"Of course not! But it might mean something. Should we take a glance at the history books?"
There were no history books to be found at all in the small library room. Not a single thing. The history websites had nothing either. It was like any information was erased completely.
But this was a newer issue so there couldn't have been anything anyways, is what we thought.
We headed back into the courtyard to sit down, which is when Jaquelin began to ask about all my scars.
"Hey Panic, if you don't mind me asking, how'd you get your face burnt off and what are those scars on your arm?"
I was more than happy to answer this time because it would back up my reasoning for what had been happening.
"Oh my face was burnt off as punishment for murdering Lemon. It was in front of the whole school. My arm? Those are scars from the springlocks of the mech of an animatronic suit because I had a blackout and hurt a bunch of my siblings and I felt really bad so I springlocked myself."
Both Taro and Jaquelin's jaws dropped as if I had just said something so offensive to them.
"You said that so damn casually. You okay? That's actually terrible. I hope nothing like that happens again." Jaquelin says.
"Yeah for real, that shit's not normal."
Then Ava proceeded to gently hold my arms as she tracked the scars down the centre of my arm.
"Was this from Callie and Magenta's designs? I know it's been years but they look awfully familiar?"
"Yes they are. I rushed to Callie's home to do it. I'm fine now and I know I'll never do it again. It's incredibly painful."
Then suddenly an announcement came over the loudspeaker. It was calling me to visit Miss Cairn's office.
"Panic Black please report to the main office and meet with Miss Cairn. I repeat, ''Panic Black please report to the main office and meet with Miss Cairn, thank you."
As I hop up Charlotte taps me on the shoulder so I swivel around.
"Good luck, that one's a beast."
As I arrive she points to take a seat in front of the desk so I do. Mr Crowelle joins her and stands by her side.
"Hello Panic." She greets.
"Hello Madam cairn." I say back as I nod.
"I've called you here to speak about you and Charlotte. I see there's been some big changes in the relationship between you two, I see?"
I nod again.
"Yes. Charlotte and I have chosen to close our disputes and to work together to find a change in attitude."
She then laughs a little and glances at the mayor.
"Oh! So you're not just the murderer type, but also the manipulator type is what I'm seeing from you."
Manipulator? Excuse me?
Intensely, I keep a relaxed face and force a small smile to her little comment.
"Ah. of course. Manipulator you say? The only manipulator I see is the one right in front of me. Yeah. I'll have you know that I know every inch of information or in other words, 'LIES' that you tell to everyone else about me, and I'm not gonna put up with it. No matter what my status or class is. And I could care less about what you have to think of me! Because I know for sure that once I get the real truth out there you're the one who's gonna be down on their knees this time." I say as I slowly rise up and get closer to her over the desk.
"Madam cairn, one thing you should know about me is that I don't play around. So you can keep your pretty little lies to yourself, or things are gonna get messy." I finish off just as I leave the room, walking back to the group.
The time was getting late, and I was so tired that I could barely walk. I would rub my eyes so much that they started to go red. My eyes started to go slightly blurry so I had to keep rubbing and blinking. But as I blinked and my eyes started to defog, I saw that another fight had broken out.
But this was no regular fight at all. Someone was there.
My eyes were caught among a familiar face, but I knew this wasn't someone I actually knew.
Their light grey eyes shined so bright it glazed my eyesight with blindness.
I'd seen this person in my dreams, or in my blackouts before.
Who was this?