Dumpster kids

chapter 11: Chamber of reflection

"Your sure?" the voice of Daphne echoed through the quiet room. Elle could tell she was trying to confirm the worst before freaking out. Elle didn't need that confirmation, she was already freaking out. Nobody answered her anyways, they didn't have to. Something about the way Casper told them about Achilles made her think that they knew so much more than Elle did or ever would.

spend some time away

The energy from their previous argument had all but vanished leaving a silence that hung over them like smoke billowing off a burning building, only being interrupted by the buzz of the old TV. All the occupants (all the convicts) in the room had speed ran the first three stages of grief and were sitting firmly in the "depression" stage.

Daphne had moved out of her time out corner to watch the news broadcast, and was now standing next to Elle. Their hand was clutching her shoulder and her head was hung, eyes staring at the stained couch in front of them.

Loki had at some point shifted back into a possum and was now occupying the same space on Casper's shoulders. Elle noticed that as a possum she still had the same scars that she had as a human. They were long ugly burn scars that traveled down from her right ear to the visible skin on her right hand, most places Loki's skin was visible there was some kind of burn, the worst was concentrated on her right side. In any other context Elle would've loudly voiced this interesting detail that she noticed before anyone else. But now wasn't the time to have no filter, especially with how Loki had reacted to the last time she mentioned her scars. Now was not a time for silly antics and broken noses.

Now was a time to mourn the loss of everything they had know. Because everything is thrown out the window when your enemy thinks they killed you. Everything changes when the public that adored you now thinks your criminals, or imposters.

They were mourning the loss of their life, just not the way Achilles thought. Yet.

They might as well be dead because things were only going to get more difficult and more dangerous from this point forward. Because if the heroes thought they were dead, and it turned out they weren't. They wouldn't hesitate to correct their mistake.

getting ready for the day your born again

An hour later and very little had changed.
Elle was lying on the floor, her feet propped up on the cushions of the couch. Her hands were throwing and catching a tennis ball she had found on the floor. The repeated motion did little to calm her nerves.

Currently they were waiting for the guy named after a ghost to come back to the apartment with food. Not a single word had been uttered, no one had even asked for food. Elle assumed that he was like her in that regard, that he needed something to do as a distraction. Or maybe he was an anxious eater like Daph, Elle really knew nothing about the man who's home she was in.

Either way she didn't really mind when he loudly got up and announced in the first words in an hour that he was getting food. And slightly quieter murmured that he was now the only one who could get food without being arrested. Which technically wasn't true because the healer, his sister, also wasn't in any danger, Elle ignored his wrong statement in favor of throwing her ball up into the air again.

Daphne had long given up on her list of possible plans and was now occupying herself with trying to brush all the dirt and dried blood of her clothes.

Loki, Elle was pretty sure, had fallen asleep the moment Casper left the apartment though it was kind of hard to tell considering she hadn't left possum form.

Annie was the worst of all of them, nervously pacing up and down the small footprint of the house occasionally looking through the blinds covering the window in the front of the house.