Era

7

Three backpacks sat propped against the wall of Era's apartment, all in varying states of neglect. Era shoved another bottle of water into one of them, wincing as her phone vibrated from across the room. Shinsou again, certainly. I don't want to talk to him.

No, that was a lie. She very much wanted to talk to him, actually, which was why she very much couldn't. Things were getting dangerous, uncertain, her emotions were beginning to rule her rather than the other, proper way 'round, and Era wasn't about to let a little thing like friendship drag her down. Not that they were friends anyway.

An image flooded her senses, unbidden, of Shinsou battered and unmoving in the street, a hulking robot bearing down on him. With a strangled groan Era straightened from the bag, cracking her neck before crossing over to the bed and throwing herself down to look at her phone.

It... wasn't Shinsou. It was a notification she had set up ages ago, alerting her to when police called in crimes in her area. I should delete this.

To call Era's current frame of mind "panic" would be disingenuous at best, and downright slanderous at worst. No, she thought, fastening the mask to her face in the scratched up mirror, she was certainly not panicking; just taking appropriate measures. Panic implied that there was nothing to worry about, and Era knew for a fact that there was always something to worry about, always danger lurking past every corner and under every shadow.

So it wasn't panic that led her to prepare no less than three emergency kits, should she need to run. Not panic that had her stocking up on gas and food using what little money she had, in case she needed to hole up in the apartment for longer than usual. And certainly not panic that left her feeling restless, flighty, sick to the stomach. That feeling around her neck, like she was being slowly, painstakingly strangled... it was not panic.

It wasn't panic she felt when she left the UA entrance exam. When she knew that she had failed.

Her options had run dry, she'd put all of her eggs in this basket and dropped it off a god damn roof, her face was in the open and she'd been sitting in one place for far too long but she was not panicking.

Era didn't let something like panic bog her down; she just focused on running away from her problems like a professional. She had standards.

The cloak was comfortable around her shoulders, a weight like human contact but not so constricting, not so threatening. Not for the first time, she felt the familiar sensation of fingers at her throat, slowly choking the life from her body as she twitched and writhed in helpless throes before she forced the dream-memory from her mind. This would do her good, she decided as she eyed herself in the mirror. This would steady her.

The cool breeze rushing past did lessen the ache behind her temples, and the sharp pains of fractured bone from every landing honed her thoughts past the hazy web of run run run and threat threat threat and walls closing in I can't breathe I can't

Her lungs swelled with the night air and for brief moments between buildings Era could almost believe herself weightless.

There was a goal, a plan, a police report she had intended to follow, but all of that slipped away with every step in her daring course over the rooftops, instead replaced by a clarity of mind that let her think, just for once.

She had failed the entrance exam, she was sure of it. Her written score must have been abysmal, and she'd barely managed to scrape up any points in the practical. UA was a bust.

This really shouldn't have hit her so hard, shouldn't have made her fingers twitch and the scars crisscrossing her back burn, but something about it felt like being knifed in the dark, felt like the gasping shock of a sucker punch to the gut. She'd failed; she could never be a hero, and she was foolish to ever think otherwise.