CLOUD TO GROUND ☂︎ FIVE HARGREEVES

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ANAGNORISIS
closed loop

☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎

Hypatia paused outside the television store, sighing up at the building. Alone again, the crushing weight of the unknown future collapsing back down on her.

Hand on the door handle, she went to push it open, but a crash from the nearby alley distracted her, turning her attention towards the noise.

Abandoning the entrance for the moment, she creeped over to the alleyway, muscles tensed. Was that...blood?

It spread across the pavement in a dark red pool, Hypatia carefully stepping over the growing puddle, carful not to dirty her shoes. The source of the puddle was a deep gash in the side of a suited man leaned up against the alleyway, his usual clean and pressed look ruffled and messy. A deeply damaged suitcase sat beside him, sparks showering from it's nearly destroyed casing.

Somnus clutched his side in pain, his skin clammy and pale from the blood loss. He groaned when he noticed Hypatia, eyes squeezing shut for a moment. "Of course you'd be here. My undoing."

She said nothing, staring at the quickly fading man, a numb feeling beginning in her fingertips. She felt no pity for the bloody man, only resolved apathy. She had been furious with him before, and perhaps some of that anger still clung to the edges of her consciousness, but not nearly to the degree she'd felt that first day back in her own body.

"Well, aren't you going to say something?" He ground out. "This is what you've always wanted isn't it? I could see the hate in your eyes the day we met. Why do you think I liked you so much?"

"Are you dying?" She asked hoarsely, despite knowing the answer.

"Looks like it." He coughed out. "Feels like it too."

"Then tell me what you didn't before. What is it that you're so afraid of?" She crouched down towards him.

"It's strange." He faintly spoke, ignoring her question. "You hear of people hallucinating in death and write it off as delusions, but I can picture her face clearly now. My Pasithea."

With a shuddering exhale, he went limp, a contented look his final expression.

Hypatia shed no tears for the dead man, a vicious spike of anger and satisfaction rising in her throat. "So secretive, even in death. Stupid old man." She bitterly muttered.

Leaving his body where it lay against the alley wall, she pulled open the door of the TV store only to find more blood. This blood has been neatly arranged, however, forming letters, though she couldn't quite read it from the floor. Climbing the stairs was another brutal scene, Elliot's body sat in a chair, various items driven into his torso.

"Jesus!" She exclaimed. "Can't I go anywhere without running into a dead body?"

The only other living people in the apartment, Luther and Diego, sent her a questioning look, but didn't ask, Luther dialing away on a wall mounted phone.

The front door chimed again, Hypatia leaning over the railing to see Five enter the building, taking in the bloody scene. From this position, she could see the writing clearly, but couldn't decide what it meant, other than it was written in another language.