Stand Up and Walk

A Fly on the Wall

"Beckoned now by the snow-white backdrop, I go into a yet unseen world. Lost as I traveled under a gray sky, with a different map each day, so many dreams ran together. I wonder if someday, even with my modest stride, I'll be able to get beyond those clouds. Falling raindrops provide a persistent diffuse reflection, as though able to see into my heart, wounded for acting tough. Beams of light crisscross and shoot on forever without announcing where they're headed; faint afterimages burn into my eyes. Wherever I am under this sky, I should still arrive at a yet unseen world."

—Nico Touches the Walls, Hologram

※※※

You sit, curled up in the hayloft of the old, abandoned barn. Tears are drying on your cheek as you run your fingers over the dry hay beneath you.

The barn is about an hour's walk from the Rockbell's house, but you'd run here, so it hadn't taken you that long. This is always where you'd gone when you needed to be by yourself when you were growing up; your own personal hiding spot.

You sit, bathed in the moonlight from the smashed-out window, taking the time to gather your thoughts. Who knows how long you've been here—hours, maybe? You glance at the sky, using the moon's position to guess the time.

It's late, and you're so tired. Your eye is swollen, face puffy from crying.

You're going to have to think of something to say to the boys in the morning. You try to start thinking up a good excuse, but your head is muddled, temples throbbing with a headache. Your legs ache, fresh blood beginning to dry on the old hay beneath you.

You'll deal with it in the morning, you decide, and curl in on yourself. You tuck your flesh arm beneath your head like a pillow, rolling onto your side. Letting your exhausted eye slide shut, you fall into a fitful sleep.

※※※

You're curled up on your side in the old, abandoned barn near the Rockbell's house. You blink awake, bleary, and look around, not sure what woke you. The moon shafts in from the window, stars dotting the sky outside. The night is silent; the crickets that would sound a summer symphony are all hibernating underground as the cold fingers of winter begin to creep in.

Everything seems normal, you think to yourself, and are about to fall back asleep when you notice movement out of the corner of your eye. Sitting up, you cast your gaze into the shadows, squinting to try to see better in the blackness.

There, standing in the far corner of the hayloft, is a figure. You can't make out any details, but they are short, and slim.

"Hello?" you call out, shaking your hair from your face and making sure that your eyepatch is in place. "Who's there?"

"What, you don't recognize me?" calls back the response in a jarringly familiar, female voice. "You really should, you know. It's like looking into a mirror, after all!"

You only have a moment to puzzle over the words before the figure steps forward into the light, and your heart leaps into your throat. "W-what?" you stammer. "But... but you're—!"

"That's right!" she laughs, pushing her long, wild red hair back from her face. Her automail glints in the moonlight, her single green eye staring down at you with a mocking bemusement. "It's you!" she crows.

You scoot backwards, your fingers scrabbling through the dry old hay, which is slowly decomposing into dust after the many years it's been here. "No, you can't be," you argue, despite the evidence being right in front of your face. "You can't be me, I'm me!"