unforgiven ➽ a Halilintar-centric fic

33 | came back wrong

Petir knew he came back wrong.

He saw it in Tok's anguished face when he returned home, covered in dirt and wooden splinters at their front door.

He felt it when Tanah and Angin held his hands, feeling earthen soil and unbound winds instead of skin and warmth.

He heard it from his fuzzy memories filled with static and wire, trying valiantly to tell whether those haunting shrieks were from splintering metal on his own throat.

When he returned, everything was different. His bright clothes didn't quite fit him anymore, despite never growing one inch. Tok's cocoa didn't taste as sweet – it didn't taste like anything at all. Tanah and Angin's laughter didn't sound comforting or melodious—they were ear grating, mocking.

It had taken him some time wearing the wrong colors that he realized nothing around him had changed. It was him who had changed; he grew out of the mold and into a misshapen mass, jagged and no longer able to fit into their perfect picture.

Petir was a remnant of the past, buried alongside that burning ship and smothered embers. Like his colors, he'd outgrown that name and all the clothes in his closet. He couldn't bear to be associated with Petir, the boy who ate all the carrots his brothers picked out and the son who'd sweep the front yard.

He came back wrong. The world around him was not.

There was no nightmare to come out of, no fairy tale with a knight in shining armor to wake him from the spell. All he had was a chest full of shrapnel, a mouthful of iron, and fire burning behind his eyelids.

"Amnesia?"

Dr. Gopal stared at Taufan as if he's grown senile.

"Yes, amnesia. I think I have made myself quite clear, Lance Corporal," he said, poking Gempa's cheek with a pen. Said elemental slapped his hand away, annoyed. "Now I'm no psychiatrist or neurologist, but I think anyone with a functioning brain—unlike his—would know that spontaneous memory loss is- what's the word – ah, yes, bad."

Gempa glared. "I feel perfectly fine," he argued, but they ignored him as if he was air. "Like, seriously!"

Neither Taufan nor Gopal believed him, but that was besides the point.

"Did he get hit on the head with a frying pan?" Taufan suggested. "Again?" he added, for good measure.

"Hit on the head? Possibly. With a frying pan? Doubly less so. Using enough force to damage his metaphorically titanium skull? A low chance, but never nonzero. Consistency is always the key; even when it comes to blunt trauma."

Taufan resisted the urge to whack this guy's head instead, which he counted down from 7 and hoped Gempa was in enough sound mind to bail him out of intergalactic jail for assault.

He was right about one thing: Gempa's bone density rivalled even the hardest of steel. The fact that he could move around without too much stiffness was another miracle on its own.

"Well, do you know what caused it?" he demanded. "Could it be psychological?"

"Another possibility," Gopal agreed. "But with you freaks of nature, who knows? Perhaps an asteroid was pulled into orbit by his gravitational field and bounced off his massive forehead."

"You are the worst medical professional I've ever met, you know that?"

"I'm the only medical professional stationed in your sector," Gopal agreed. "So, theoretically speaking, I am also the best."