Undetermined [MCSM AU]

⪯ - maybe i'm waking up today - ⪰

Cancer
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She's nowhere.

Jesse turns in a circle, looking wide-eyed at the blank nothingness around her. The sky, if you could even call it that, is a blank wash of bluish grey, and the ground mirrors it perfectly. Her feet make faint tapping noises as she steps, but that's the only sound.

She's silent for a few moments, listening to her own heartbeat. A slow panic is filling her, one she doesn't know what to do with.

What is this place?

She's not sure how on earth she could've gotten here. She remembers...running? Yes. Running from the Witherstorm, towards Gabriel's temple. But then one of the monster's tentacles tripped her up, and she was carried away by the tractor beam, and she...and she...

Died?

She whirls in a circle again, the panic coming to a peak. She can't be dead! Not now!

"Hello?!" she calls in a frantic voice that echoes ominously in the empty plane.

"Hello, Cancer. Glad to see you made it in one piece."

Jesse shrieks, spinning in a 180 again to face...herself?

The person standing before her looks almost exactly like her. They're on the short side, with wavy brown hair accented by a red-dyed streak that falls in the way of their eyes. They've even got the same teal-and-white shirt under tan overalls.

But a simple black mask hides half their face, and their stance couldn't be more unlike hers. They're too confident, too rigid and poised. They lean forward, hands clasped behind their back as they say, "I had my bets on Aries being the first to die, but it looks like I was wrong."

Jesse takes a small step back, wide-eyed. "W-what? Die? Who are you? Where am I?"

"All in due time. You can call me Ere, and yes, you are indeed dead." they say, unconcerned. "But it's not as simple as that. As a catalyst, you have a...different relationship with death than most."

Few words sink in after the revelation that she's dead. Jesse stares in horror at the strange mirror version of herself, convinced she's in some convoluted nightmare. "What...what do you m-mean?" she asks in a quavering voice. 

An unfamiliar tingling feeling ripples through her, and she shudders violently. Jesse looks wildly around again before her nervous gaze lands on her own two feet. A strange glow is working its way up her body, making her feel gradually weightless.

Petrified, she looks at her masked double again. They nod slightly. "See? You're returning now."

"Returning?!" she exclaims, too confused to even piece together a question. The glowing parts of her body are beginning to fade into nothingness, and her vision starts to blur.

Ere nods simply. "That's what I said. Good luck, Cancer."

With that, she vanishes, thrown suddenly back into the world with twice as many questions as she had when she left. 

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well this is off to a good start amirite

i swear it isn't all as messy as that bit