[ficlet] Forward/Lost
Lorna likes to say Illyana only sees only possibilities. It is a sentiment the Rasputin family on on the whole agree with, but Illyana personally thinks this is simply because they do not understand. She doesn't see the future: she GOES there, and it's a lot harder to say "it's just a possibility" when you're tromping through a sludge half mud and half putrefying corpses.
The smell is awful. She has her scarf pressed to her nose and mouth to stifle it, but she still has to gag every few breaths. She stumbles forward doggedly, her boots sticking and disturbing countless flies. There's a chainlink fence up ahead, and it is this she moves toward, keeping her eyes peeled for a sign as to where she is, and when.
"One day," she tells herself, gasping and fighting the urge to vomit, "I will learn how to AIM."
She finally reaches the fence, which is wound round the top with barbed wire. Terrific. There's a board nailed to one of the posts on which some wit has written the words, "gene pool: shallow end" in red paint.
Illyana walks alongside the fence for a while, looking for a way through it. It takes her nearly twenty minutes, but at last she spies a gap in the chainlink. She's wriggled halfway through when she hears a low sobbing.
"Hello?" she asks uncertainly. The sky overhead is clear and silent. "Is someone there?"
That sobbing again, and Illyana frowns and pulls her upper body back, searching about with her eyes and ears, picking her way carefully towards the source of the noise. When she reaches it she stares with huge eyes for a moment before turning and throwing up.
There is a man in the muck with a hole the size of a bowling ball in his midsection. His intestines have mostly slid out in greyish coils. He's staring at the sky, sobbing continuously.
Illyana spits to clear her mouth and approaches again, eyes streaming. "Hello?" She says, and repeats it until the man looks at her. "I am Illyana Rasputin," she says idiotically, because she has no idea what else TO say.
The mans eyes roll hideously and he shrinks away from her, mewling. Terrified.
"What HAPPENED?!" Illyana screams suddenly. "Oh, please, just tell me WHAT and WHEN..."
She turns away again, her gorge rising, and she stumbles. As she falls bright light flickers before her in a circular pattern and she thinks nonoNO as she lands on one of her own disks and plummets
into
the Otherplace.
And she is pissed about it. Underneath the starless void, Illyana screams her frustration. Several indistinct shadows slide closer to her, compelled by her energy. This annoys her further, but she calms herself long enough to reach within herself and tap the well of power there. "GO AWAY!" she yells, and much to her surprise her voice echoes and shakes the air around her. The shapes depart quickly, leaving Illyana to brood.
Try again? Jump forward or back? Or give up and go home?
Well. She has nothing but time.