Have You Heard? | Glowfic Constellation

Rescue

She's new in town, fresh off the train, and so very, very ready to get away from people. A quick stop inside the train station to sit and listen gives her a detailed map of the surrounding area - everything within a few miles - and lets her pick out a few potential hiding places. It's a simple use of her power, listening to all the tiny little sounds and letting them tell her what's going on around her, where things are, where she is.

She picks a spot - a disused bit of a storm sewer, bone dry according to the acoustics - and starts making her way there, effortlessly finding a route that lets her avoid being seen or heard. It's pretty far from the train station, and she munches on a granola bar as she goes; she's got a few days of food in her pack, enough to last until she's worked out which stores are safe for dumpster diving. For now, she's not going to worry about it; she just wants to get herself hidden away so she can finally relax.

Getting into the sewer is easy; there's a padlock, but her superpowered hearing makes it trivial to pick. Then it's just a matter of following the map to get where she's going... until suddenly, with a flash of light, it isn't.

She can't hear.

She can hear. She can hear everything. Ever since she got her power, sounds she wasn't paying attention to would... slide back. Tuck away. Politely wait their turn. Vision was still a cacophony, sometimes, smell and taste and touch still threatened pain and overwhelm even on the best of days, but sound, sound had been her friend, only to betray her. She hears everything, everything in her new, tiny, unaugmented range, whether she wants to or not.

She doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know what happened. She's barely aware of her body - she's fallen over, it takes her a few moments to put together. There are people, she can hear them. Whatever happened, she's found, she's found, they're going to send her back...

She curls up into a tight ball, operating solely on instinct, and screams and screams and screams.

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I can be selective. Whatever works for you.

Rescue

Okay. She tucks her hair behind her ear nervously as she passes the paper over.

Instead of writing, she sends her Can you hear me?

Rescue

She tenses, but nods.

Do you want to talk this way?

Rescue

Okay.

This is how we found you earlier, you'd be shouting thoughts by accident.

Rescue

Well, crap. Her head snaps up and she examines Rúmil's face for signs of anger.

She doesn't look even the slightest bit angry, just sad and worried. No one will ever blame you for being in pain.

Rescue

This doesn't seem to be particularly reassuring, but she does manage to go from panicky to merely stiff.

Okay.

I don't know how to stop.

If you would like to know I can teach you.

Rescue

aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaa.

Okay she can play along or she can not do that and one of those options hurts much more than the other, not really a choice.

How?

I don't understand what I did to upset you. Should I leave? We can do this later.

Rescue

She takes a deep breath, raggedly.

What do you mean, 'teach me'. What do you mean, 'if I want'.

I mean that if you want me to try explaining it, you say 'yes' and I try explaining it. If you don't want me to do that, you say 'no' and I don't try.

Rescue

And then what. There's a bit of an edge to her tone.

We talk about something else, or if you would like me to leave I leave.

Rescue

She stands and starts pacing along the far wall from Rúmil, tense, balancing on the balls of her feet.

This is how it starts, this is always how it starts, they say it's going to be teaching something and it's - they don't explain it, or they explain it so nobody could understand, or they want us to do something impossible, and then when we can't, that's when the hurting starts...

Nod. I'm very sorry. I'll leave.

Rescue

If you need me to learn the thing I can try to learn the thing but you can hurt me or you can have me trust you you can't have both.

I don't need you to learn it, I don't need you to trust me, and I won't hurt you. And I know what it's like to see the setup for it to start again and I will leave now.

Rescue