Wolfgang makes a low whistling sound, and nudges a blue pen.

Delina scoffs, and takes up a green pen.

"It's a fucking pen colour, what does it-" Janike cuts herself off with a harsh noise. Wolf and Del are just making the decisions she didn't, she reminds herself. They just-

"Maybe if I picked a green pen my fucking brother wouldn't have killed himself," she mutters darkly to herself.

"Jani," Wolfgang says, voice as deep and pitying as always. Big fucking soft heart. 

"I just- I just need to get through today, all right? I don't need you watching my every movement. It's done. He's dead." 

Janike forces herself to see only through her own eyes, and forces herself harder to not think that one article she chooses today will start a war, or end free healthcare, or make someone else's brother kill themself.

6pm rolls around some how too fast and slow as a snail, but eventually Janike signs off on the next day's paper, and logs out of work. She purposefully does not look at what Wolfgang and Delina picked, doesn't want to know how they succeeded where she failed.

Well. Where Wolfgang succeeded. Delina always is killed outside her apartment for being a rebel at the end of this week. Why she's so smug about it is another thing entirely.

Evie, standing by the front door, smiles and waves her over, but Janike just tucks her head into the collar of her jacket, and heads to her apartment. 

Inside, Delina's view gets strangely distorted, but Janike figures she'll be back. She doesn't really know how these past and alternate views of herself actually work, and she's not about to find out. 

Instead, she plants herself against her window, with a bottle of wine, and watches as Wolfgang gets home, kisses Evie hello, and scoops his little beagle off the ground, laughing as it licks his face. 

"Pfft. I could've done that."

"Of course you could. You wouldn't be able to see me if you had," Wolfgang says. Or thinks. Janike can't tell the difference. "The point of all this, you seeing me, is that you didn't."

His voice is so irritatingly calm and soothing. 

Janike throws her glass at him. He's not there, of course, so all it does is crash against a wall, leaving a spread of red wine everywhere. It doesn't even make her feel any better. 

She turns her gaze from the kitchen, where Wolfgang's happy domesticity taunts her, and out to the city sprawled beneath her. God, she hated it. Hated it, and did everything she could to save it. And what did it cost her? Her sanity, her morals. 

Her family. 

And now, all she has is images of herself from other worlds, other places where they did it right. Where they won. They got the girl, they were the brave hero. Their brothers didn't die, because they were too busy wrapped up in exploring how changing what was written on a page altered the entire world around them. 

She probably could've stopped drinking, gone to bed. Set her alarms, been prepared for another day. That Janike probably also kept up with her therapy appointments.

This Janike drank until she passed out, curled up next to the window, too unconcious to notice the rippling of the glass and wood around her. As if the world was rewriting itself, all around her.

Her home solidifies around her, rippling possibility condensing into solid wood and glass. 

Around her home is a field of tall grasses. A great mountain can be seen to the south, and is visible from anywhere unless directly blocked. The horizon looks... odd, as well.

It’s not with any grace or ease that Janike forces herself up, leaning against the window as she tries to force moisture into her dry mouth, and begs her entire body to stopped throbbing in strange places.

Eventually she stands, wincing as the sun streams through her window, making the glass one side of too hot, and shuffles over to the kitchen to get some water out of her fridge.

On her second sip out of a luke-warm bottle, it finally registers in her mind that her apartment never gets direct sun ever, because of the other, bigger towers around her.

She finally looks properly out of the window and the bottle of water slips from her hand as she looks out onto a field of tall, gently waving grass. 

The grass persists. The sunlight is remarkably bright and clear. The wastehigh grasses are vividly green. 

The air is crisp and clean, moreso than likely any she can recall. No trace of smog can be found. The view continues far into the distance, farther than it feels like she should be able to see. In the south, the mountain can still be seen clearly. To the northeast, some sort of structure can be seen far in the distance.

“Dreaming. I’m- or is this…Wolf? Del?…unknown third version of me?”

“It looks like heaven.” Delina’s voice is dreamy. Is she speaking from heaven?

“There’s no way any of that is normal.” Wolfgang’s voice is hushed, and worried. What else is new. 

Janike cautiously goes outside, and steps into the grass, running her hand through the long fronds.

 “It’s like being a kid again,” she giggles.

“Put some shoes on! And get a coat, before you go running off!”

“Yes, mother.” Janike does retrieve shoes, thinks, and then changes into fresh clothes as well. It was nice of whatever force pulled her through to keep her apartment mostly intact.

Equipped with walking shoes, a jacket, and a bag containing two bottles of water and a bag of trail mix, Janike sets out.

 “The structure seems the best place to start, right?”

Delina hums, vacant and floaty. Being dead has done wonders for her superior attitude. 

The structure is truly quite far away. A bag of trail mix is probably not enough food. The weather’s lovely, though. The jacket will be enough to keep away any chill that the night will bring.

Worst comes to worse, she can always eat some of this swaying grass. If it’s edible.

She will keep walking, and ignoring Wolfgang’s increased concern the further she gets from her spirited-away apartment, enjoying the quiet sounds of nature and the smog free air.

She can’t remember the last time she left the city.

The grass is not, actually, edible, although she probably has no way to know this.

The sun slowly sinks below the horizon, arrayed in majestic purples.