New Home
Opening her eyes to see the ceiling and center light fixture confused Mavis for a moment. Sitting up on the bed, did she realize where she was. Her own place. Laying on an actual bed. No creatures made of fire or wandering lost souls in torment. Just her and the blank walls around her. She stretched her arms above her head before climbing off the bed. She didn’t even bother using the covers last night since it hadn’t been cold in the slightest.
She walked out of her room and made her way to the kitchen. She had worked up quite an appetite. The package she had been given was still on the counter. She grabbed the string that was holding it closed and pulled it. Opening the paper she found some bread, a few discolored apples and strips of dried meat. She raised an eyebrow at it but shrugged her shoulders. Taking a piece of meat she bit into it.
Outside was bustling with people leaving their own residences to go to their jobs, or who knows where. Some were packing up their things and moving to another district. Regardless of what they were doing, they all looked the same in a way. Plain clothes, looking more human than anything. Doing a small shrug she set off herself, closing her door behind her. Mavis walked down the steps before heading down the street. She had remembered the old man from the day before, telling her about a job placement service that would get her started. It was a little nerve wracking yet exciting to think, in just these two days she would have a place to live, AND a way to make money! A smile crept on her face as she pushed her legs to go faster. The trip there didn’t take too long, unlike the long walk it took just to get to her house. It was a two story brick building,with a few broken windows covered by boards. The front had two intact windows with signs on them. People were coming in and out every so often, holding papers and chatting with a representative of their new job.
Mavis took a deep breath and walked inside. It had people either standing in line or sitting chairs, waiting to be helped. There was even little booths set up with people behind them chatting away. There was one in particular that looked like a photo booth. Curious, she walked over, weaving through the crowded room to stand in front of it.
“Need help remembering what you used to do?” The sign said on the front of the booth.
“Can I help you miss?” A woman with red hair, cut to a short bob. She wore a black and white suit, her winged eyeliner on point, framing her grey eyes.
“Oh uh, I um…”She stumbled over herself before clearing her throat. “Your booth helps one remember more about their life before?” She asked.
“Yes, and no. This little invention of mine only picks out the memories of what kind of job you had before you died. And it prints out some symbols which we decipher and tell you how better to pick what you want to now.” She told her as she holds up some worn looking paper that had a bunch of symbols she didn’t recognize.
“Oh! Okay. Do I need to pay anything to do this? I don’t have any..”
“Nope! Right now since new comers like yourself, especially the ones who haven’t quite remembered everything yet, we don’t charge.” She smiled as she stood up and walked around to open the curtain. “Come on in and sit. We have a machine that kind of goes around your head. It doesn't latch or anything so don’t worry.”
Mavis did as she was told and sat down on the stool. The woman brought down a metal head cover, that went over her eyes and left the back of her head open. She couldn’t tell where the base of it was as it went over her.
“Now, don’t fight any images you see. It will give you one nasty migraine. So just let them flow, alright?” she told her.
“Okay.” Mavis was nervous as she sat there. In a moment she was thrusted back into darkness. She could hear the murmur of the world outside, the curtain acting like a sound barrier. “Breathe mavis..” She whispered to herself.
In just moments, a warm feeling washed over her and a bright light shined into her eyes.
Flashes of memories started to happen. Her graduating from college at a rich university, moving forward to her acceptance into a military academy, her parents there congratulating her. Moving on to a career in special forces, getting to go on missions in multiple different countries and killing terrorists and snuffing our political leaders. One flashed to her discovery of her parents ruthless murder. Mavis heart sped up as it kept going forward, playing every little detail almost in slow motion. It triggered every, single memory to flood back at once. It didn’t stop there. She began a killer for hire, hoping to get to her familys murderer. Setting up bombs and killing innocent people just to get one. Tears were streaming down her face.
The woman was trying to catch the papers that were flying out of the hand-built printer. Violet sparks started coming out of it. “Shit!”
Gritting her teeth as she watched all of the people she had cared for, die because of her obsession with revenge. She screamed and pushed away the machine and fell back out of the curtain. She thought she was going to hit the tiled floor but firm hands held her up.
“Woah there...hey it’s okay.” It was a male voice. She looked up into some dark blue green eyes set against a peachy face. “It can be hard sometimes, remembering everything all at once. You made the machine shut down from and over load.” He smiled a little and stood her up properly.
The whole room around them had gone quiet, all eyes looking at them. Mavis’s face grew red from embarrassment. “I.. I’m sorry, I caused a scene.. I need to go.” she pushed away from him and hurried out of the building.
He stood there and watched her leave. He looked to the woman who was still picking up pieces of paper. ‘What the hell happened Rust!?” He asked her.
“How the hell am I supposed to know!? I told her to let the memories flow but it went too deep. And then it started spitting out her whole past life and started to spark these, weird sparks. It wasn’t normal, and neither is that soul.” She told him
~
Mavis had ran the whole way home, she couldn’t get the memory bomb to stop. Every time she blinked there was a new one in its place. Running up the stairs she opened the door and closed it. She had to calm herself down, or she was going to go crazy. The bathroom. Maybe a super cold shower would work? She remembered that's what she would do to settle down. She walked towards the bathroom, keeping a hand on the wall just in case she needed to steady herself. Keeping her mind on the memory of the bathroom, and the feeling on the shower she managed to get inside and undress herself before turning on the cold water. She watch it pour down before stepping into it.
In seconds, she felt mild relief as the memories slowed down. Sighing a little she placed her head against the wall, letting the water fall against her back. One way or another, the memories were going to come in, she couldn’t stay in a cold shower forever. Taking a deep breathe she turned on the warm water and let them go.
She had been so close to finishing the download before she had jumped into the shower. It was the same night, that she had died. She had gone to her bosses office for a new assignment. She had been told it was the same man who had killed her parents before, so she was ready to end it, whether it killed her or not. She had gone to the apartment building with all her gear ready for a killer showdown. But instead, he let her in. He even opened the door for her to come in. He was nothing she was expecting. He had known the whole time she would be the one coming to his door for his head. He told her everything, that he REALLY wasn’t the one who had killed her family. The one who did, was the one who sent her there to kill him. She had been betrayed by the people she had trusted the most. In a flash, people exploded through the door firing, trying to kill them both. A flash grenade was thrown and exploded, lighting the carpet on fire from the sparks. It was chaos. Fast forward to the explosion that sent them both through a window and crashing to the pavement below. She thought it was over there, but it wasn’t. Her boss walked into her view and smiled down at her. He said something but she couldn’t hear it. He pulled out a gun and aimed it before pulling the trigger.
Mavis screamed as she dropped to her knees. She wrapped her arms around herself from the pain. The air literally shivered as violet strips of energy came off her and smashed into the walls of the shower. It cut into the tiles, sending wet dust down. Gasping at the sudden rush of power, it felt like she was picking at a lock inside herself and she just got through the first of many.
She stayed like that for a while, trying to pull herself back together. Finding herself in a cold sweat she stood up shakily and turned the water off and stepped out. Grabbing the single towel she wrapped herself and looked into the foggy mirror. Something looked off about her obscured appearance. Squinting at it, she wiped the mirror with a shaky hand. Eyeing her own face, she realized something was off. Did her hair grow from her mental breakdown? She touched it. It had. Weird.
Taking a step back, she suddenly felt really tired. It really hadn’t been that long since she had woken up. But everything that happened in the last few hours, drained her. She grabbed her clothes from the floor and left her bathroom to shuffle her feet to her room. Tossing the towel to the side she got dressed and tossed herself onto her bed. Grabbing a pillow she pulled it under her head and drifted off yet again.