Old Wounds

[Vesper Fiend]

May 28th, 2007

Even though it was only four weeks later, the image was still fresh in her mind. She kept picturing Ms. Atwood’s drawing of a friend, a friend not seen for nigh upon a year, though the drawing portrayed her as somewhat older than she would have been. Bryan was itching to escape Pocket D and Drix’s presence and was restless enough to desire a little action. Vesper put a call into a contact, receiving news of a Council-owned lab that had been experimenting with a new type of vampyr. She made a flippant suggestion to investigate the lab as she wondered if he wanted to try out his new costume.

“Wanna go after some Council, then? I'm still tryin' to make an impression on them.”

“Sure! Nothing better than smashing Fascists.”

Only halfway through the lab, they encountered the first body bag. As much as she abhorred doing otherwise, Ves could not leave them undisturbed. The information that she had been sent after was too important to risk overlooking the possibility that it might be on one of the scientists. Apparently the bullet-ridden remains were not something the Council soldiers wanted to look upon themselves. It took every ounce of willpower she had in her to open those bags, look into unseeing eyes, and check the empty pockets of the dead scientists, and everything that was left to zip them back up without retching or screaming in frustration. Several body bags and a computer or two later, it was seriously wearing on Ves.

“I don't think I've ever seen so many bodies left in a lab like this...”

There wasn’t time for reflection, though. Bryan nodded toward an imposing figure on a platform, a figure who hadn’t noticed their presence, yet. “Archon Vypr.”

Ves steeled herself, throwing anger and hatred aside. Hatred wasn’t something to carry into a fight. It wasn’t something to carry at all.

The Archon and his men were the last remaining Council forces to be taken into custody, and the needed data was safely in hand. Ves glanced around briefly. “Looks like that's it...”

“Great work.”

“Maybe... Or maybe I shoulda been here sooner...”

Bryan shrugged, though he disagreed. “You can't think like that.”

He was right; she knew he was right, but before she could say a word, her eyes lit upon one of the objects lying on the platform. “Where in the world did you get an old car?”

“Jersey… International treaty, all hurled objects come from Jersey.”

Ves couldn’t help but laugh. “That's one way to clear the mind up…” she had to admit. “An old car... Wow!” It didn’t stay clear long, though, as her gaze was drawn over the railing to the hidden corpse next to the computer terminal.

“Come on, let's get out of here Ves.”

“Yeah... Nothin' more to do here.”

“No... unfortunately not.”

The Council soldiers had massacred the scientists and planned to destroy the lab in an attempt to conceal their involvement. Ves and Bryan had interrupted those plans, which meant that the deaths of those scientists had served no purpose. Even though she knew it wasn’t her fault, Ves was still shaken by the deaths, but there was still work to do and reflections would have to come later.

Later, that night, though she had worked herself to exhaustion, the image of one of the scientists resurfaced in her dreams. The wan skin, the blond hair, strands spun from pale gold floating in a pool of darkest red. The face morphed slightly to one she could never forget, the surroundings faded to those of an unkempt basement.

[Vesper Fiend]

June 2nd, 2007

It had been a while since the dreams of that night had plagued her, the night she had first used her powers against others. There were only four people she had ever discussed that night with. Even Ms. Atwood agreed to leave it alone, probably only because Ves had already been thoroughly grilled by councilors from Freedom Corps. It was mentioned in most of their sessions, if for no other reason than as a reminder that she could talk about it, if she wanted to. What she wanted was to very much leave it in the past, but things of that sort had a way of refusing to be buried.

She had learned the dangers of hatred and revenge that night, the terrible, destructive business they could be.

Ves had few possessions and even fewer still that were precious to her. She wandered across campus clutching a worn book, looking for a quiet place to read. It had been at least several months since she had an opportunity to sit down with it and read it from start to finish. She wanted someplace a little removed from the popular areas, someplace where she wouldn’t be interrupted, beneath a tree, in the cool shadows.

The book was in poor shape when she first received it as a Christmas gift shortly after arriving in Paragon. The young man that she had been paired with when she had first started working with Freedom Corps knew that she had a love of books, and he insisted that it would be uniquely suited to her. Though his name was David, Ves called him by his moniker, Anamnesis, and he was one of the reasons that she distrusted psychics, as he could have only known the second at that time by poking around in her head. To be fair, he was her evaluator. It was his job to poke around.

She settled into a secluded, tree-shaded spot and, running her fingers down the lovingly-taped spine, wriggled into a comfortable position against a smooth trunk. She opened the book and let her eyes linger on the title page. Hamlet. She wondered idly how many 16-year-olds had any great interest in Shakespeare, how many could claim one of his works as their favorite book. For Ves it ranked just above The Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series.

It took her nearly a week of dedicated reading to make it through and decipher it the first time. She had to ask David to explain sections of the play to her on a daily basis, and, once finished, the two of them spoke for hours about that terrible night.

Ves decided maybe that was why she enjoyed the book so much. While it was foremost a reminder of things to avoid, it was also a reminder that things could have gone far worse, that there were choices, and, in way, that her past didn’t have to define who she was or dictate her future.