Even in this place, this boxed-in reproduction built on illusions and choreography and allegory, CT's head spins with familiar dizziness that only accelerates as she spins away, away—perfect form until it isn't, until she tumbles too-realistically to the ground and loses the air from her lungs.
A spotlight shines on Carolina-Texas's back and the shadow looms, stretches, consumes the small, collapsed body entirely within its shape. Larger than death, darker than the night, impenetrable and impossible.
The world slows down. Something in the pit mimics the ticking of a clock.
Tick, tick, tick.
She left her family, for this.
Let false promises of transparency and good intentions that had died mere months after she signed her name away on that dotted line take her away from where she should have stayed. Became something little better than her brother, abandoning them without a word the way he had—did seeing Ma and Mama one last time before she left really make any difference, when her actions made certain that she would never make it home? Had Keaton found them, the day the Covenant arrived, made her the child that wasn't there at their side as it all ended?
Was it worth it?
Were her motives ever as righteous as she claimed? Had she really signed up as much for the sake of the war as for the sake of getting out of a prison sentence? Were the lies ever disguised or had she just donned blinders until what was right in front of her could no longer be ignored? Old thoughts, old fears, flowing back into her mind like a flood.
(Who even was she, anymore?)
Tick. Tick. Tick.
End-over-end she tumbles, rolling herself backwards to her her feet, never beyond the bounds of the shadow that waits for her. The final duplicate unfolds from her like an outstretched wing and for a moment CT isn't sure which she is, the left or the right. Perhaps, this time, she's both. Perhaps it doesn't matter.
There is blood on her upper lip. She stands and she waits.
no subject
Even in this place, this boxed-in reproduction built on illusions and choreography and allegory, CT's head spins with familiar dizziness that only accelerates as she spins away, away—perfect form until it isn't, until she tumbles too-realistically to the ground and loses the air from her lungs.
A spotlight shines on Carolina-Texas's back and the shadow looms, stretches, consumes the small, collapsed body entirely within its shape. Larger than death, darker than the night, impenetrable and impossible.
The world slows down. Something in the pit mimics the ticking of a clock.
Tick, tick, tick.
She left her family, for this.
Let false promises of transparency and good intentions that had died mere months after she signed her name away on that dotted line take her away from where she should have stayed. Became something little better than her brother, abandoning them without a word the way he had—did seeing Ma and Mama one last time before she left really make any difference, when her actions made certain that she would never make it home? Had Keaton found them, the day the Covenant arrived, made her the child that wasn't there at their side as it all ended?
Was it worth it?
Were her motives ever as righteous as she claimed? Had she really signed up as much for the sake of the war as for the sake of getting out of a prison sentence? Were the lies ever disguised or had she just donned blinders until what was right in front of her could no longer be ignored? Old thoughts, old fears, flowing back into her mind like a flood.
(Who even was she, anymore?)
Tick. Tick. Tick.
End-over-end she tumbles, rolling herself backwards to her her feet, never beyond the bounds of the shadow that waits for her. The final duplicate unfolds from her like an outstretched wing and for a moment CT isn't sure which she is, the left or the right. Perhaps, this time, she's both. Perhaps it doesn't matter.
There is blood on her upper lip. She stands and she waits.