Worm (Parahumans #1)

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♦ Private Messages from Anonymous Sender

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Anonymous [Old Message]: Hi. I think we talked a few times a while ago and I wanted to ask something

Anonymous [Old Message]: I’m not sure if I’m DMing the right person or if I got punctuation wrong. Last time we talked was was years ago when you did the photoshoot.

Anonymous [Old Message]: I feel really lost. I have questions but I don’t know who to ask. I thought of you and I hope I’m not bothering you or getting the wrong person. I really need some advice or perspective

Anonymous [Old Message]: I sent message anonymously so if I’m wrong or if I’m bothering you you can refuse

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: That’s me. I barely remember the photoshoot. That was a busy time for me.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Sorry for late reply. I had work to do for coming semester. If you need advice I can try to give it- I will say that I keep putting myself in a position to give advice and I may not be the best person to give it.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Can you make a regular account and message me? I keep getting notifications because you’re anonymous

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♦ Private Messages from FlippinMad

FlippinMad: Hi.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Hi. How can I help?

FlippinMad: Thank you

FlippinMad: I’ve been thinking about things for a long time and I’ve been digging for info and answers and trying to put it all together. Is hard because people don’t want to talk about things and a lot of people don’t want to talk to me in particular. People get upset

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: The world ended. It’s kind of upsetting

FlippinMad: I know. I know

FlippinMad: you were there?

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: We were all there toward the end. Very few exceptions.

FlippinMad: thousands of capes were there and nobody wants to talk about the specifics

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: The answer will come out in time. It may already be out there in places. Communication is limited. Pockets of humanity are spread out and the people who have a say in info getting from city A to city B are probably wanting to keep things peaceful for now. Gov’t or what we have that passes for gov’t, PHO and the 12ish other online bodies…

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: they control info. But they can’t stop word of mouth. Not easily. We will hear the full story one day. I don’t know if it will be a good day but we will hear it.

FlippinMad: Ok

FlippinMad: I’m stressing about it so I’m not sure if I can wait

FlippinMad: Can I ask questions and you can decide if you want to say or not?

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: you can ask. I can’t promise any answers.

FlippinMad: Thank you

FlippinMad: Did you know Skitter? Weaver I guess

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I didn’t know her. Not really

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: We crossed paths.

FlippinMad: She’s one of the people I ask people about and they get mad or defensive. Or they tell me they have something to do and never get back to me

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Yep.

FlippinMad: Why?

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Short answer: I can’t/won’t say

FlippinMad: Okay

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Longer answer: I don’t know how things unfolded, but I think people fall into types and categories. I don’t know enough to say one way or the other but I think she was looking for something.

FlippinMad: I don’t know if I understand

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: You’ve seen the video stuff?

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She hurt someone you know?

FlippinMad: I tried to find everything I could get. I’ve seen the cell phone movie from the cafeteria. I saw a few. not just the big one that was on the news. Then I went back to find other news and footage. Then I followed along

FlippinMad: Her joining the heroes and later with her talking to schoolkids but there wasn’t much good video with that second one. I saw the movie of her in New Delhi and I saw her on TV here and there.

FlippinMad: She hurt people I care about I guess. That’s not why I’m asking

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I’ve seen the same. I saw her as the novice warlord

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She hurt an awful lot of people. A crazy lot.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She killed one of our best heroes

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She also joined the Levi fight. She apparently helped against the S9. She joined the Wards

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: It’s hard to reconcile

FlippinMad: That’s my problem

FlippinMad: I want to figure it out but there are gaps

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I don’t have the answers for you. I can only theorize

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I read a thread on PHO a few days ago and it made me think. I said I think she’s someone who was looking hard for an answer. I think she was wounded and lost and for this reason & probably because of other factors she did a lot of damage while looking. The people she was with. Things being primed for everything to fall down. Timing or bad luck. Personality.

FlippinMad: Wounded

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I’m looking at my history and I’m having trouble finding the thread

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: there are people who are searching I think and there are people who just are. I think both can be good and both can be toxic. Some people are searching because of something that pushed them. A lot of capes just are. Some are doing the pushing, instead. And there’s all sorts of types.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I don’t know her nearly well enough to say which she was but I don’t think she stood still. Or when she did stand still it was because she was on a precipice, looking for a push or for something to push. But again I don’t know her.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: You would have to explain more about what you want to know for me to give you any more of an answer

FlippinMad: I pushed her

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: You pushed her?

FlippinMad: I really hope you don’t block me or ignore me

FlippinMad: I’ll try to explain but give me a moment.

FlippinMad: Do you remember me? We met a few times but I think the only time we had a conversation was before the Vice-Versa photoshoot. There were six of us who were around the same age and the designers were taking a while.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I remember that. A bunch of non-capes from around the city, dressed up as capes, some of us local capes in fancy dress. Skitter wasn’t a part of that, obviously.

FlippinMad: Yeah. I’m starting back at the beginning

FlippinMad: They picked top athletes, valedictorians, bunch of others.

FlippinMad: You were hanging out with us. Shadow Stalker and the rest of us were joking around.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I remember now. Emma?

FlippinMad: Her friend. I’m the short one. It was her biggest shoot ever and she was super psyched. I tagged along. We were joking around and you were laughing with us and the staff were running around freaking out and trying to do last minute costume changes

FlippinMad: You were in fancy clothes and you had one of those masks on a stick, and Clockblocker was nearby complaining about having to hold his mask up until Ageis (sp?) got some ribbon and tied it to his head for him, which made the hairdresser freak out

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Aegis

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: They catered those nonalcoholic soda cocktails with layered colors. We drank them like they were water

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: and the one woman’s eyes bugged out when she saw what the bill was. I felt so sorry for her.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: We gave the staff so much grief.

FlippinMad: But that was part of the fun

FlippinMad: Yeah. It was like a dream, hanging out with heroes and cool people. Everyone was so fancy, including my friend. It was the one time in my life where I felt like I was one of the teens in one of those overly polished scenes in a teen movie where everyone looks so perfect

FlippinMad: I was really really hoping that they were going to just pull me in as an extra

FlippinMad: Because one of the kids they’d invited had backed out.

FlippinMad: But it didn’t look like it was going to happen and I was having enough fun that I didn’t mind too much. I said things and people laughed at it. And everything was great until then

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I said something didn’t I?

FlippinMad: You called us a bunch of bitches

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: That was it.

FlippinMad: You said ‘This was such a nice night and you c-words had to spoil it by being disgusting. Come on.’

FlippinMad: and then you walked away and most of the heroes and heroines went with you or whatever. Leaving just me and Emma and a couple of others.

FlippinMad: They 100% went into…

FlippinMad: I don’t know what you call it. Defense mode. They wanted to bring things back to center. Normalize. They were saying things like “what’s bugging her? We weren’t saying anything that bad”

FlippinMad: And I was sitting there being quiet and I remember thinking they were wrong. we were kind of being bitches and we were kind of going too far when ragging on people who weren’t there.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: The disabled girl I think. We were having to wait because they were having to adjust her costume to work around her back brace.

FlippinMad: Yeah.

FlippinMad: We said something loud enough for her to hear from the other end of the room and you spoke up and then you went to go hang with her instead

FlippinMad: The night didn’t seem as magical after all that. I was really bothered.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I barely remember beyond that. I did the photoshoot and we tried to cheer the girl up. It was mostly great and I saw Emma a few times after that and there were no problems but we weren’t friendly

FlippinMad: It was the first time in my life I stopped and took stock and asked myself “am I a good person?”

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: To an extent you get a pass. To an extent. We were 13-20 I think. You were closer to 13 than 20. Teenagers are shitty and most teenagers make a couple of mistakes. Not excusing it. It sucked as a thing. But teenagers being asshats mitigates it

FlippinMad: No

FlippinMad: I was really fucking shitty.

FlippinMad: I think its worse because I had this wake up call and I asked myself if I was a good person

FlippinMad: Except I never got around to answering that question. I kept putting it off and feeling shitty about it

FlippinMad: We kept being bitches. And then a couple months after that we put Taylor in the hospital. Skitter. I don’t know if she had powers then but if she did then I don’t know why she didn’t murder us all

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: You’re the bullies that pushed her over the edge

FlippinMad: Me and Emma and our friend Sophia and Julia and a few others. But we were the main three or four

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I feel dumb not connecting those dots before. Preoccupied atm and I was preoccupied then. Fuck me. Emma was one of them? They kept your names out of the media

FlippinMad: Word still got out.

FlippinMad: So this is where I am because I almost feel responsible? Or I don’t know if I’m responsible

FlippinMad: But we pushed her

FlippinMad: And after that she joined bad guys and robbed a bank

FlippinMad: And then somewhere after that the empire got upset at her and her group and called them out before attacking the city and RIGHT after that the Endbringer attacked.

FlippinMad: There were all these theories about why it attacked Brockton Bay and the big two were that there was a holy grail or something? I didn’t follow that one. They said it might have to do with why people wanted to control the city?

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: A target. Something that would make the city valuable. Or someone. Endbringers have gone after specific people before

FlippinMad: Ok. I don’t know. The other one was that the city saw so much fighting in a short time. Taylor was a part of that and I’m part of what pushed her out there

FlippinMad: I know I sound narcissistic and shit but…

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Are you gonna finish that sentence?

FlippinMad: I don’t know. I feel responsible

FlippinMad: I was pretty much there at the beginning and I pushed her and…

FlippinMad: it feels like I was at the top of a hill and I pushed a rock down it and it rolled down out of sight

FlippinMad: and then this rockslide starts further down the hill and wipes out a town and kills this really important person and a whole bunch of other horrible things.

FlippinMad: …and I go looking and my rock is lying there in the devastation. Nobody’s saying what happened. her wiki page is gone and people get annoyed or upset when I ask. I want to know what happened when I couldn’t see. Every non-answer I get makes it worse

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She was her own person. She made her own decisions along the line.

FlippinMad: I know that

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: You don’t own her. You don’t own every decision she made or the whole fallout

FlippinMad: I know. But I didn’t help matters.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: No. You definitely own some of it.

FlippinMad: And you can’t tell me what happened.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I can’t & won’t. But I guess I can say this.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: With the evidence we have we know she did some good things. She did some bad things. She did some incredibly controversial things.She was more vicious and ruthless than she needed to be maybe.

FlippinMad: Am I responsible for that extra viciousness and ruthlessness?

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Can’t say. Neither can you. But it probably didn’t fill her with smiles and joy did it?

FlippinMad: I spat on her once. It was Emma who really got to her and Sophia who went out of her way to hurt her. I was…

FlippinMad: I put her backpack in the toilet once. Books, notebooks and all. The water was clear but it was still the toilet and yeah. I put glue on her desk and juice on her seat and I stood by when the others were doing the worst stuff.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Fucking why?

FlippinMad: I don’t know. I never really stopped to think about it. My friend was a model and my other friend was a top athlete. Maybe I wanted to keep up. I told myself it was prank tier stuff but at the same time

FlippinMad: I’m saying this because this is like I’m confessing but like…

FlippinMad: Some time between when that photoshoot happened and when we put her in the hospital we were talking. Emma Sophia Julia and I. We figured we were falling into a pattern and we kept knocking her down when she picked herself up too much.

FlippinMad: and I had this moment where I saw she was really low and I spat on her. I remember the look on her face

FlippinMad: what the hell was wrong with me? I didn’t wake up to what I was doing until I got fucking caught which is just so doubly shitty. My parents found out when we all got called to school and that was the last time I interacted with Taylor. Moved away with Leviathan.

FlippinMad: I fucking spat on her face

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Stop now please

FlippinMad: ok

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Ok.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: If you kept going I would’ve closed this and left you to it. Now I’m going to try to give you your answer here. Ok?

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Even though you probably don’t deserve it.

FlippinMad: Yeah

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Draw your own conclusions. Look at who she was and extrapolate. She did good she did bad. As time passed yes the bad things might have faded some but the controversial stuff she did might have gotten worse. Extrapolate.

FlippinMad: You’re saying that’s what happened? At the end. She did some good and she did some bad but she did something super controversial?

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I am saying *nothing*. I am suggesting that if you are wondering what happened when you couldn’t see then you can make some educated guesses.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She killed people. She hurt people. She may have played a part in a war over the city. She threatened innocents with bugs and choked more than one person to death or nearly to death by shoving spiders and centipedes down their throats. She killed Alexandria at a time when we needed Alexandria most.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She consorted with rapists terrorists and monsters.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: And because it eneds to be said yes she became a hero. That counts for something maybe. Maybe she had to. Maybe not.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She was there at the end and whatever she did, nobody will speak of it, at least for now. Fill in the blank

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Now she’s gone and you’re still here.

FlippinMad: Gone?

FlippinMad: she retired? Or she’s dead? Gone gone?

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She is *gone*.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: But listen to me. because you made the choices and you carried on when you could’ve stopped and you spat on her and I’m not ignoring that.I’ve been holding back so I can get to it now.

FlippinMad: I’m listening

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She was all of those things and she might have still been a better person than you

FlippinMad: …

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Feel shitty? Good. Is it weighing on you or eating at you or making you wonder? Fucking good. That’s the way it should be.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Carry it. Own it. Make allowances for the fact that you were a teenager but don’t you dare excuse it or ignore it

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: If owning it means you assume the worst case scenario? that you pushed her and she took action and that line of action ended in the end of the world being uglier than they needed to be? Fine. Make do.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Maybe things would be better. Maybe they would be worse. Maybe someone else would have taken the same role. Maybe we would all be dead. You might not ever get a clean answer and that might be her justice against you

FlippinMad: Yeah

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: All this I’m saying? I feel like I can say it because I have my own regrets and misdeeds. I’m trying to own them just like I’m telling you to. I didn’t fucking spit on a girl when she was already having a bad day or make fun of a disabled girl on what should’ve been one of the top ten days of her life but I could probably make a priest’s jaw drop if I were the type to visit a confessional

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I’m not giving you advice I wouldn’t take myself

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Carry it. Take it with you and use it as motivation to make things better. We need a fucking lot of that motivation.

FlippinMad: I’m training to be a teacher

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Then I hope 10x as much that you own this and learn from it

FlippinMad: Yeah

FlippinMad: Thats kind of the plan. I want to anyway but the school turned me down.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Anything else?

FlippinMad: When do I get to put this behind me? When do I get forgiven or get to forgive myself?

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: You’re asking me? Never.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I don’t believe in forgive & forget. Not for the things I’ve done. not for what others have done to people I care about. Not for what’s been done to me.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: The moment we forget is the moment we allow those wrongs to be done again.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Forgiveness is the easy way out. Less to carry.

FlippinMad: That doesn’t seem fair

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Villains outnumbered the heroes. Now heroes outnumber villains. Allegedly. People lost everything and they didn’t deserve to. Some people get powers and some don’t. Things are the furthest thing from fair.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Maybe it’s not fair that she’s gone and you’re here.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Maybe you will get the answer about what happened and you’ll feel better and that’ll be unfair because you shouldn’t.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Maybe the opposite is true and no good answer will come out and she’ll be forgotten without tombstone or anything else.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I expect we’ll get the answer and it’ll be an unhappy compromise between the two

FlippinMad: It doesn’t seem fair to yourself I mean

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I’ll handle me. You handle you. You focus on making sure no girl you teach gets spat on, short girl from the photoshoot.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: It’s easy enough to keep something moving once it’s already moving, but getting it going in the first place is hard. That’s the thing about second chances and fresh starts. It’s a (re)start. You gotta get things moving all over again, the second time around.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Let’s try to make sure things are moving in the right direction. Alright? Deal?

FlippinMad: Alright.

FlippinMad: Not quite the response I expected

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I had the impression it’s the response you were asking for

FlippinMad: You might be right.

FlippinMad: Thanks

FlippinMad has left the conversation