Days prior, Petite silently trekked through the borealis lands to find where she buried her heart. Lightning struck from the sky, her chest pummeled with the familiar feeling of a very heavy “thing”. Lurking demons waited in the snow banks. Death moves faster than they, though, and Petite drops to the snow: black vomit falling from her lips as all that is wrong spills forth. Petite rolls up on the shore where the end of time meets the ocean. A broken nebula, suspended in the deep purple sky above.
V’s incredibly lost and confused soul stands there, dismantled by the cold air among his wet clothes.
Petite curses at him: he doesn’t know the language, but he can read the tone just fine. Wide eyed, he asks her what’s wrong.
What’s wrong? What’s fucking wrong is I walked my ass into the ocean to disappear, not to show up on the other fucking side.
V points at Petite’s chest, squeaking out a small nudge of concern in her general direction.
Petite looks down at her hand, pressed to her chest, a wound that cannot heal.
God wounds, they don’t heal. Big fuck you. Atonement.
V tries to plead with her and offer some assistance. He cannot help. Petite bestows memory upon him: I know you, you don’t know me. You’re just a fragment of a life that isn’t mine. Already lived it. You’re just stuck here in this time piece.
V shakes his head, he remembers. He knows Petite, but only through memories of the bodies she inhabited before. Now, she is raw. The soul no longer wears the stories of others.
V takes her to the house, still weathered and beaten by the abrasive coastal winds. Inside, the broken furniture and decrepit walls are warmed by fire light and the family; already taking residence in Petite’s memory realms.
She opens the front door and stares, grimacing. Why are they there already? Is no space sacred?
Death’s namesake, the little one, calls for her attention from behind her. He tugs at her tattered dress,with oily blood stains. He can see words welling in Petite’s throat. At once he stands upright, a wayward teenager. Aunty what’s wrong?
Is it that book? What book? The book you came with? He takes Petite’s hand and guides her to the wilted garden, and throws the salt-ridden tome down upon the table. A starfish scuttles out.
I don’t want it. We already know what it says.
She asks him to consume it, like all things.
It’s too salty, I wouldn’t like it. He jests, but seeing Petite’s sincere disappointment, he takes the book and gives it a wild toss to the air.
Petite laughs, heart released by her nephew’s willingness to destroy worlds for the sake of happiness.They sit in the flooded out garden for a while. Watching the moon sitting too low in the sky.
I did something to deserve this. I hope it was worth it. I am being punished.
A wound that never heals, a feeling you cannot escape. That is truly torment.
I hope I did something truly amazing to deserve this.
What is true however, is that for the first time in history, Petite arrives as only herself. When Black Cat gave herself to the ocean, it stripped away all that did not belong to her anymore.
The bonds remain. The illusions don’t. This is age. Somewhere far away she feels a familiar grip on her throat. An angered, false god. Go ahead, she tells him. Take the book. There is nothing you can change in it now.
Brother pours her scalding tea from inside the wreckage of the once-was home. We’ve waited for you. We always have.
Petite points to her stained chest.
I don’t want to be here, if it means carrying this thing around.










