HOPE !
she’s waiting in the hallway while alaric does his usual update with helen & aline. she’d called herself hope marshall, had walked around as if this was also new and couldn’t bear to run in to any of them. HIM. she was forgotten. a memory faded and lost with her fall in to malivore, that had subsequently failed. he wouldn’t know her. she didn’t exist.
AND NOW??
she’d lost the first good thing to happen to her in a while. head buried over all too large cup of coffee, she doesn’t even look up.
“ i guess i’m loitering, hm?”
paint has nuzzled its way beneath the tips of your nails and made its spotted home on pieces of your shirt. you had been painting ---- a project that had sparked a few months ago and morphed into something more of an obsession. a distant memory you can’t quite grasp a hold of that feels as if it’s going to eat you alive. forced to pull yourself away from the canvas, you begin making your way through the halls of the institute that no longer weighs heavily upon your shoulders. that doesn’t stop you from being curious, though. from still wanting to be a part of what’s happening.
heart stills within your chest and it feels as if every ounce of your body tightens at once, restricting your air and rooting you into the place that you stand. everything comes full circle the second you hear that voice ---- the voice you had yearned to hear again without even realizing. everything hits you at once ---- the shadow market, her reluctantly by your side each and every time you needed her, her saving your life. all of the times she had made you feel geniune happiness in the midst of the chaos, and then vanished. no calls. no texts. just gone. it’s a clash of emotions that you can’t handle and you almost stumble backwards, hands shaking at your sides. “hope?”

















