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𝚂𝙳𝙽’𝚜 𝚅𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚎’𝚜 𝙶𝚊𝚕𝚊 ~𝚁𝙿 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚛: 𝚂𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝 𝚁𝚘𝚞𝚝𝚎જ⁀➴ ♡
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The quiet of the SDN headquarters was a familiar backdrop to his existence. Tonight, however, it felt particularly acute, amplifying the cavernous silence that surrounded him.
He stood by the panoramic windows of the main office, his breath a faint, almost imperceptible mist against the cool glass, and watched. He almost watched longingly, a concept he barely understood but felt deep within his reanimated core, as the last few heroes, the vibrant, living protectors of this world, crossed the expansive, rain-slicked parking lot.
They were leaving for this… this ‘Valentine’s Gala’ he kept hearing about, a term as alien and shimmering as the distant stars.
Through the reflective panes, he saw them, figures of light and laughter, their movements fluid and unburdened. They smiled, their faces alight with an excitement that seemed to ripple through the very air, and their glittering outfits, fabrics that caught every stray beam of moonlight and refracted it into a thousand tiny sparks, shimmered like scattered stardust against the dark asphalt.
He watched as they climbed into sleek, polished vehicles, the distant thrum of engines a counterpoint to their joyful chatter, and then they were gone, leaving only the echoing silence and the faint, lingering scent of their expensive perfumes that seemed to seep even through the thick glass.
The very idea of what a ‘gala’ even was, was utterly lost on him. His memories, a fragmented mosaic of what once was and what now is, offered no discernible reference point for such an event. The concept, the customs, the very atmosphere of a grand, celebratory gathering had been utterly erased, gone with the violent, abrupt cessation of his first life and the subsequent, bewildering spark of his reanimation. But ‘Valentine’s’.
That, he could piece together, albeit imperfectly. The word resonated with echoes of something primal, something universal. Love. Roses. Hearts. He mentally cataloged these fragmented images, like an archaeologist sifting through dust for ancient artifacts, trying to construct a coherent picture from the scattered remnants.
His own fingers, a patchwork of grey, sutured skin, moved with an almost unnatural delicacy. They were stitched together with visible, coarse thread, a testament to the brutal artistry of his creation, and they trembled slightly as they traced the velvety petals of a single rose. It lay forgotten on a dispatcher’s desk, tucked away in a corner of the otherwise bustling, now empty dispatch room.
The rose was a vibrant, deep crimson, though its edges were already beginning to curl, a subtle darkening creeping from the tips of the petals. It had been left behind, perhaps accidentally, perhaps discarded after a moment of hurried affection, and its brief, beautiful existence on earth was already slowly wilting. A faint, sweet scent, tinged with the metallic tang of decay, clung to the air around it. He somehow related to the petals, in a sweet, melancholic way. Their fleeting beauty, their inevitable decline, mirrored the strange, ephemeral nature of his own reanimated existence, a life borrowed from death, destined perhaps to wither just as gently. He was a rose plucked from the garden of life, now slowly, stuck in this leathery state of decay.
He wondered what it would be like. To be out there, among them, immersed in the world of the living without being hidden, the world of galas and Valentines. Would it be a vibrant cacophony of sound, a brilliant blaze of light that overwhelmed his senses? Or would it be something entirely different? Gentle and sweet? He longed to know, to experience, even for a moment, the sensations that fueled their vibrant existences, sensations that remained, for him, tantalizingly out of reach, just beyond the cool, reflective glass.
