You can read the full version of each chapter of FTI on AO3 with the attached link! Or you may read the bite sized versions of chapters as they come out here!
Chapter 1: Introduction to a World
“I know you’re there”, Nick said softly, not quite a whisper, “is it you, Derek?”
The murky shape in front of him wavered as he took his concentration from it, his control over it wavering.
“… Yeah”, I said with a mild tone of surprise, not sure how he knew it was me.
“Ahh, thought so”, he turned his attention back to the cone in front of him, and its edge’s went from slightly swirling and bubbling to being smooth again.
I continued to watch him in silence for what felt like an hour but was likely just a minute or two. Without moving a single muscle in his body, the shape in front of him contorted and rotated, but stayed smooth at all points until I saw him shift. His hands opened wider, and the tendrils of shadow pulled on the larger mass, the wispy darkness silently retreating into his hands. He leaned over and blew out the candle, the last source of light leaving the room.
“I just listened to your footsteps.” He said like it was obvious, the last of the shadow being absorbed into his body alongside the tendrils.
“Huh?” I said almost involuntarily.
“Your footsteps, although quiet, they’re quite noticeable in the dead of night, and everyone has a different walking style, a sort of rhythm they follow,” his voice was deadpan as he began to stand, “hard to explain the differences, but nevertheless, it’s noticeable.”
He turned to face me, his face hard to make out in the dark. “Now for the part I don’t know: Why are you of all people up so early?”
“Mmmn…”, I didn’t really want to talk about the nightmare, especially after I had just cleared it from my mind, but now flashes of it reemerged, “I-uh, had that nightmare again.”
“Mmhmmm”, he let out an understanding hum. I couldn’t read him, the room too dark to tell where he was looking or what expression he was making, not that that would’ve even helped. “Was it just the same as it usually is?”
I let out a nervous laugh as I forced myself to think back to the nightmare, it wasn’t that I was scared of its contents, or that I didn’t know it was fake, it was that regardless of how much I tried to separate myself from it, how much I tried to tell myself it was just a dream, that it never happened, the feelings it gave me always felt so visceral. Just thinking about the nightmare could be enough to induce a flash of terror or panic, exactly how I felt it in the dream, which in of itself was more real than any other dream I’d have. It felt too real, like it was a memory of something that did happen at some point in my life, but I knew it obviously didn’t happen, as my sister was still alive, I was still alive, and Earthtearer had been dead for decades before I had even been born. Yet here I found myself, standing in front of Nick, shaking.
I didn’t realize it at first but he had his hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry…” he said as apologetically as you could while speaking in a flat tone, “I always forget it’s a sensitive thing for you..”
“No, it’s ok, Nick. It’s really not your fault.”
I stood there, gaining my composure, trying to control my breathing again. All the progress I had made was already being undone. I fought back a rising lump in my throat as I recalled the dream, and it hit me that the ending HAD been different than usual.
“It was different, actually.” I said, with a small hitch in my voice.
“Instead of it just ending right before the swords hit Anna, this time Earthtearer moved the swords to purposefully miss. Then he went after me. I’m having a hard time remembering the details but I think he jumped towards me?”
His hand slid off my shoulder, and I managed to pull myself together a little, the burning gaze of the Colossus now seared into my minds’ eye. He thought about what I had said for a long moment.
“I sometimes envy you, your dreaming,” Nick began, his emotions hard to read, “ever since I bloomed and gained my control over shadows, sleep is became uncommon for me, the little I do is empty, devoid of anything, just a few moments of nothing between the closing and opening of my eyes. It’s useful, I won’t say it isn’t, but I would also be lying if I said I don’t miss dreams a lot.”
“Well, I promise you aren’t missing out on much with this one.” I replied with a half chuckle.
We sat in silence for a long time, before Nick broke our literal standstill by walking past me and down the hall, presumably to his room, without a single word. I walked off to the kitchen, turning the light on, squinting my eyes that had been readjusted to the dark. I looked for something to eat, not really hungry but there wasn’t much else I could do.
After grabbing a box of cereal to eat dry, I reached for my phone from where I had left it to charge the previous night. Turning it on, I went through the little app another one of my roommates, Abby, had made for our team. The app had been called “Rogues For Hire”, and it eventually became our team name as well, despite the fact that we originally had a different team name, people just associated the phrase with us too much. Even while being blind, Echo was an adept user of technology, and had commissioned a crafter who specialized in data conversion to make her a program that converted screen data into a series of tones that when played through earbuds or headphones allowed her to see some sort of a fuzzy representation of the screen. It worked with her heightened ability to process sounds (a side effect of her powers), but had its limitations, especially since the guy who made it was now in the big leagues and was too busy with large scale work to do small work again. I didn’t know how any of it really worked, but it allowed her to develop apps as a side hobby.
The current version of our app, “RFH-Call (Rogues For Hire - Call)”, allowed each of the six members of our team to separately mark our status for others to call or contact. There were almost always jobs that someone wanted us for, and I figured if I’m gonna be up this early doing nothing, then I may as well see what early morning jobs could need me. The ones this early were usually easy anyways. I hadn’t put my phone down on the table for longer than just a few seconds before it buzzed, the screen lighting up with a notification about a job.
