Fell. Fall. Falling. It’s what they did. And will continue to do.

Who knew being in the range of a world-altering wave left the world unstable in its path?

It was always on the news, the damage, the scale, the warping. The overall loss. Those were the things beaten into their heads over and over.

But never the things they never talked about, just because the implications alone were scary enough.

And that’s why they fell out of reality—or further into reality, or some glitch into reality. Wherever-- whatever happened to them, they fell into a mock replica of their city, and it crumbled apart as they existed within it, as they ran. The buildings were phony and off-color. The so-called street, concrete, and asphalt were brittle. No wind. Just stillness of this void.

The thing that haunted Jackie the most was the sky being flat. Volume, texture. The human eye can tell that it was very much wrong. But the human brain had no idea what to make of that.

It was why these strangers on relatively good terms nearly turned on each other. Maddie launched a tirade, Tracy accusing everyone, Aiko being too detached, River sinking into herself. Jackie being determined, so much that she punched a false wall and allowed her hand to be ruined, wasn’t a solution more that her fatal flaw was at least more constructive.

Gaining the powers was non-negotiable now. They were trapped in an event that no one will ever see, no one will ever know about. Meaning that’s their fate. They raced across ground that was breaking after their every step, and had to climb on these phony buildings as things turned upside down. Things they couldn’t handle or comprehend. They were practically begging to trigger, to gain the so-called “modern enlightenment”.

They don’t know. Anything about what they were doing. They couldn’t trigger siVis, as it became clearer by the second that they were doomed to die. It couldn’t come to them, and had they known anything, they wouldn’t have been here. Further away from here. They threw everything away to be here, and now they’re trapped.

And nothing captured that more than the moment.

Jackie rushed forward, to shield everyone from the mass of street being unearthed. Hitting her squarely into her body. Falling down. Busted open. Only making a snoring sound.

Maddie cried, overwhelmed. River began to shut down. Aiko’s eyes told them that she was scared, but her body tried to continue on, as Tracy shook.

All they had was a makeshift board to “ride” on, to ride out the void that soon collapsed into a spiraling vortex.

It’s been months since this happened before everything got worse. Four, five, seven… It’s been months, and to this day she has no idea what happened here.

No new Noumena to blame. No Trend that tricked them. Not even a report or warning, at the end of the day. They just fell out of the world.

And then fell back in.

Reality snapped back to normal, enough that each girl found themselves back in their very homes somehow. Reality snapped back to normal, to show that they—humanity—knew nothing.

That’s when they gained that modern enlightenment.

Jackie’s moment in particular, as her eyes turned as powerful as searchlights, segments started to outline themselves across her body, radiating white—her parents barged in hearing her screams only to not see their daughter as they knew anymore. As her siVis activated, her body couldn’t handle something it wasn’t meant to have and thrashed about in her room in an attempt to control this power.

Destroying the humanity she needed then, all for the pursuit of some vague concept.

Then Jackie’s eyes darted everywhere, as it started to become nowhere.

As the room was being destroyed, it was crumbling into sands. Bursting and then disintegrating. Piling onto itself to form hills that only faded away by the slightest touch of air.  

Before Jackie can question it, she began to question herself.

“Why… Couldn’t I just stay… Home…?”

She had to shield, and then have her eyes adjust in the advent of her past self—a literal, inhuman beacon that turned to face the now. Shining beams forward and pulsating with a glow.

“Why… Do I always bring harm to myself…?”

Jackie tried to back away from herself but fell onto her back hard. Once again.

Writhing in pain, she found herself basked in darkness once more. Nothing but the pitch, where she couldn’t tell when she blinked or not other than the sensation.

In the face of darkness, she wondered why she had to open her eyes to begin with.

And before she chose her answer, she just fell back to unconsciousness once more.