disconnect [solo]

[Clover]

Clover brushed her fingertips over the slick walls of the sewer. She liked to pretend that the bare trail left behind by her fingers marked her path to and from the light. At the very least, the clean lines she created revealed a stone wall that hadn’t seen the proverbial light of day since its construction. She needed to feel connected to something. If it weren’t for her need to cling to something as solid as the cold stone, she never would have touched the slimy surface. She would have avoided touching any of the sewer’s surfaces.

Somewhere above her head, construction workers had begun stripping the asphalt from one of the roads. She heard the sound of a jackhammer and the shouted complaints of their shortened lunch breaks. She heard their footsteps, the sound of their boots crunching along the remnants of pavement and newly laid gravel. From below ground, Clover heard the steady dripping of pipes and the hurried footsteps of immortal travelers.

Something, an unspoken desire, took her back to the sewers, to the spot where she’d first met Ripper, to the spot where she’d first met Jesse. She half-expected to stumble across the remains of the hunters the two men had killed. She wanted to see the abandoned swords and the forgotten guns. As she slowly made her way down the length of the tunnel, she closed her eyes, cutting off her sense of sight. She focused on the smell of her surroundings. Clover searched beneath the damp stench of the tunnels and beyond the fading scent of her soap.

She needed to find something left over from all those months ago. She needed to find blood and bones and rusted weapons. She needed a wreck to remind her of her own state. She wanted to remember a time before vampirism, before her turning. Finding the correct sewer entrance and tracing along the mapped tunnels had taken her an entire day. She’d spent hours pouring over the numerous routes. The hardest part was that she had hardly remembered the twists and turns she’d taken; she had barely remembered escaping the sewers.

Clover opened her eyes and surveyed the walls and ceiling of the sewer. She looked over her shoulder at the clean trail she’d left along the wall and down the length of the tunnel. The way back stretched on until it faded into nothing, until she couldn’t make out any of the darkened details. When she turned back around, she continued feeling her way along the tunnel, her hand pressed against the wall as it had been before she’d given up on her moment of sensory deprivation.

The brunette knew exactly when she’d reached her destination, but her eyes had been useless. Her sense of smell had been useless. She knew she’d reached her destination when her fingertips brushed across a gathering of holes in the wall. She might have forgotten the way to the spot, but she had never forgotten the shootout and the fear that had accompanied the shootout. Clo traced her fingertips around the bullet holes and around the indentations of where sword had met stone.

She stood in the spot where her life had changed. While she liked to believe that her first run-in with the supernatural had altered the course of her life, the second run-in with the supernatural had truly been the tipping point. Quoth had been the beginning, but Ripper and Jesse had been the ending. Even though she’d entered and left the sewers as a human, she’d sealed her fate. She’d run away from the hospital only to run right into the arms of vampires. She stood in the spot where she’d damned herself to death, or rather to a kind of death.

“I didn’t see anything,” she found herself repeating, her voice soft and so very fragile. She couldn’t help mimicking her own words, the words spoken on that very night. There was a moment when she thought she might cry, the same exact reaction she’d had all those months ago, but she laughed. She laughed a bitter laugh that conveyed more than words or nonverbal gestures ever could; she conveyed her displeasure and her hopelessness. As her laughter came to end, she felt the sting of tears gathering in her eyes.

Clo wrapped her arms around herself and stooped down. She surveyed the ground for any remains, whether she found bones or bullet casings or bloodstains. Nothing remained of that night. She’d been crazy to think that anything would have remained. The night in question had been last year. She’d been searching for some kind of closure with a wound that had opened and closed over seven months ago. Still, despite the lack of any obvious signs of the old struggle, she began to blindly grope along the ground. She thrust her fingertips between the bricks and dragged her nails across the smooth surfaces.

Giving up would have been easy. The most obvious answer should have been that she’d wasted her time. She should have cut her losses and left the place, and her memories, behind. Larch Court was waiting for her. Clover was a stubborn young woman though. She took to her hands and knees and crawled around the area until she’d discovered two things. She’d recovered a shell casing and a smooth piece of bone. Sitting there, her black skinny jeans separating her bottom from the cold, damp sewer floors, she examined her treasures.

The casing could have been from any number of weapons. The bone fragment could have been from any person. She had to assume that the shell casing had come from her encounter; she assumed because she’d found it lodged in the ground and it fit perfectly with her memories of the night. She ignored the statistics and the logic. As for the bone fragment, she’d found it on the opposite side of the area and she accepted that her discovery had a higher chance of being from another fight, someone else’s battle against humans, hunters, or supernatural creatures. Still, Clover clung to both objects. In the past, both discoveries had signified a new beginning for her, so she thought that both the shell casing and the bone might have signified yet another new start.

Clover needed a new beginning more than she needed anything else. Gaining power meant next to nothing. Making friendships meant absolutely nothing. She needed to fix herself, to fix the things she’d said and done. If she had a new beginning, she acknowledged that she could use her second chance to repair every secondary issue that had arisen in the past few months. She couldn’t wipe the slate clean, but she could cover it with a shiny new layer.

Keep it together, Clo. Back on track.

She swore she heard her voice like an echo from the past. She’d gotten weaker. She’d allowed herself to crumble. Hadn’t Jesse told her that she was on a path of self-destruction? She’d denied it then, or rather she’d denied responsibility. Perhaps it wasn’t her fault, perhaps it was, but it was her responsibility to right herself. No one had the strength to save her when she kept thrusting herself back underwater, back under the crushing weight brought on by blind determination and haunting memories.

Clover forced herself back to her feet. She kept the shell casing, but she let the piece of bone slip from her hand. When she looked down, she saw the white of the bone against the black of the sewer floor. Clo lifted her foot up and brought the heel of her shoe down on the bone. She repeated the motion over and over again, crushing the object until it was nothing more than dust. Her frustrations vented, she turned and walked back down the tunnel to the sewer entrance. She used her opposite hand to trace along the length of the wall; her fingertips fit perfectly into the outlines she’d made. Slowly, carefully, she made her way toward the surface. She had a clear path to follow.