The siege at the center of the Earth.
The struggle to control the pathways that would give ultimate freedom of movement to whomever controlled them.
The Whispering Tide.
The Battle for Agartha.
Frank was there. He saw the cyclopean floramechanical network and its time and space bending roads. He felt the recoil of his assault weapon, heard the staccato bark of its war-shout. Smelled chemical propellant and blood and disease.
Tasted ashes on his tongue.
Frank was there.
He and his squadmates fought against the hordes of infected, trying to stem the tide. The same as countless others had done for weeks. Months?
Forever?
A titan of infected muscle and malleable bones attacked them from behind. Frank was picked up. Shaken like a rag doll.
Dashed against the pathway they stood upon and broken like a child's toy.
Frank was there.
His occultech armor was breached. The softshell beneath was breached.
The Filth came in.
And then Frank was no longer there.
A marigold room. His mother had picked the color. Cosy in the spring and summer, and it made the room feel warm in the winter. She had thought it a good color for the family room.
Home. It was his childhood home.
Frank was there.
Lauren was there.
And so was the infection. Frank saw the shadows begin to suffuse the interior of the house as he and his sister retreated from it. He could feel the floor creak beneath him even as they too started to turn dark. Heard the whispers, like a badly tuned radio slowly becoming more clear. Smelled corruption.
Tasted doom.
He had been so glad to see his sister again. He had wanted to stay, despite the clear and present danger.
He was so very tired. He was ready to lay his burdens down, once and for all.
Lauren had told him to not give up. To leave this place, to fight.
To wake up.
At the last moment, he had done as she bid him do. He had looked back, something tingling in the back of his mind.
“What are you, really?” He had asked. Somehow he knew it couldn't be his sister.
Lauren—or something that very much looked like her-- smiled back. That secret smile. That “I know something you don't know” smile.
“You know who I am,” she had said. And then he had awoken.
And remembered nothing.
He had remembered nothing because she had made him forget.
Now it all came back. All of it.
Frank returned to the creek.
The teenager standing in front of him clasped her hands over her belly, staring at him. Around them, mosquitoes and other insects continued to drone. The creek bubbled along.
Frank stood up shakily, blinking, then stared hard at her.
“You,” he began menacingly.
“I...”
“You made me forget...”
She nodded jerkily, hands clenching.
“Y-yes...I was trying to help--”
“Why.” He started forward, jaw set, and she withdrew slightly, eyes widening.
“I just said! I was trying to help! And--”
“You're not Lauren. You ain't her, but you're wearing her face because of how I'd react.”
“No! Well, yes, but it's not what you think!”
“You wanted me t'forget so I wouldn't know t' have a mage get you outta my head. You look like her, but you ain't her.” The words were the threat-growl of a predator as she continued to back away.
“Yes—no! Frank, it isn't like that. I needed to be here! I needed to keep helping you, to protect you! So I had to make you forget for a while but now--”
She was cut off yet again, but this time Frank's voice boomed at her like a cannon's report.
“You have no right t' look like her! You got no right...t'fuckin' manipulate me that way! Whatever the hell you are...you got no right to look like my baby sister!”
As he finished shouting she almost looked like she would fall over, staring at him in shock. What happened next was not what Frank was expecting.
She began to weep.
“I...I'm trying to help you! I didn't pick to look like this! It wasn't...it wasn't my choice! And...and I'm trying to help...and why are you yelling at me?!”
Seeing Frank through a veil of tears, the apparition that so very much looked like Lauren punched him angrily in the chest, sobbing.
It wasn't the strike of a martial artist trying to hurt or incapacitate.
It was the blow of a sibling cruelly hurt by another, confused and in shock.
Frank didn't even attempt to stop the blow, blinking rapidly in surprise as she hit him again.
“Do you have any idea how hard it's been!? Did you ever wonder how you were so resistant to the whispers? To the Black Signal? Do you—and you—and you just fucking yell at me!” She shoved him angrily away and stalked over to the creek, sinking down next to it in a shaking heap.
Completely flabbergasted, Frank stayed in place. It was...it was exactly how Lauren would have replied if he'd ever treated her so hatefully.
It could have been just another ruse, an attempt by whatever this was to control him, but...Frank noticed his nose bleed had stopped. The pain had stopped.
And all the time that the nightmares had been going on in the previous months, it had been her voice desperately pleading with him not to believe them, to wake up.
Could it be that she was telling the truth? But if that was so, then what was she?
Listening to the sounds of her crying, Frank sighed heavily, his head dropping so that his chin rested on his chest.
“I...”
He heard her shift slightly, sniffling, but she didn't face him completely.
“I want to know...what you are. I want t' understand.”
For several moments she didn't move, didn't speak. Rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand, she finally moved to look directly at him.
“Are you just going to scream at me some more?”
Stuffing his hands deep into his pockets, Frank shook his head back and forth once.
“No. I'm sorry. Please, I want t' understand. I want t' know.”
Lauren-that-wasn't-Lauren watched him breathlessly, another tear streaking down her cheek, then nodded slightly.
“Then...come sit. And I'll explain what I am.”
As Frank sat down, she added softly, “And tell you the things about your sister you never knew.”
