Chương 448: Day Four Hundred And Forty-Six

Dear Diary,"When you choose to harm others, You limit their Agency, You take away their choices." - Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Agency I have no idea what prompted me to write a book of poetry. Seriously, I know I wanted to be a writer at one point, but like, I wish there was a way to give myself a 'WTF, Diaz?' look. I've tried it in the mirror, but it just does not work. I dunno why. Maybe I knew what I was thinking when I did whatever made me want to WTF myself.

Maybe the moment has passed, so I'm no longer feeling it? Maybe I just can't get that exasperated with somebody else when I know, deep down, that I am in fact the source of most of the fucked up shit in my own general vicinity. But... poetry? Dude, poetry is like the ocelot of furries. The glitter of craft supplies. The skibidi of public toilets. Once you've indulged in poetry that shit never comes off.

In order of quality of literature it goes Horror, Romance, Fantasy, Sci Fi, Historical Fiction, John Oliver, Non-Genre Fiction, Non-Fiction, Reference Books, Business Emails, Self-Help Books with useful advice, Cereal Box Nutrition Information, Wikipedia Articles, Unhelpful Self-Help Books made of quotes, Getting Punched in the Crotch by Alex Jones for Turning the Frogs Gay, John Oliver but Chinese, Saying You Write but Not Writing, Interpretive Dance, then Poetry.

And yet somehow, for some reason, I've decided to write a book of poetry. Not just a book of poetry, but some kind of book of poetry about fuckin' Agency and Consent and shit. I mean, yeah, Consent is important. Agency, if we're talking about making your own decisions, equally so, but... who the fuck is going to read a book of fuckin' poetry by me about that shit. Like, I'm not even a published author or celebrity or a Mother Fucking Author. That's what MFA stands for, right?

But I'm not one, so why would anybody buy a self help book from me, or a book of poetry, let alone something that's both? At any rate, woke up high this morning. In case you wonder how I knew I wasn't drunk, I didn't have cotton mouth or a headache, and I was dizzy as fuck. Also, I was lying on some rubble in a part of town I didn't recognize. Not someplace I'm likely to take a midafternoon nap when I'm straight and sober.

Checked my clothes, found no vomit, which was cool, but also found no phone, no purse, no wallet, and an outfit I do not remember ever buying or stealing. Black slacks, black cowboy boots, white blouse with ruffles on the collar, and that's it. The sound of people walking around shouting something in a language I didn't recognize immediately set off all my alarm bells, so I scrambled to my feet, slouched a little, and picked a direction on the street to start walking, doing my best to blend in.

For a second I thought I must be high on something way more potent than THC or CBD, because I swear some of the motherfuckers running my way were wearing, like, medieval armor or some shit like that. My head spun when they ran past, but when the whole group of them had run by and I turned to look, it was just some cops chasing a bunch of people. Not my lookout, even if the cops were in SWAT gear. I put my head down and kept walking, trying to figure out how to tell if somebody'd slipped me acid or something.

I was also trying to figure out where the fuck I was. Not a single building nearby looked familiar. Hell, even the shape and width of the streets were wrong. Worse, whatever part of town, whatever fucking town I'd wound up in looked like someplace where their unfriendly neighbors had told the US that they had untapped oil reserves.

Just, like, one building in three was nothing but a pile of rubble, and the ones that weren't ranged between ones so beat up I thought I could knock them down with harsh language to new construction that had that really rapidly constructed look. Like it would take only slightly more effort to turn them into ex-construction. I had no idea where I was, why I was dressed like I was, or what the fuck had happened to me. As I walked, I tried to piece anything at all together. I remembered deciding to cut school.

I stopped at a bodega to pick up some food, then walked downtown. I vaguely remembered sneaking into the Aquarium, then going to fuck around with the... octopi? My memories from there on got real fragmented. I remembered touching an octopus. I remembered falling in the water. I remembered... getting shot? The fuck? After a quick check I wasn't bleeding, and other than a weird scar across my fingers and some itching on my neck and shoulder I couldn't feel any kind of injuries.

So I sure as fuck hadn't been shot, unless it hit me somewhere under my clothes and it had been a long fuckin' time since then, long enough for it to heal over and me not to feel it any more. Although... I did kind of ache. Like, fuckin' everywhere. Like my skin was a size too small, and it stretched painfully whenever I moved. I clearly remembered touching an octopus, though. The feel of its skin against mine, the raw animal strength where it curled its tentacle around me and towed me along.

Shit, I know some Octopi had neurotoxins. Maybe the one I'd been touching had something like that? Like, the one I normally fucked around with at the Aquarium didn't have anything like that, but the world's a big fuckin' place, and the only places I've had to learn about it are Wikipedia and the Eastside Library. Maybe Mister Octopus had that good good goin' on, and had whammied me with his natural LSD musk or some shit like that. I realized right then that it was oddly cool.

Like, not normal New Jersey August heat. This felt cooler. Even cooler than new Jersey autumn. Maybe late autumn, like early December, but the weather didn't seem right for that. As I pondered the fuckin' weather like I knew jack shit about global weather conditions other than 'hot, cold, wet, dry' in places that got filmed in a lot, I rounded a corner to see a massive swath of destruction leading down to a big body of water.

I really didn't want to think about the places in the world where there would be a huge chunk of the city just flattened and not have a single red cross van in sight. About the only thing that seemed even vaguely comforting about that was the fact that the sun was moving westward over my shoulder and that meant the water was to my east. None of the few people I'd seen clearing rubble and putting up new construction looked or sounded Asian or African, which meant I was somewhere in the Americas with a eastern shore.

Probably. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Shore plus city meant resorts. Resorts meant people who wanted money, which meant people who spoke English. So I headed east. A couple times as I clambered over or around some rubble, my head got all woozy again, the whole world wobbling like jello.

Every time was when I thought I'd seen some kind of body part in the rubble, but when I glanced again, it was a bit of a mannequin, or a scrap of clothing, or just a weird play of shadows. When I finally got to the shoreline I realized the water was some kind of bay, with land stretching out eastward both north and south of me. With the cool air, I decided to take the south side of the bay, just in case I wound up having to follow the coast or some other shit like that.

South is warmer, which is where the better resorts were, right? As I walked, I kept seeing folks I almost recognized, then didn't. Cops, but not in Camden uniforms. Some obvious gang members, but nobody in colors I recognized. Some soldiers. I didn't recognize the uniform at all, other than being sort of generic green, but the dudes were all big as fuck and had the kind of military bearing that screamed 'soldier'. Like always, I kept my head down and kept walking.

A couple times as I walked I thought I heard someone calling me, but when I looked around? Nada. I had to double back a couple times to find bridges over some rivers that branched out from the bay. As I walked along the edge of the bay, I saw a shit ton of small pleasure craft plying the water; some with sails, some in the distance too small to really tell, but a few of the closer ones had fuckin' oars. I guess the dragon boat guys were out exercising or something.

Before I got to the second bridge, I thought I saw something glinting out to sea, like a modern ship. I also thought I maybe saw a shoreline behind it, like maybe it was on the far side of a wider part of the bay rather than actually, y'know, out to sea. I decided at that point to get as close as I could to that. If I couldn't find a resort, a cruise ship was a good second. Those things were notorious for catering to the wealthy, which again generally meant 'English speaking'.

Hell, a ship might be better; a local resort might not have an interpreter, but a ship might need somebody to talk at an English speaking port. So I walked along the shore, the silhouette of the ship getting more and more familiar as I got closer. By evening I'd almost come to the conclusion that I was imagining things, but the light of the setting sun glinting off turrets showed me the impossible. Okay, what ought to be impossible. The four Iowa class were in Camden, LA, Norfolk, and Pearl Harbor.

It sure as shit never got this cool in Hawaii or Cali, and I didn't think Norfolk did either. Which would make the City behind me Philly, but some kind of fucked up post-nuclear devastation Philly. I just kinda sank until my ass touched the nearest hunk of rubble, staring. I stopped thinking about trying to look like I fit in, stopped trying to think about what drugs I'd been given. I just kind of huddled into myself, drawing my knees up and hugging them to my chest.

"TABITHA!" My name, shouted by a voice I almost recognized, had me turning around to see three women running toward me. Two blondes, one stumbling along like she couldn't run in heels, another fuckin' WNBA tall chick loping toward me, and a curvy brunette I almost recognized, all three of them in fuckin' evening gowns. When the brunette got close enough I recognized her, sorta. She'd been in one of my science classes; a second after I saw her I remembered her name.

"Jazz?" She slid to a stop, confused as she stared at me.

"Tabitha? But... why are you?" She reached for me, and I leaned backward, even though I felt like I ought to be leaning forward. I mean, seriously Jazz looked hot as fuck with the obvious boob job and the lingerie peeking out from under her dress, but she also looked more than a little panic stricken and grabby.

"Tabitha? That is you, is it not, love?" I had no idea why, but at the same time my brain tried to run screaming from that 'love', my guts froze me in place, twisting around themselves like they knew where they wanted to be and it was not leaning away from her. Shit, by that point I was scared and she was a friendly face, I could deal with the 'love' part later. Maybe we'd gotten fucked up together at some point since the Aquarium and hooked up or something.

I leaned forward, her arms went around me, and I was safe. I don't know how I knew I was safe, but as the other two women put their arms around me, I knew that no matter what else happened, I was safe. A moment later I stumbled as I wasn't sitting on a rock. I was sitting on the crosspiece of the mast of the New Jersey. Only one Iowa Class had that big old Sixty Two atop Turret Two. Jazz must have gotten herself tapped into the PA system, because her voice rang out over the whole fuckin' ship.

"ORLA! Captain's quarters, NOW!" As my head spun, the world going all woobly, the big platinum blonde chick picked me up in one arm, picked the other blonde chick up in the other one, and jumped. Instead of the highly anticipated splattering across Turret Two I expected, we landed just outside one of the hatches.

Before I could really orient myself, she pushed me in, ducked through the hatch herself, then half carried, half pushed me through another hatch to stand in a big cabin that had been decorated in cottage core kitsch. Like, big fluffy handmade pillows, quilts, and afghans all over the place. The big chick set me on the bed, headbutted me gently, murmuring something that sounded like, "Vlickies." that echoed through my head oddly, and then Jazz strode into the room leading another big woman in armor.

This lady wasn't anywhere near as tall as the blonde, but definitely had more weight on her. Like, Rhonda Rousey big and strong. Weirdest thing, she had a Magneto cosplay helmet under one arm. Like, not half bad, but not professional quality. Unpainted gray, almost like plain iron, although out to sea like this iron would have rusted.

"Orla, your helmet?" Orla handed her cosplay helmet to Jazz, who brought it over to me.

"Tabitha, I'm going to put this on you. Please hold still?" I shrugged. Weird ask, but like I said, Jazz and the blondes made me feel safe. She lowered it over my head, and I tried not to wince as the whole fuckin' world wobbled and distorted as the thing settled around my brain meats. The moment the crown of it touched my head...

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT BALLS WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK!" Saffron, Siobhan, and Marie all three sagged with relief. Meanwhile I tried not to lose my fucking shit as the last year of everything came crashing down over me. Or, I guess, whatever the fuck had been making me forget the past year collapsed and stopped its headfuckery. A moment later Saffron, then Siobhan, and finally Marie applied some much needed oral inspection of my general mouth region.

When I finally came up for air, Saffron looked ready to tear some poor bastard's toenails out through her nostrils. Still not quite trusting myself to stand up, I asked, "Kitten? What the fuck is going on?"

"Fucking. Fae."