[One minute he's navigating through the fog, heading for home, and the next minute he's standing on a rooftop in what is clearly a city at night; the sky is clear, and the full moon overhead is huge and foreboding.
Strangely enough, there's a hospital bed joining him on the rooftop, still implausibly hooked up to machines with wires and tubes even though the places that those connections lead are nowhere to be found. It's simply there, and so is Fawkes, and he's holding something in his hands, and his shoulders are starting to sag as he listens to the person in the bed as she talks to him, too low to hear without getting closer.
If you do choose to draw nearer, you'll start to see that it's a middle-aged woman there in the bed, with pale, translucent skin and wisps escaping from the low ponytail she's got her hair tied back into. The sheets are pulled up over her knees, and she's got her chin lowered, staring at her hands where they're folded in her lap.
You're the one who did this, she says softly, as the formerly steady rise and fall of Fawkes's chest abruptly stills.
A moment passes, and nothing is said, and that seems to ignite the woman's ire; her head flies up, and her expression is twisted into an awful scowl as her red-rimmed eyes fix directly onto Fawkes.
You did this, you parasite! she shrieks. You mother-killing monster! You did this! You did it to me! I never asked for you!
He's biting his lip now, so hard that the skin is starting to turn white. The woman in the bed gestures violently to the object in his hands.
Use it! she snaps. Use it, you coward! Take responsibility!
He looks down at the shattered mirror face, at the jagged remants of glass raising their sharp edges toward the sky. He closes his eyes, and the moonlight shifts and refracts off the scattered edges, and when he opens his eyes again, the smooth solid face of the mirror is restored.
Do it, his mother hisses, and he nods, lowering himself slowly to one knee and setting the mirror down on the ground in front of him before extending one hand toward its face.
Overhead, the moonlight starts to look altogether too bright, and the reflecting face of the mirror starts to shine.]
FOG - FORLORN (cw: parental maltreatment, terminal illness, thoughts/themes of suicide)
Strangely enough, there's a hospital bed joining him on the rooftop, still implausibly hooked up to machines with wires and tubes even though the places that those connections lead are nowhere to be found. It's simply there, and so is Fawkes, and he's holding something in his hands, and his shoulders are starting to sag as he listens to the person in the bed as she talks to him, too low to hear without getting closer.
If you do choose to draw nearer, you'll start to see that it's a middle-aged woman there in the bed, with pale, translucent skin and wisps escaping from the low ponytail she's got her hair tied back into. The sheets are pulled up over her knees, and she's got her chin lowered, staring at her hands where they're folded in her lap.
You're the one who did this, she says softly, as the formerly steady rise and fall of Fawkes's chest abruptly stills.
A moment passes, and nothing is said, and that seems to ignite the woman's ire; her head flies up, and her expression is twisted into an awful scowl as her red-rimmed eyes fix directly onto Fawkes.
You did this, you parasite! she shrieks. You mother-killing monster! You did this! You did it to me! I never asked for you!
He's biting his lip now, so hard that the skin is starting to turn white. The woman in the bed gestures violently to the object in his hands.
Use it! she snaps. Use it, you coward! Take responsibility!
He looks down at the shattered mirror face, at the jagged remants of glass raising their sharp edges toward the sky. He closes his eyes, and the moonlight shifts and refracts off the scattered edges, and when he opens his eyes again, the smooth solid face of the mirror is restored.
Do it, his mother hisses, and he nods, lowering himself slowly to one knee and setting the mirror down on the ground in front of him before extending one hand toward its face.
Overhead, the moonlight starts to look altogether too bright, and the reflecting face of the mirror starts to shine.]