perhaps in another life

The hero Perseus, the maiden Andromeda, the monster Cetus. After reincarnating for a thousand years, together over and over again in each new life, they were bound to get a little codependent.

This time, Perseus wakes up alone as Drew. By the time she runs into Cetus' new form, a young man named Variss, she's lived her entire life. Not to mention that Andromeda is still nowhere to be found.

Word count: 2,651 words

Content warnings: Mention of Suicide, Abuse of substances, mention of addiction to substances.

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In 1989, a man in Moscow attempted to conduct a proper study in an attempt to classify and categorize the supernatural human beings known colloquially as ‘Rifts’.

From a sample pool of 50 people from both his country and out of it, he managed to divide the powers gained by rifts into four known types:

Hereditary, the straightforward inheritance of a power through the bloodline. The order of children that inherited the power and the total number of children who could inherit the power was subject to the influence the Mythoi had on the general population.

Chosen, where the Mythoi was present as a separate entity to the Rift, who would conduct the journey alongside them. The nature of how this method works was the most whimsical, as is the case whenever Mythoi directly involve themselves with the comings and goings of the human world.

Found, where the person prior to becoming the Rift was the main instigator that led to their metamorphosis. Found Rift powers are the only type that is known to be possible to attach to inanimate objects.

Cyclical, also known as Reincarnation. The Mythoi and Rift merge as one person, and the being that comes forth from that has the ability to recall all previous incarnations of themselves throughout history.

Before the study could be completed and formalized, one of the volunteers lost control of their power during an experiment done to measure how much power could be output with the human body as a limiting factor. The researcher, along with all his notes, records, and data, were all consumed in flame.

Except that Sandra's little book had recorded all the new information this nameless man had discovered. She attempted to distribute it, then -- crediting it, to the best of her ability, to the rightful parties -- as was her duty as the rift of Sarasvati.

Drew had been dragging Adrian along, as much as she could, to the little errands and jobs she ran despite her insistence of being ‘retired’. They were trivial things, stuff that someone with their age and experience could complete almost mindlessly. It simply presented an opportunity to bond again with the friend she had left behind.

But this, this she would never ask him to commit to.

Drew slams open the door to Variss’ apartment. The force shakes the feeble wall hangings, and they rustle as she stumbles past, dragging along a semi-conscious rift. Their arm is around her shoulder, feet uncoordinated and dragging and Drew leads them along for the last final steps.

“C’mon kid, work with me,” she mutters harshly, but they don’t really reply. Drew swears to herself in her native language, but manages to drop them down onto their couch, sprawled out and still mildly sobbing.

Drew was strong, that was the benefit of the power that flowed through her veins, power that was given over and over, again and again. But Variss, despite being part of her reincarnation cycle and having gone through many overlapping experiences, was something new.

She swears some more as Variss stirs, then leans over the side of the couch to throw up.

He’d gotten bigger, since the last time Drew saw him. Or her, then. She didn’t know what was going on in their head all too much. Ramona was already a big, tall woman -- Amazonian proportions and height. But whatever half-transformation she was put under, to become Variss now, stretched out his fingers and toes into monstrous claws, patches of scales filling in his skin -- it certainly allowed his truer size to come through as well, and damn, the fucking kid was heavy.

“I’m going to get some water and aspirin, and you are going to drink,” Drew orders, with little compassion as she tears her eyes away from that particular mess and heads towards his kitchen.

Drew’s little rift errands were… honestly, just solely to kill time. She’d completed her duty, completed her hero’s quest. There was nothing left in the future that tied her to Fate, to story. She could walk away with zero consequences, having no debts left to pay. She was also careful not to incur any more favours, which would further tangle her to Fate -- which was fun and enriching in its own way. Avoiding the mind-games of gods and rifts was as much a challenge as getting out of them.

Variss wasn’t a debt. Perseus, Andromeda, and Cetus were all tied, yes -- through their original Myth and through their Grecian heritage. But apart from that original link (which held strong, held true, for hundred and hundreds of years), there wasn’t anything to tie them together.

It hadn’t mattered, before. It hadn’t mattered because they were reborn together, they reincarnated together, and their strings of destiny got tangled together anyways.

But now, Drew had lived her whole life without either Andromeda or Cetus. She’s done.

She still came when Variss called her.

She shoves the pills straight into the kid’s mouth, then holds the glass of water to his lips till he properly swallows them. “The hell did you even take, kid?” So she’s judgemental, she will be judgemental, when her old friend new friend charge myth-brother is going to do stupid fucking shit like this.

“A bit of crystal,” Variss slurs, words coming out in a rush even as Drew presses more water to his lips. “Wanted to stick to weed but everyone was getting wasted so,’ he laughs, the sound grating and taking on a frantic edge.

“You snorted meth?” Drew grits out, very unimpressed. “How’d you even find meth, anyway?”

“Don’t fuggin’... don’t worry about it; it doesn’t fuckin’... last long..”

Drew raises an eyebrow, but leans against the coffee table across from him as Variss starts to sit up more on his own. She’s never done drugs. She can’t remember doing drugs in her past few reincarnations, either. Perseus always did have a bit of a straighter-edge to him, but it was also in Drew’s interest to stay away from this stuff. While Cetus didn’t have the same inclinations, she honestly thought that their gateway was less self-destructive than this.

“I thought you only stuck to alcohol?” Drew questions.

“Naaahh, Ramona - Rames always was keen to like, try new shit? I know my limits, Drew, holy fuck.”

“You weren’t doing well when I found you.”

It comes out harder than she intends. Drew was never good at consoling, with her build and voice. The army still sticks with her -- and well, any traditional feminine traits could go bugger off.

Variss mumbles a response she doesn’t fully hear.

“Come again?”

He gives her a rather evil eye, peeking up from beneath the sweaty, matted hair that fell across his face. It was hyper-dilated from the drugs, but the ring of colour around the pupil was electric.

He looks away, saying it again more audibly, but still in a small voice.

“Maybe I’m still not doing too well.”

There’s a pause after this. Drew’s not sure what he wants of her, how he wants her to act. Look, Perseus and Cetus were friends. Drew and Variss weren’t super close. Typically, cyclical rifts would retain the emotions and relationships they’d have in their past lives, especially with other cyclical rifts. That’s why the Greeks got along with each other so well.

But this time, this time was so different. Drew’s past lives were so used to waking up with one of Andromeda’s, one of Cetus’s. But Drew didn’t. Drew didn’t get that, didn’t get to retain that bond Didn’t get to live a life supported by the two that was always, always by her side. She’d just been left alone.

So now, when Cetus walks up to her out of the blue, Drew can only draw from her own experiences to deal with this.

“Are you a suicide risk?”

Variss snaps his head to look at her, deep eyes beginning to draw her in, but then he lowers his head again. A snarl begins to twist his face.

“I don’t fucking know? Shit, if we’re going to have this conversation, I need another drink --” he starts getting up from the couch, but Drew cuts him off his path by stomping a boot on the arm of the sofa.

“Sit the fuck down, kid. I know you’re in the middle of a mission from Pinkerton right now. Are you going to try to get yourself killed?” Because, well, that’s a thing that happens. That’s a thing Drew’s seen happen, in the wars she’s been in. Cyclicals were also more susceptible to it, thinking that they’d just wake up in another life, anyways.

Wasn’t pretty.

He sits back down heavily, fingers clutching the edge of his seat hard enough to make a sound as his claws start to cut through the canvas. Still not looking directly at her.

Drew sighs, if this was the kind of thing she was getting into, with this Cetus. Again, no bond. No debt to tie her here. She still waits.

“...Heph is dead,” Variss says, after a bit. “I met Hephaestus again today, and then he just. Died.”

Drew waits, in case he wanted to say anything further, to elaborate. But that was it. “You’ll just meet him next time, then. I didn’t realise you too were that close.”

“We’re -- not really, but --” His voice cracks at the end, and there’s a sound that fills the room, which Drew realises was him grinding his teeth. He turns to look at her -- hurtangerfurypain -- and she tries her best to hold back a sigh as Variss starts to cry again.

“Fucking hell, Drew, I though you’d understand.” He says it like it’s a big betrayal, as if he hasn’t been absent her whole life. As if Drew was still the same person he thought he knew, but no, Perseus’ chosen grew up different this time around. Everything’s different this time around.

“It’s maddening -- I can’t fucking -- I can’t just, do anything like this, I can’t be strong or be good or do what’s right -- and- and I accepted that! I thought I could m-make friends, I thought I could keep them -- but what if I’m just killing them all? I’m so fucked and so it makes everything fucked.” Variss rambles, and nothing he says is making sense to Drew, but she lets him continue.

“I’m not -- I’m not good enough, and I fucked up so bad -- and they keep using her against me you know? I keep fucking seeing her and I keep fucking everything up. I just -- I just wanted to be like her, if I couldn’t -- she’s not here, and I couldn’t -- “ He sobs again, words catching in his throat.

“Percy, I miss her.”

It really all came back to her, huh.

Andromeda was really the glue that held everything together. Perseus had suspected that this was the case, but well, they never really had proof until now. Never needed to know. Without Andromeda, all that was left were just these two idiots.

Drew leaves him to cry, and he does. She gets up from her perch on the coffee table as he curls further within himself, like a child, weeping. Doesn’t fully leave, as she wanders over to the balcony and draws the curtain to muffle the noise, to give a bit of privacy. For both him and herself.

She’s disappointed.

The feeling curls in her gut, as she drops down with surprising grace onto the floor, leaning with her back against the tiled balcony wall and with her head tilted towards the night sky. She doesn’t fully understand it, because there’s been a weight on her shoulders -- there’s always been a weight on her shoulders -- and that hasn’t changed. It’s still there, still an ethereal and supernatural presence that hovers at the edge of her vision, a constant reminder of what she is and where she comes from.

But it twists now, turns into something with more thorns, more fingers that jut into her skin rather than laying there, heavy, but meek. Drew thumbs through her jacket, flipping over a hidden panel to access a pocket where she keeps her cigarettes, lighting one in her mouth even as she feels a growing pressure on her nerves. A pressure that doesn’t look away, and instead focuses in on a sentiment that she doesn’t truly want to acknowledge.

As she smokes, she entertains the idea that maybe she is disappointed in herself.

It’s quiet inside the apartment now, after some time has passed. There’s a shuffling of movement that’s languid and weighty, but it looks like her friend brother acquaintance not-connection -- Variss had composed himself. After a bit, she hears him approach the curtain and pull it back.

“...You’ve just been letting all the draft in,” he says to her, throat a little sore and eyes swollen but more or less back to normal.

“Feeling better?” Drew questions as a response, as he shuffles over and drops down beside her.

“Sober, but I don’t want to be.”

There’s still a distance between the two of them; a physical one, as he doesn’t sit directly beside her. He wraps clawed hands around his knees and looks up at the sky, in a similar motion to the one she made when she first stepped outside. As she looks now, his clawed toes tap on the tiled floor with gentle clicks and clacks, hair tousled by the wind that picks up and whistles in their ears.

Kid’s been through a lot, and maybe she should acknowledge that.

“I see her sometimes, too.”

There’s no movement, no reaction to her words. But she continues, “Andromeda has been with us for enough lives that a part of her is going to stick around even if she’s not here herself. That part’s enough for her to tell you what she’s really feeling.”

Drew takes another puff, looks upwards and releases a ring of smoke into the air. “Believe me, I know.”

City lights shone bright enough to erase most of the stars in the sky in this part of town. The neons of red, yellow, blue, would drown out the indigo night, in an incredible gradient that was clear on a cloudless sky like this. You could barely see the natural twinkling lights, only the occasional red blip that indicated a satellite, or a moving white one that was in the same man-made nature.

But somehow, up above -- amidst a starless sky, was a tiny orange light that was difficult to see with the naked human eye. It drew you in, a small little galaxy, though so far away that it could hardly be noticed by anyone else. .

Variss and Drew watched in tandem, for a while.

“Can I get a smoke?” Variss breaks the silence, eyes still turned upwards.

“No,” comes Drew’s immediate response, doing much of the same.

Variss still leans over, lying down on the floor to reach across the distance and fiddling with Drew’s secret pocket to retrieve his goal. Drew doesn’t really try to stop him, though she does give a glare as he begins to light it.

“How’d you know where I keep them?”

“Kenny used to like the same kind of jacket.” Variss answers, mouth wrapped around the cigarette. It takes a bit for Drew to realise that Kenny was one of her previous incarnations.

She’d always been disconnected from them, having had such a different upbringing, such a different experience with her time with the supernatural. She’d lived more than 50 years in this world without her trusted allies, which she’d always had available to depend on. It cut her off from her memories of her past lives, memories which were full of friendship and joy.

It’s something she understands very slowly, that she couldn’t fully grasp at first -- that perhaps she isn’t alone anymore.

Perhaps she should make the most of it.

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Photo by Huy Phan: https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-chair-near-window-grille-1478408/