Beyond the Sea

Rapture - 1962

Shoes stood in a straight line - shiny black leather, deep red snakeskin, pristine alabaster satin. After a surreptitious glance at Helena barely needing to stretch to reach the highest shelves, Rachel narrowed it down to the ones with the very highest of heels. She had eschewed the full-skirted frocks for streamlined skirts and fitted blouses, building a neat, folded pile and adding a few beautifully cut blazers. She topped it off with a voluminous ivory woolen coat with lapels that curled in layers.

Helena watched her with a bemused expression, as if Rachel were a child taking dress-up time far too seriously. Who was there to dress up for?

The two of them had made their way to the high-end clothing stores in Fort Frolic, dodging splicers when they could, leaving bodies behind them when they couldn’t. Helena experimented with the strength of her telekinesis, while Rachel lashed out almost gleefully, using her plasmids with a new viciousness. Now they were barricaded in a store, taking their pick of what remained. Rachel had worked her way through the shoes, while Helena tried on hat after hat after hat.

She found the myriad of dresses beautiful, but ultimately impractical, and her pile consisted mostly of trousers and undershirts and vests from the men’s section. The trousers were at least long enough for her legs, if a little baggy on her still slender frame.  Also - hats. A teetering pile of hats. Every single hat in the store.

Rachel looked over at the huge stack and raised an eyebrow.

“Helena...really? How are you even going to carry all of them?”

“I could...wear them all?” Helena suggested hopefully.

Rachel scoffed at her,  while she tried on another pair of stilettos. Standing up, she teetered a little at first, then started walking up and down the catwalk between the dressing-rooms, watching herself in the mirror.

click-click-click

As she stepped her way backwards and forwards, growing steadier and more confident, Helena watched her with her head tilted, golden eyes glowing softly. She brushed her hair back off her face, the white-gold curls long and unkempt, unlooping the ribbon from her wrist and tying her hair back in a low ponytail. The colour of the ribbon caught the light like a ruby, and matched the one dress that Helena hadn’t been able to resist. She could see Sarah wearing it, her dark hair flowing over her shoulders, grinning at Helena just like she used to, and taking her hand to lead her home. She stroked the silky fabric and sighed wistfully.

Looking back at Rachel, she asked “Don’t they hurt your feet?”

Rachel gave her a sidewards glance.

“Not at all,” she lied. The shoes pinched and squeezed, not that she would ever admit it. It wasn’t the worst pain she’d endured over the years.

She stared at herself in the mirror, running her hands down her ribs to smooth the jacket front, tucking her hair behind her ears. Then she spotted the reflection of the cosmetics counter, and her lips curved.

Ten minutes later, she and Helena sat on the floor facing each other in front of the mirror, Rachel's lips already painted a bright red. She was holding Helena's chin and carefully running the shiny rose-gold tube over her lips. She didn’t usually get this close to Helena and the golden eyes were even more disconcerting at this distance, although she could see the slightly darker iris under the glow if she looked hard enough.

“Alright,” she said, “You’re ready.”

They both looked into the mirror. Rachel’s mouth curled in satisfaction with her own appearance. She no longer looked like a little girl, and though she’d kicked the shoes off for the moment, she was determined to wear them from now on. The sound they made on the hard floor gave her a shivery feeling unrelated to the plasmids, and the cut of the skirt made her steps short and sharp.

Helena stared at her reflection in the mirror, who pursed her lips and turned her head side to side, examining the lipstick, and the pinkish eyeshadow Rachel had added. She didn’t like to look in mirrors any more. Her face, her hair and eyes, were a constant reminder of how different she was from Sarah. Now she looked like someone else altogether; not like Sarah at all. She was too pale, her hair too blond, her lips too red.

“Yes, very pretty, Rachel.” she muttered, then wiped her hand across her mouth, trying to clean the lipstick off. The waxy substance was resilient and soon her face and hands were covered in blood-red smears and she began to cry in frustration.

“It’s fine...I’ll go and find some cold cream and a facecloth.” Rachel’s hands clenched in her lap for a moment. “Don’t cry.” She gritted her teeth and reached a hand out to Helena’s arm.

Helena flinched away from her touch.

The mirror shattered.

Rachel drew back, her stomach knotted tight. Her skin started humming.

“Whatwas that.” she said flatly.

Helena shook her head dazedly.

“я не знаю,” she whispered, “Sarah...душевний біль.” *

She blinked and sat up, cocking her head like she was listening to something. The air was pulsing. She could hear a cacophony of voices, and she couldn’t stop it this time. Words leapt out at her. Suchong. Separate. Sarah. If she found out.

Rachel watched with a sinking feeling as Helena lifted her head and stared at her, through her, with those golden eyes, unblinking.

“If I ever found out...what? Rachel?”

Rachel desperately tried to clear her mind, but all she could think about now was Sarah, and Suchong's voice saying twins can be difficult to separate and her own replying Sarah mustn’t know about this conversation. The words repeated over and over in her head, like a recording. If Helena knew what Rachel had done, she would kill her. She had killed Suchong, because he had taken her away from her sister. What would she do if she found out that Rachel had agreed to help him?

“I told you to stay out of my head.” Rachel hissed, her fingers clawed, but not aimed towards the other girl. She had seen how Helena fought the splicers - how fast she was, how strong, how agile. She could snap my neck before I even raise my hand. It galled her to think that Helena was better than her in any way. She was an accident, a freak of nature and science. Rachel had been born into this, molded and polished by the very best minds Rapture had to offer. She would not be afraid.

Helena was between her and the way out. Rachel’s powers weren't much use against her, even as a distraction, so she lashed out in another way.

“Sarah is never coming back, you know.” Rachel spat the words out. “She and your precious maty. They left you behind and they’re not coming back.”

Helena’s face retained its slightly puzzled air, but her lips began to tremble and her eyelashes flutter as Rachel went on.

“They’re up in the sunshine, all of your so-called sestras and we’re trapped down here.” Her voice was low and venomous now. “It’s been two years. No one is coming back for you because no one cares.”

Helena wrapped her arms around herself as the smaller mirrors around the cosmetic counter started to split and shatter. It wasn’t true! All she wanted was to wrap her arms around her sister and tell her how much she missed her. Sarah would always come for her! She squeezed her eyes shut and felt Sarah’s hands in hers again, holding so tight that it felt like the bones would break. She heard Sarah’s voice, an endless stream of reassurance and promises in her head after they had been separated. She promised!

Crack-crack-crack

The well of loneliness and misery she had fallen into when Sarah had disappeared yawned open again and she felt the pain welling up until it threatened to split her open and she threw her head back and screamed

Rachel staggered backwards, hands to her ears, her mouth a perfect circle of red, tiny sparks spitting off her skin.

The remaining mirrors shattered, pieces falling onto the floor in a glittering mess. The entire store seemed to vibrate as the scream lingered in the air.

Helena slumped forwards, gasping. Something had...happened. She couldn’t even articulate it to herself - like a heavy mass of emotion had been released via every pore and shoved reality aside. She stood up, blinking, and looked at her hands. They looked the same...but she felt different somehow. And now she could hear the voices perfectly. She looked at Rachel.

Rachel was kneeling, hands still clasped to her head, blood trickling out of one nostril. She blinked rapidly and worked her jaw back and forth, like someone trying to ‘pop’ their eardrums. Seeing that Helena had stopped - whatever it was - she chanced a look up at the other girl just in time to see her vanish in a flash of purple light.

And reappear a fraction of a second later at the other end of the store.

Then she disappeared again, the purple light hurting Rachel’s eyes. This time she heard the sound of the air displacing directly in front of her, and she stared upwards, mouth slightly open, into those glowing golden eyes. She felt a stab of fear, and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for Helena to pass judgement and strike.

But she didn’t.

The faintest of breezes touched her face. When Rachel opened her eyes, Helena was gone. After waiting a moment, she staggered to her feet. Balancing herself against a shelf, she slid her feet into the closest pair of heels, and stepped forwards, shoes grinding the broken mirror shards into the carpet. The sound was very loud in the silence. She found a pile of delicate lace handkerchiefs and wiped the blood from her face.

Rachel had heard of the telekinesis plasmid, of course, but she hadn’t seen Helena actually do any splicing. Was she somehow developing her powers  on her own, unintentionally? All the pain and interminable lectures and training that Rachel had had to go through, and Helena just - she snapped her fingers and watched the flame dance on her fingertips.

It wasn’t fair.

                                                                                                                  ⇌   ⇌   ⇌

Helena appeared, purple light like a halo around her. She was somewhere near to Olympus Heights, she discovered, squinting at the street signs. She felt dizzy and sick to her stomach. There should be a - yes. There was a vent opening just down the street, and she made her way there, keeping one hand against the wall so she didn’t fall over. Once up in the tunnels again, she rested for a moment, trembling slightly. She knew that Rachel had attacked her with words because she couldn’t do it with weapons. She knew that Rachel was afraid of her, deep down. But Helena’s deepest fear, that she kept buried down so deep sometimes even she forgot, was that her family had forgotten her and were leaving her down here to rot. She had tried to be nice to Rachel, for Sarah’s sake, but not even her sister could blame her for running away now. Now that she knew what Rachel had done. She had known and didn’t warn them. She had wanted Sarah for herself. But still - Helena couldn’t kill her. She just couldn’t.  

Trying to shut the girl’s hurtful words out of her mind, she started to crawl forward. Once she got to the safe-room, she could rest. No one would find her there.

She could rest, and then figure out how to get to Sarah. She would not rot.