The Storybook Dimension

Summary: Many years in the future, Warren Peace finds himself at the mercy of an old friend. Warren X Will slash.
Author: Seren Maris
Genre: Angst/Tragedy
Rating: T

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Chapter 2: Me, Myself and I

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Gwen Grayson

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My name is Gwen Grayson.

No, no. That’s not how it goes. Let me start over.

My name is Royal Pain, but nobody calls me that anymore. In fact, no one has called me that since Lash came to the dungeons. He didn’t last long, but it was long enough for me to remember who I was, and who I was supposed to be serving.

I liked being called by my name. For a while there, I’d almost forgotten it. In this place, I’m just Gwen or Grayson or simply ‘you’.

You take out the trash. No, not you. We. We’re going to take out the trash.

I laugh, and it sounds thin and high. I’m beginning to think that I’ve become as insane as that hideous gremlin who raised me. Living two lives can do that to you; I have no idea how Baron Battle can stand it, the whole dying and living and dying again. Even though, I suppose, I only lived once and never truly died.

We. We never truly died.

We’re taking out the trash now. This trash is heavy and smells like burnt flesh. We have to drag it to the trash chute. Maybe this time Devastator burnt enough off the corpse that it’ll fit down the chute, and I won’t have to go dispose of it myself.

Or, rather, Gwen won’t have to dispose of it. Royal Pain doesn’t do chores. I didn’t do them in prison and I won’t do them here. Gwen can live in filth and disease. Gwen can be humbled and humiliated by the Stronghold brat. Royal Pain will wait and think, plot and scheme, until she has her revenge.

And then we will both be free.

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Warren Peace

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The floor tiles have tiny lines between them, a subtle pattern which I only just noticed. I raise my eyes to the top of the cage. While the bottom bars of the cage are bolted to the floor, the joints on the top look like they are welded to each other. It’s an obvious weak point in the design.

Will is wrong if he thinks I’m going to die in this cage, like some sort of neglected pet.

I rub at my neck, twisting my fingers to reach under the collar. I’m sweating, and my neck itches every time the collar shifts and chafes. Before today, I had never realized how humiliating wearing a collar is; if I live long enough to buy a dog, I’ll find some other way to tag it.

My powers aren’t working. Maybe it’s the collar, maybe it’s the room itself. I’m betting on the former – it wouldn’t make any sense for Devastator to install a suppressor which would also affect his own abilities.

I hate him. No, I really do. I’m not just saying it this time.

The lights are beginning to dim. They are probably tied to a day/night cycle, which means that I’ve been here for hours. I wonder if Will sleeps. For all I know, he could have invented a device which allows him to stay awake all the time and terrorize the city twenty-four hours a day.

Actually, he’s probably just leaving me here out of spite. Trying to make me feel unimportant, forgotten.

Nice try, Will. It’s not going to work on me.

I’m not like you. I don’t need other people to make me feel needed. What I do is important – I know this implicitly, without being told. I don’t need others to guide me, to help me tell right from wrong.

I guess you did.

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Layla Williams

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If I had lived to see this day, I would have been twenty-seven years.

That’s pretty old.

Maybe, by twenty-seven, I would have been married. Maybe I would have had kids and a house with a beautiful garden. Maybe my kids would have had powers, too. Maybe they would be able to fly, or control the rain. Or maybe they would have been sidekicks and would only have the power to grow different colors of flowers. I would have loved them anyhow.

I used to imagine my wedding. All our friends would be there. Magenta, Zach and Ethan would stand on the left. Warren would stand by himself, on the right. I might have been a real super-heroine. I could have protected the animals and the environment. Mom would have liked that.

Maybe I would have saved the world. Maybe things would have been different.

Maybe none of this would ever have happened if I, Layla Williams, had lived to be twenty-seven years old.

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To Be Continued

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