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“What’s pOPPIN LOGANG!?”
It is not the Logang.
The young twitch streamer, sun_shay, currently has six viewers.
Nonetheless, she seems very excited, animatedly talking to those that are watching, “So, we’re gonna be trying this new game today! It’s called [redacted] and it appeared in my Origin library so I guess we’re gonna try it and see what it does.”
Shay clicks on the game, only for it to send a small spark through the mouse.
“Ow!” she looks down at the mouse in confusion for a moment, before tentatively reaching out once again. As soon as her hand covers the mouse once again, her stream ends. Her fans are confused.
What happened to their favourite streamer?
Shay felt as though her whole body was being sucked through a straw. This was worse than all the rides at Disneyworld combined.
It was pushing her lungs, causing it to be hard to breathe. Her head was pounding. She had screwed her eyes shut as soon as the feeling had begun, but she could tell that lights were flashing around her.
She forced her eyes open.
In front of her were a group of children. Only, they weren’t in front of her. They were flickering in and out as if it were a hologram around her. There were five of them, four boys and a small girl with a yellow baseball cap.
They were all covered in dirt, laughing, the boy wearing a green dragon shirt was leaning against a baseball bat. They were in the middle of the barest baseball field she had ever seen.
Shay wanted to speak, but no sound escaped her mouth.
She watched as another young girl walked up to them. A pink mitt in her hand.
The holograms flickered away.
Shay walked forward a few steps, finding that she could suddenly breathe again. She was still covered in flashing lights.
Another hologram formed around her.
She watched as grass appeared beneath her feet. Trimmed. Orderly.
She looked up as wood flew into place around her, forming what looked like old stands, encircling her in a stadium of sorts. Then she saw as three posts sprung up on opposite ends of the pitch, each looking like huge bubble blowing wands, high in the sky.
Shay had to be hallucinating.
She was standing in a quidditch pitch.
Suddenly, the scene blurred around her, and she was looking at the entire pitch from a spot on the stands, there were two students wearing clothes that were
definitely
robes in front of her.
“What’s she doing here?” The girl asked, turning to the boy that seemed comically tall when sitting next to her. Shay noted that the girl looked familiar.
“Who?” The boy asks, also turning.
They’re the children from the baseball pitch.
“Her.” The girl pointed slightly across the quidditch pitch, a girl wearing Slytherin colours, “Kimberly Hart.”
Shay caught a flash of two other boys flying on broomsticks before the scene dissolved around her.
Kimberly Hart
.
Why did Shay recognise that name? She can’t have met her before.
The next scene was quicker to build around her. Perhaps because the room was much smaller, no longer a large stadium. There were a couple of moving boxes in the corner, but the room looked lived in. Either the occupant was planning on moving, or they had recently moved and were just lazy.
Shay turned around, trying to take the room in. She was stopped when she noticed she wasn’t alone.
Kimberly Hart seemed to be looking through her, frowning, sympathy in her eyes.
“You are not a monster.”
Shay turned, tentative.
She regretted it.
Standing before her was the short girl from the quidditch stadium. The one who had worn the yellow baseball cap when she saw them as children.
The girl was a ghost.
Shay heard Kim say something, slightly desperate but was too focused on the ghost girl to register the words. The ghost faded before her. The rest of the room was quick to follow.
The flashing colours didn’t return.
Shay felt herself falling.
She closed her eyes.
Her chest was once again being squeezed. Air escaping her lungs. She could feel herself falling, but couldn’t feel any air rushing around her.
She landed on a chair, gasping.
This was new. Nothing had felt solid earlier, but she could definitely feel the leather of the stool under her. The table in front of her.
Her eyes opened to the bright fluorescent lights of a store.
A very adult store.
She looked around, eyes wide.
The door opened, causing a small chime to go off. A tall Asian boy with messy jet black hair walked in, eyes gleaming with laughter. He grabbed a basket from the pile by the door and walked straight to the display near Shay, swiping almost every item they had in stock into his bag.
He was still grinning as he placed the basket of dildos in front of her, “I would like to make a purchase, please. Is there a discount if I buy this many?”
“I don’t-” Shay was still in shock that he could see her.
“Nah, it’s fine, wasn’t expecting one.” He was still grinning. Shay rung up his items, and the boy, who Shay remembered seeing riding a broomstick, hair as messy on the ground as it had been in the air, left the store with three bags filled with multicoloured dildos.
As soon as the door closes Shay feels herself falling once again.
The fall seems to be longer this time, though she can feel the slight wind around her.
She keeps her eyes open, watching as everything flies down, planting itself beside her.
The floor comes last, closing the coffee shop in.
“Shay!” She turned, seeing the ghost girl, now very human once again. She was wearing a dark brown button-down shirt, a logo of a coffee mug stamped on it, holding out a takeaway cup with the largest order Shay had ever seen on it.
“Well?” Trini, her name was Trini. Written on her name badge. Shay took the cup, looking at the name.
“Katherine?” No one stepped forward.
Shay tried the name a couple more times, seeing Trini smirking out of the corner of her eye. She started reading out the order.
A girl stepped forward, running a hand through her hair, cut into a choppy bob, a slight blush on her cheeks. Shay recognised the girl immediately, “Of course this is your order, Kimberly Hart.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” How could she explain what had happened to her?
“Have a nice day at college,
Katherine
.” She winked at the girl, handing her the order before moving away.
The world rushed around her. It was now much later in the day. A different day, if the date on the till was correct.
She was standing near a tray of donuts, Trini was looking up at her, fear in her face.
Shay looked down to see a pan of oil beginning to bubble over due to the number of donuts they had placed in it.
“Fuck.”
The world blurred again.
And again.
And again.
She was always in the coffee shop.
She handed Kim her coffee.
The name was always wrong.
Kim walked in with the boy with the messy hair. They settled their college work on a table before coming up to order. Shay handed them to Trini.
She came back a few moments later, “I’ll do Zack.” She winked at the boy, wondering if he would remember her. If this boy had ever actually met her before.
They picked out a couple of donuts before moving back to their table.
She and Trini finished their orders at the same time, though Shay had started later. Shay noticed the name written on the cup and gave a small laugh before taking the order to Zack and ‘Bob’.
Once she came back to the bar, the world around her dissolved.
Shay sighed, now used to the falling feeling.
She was in a home gym, the sounds of a party happening in the rest of the house were clear. Kim was standing in front of her, nervous.
“I- Alright, I’m sorry. About how I treated you. I know it’s been, like, a long time, but it wasn’t fair.” Blank spaces seemed to fill Shay’s mind. The life of another girl. Another Shay. “You had every right to break up with me, and you don’t have to forgive me, but I just wanted to get this off my chest.” Kim kept talking, getting everything out before she let out a deep breath. She had obviously been holding this in for a while.
“How long have you had it on your chest?” Shay raises her brows.
“Uh… five minutes.” Shay blinks as Kim stumbles through her next words, obviously anxious.
She takes mercy on her, “I forgive you.”
“Wait, what?”
“I forgive you. You’ve changed.” Kim asks her how she could tell, Shay wasn’t sure, but she was speaking before she realised, “The Kim I broke up with wouldn’t have apologised.” She shrugged and left the room.
She welcomed her world going dark. Was expecting it even.
But she didn’t fall. Not again.
She felt herself rising up.
The lights began to flash again.
She kept her eyes open. Watching as flashes of different scenes appeared around her.
Kim, Trini, Zack and two other boys on stage, playing a concert with the largest crowd she had ever seen.
Kim and Trini sitting on a table at school, Kim sketching out Mercy’s halo and wings as Trini reciprocated with a small Pharah.
Kim and Trini sitting in a dark office, Kim with fake blood all over her face, both of them scarfing down pizza.
Kim laughing as Trini takes a picture of a small girl with her hands on her hips, practically screaming the word “Cheese!” before they head out the door, hand in hand in hand, for the first day of school.
Shay lands on her chair.
Back home.
She looks at one of her monitors, barely any time has passed.
She sees a small movie advertisement on the screen,
Power Rangers, In Cinemas March 24th.
Their faces look familiar.