#the world wants the bright colors and the flash-bang headlines

[novelconcepts]

There’s a line from American Gods I keep coming back to in relation to Yellowjackets, an observation made early on by Shadow in prison: “The kind of behavior that works in a specialized environment, such as prison, can fail to work and in fact become harmful when used outside such an environment.” I keep rotating it in my head in thinking about the six survivors, the roles they occupy in the wilderness, and the way the show depicts them as adults in society.

Because in the wilderness, as in prison, they’re trapped—they’re suffering, they’re traumatized, they’re terrified—but they’re also able to construct very specific boxes to live in. And, in a way, that might make it easier. Cut away the fat, narrow the story down to its base arc. You are no longer the complex young woman who weighs a moral compass before acting. You no longer have the luxury of asking questions. You are a survivor. You have only to get to the next day.

Shauna: the scribe. Lottie: the prophet. Van: the acolyte. Taissa: the skeptic. Misty: the knight. Natalie: the queen. Neat, orderly, the bricks of a new kind of society. And it works in the woods; we know this because these six survive. (Add Travis: the hunter, while you’re at it, because he does make it to adulthood).

But then they’re rescued. And it’s not just lost purpose and PTSD they’re dealing with now, but a loss of that intrinsic identity each built in the woods. How do you go home again? How do you rejoin a so-called civilized world, where all the violence is restricted to a soccer field, to an argument, to your own nightmares?

How does the scribe, the one who wrote it all out in black and white to make sense of the horrors, cope with a world that would actively reject her story? She locks that story away. But she can’t stop turning it over in her head. She can’t forget the details. They’re waiting around every corner. In the husband beside her in bed. In the child she can’t connect with across the table. In the best friend whose parents draw her in, make her the object of their grief, the friend who lives on in every corner of their hometown. She can’t forget, so she tries so hard to write a different kind of story instead, to fool everyone into seeing the soft maternal mask and not the butcher beneath, and she winds up with blood on her hands just the same.

How does the prophet come back from the religion a desperate group made of her, a group that took her tortured visions, her slipping mental health, and built a hungry need around the very things whittling her down? She builds over the bones. She creates a place out of all that well-intended damage, and she tells herself she’s helping, she’s saving them, she has to save them, because the world is greedy and needs a leader, needs a martyr, needs someone to stand up tall and reassure everyone at the end of the day that they know what’s best. The world, any world, needs someone who will take those blows so the innocent don’t have to. She’s haunted by everyone she didn’t save, by the godhood assigned to her out of misplaced damage, and when the darkness comes knocking again, there is nothing else to do but repeat old rhymes until there is blood on her hands just the same.

How does the acolyte return to a world that cares nothing for the faith of the desperate, the faith that did nothing to save most of her friends, that indeed pushed her to destroy? She runs from it. She dives into things that are safe to believe in, things that rescue lonely girls from rough home lives, things that show a young queer kid there’s still sunshine out there somewhere. She delves into fiction, makes a home inside old stories to which she already knows the endings, coaxes herself away from the belief that damned her and into a cinemascope safety net where the real stuff never has to get in. She teaches herself surface-level interests, she avoids anything she might believe in too deeply, and still she’s dragged back to the place where blood winds up on her hands just the same.

How does the skeptic make peace with the things she knows happened, the things that she did even without meaning to, without realizing? She buries them. She leans hard into a refusal to believe those skeletons could ever crawl back out of the graves she stuffed them into, because belief is in some ways the opposite of control. She doesn’t talk to her wife. She doesn’t talk to anyone. It’s not about what’s underneath the surface, because that’s just a mess, so instead she actively discounts the girl she became in the woods. She makes something new, something rational and orderly, someone who can’t fail. She polishes the picture to a shine, and she stands up straight, the model achievement. She goes about her original plan like it was always going to be that way, and she winds up with blood on her hands just the same.

How does the knight exist in a world with no one to serve, no one to protect, no reason propelling the devastating choices she had grown comfortable making? She rechannels it. She convinces herself she’s the smartest person in the room, the most capable, the most observant. She convinces herself other people’s mysteries are hers to solve, that she is helping in every single action she takes. She makes a career out of assisting the most fragile, the most helpless souls she can find, and she makes a hobby out of patrolling for crimes to solve, and when a chance comes to strap her armor back on and ride into battle, she rejoices in the return to normalcy. She craves that station as someone needed, someone to rely upon in the darkest of hours, and she winds up with blood on her hands because, in a way, she never left the wilderness at all.

How does the queen keep going without a queendom, without a pack, without people to lead past the horrors of tomorrow? She doesn’t. She simply does not know how. She scrounges for something, anything, that will make her feel connected to the world the way that team did. She moves in and out of a world that rejects trauma, punishes the traumatized, heckles the grieving as a spectacle. She finds comfort in the cohesive ritual of rehabilitation, this place where she gets so close to finding herself again, only to stumble when she opens her eyes and sees she’s alone. All those months feeding and guiding and gripping fast to the fight of making it to another day, and she no longer knows how to rest. How to let go without falling. She no longer wears a crown, and she never wanted it in the first place, so how on earth does she survive a world that doesn’t understand the guilt and shame of being made the centerpiece of a specialized environment you can never explain to anyone else? How, how, how do you survive without winding up with blood on your hands just the same?

All six of these girls found, for better or worse, a place in the woods. All six of them found, for better or worse, a reason to get up the next day. For each other. And then they go home, and even if they all stayed close, stayed friends, it’d still be like stepping out of chains for the first time in years. Where do you go? How do you make small choices when every decision for months was life or death? How do you keep the part of yourself stitched so innately into your survival in a world that would scream to see it? How do you do away with the survivor and still keep going?

They brought it back with them. Of course they did. It was the only way.

#yellowjackets #yellowjackets spoilers #yj meta #long post #shauna shipman #lottie matthews #taissa turner #van palmer #misty quigley #natalie scatorccio #the question not being how do you survive the wilderness. the question being how do you come BACK. #the way each of them tries so hard to keep moving forward #unable to untangle the girl in the woods from the adult suffering in polite society #how the world doesn’t want to hear about the pain or the night terrors or the sleepwalking or the addiction #the world wants the bright colors and the flash-bang headlines #the world doesn’t want who they are. who they had to be. it wants pretty perfect tragedy #that specialized environment lives on in each one of them every day #but it’s not a place anyone else can ever go #how do you feed that for so long and then just…stop? #constantly thinking about nat saying we didn’t make it out. none of us. #because no. no they didn’t. the girls died the minute that rescue chance did. what came back was risen from those ashes

[amarauder]

0.10 madame pamplemousse and her incredible edibles

sincerely, the blue and silver gryffindor

a princess of magic novel

draco malfoy x reader

When the news went out that the restaurant was opening again, the phone never stopped ringing. By now, only the wealthiest citizens of Paris were able to afford a table, but even so, the tables were by invitation only. The head of FOOD Corporation had ordered his private jet to spin around in mid-flight when he got the news. The President of France had a special body double take over the engagements so that he might attend.

But eight o'clock that morning, all of Lard's cooking staff had been despatched to buy the necessary ingredients. Lard was amazed by the recipe's simplicity.

"You mean that's it? There's nothing else to it?"

"Just what's on the list, Uncle," said Y/N.

"But surely some extra butter, a drizzle of double cream?"

"Just what's on the list," she repeated.

"Well, I never!" said Lard. "And there it was all this time, right under my very nose!" And he went off muttering to himself, occasionally lashing out to punch a wall or smash a piece of furniture.

By midday all of the ingredients had been bought, chopped, filleted, sliced, crushed, and blended as dictated, to the letter, in the recipe. Smiling practice began soon after and work had to stop for a good two hours. Seeing her chance, Y/N slipped away.

As quickly as she could, she took a saucepan and began to prepare the stock, just as she had done the night before in Madame Pamplemousse's kitchen. But the freedom she had felt there now abandoned her and in its place came a little, creeping fear. A fear that her recipe was no good-that it would backfire horribly and her uncle would be triumphant after all. But then the first delicate threads of steam rose up from the cooking pot to curl about her nostrils, and in that instant she forgot her fear. A new, coolly detached part of herself took hold, no longer rushing, but allowing the recipe to take shape at its own pace and natural rhythm.

Then, when it was done, she removed the saucepan from the heat and let it cook in a special hiding place in one of the store cupboards. This she managed just in time before a great stampede of chefs, forced to stop work during smiling practice, came charging through the kitchen doors.

By seven o'clock huge crowds had formed outside the restaurant and were screaming and shouting to be let in. Lard had the full assistance of the military and the police, and great steel barriers had been set up around the restaurant, patrolled by armed guards. Television crews were filming all the commotion and the crowd became hysterical when a helicopter appeared overhead, hovered above the restaurant, and a rope ladder dropped down. A bald, faceless man in a grey suit, who was the President of France, climbed out of the helicopter, closely followed by a small, withered-looking man, who was the head of the FOOD Corporation.

It was more than Monsieur Lard could ever have dreamed of and he stepped out to meet the crowd, resplendent in his new pink and diamond-spangled suit.

"Ladies and gentlement," he said in a voice like warm margarine. Then he paused to grin at everyone. "It is my immense honor to welcome you tonight to the Grand Re-Opening of the Squealing Pig. So far the world has only had a taste, a first taste of what is, by all accounts, the most delectable, the most delicious, the most extraordinary, the most incredible tasting edible in all the world!"

There were huge cheers and applause.

"Who wants some more?"

There were shouts of "Me! I do! Me! Me!"

Lard raised his hands to silence them. "Well, I've news for you, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight you shall have as much as you can eat!"

And the crowd went wild.

In the kitchens the cooks were rushing about frantically. They had made vast quantities of the recipe and were spooning it at the double on to plates which had been polished up to a sparkle by Y/N. The waiters were waiting anxiously, shouting for the cooks to hurry up.

A fight nearly broke out between one of the waiters and the Head Chef. It was the whippet-thin waiter who also acted as Lard's spy.

"If he shots one more time," whispered the Head Chef, "I'll chuck him in the deep-fat fryer!"

"Don't bother," Y/N whispered back. "Listen, I've got a plan." And she told him about the secret recipe she had prepared and how they were to serve it for the second course.

Next door, Paris's richest and most powerful were banging their cultery on the tables, and when they saw the waiters marching out of the kitchen they began to whoop like monkeys. They pounced on the food, saliva dribbling from their chins, and for a while there was no sound but for the busy scraping of metal on china plates.

Monsieur Lard first knew there was something wrong when he saw that people had stopped eating-not the way they had done when they first tasted the delicacy from Madame Pamplemousse's shop. Then they had stopped eating out of awe and wonder. This time they were frowning.

Lard's beady little eyes darted about the tables and he saw the President of France chewing slowly with a terrible furrowed brow and a man at another table with a napkin over his mouth. A woman was puckering her lips as if she was about to be sick, and then he saw the President stop chewing and suddenly he spit violently on to the table. All at one, everyone was coughing, spitting, spluttering, as if they had been poisoned.

Lard leapt up, waving his arms around. "Wait!" he cried. "Stop! There must be some mistake. Everyone stop spitting this instant!"

And so they did, not because he told them to but because just then the restaurant doors flew open and out came a solemn procession of cooks, all dressed in their aprons and white hats. And at the front there was the Head Chef, bearing in his hand a tiny plate. This he delivered to the President. "Monsieur," he said, "please accept this from the kitchen, with our apologies."

The President grunted and, as the crowd watched, he lifted ip a tiny spoonful of the food to his mouth. Then he ate another spoonful, and then another. The cooks delivered plates to other tables and soon everyone was doing the same, for Y/N's recipe had the most incredible effect. It was so deliciously light, so fresh and zingy that people quite forgot their sickness and were soon calling out for more.

On seeing this extraordinary turn of events, Lard got out from under the tablecloth where he had been hiding and dusted himself down. He had no idea what was going on but assumed the cooks had made a mistake with the first batch of the recipe. He was going to flambé whoever was responsible but, meanwhile, he improvised.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he grinned broadly, "as you have probably guessed, that first course you received was really a test! A test to see whether you are truly the finest gourmets in Paris!"

A small murmur of approval went round the tables. "And you have passed that test! Admirably! You are not only the finest gourmets but also Paris's best and most beautiful people!"

There was an even bigger murmur of approval. But while he was speaking, a black limousine had slid silently up to the pavement in front of the restaurant. A chauffeur got out to open the passenger door and out stepped the black-suited figure of Monsieur Langoustine. All eyes were on him as he walked up to Monsieur Lard.

"Well, well, nice of you to drop by, Monsieur Langoustine," said Lard coolly. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"The pleasure is all mine, Monsieur," said Langoustine. "For tonight I am here to celebrate Paris's new gastronomic star." From out of his long black coat he produced a large bouquet of flowers. "May I present my compliments to the chef?"

"Really, Monsieur Langoustine," said Lard, softening like rancid butter, "you shouldn't have. Though, of course, I accept. For it is an honor and a privilege to be at last recognised as the greatest chef the world has ever-"

Monsieur Langoustine loudly cleared his throat. This was a disturbingly high-pitched, barely human kind of sound, which had the effect of immediately silencing Monsieur Lard. "Perhaps you didn't hear me correctly, Monsieur," said Langoustine icily, "I said I was here to pay my compliments to the chef." He had raised voice so that all might hear it, although this was unnecessary, since everyone was listening intently. And then he pointed his black-gloved hand in Y/N's direction. She had been standing in a huddle with the other chefs but, receiving his summons, she stepped out from among them and Monsieur Langoustine presented her with flowers.

Attatched to them was a note, written in exquisite purple script, which read:

To Y/N, from he friend and colleague, Madame Pamplemousse

Next to her name there was what appeared to be a smudge of ink, but when Y/N looked closer she saw it was the tiny imprint of a paw.

"Congratulations, Mademoiselle," said Langoustine in his soft, piping voice. "People like us should stick together," And then he raised her hand to his thin red lips.

A camera flash went off. A photographer had caught the moment and the next day the picture would appear on the cover of every national newspaper: Y/N in her chef's whites, holding a bunch of brilliantly colored flowers, beside a rather sinister-looking man in dark glasses. Above it the headlines would read:

LANGOUSTINE CONGRATULATES NEW GASTRONOMIC STAR

☛☚

RESTAURANT OWNER STEALS RECIPE FROM HIS OWN NIECE

☛☚

MONSIEUR LARD: THIEF!

And in the later editions:

THE MOST INCREDIBLE EDIBLE EVER

TASTED: WAS IT REALLY ALL

A HOAX?

The photographer had also managed to get Monsieur Lard in the picture, his face bright pink, dripping with sweat. As far as situations in which to be unmasked as a thief go, this was arguably the worst. He had personally seen to it that every exit was either fenced off or patrolled by men with guns. His every facial gesture was being broadcast on national television and he was surrounded by a large angry mob who might easily tear him pieces.

But what they actually did was applaud. No one jeered, no one heckled or booed or hissed. They stood up and clapped as if the whole thing had been a theatrical event, an entrainment and nothing more.

Then someone called out Y/N's name and a small tussle broke out among the press, trying to get the first interview. Paris's top children's clothing designer was there, trying to get her to model a new kind of pink fairy outfit with elasticated wings. But no one could find her.

During all the commotion, while everyone's attention had been diverted by the flashing lights of the cameras, Monsieur Langoustine and Y/N had discreetly made their way through the crowd. And when they reached the limousine, the chauffeur got out to open the door and together they slipped inside. And if anyone had been looking they might have been surprised to see the driver of the car was not even human, but a cat: a long white cat walking on its hind legs and wearing a peaked cap. But no one did notice and before they would have had the chance, the car had already started and was moving silently away.

master masterlist

sincerely, the blue and silver gryffindor

#sincerely the blue and silver gryffindor #draco malfoy x reader #the princess of magic #a princess of magic book

[rebornghostgirl]

RIP!

Rip for Ares!Ares slumped in his chair at school. The young boy was still alive. He was only fifteen years old and he hasn't seen his twin sister since birth. They're parents gave them up for adoption a long time ago. He has been 'blessed' with a photographic memory to remember his mother's distraught face and his father's disgusted expression when he was born. He didn't understand the words they said as a baby, but as he gotten old enough to understand the english language, their words haunted him since the day he finally decoded what they said."Metis! I don't want to see these illegitimate children ever again!" Ares mother held her babies close. "Professor Zeus! They are OUR kids! We can't just let them rot in some adoption home! Look we can pair up and-""Silence!" Zeus boomed. "I already signed the papers for you and me..."Metis started to sniffle. "That's illegal, you monster!"Zeus ripped Athena out of her hands. "If the university found out that I had a family with a CURRENT student, I would be through! This kids have to go! I was generous enough to let you give birth to them! I could've, no, should've made you had an abortion."Athena started to cry and squirm. Zeus looked down on her face. "Look, I want to keep our little Athena and Ares as much as you do, but this is a scandalous stunt. Besides..." he said as Baby Ares started to close his eyes ending the memory. "We can't even assume these maggots are even intellectual beings at all..."Ares woke up from his daydream to focus his eyes on the board in his science classroom. He was already taking AP chemistry in the 8th grade. He rubbed his eyes. A black eye was very apparent on his face. The bell rang and he started to leave when his teacher called for him. "Mr. Schrödinger, stay after for a moment." A tall man with red glasses and white hair cut short, stood in front of the white board. "Yes Mr. Rowan?" Ares muttered. Mr. Rowan pointed to Ares black eye. "Care to explain how you got that?"Ares shuffled. "It's... from a failed experiment..." he lied. Mr. Rowan who looked very young for a teacher shook his head. "Care to explain what were you doing?"Ares' eyes looked down to the floor. "Forgot to put on goggles?" Mr. Rowan folded his arms. "Someone is bullying you... either at home or school. I bet it's both isn't it?"Ares nodded his head. "Yeah...""This is my job Ares... tell me everything what happened." Mr. Rowan said calmly.Ares looked into the light purple eyes of his teacher. "I was studying... I used my chemistry kit to repeat the experiment we did last week because I wanted to see how many colors i can make." Mr. Rowan smiled and nodded. "Continue..."Ares sat down in a desk. "Some boys started laughing at me. And then John came over saw the Bunsen burner. He then came over and punched me.""Who's John?" Mr. Rowan frowned. Ares gripped his arms. "The den father at the boys' adoption home."Mr. Rowan gave a small gasp. "That is unacceptable!""It's fine really. I'm fifteen, I'm practically already in high school, I can graduate early, and he already calls me nerd and other names. I hear the word Bastard everyday. And he's right." Ares folded his arms and huffed."He is not right!" Mr. Rowan said pulling out a form. "This is not how a care giver should act. You are not a bastard, you hear me?""I technically am! My parents weren't married so they put me and my twin sister in the adoption system. She was lucky enough to be adopted by the freakin' governor and she has everything! I have a photographic memory! I remember my parents giving me away! I just... I just..." Ares slammed down his fists on the desk. "I FEEL SO HATED!"Mr. Rowan filled out the form for the department of social services. "I understand how you feel. I understand why you feel abandoned by your parents, I understand why you feel jealous of your sister, but know this. Just because you were born of out wedlock doesn't make you a monster. You're still a human being and don't blame your sister for leaving you. She may not have a photographic memory like you. Twins are still very different people. Believe me..."Mr. Rowan placed a hand on Ares shoulder. "You are the smartest, most special student I ever seen. Those bullies are just jealous you can learn so much. They are afraid of you... because some day Ares, they will work for you."Ares looked up at his teacher. "You think so?""If you keep working hard and do excellent in school, yes!" Mr. Rowan beamed.Ares started to smile. "Thanks..."Mr. Rowan grabbed his car keys. "Let me take you home. Know that you're not hated. You have me... all right?"Ares smiled and went along. "All right."On the way home Ares decided to ask a question."Just out of curiosity... what would happen if yoy combine all the elements of the periodic table?" Mr. Rowan thought for a bit. "You would get a result all right but it won't be pretty. You won't even get the same result everytime! There are 118 elements and you can get more than 118 results... don't forget the noble gasses too. Lots of dangerous fumes, stuff could explode in your face. Remember in class how I said that elements have an unpredictable reactive nature. Well the end result of that experiment would get you some primordial plasma or flaming plutonium.""Sounds cool but I assume that the gasses can cause a rapid death, huh?" Ares muttered. Mr. Rowan nodded. "All hell will break loose... some of the elements won't even react to each other." Ares thought for a bit. "What if... I could use different isotopes for the elements? Like you know how there's carbon-14, 15, and other types..."Rowan started to approach the boys' home. "Hold on that thought sport. That's a little dangerous. It could work but make something totally dangerous.""There's an equation for this! I just know it!" Ares. "You're a curious kid... Maybe you'll be adopted soon." Mr. Rowan chuckled. Ares started to smile. "Most people are salty and go 'Na'. Ha!" "Good one kid..."Ares walked into his room and started working on that equation. "Come on thermodynamics! Work with me! I need another genius with me..."Ares bit his lip and turned on his computer.After a long wait. Athena agreed to talk to him on Skype. "Sir, you called for my help?" She asked. She had no idea she had a twin brother."Yes, I did?" Ares began. "I'm creating a super element! One that will be the next new element! And that will be made by combining all of the periodic table elements into one!"Athena frowned. "That's a great idea... but it's stupid and impossible.""Athena please listen. I know you and you know me somewhere along the line...""I have no recollection of you or anything that you have done." She said. Her tone was cold and emotionless. Ares can see tears in her eyes. "Look I just lost someone very close to me and I don't really feel like answering the questions of some amateur, so he can finally finish his science fair project that he just decided he wanted to do the day before.""Athena I can assure you... I am no amateur. And this equation just came to me. If you can just look at this electron configuration and the chemistry equation, you will see how serious I am."Athena took a looks after 2 minutes. She began to scoff. "You're going to do what? Thanks for wasting my time, amateur! Come back and talk to me when you review your chemistry books again!"Ares frowned. "I am just as smart as you!" Athena wiped her tears with her lab coat. "What makes you think you can catch up to me?!""I am your brother! I remember our real parents!" Ares yelled. Athena stared for a moment and growls. "Amateur... don't contact me again!"Ares slammed down his palms on the desk. "I will destroy you Scott! You will rue the day you mocked me!" Athena immediately ended the call. Ares started slamming his books around. Some of his roommates entered the room. He kicked them all out and pulled out his chemistry kit. 118 elements... more than 118 results. Ares started to do the final calculations of his chemistry equation. It was perfect! This will show Athena and everyone who bullied him! He can just see the headlines now. "Kid discovered new element in his own room!" Will he get a nobel peace prize? Well he'll just have to find out!He written a log near him.New element experiment. 119- Aresium! I calculated and balanced the equation of all the elements. Took a long time but it should work... hopefully. This will show her! This will show them all!Ares began adding all the elements into a single erlenmyer flask. Soon the door started banging. "Ares let us in you jerk!"Ares ignored their pleas and continued working. John stomped through and banged the door. "Hey Nerd! Let them in or I'll bust your face!" Ares placed a chair in front of the door. After a long time of mixing and brewing Ares managed to put 117 elements in. He was just on the last one when John banged on the door louder than before. "OPEN THE DOOR! AND PACK YOUR BAGS KID! YOU'RE IN FOR A SURPRISE!" Ares stood up with the last element. "Shut up you fat pig! I, Ares Schrödinger, will create the world's next element! I will no longer be your punching bag! You will all work for me!" He started to laugh maniacally. He laughed so hard he didn't notice the flask beginning to make a high pitched whistle or glow blindingly bright. He turned and burned his eyes from the light. He was so crazy he didn't mind it at all. The fumes filled the room causing him to cough blood but he ignored it as he placed the last element in. A rap on the door cause him to wake up. "Ares? What are you-" Ares heard the voice of Mr. Rowan before a large 'BOOM' caused his eardrums and everything to go dark. After an hour Ares woke up in his room. He was on the middle of the floor surrounded by smoke and the remains of his failed experiment. "Damn! Did it work?" He looked around for anything solid or liquid. Nothing... just a broken flash and a bad smelling room. Something seems different about him too. He was glowing. "The experiment gave me powers?" He stepped down the stairs of the house to see scared boys huddled up together. "Hey guys!" He called out but no one heard him. Ares stepped outside to see John speaking to police officers. "I heard a noise. I kicked down the door. Kid was lying there... you saw the room, the thing this kid was doing was the culprit. We couldn't get him to stop."Ares shook his head. "But Im here!"He turned to Mr. Rowan. He was standing near a paramedic clutching some papers. He seemed to be crying. "Mr. Rowan? What are you doing here?" He paused and looked down. A body that was burnt to a black crisp, oozing plasma, and covered in specks of flaming plutonium lied there motionless. "No..." Ares whimpered. "No! I'm here! I'm still alive!"Rowan tucked in the papers with the body. Ares started to read the corners. "Certificate of Adoption. This document hereby states that Ares Schrödinger. Is the offical son of Rowan Gearsman on this day..."Mr. Rowan broke down and banged his fist on the table."Why?! Why?!...."Ares gulped and started to silently cry. He rubbed his fingers through his now ghostly silver hair. He gazed at his own body and noticed that he didn't button up his lab coat, he didn't wore goggles, nor wore any gloves, or other protective gear. He was killed by an experiment that could've been prevented if he didn't let his pride get in the way or just wore safety gear. As John brought the boys away to live in a new facility he began to take the papers away from his corpse, he couldn't bear to look at it any longer. It looked like an amateur...