There is No Death, Except for That Which Never Comes Back

The most somber note of Vortex's crime against him was reduced to simply a foot note in the news story and even the files for the Star Shrine heroic federation.

Alex would never get all his memories back. Of the patchwork Frederick Weiss had made of his head, pieces were missing leaving hollows where wind passed coldly and hanging seams.

His Mother-- who was either a disengaged and cold caregiver or his singular parent who worked to provide the relative safety of wealth and in equal measures loved Alex for the mess he could be-- had been decidedly angry of the whole ordeal, and in her anger had exiled him from her (their) house.

He didn't remember where or what his favorite place for Asian food was.

That boy Caine-- that boy who was his singular friend who knew about his bully hunting-- had had to tell him.

Alex hadn't even known he hated his school principal, of which Santori had tried to take advantage of so shamelessly that it made Alex angry and therefore get another suspension.

Not that he'd be in that school long enough for it to matter.

Alex admittedly felt somewhat guilty.

Even if the vast view of glimmering city lights like a coffer of jewels spread out before him in a somehow starry night sky.

He wasn't allowed on the roof.

He especially wasn't allowed out on the roof by himself.

The juggernaut of Althea in the Northern states was mostly green powered, no smog to blot the sky like black ink forced to canvas, but the swathes reserved for biofuel and wind operated twenty-four hours a day which included watch lights and the blare of processing machines or inspection trucks.

And of course, the light pollution of backup batteries powering the high rise and glitzy skyscrapers of the rich and elite.

In fall weather a chill in Althea felt like the icy caress of a drowned man's hand.

Alex was allowed out by himself for a singular reason.

He'd managed to prove to a psychiatrist that he wasn't either a flight risk to the heroes in the dorm complex or-- more importantly, everyone would say-- a risk to himself.

Alex's favorite was the news. Every so often a member of the rich and elite was caught-- getting arrested when they embezzled funds, if they misused and abused their workers or their wives or their husbands, kids, family. They were abusive and it was disgusting. And it would be on the TV like nothing.

Drug lords and hitmen were processed from the continent. They were tried in court, and more often than not left the building either fully restrained for attempted violence or simply handcuffed. Disgraced. Depowered. Accountable.

Alex never quite wrapped his head around that part.

His arms were in goosebumps from leaning them on the glass balcony, deciding to place his head in them, hiding away from the light, the glamour, and even the stars.

It was funny, how easy it seemed that the stars could wink out of existence. That he focused on the sleek, but dark coats of the cars below the street and the rush of vertigo associated with the chiding warning-- to not fall.

Alex may have been content to just sleep on the roof that night.

He didn't feel like going inside.

He'd been given an isolated, out of the way corridor where a room had been repurposed and a wall knocked down--

Alex flinched, remembering how snide Torbin had sounded when speaking of the guardsman in a pranking mood who had almost covered Alex's designated room (his prison) in unicorn decals and a coat of pink polka dots for the walls.

Never seeing the man even once and all too quickly his existence had been erased from the house.

Whether Alex would never know if he'd died hadn't scared him-- much as when he realized, while scrambling to keep his own memories from flowing away like water-- that the man was as good as dead. Because he'd been forgotten.

And many of the Weiss Brothers' men had no life outside the manor.

A jolt stunned Alex out of his reverie.

And he closely watched the form of The Seer: Belinda Thurgood make her languid, almost hovering off the ground way toward him.

Alex had carved the way her eyes were too wide into his memory.

Similar to how he'd carved the stars and the lights and the smell of clean Althea air into his memory.