Roman

Roman's Scrapbin

Gil Galahad - Quantum Replication
Lucille Calder - Adaptive Hyper-survivability
Abelle D’Voire - Insectoid Physiology & Control
Chester Argylle - Textakinesis
Penelope Boyle - Autobiokinesis
Minavita Ripole - Rapid Biokinetic Transformation Inducement
Poe Navidson - The Labyrinth
Fritz Jackson - Sharpness/Edge Manipulation
Jennifer Vandermeyer - Grafting-based Biokinesis
Harlan Danielewski - Friction Control
Nia Vaughan - Animal Transformation
Warren Booker - Momentum Control/Kineticism
Valentine Valdez - ???
Felix Soto - Gas Conversion/Generation

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: Infirmary Wing - P.R.C.U. Campus}

Take On Me #3.006: Pinned like a note in a hospital gown.

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

The first few days were the hardest for Gil, unpicking Orcinus’ handiwork as he rediscovered his newly-fractured mind, lying in a lonely bed in the infirmary ward.

The first night, after delivery to medical staff, he stirred from oblivion into a dim room, his clothes changed, the ground beneath him no longer wet grass but dry and warm bedsheets. He had awoken on the other side of despair and such a sheer acceptance of death that the realisation he had survived was as equal parts disappointment as it was relief. He merely lay in the dark, each breath a freshly laboured agony, and willed himself to slip back beneath the vale of consciousness, whether through sleep or death, each feeling as merciful as the other.

---

The second day he had woken with a start, his spasmodic jump into wakefulness triggering new pain that only sharpened his mind. The sun was up and activity buzzed lowly beyond the door of his room; he swept his gaze around his fresh surroundings and realised he had been sepulchred in the university’s hospital ward, patched and gauzed and stitched and bandaged and set. He felt the cloying pressure of medical dressings all about his person, and found his lower leg and foot entombed within a cast of their own; a vague recollection of a sharp cracking stomp troubled him briefly before he pushed it out of mind.

Someone had delivered him breakfast, gracefully without stirring him; it was the mug that piqued his interest, finding his mouth sticky and sour with dehydration, despite the saline drip-tube that protruded from his arm. He reached for it, wrapping a careful hand around the ceramic body to gauge how much heat remained in the beverage within, and found it to be enough. Gingerly, steadily, he raised it to his lips and supped deeply; the liquid was earthy and sugary and quenching - greedily, he drained the mug, slaking himself and enjoying the grounding flavour. It was only out of the corner of his eye, the very limits of his periphery, that he noticed movement as he set the mug down, and as Gil turned to look, panic gripped him with ferocity and he reflexively launched the mug with self-sabotaging vigour, his injured body protesting at every inch against the sudden and aggressive movement.

The mug found its mark square and true, and shattered against the silvered glass of the mirror set upon the wall, which shattered in kind from the impact. Splinters criss-crossed across its surface and where there had been just one Gil staring back at him - haggard, maimed, gaunt, and hollow-eyed - there were now scores upon scores, every one a spectre of anguish and hatred.

Lorcán had visited that day for the first time, though he did not find Gil to be a welcoming bedfellow, instead uncharacteristically reticent and withdrawn. Lorcán did not mention the splintered mirror, if indeed he noticed it at all; but the nurse who came in after he’d left removed it without comment or expression, and it was not replaced.

---

The second night was lonelier than the first, and sleep came no less difficult. With the day bringing the bustle of people to, from, and around his room, he felt their absence that much more keenly in the silvery moonlight. In the midst of paranoia and forlorn isolation, Gil made a decision he'd been warned against by both his medical attendants and his own subconscious: he mustered all the strength he could from the depths of his wounded body, and with desperation for companionship in whatever form, pushed forth a clone. His body protested the effort immediately; his heart rate spiked dangerously and the ECG monitor he was hooked up to raised an alert accordingly. The on-call nurse burst in swiftly, mere minutes later, but was shocked into hesitation by the condition she found her patient in.

Gil was out of bed, arm bleeding where the IV had been ripped out in the fracas, wrestling on the floor with a copy of himself in a medley of skin and bandages.

One of the Gils managed to break away from the melee, attempting to escape the room, but was in no physical condition to do so even without the preceding brawl. Before her very eyes, the copy of Gil began to disintegrate, flaking away at the extremities. Gil himself couldn’t stop screaming about the Him With No Face, about the hateful imposter that needed killing before it could turn the same intention upon him, about the self-produced assassin bent on his destruction.

All the nurse saw, staring into the very-much-there face of a decomposing copy of her patient, was fear in the eyes.

Gil was sedated and returned to bed, and he slept through the third day.

---

Waking up on the fourth day, Gil found himself fiddling with his phone. There was a swathe of missed calls and unread texts. The university had provided a statement to the Coast Guard and the Canadian Government in the wake of Orcinus' sabotage and attack, the Harbinger's fatal explosion rocking the island naturally drawing the attention of the outside authorities. Much as H.E.L.P. and H.I.T. liked to keep things in-house, there were limits to what they were able to keep to themselves. News of the assault on their campus by Hyperion's Children wasn't well-received, but it was kept out of major news circuits; still readily available to the public, but only found by those who went looking.

Unfortunately for Gil, still fragile physically and mentally, Artie and Elle were people who went looking, and both expressed their concern for his wellbeing through frantic messages and missed phone calls. He stared at his phone screen. Artie was one thing; bitterness rose within Gil, confident to the point of enmity that his agent's only real concern was whether Gil was fit for on-screen appearances. He didn't want to broach whether he even cared about returning to the industry anymore with himself, let alone Arthur.

Elle was a different matter; the previous rose-tinted memories had been replaced with sharper, far nastier images, accompanied by spiteful words and still-tender actual injury. He knew, rationally, that she was truly concerned for his health; but right now, rationality was in short supply, and it was the paranoid abstract that seized him instead, demanding that this was simply a way to finish the job.

He returned no calls, replied to no texts, and ignored any further that came through for the rest of the day. Lorcán returned, but Gil remained taciturn and distant; the visit was shorter than the previous, but no less frustrating for either party, and once again Gil found himself alone and frightened as the sun sank beyond his window.

Roman's Scrapbin

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: Infirmary Wing - P.R.C.U. Campus}

Take On Me #3.006: Pinned like a note in a hospital gown.

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

The first few days were the hardest for Gil, unpicking Orcinus’ handiwork as he rediscovered his newly-fractured mind, lying in a lonely bed in the infirmary ward.

The first night, after delivery to medical staff, he stirred from oblivion into a dim room, his clothes changed, the ground beneath him no longer wet grass but dry and warm bedsheets. He had awoken on the other side of despair and such a sheer acceptance of death that the realisation he had survived was as equal parts disappointment as it was relief. He merely lay in the dark, each breath a freshly laboured agony, and willed himself to slip back beneath the vale of consciousness, whether through sleep or death, each feeling as merciful as the other.

---

The second day he had woken with a start, his spasmodic jump into wakefulness triggering new pain that only sharpened his mind. The sun was up and activity buzzed lowly beyond the door of his room; he swept his gaze around his fresh surroundings and realised he had been sepulchred in the university’s hospital ward, patched and gauzed and stitched and bandaged and set. He felt the cloying pressure of medical dressings all about his person, and found his lower leg and foot entombed within a cast of their own; a vague recollection of a sharp cracking stomp troubled him briefly before he pushed it out of mind.

Someone had delivered him breakfast, gracefully without stirring him; it was the mug that piqued his interest, finding his mouth sticky and sour with dehydration, despite the saline drip-tube that protruded from his arm. He reached for it, wrapping a careful hand around the ceramic body to gauge how much heat remained in the beverage within, and found it to be enough. Gingerly, steadily, he raised it to his lips and supped deeply; the liquid was earthy and sugary and quenching - greedily, he drained the mug, slaking himself and enjoying the grounding flavour. It was only out of the corner of his eye, the very limits of his periphery, that he noticed movement as he set the mug down, and as Gil turned to look, panic gripped him with ferocity and he reflexively launched the mug with self-sabotaging vigour, his injured body protesting at every inch against the sudden and aggressive movement.

The mug found its mark square and true, and shattered against the silvered glass of the mirror set upon the wall, which shattered in kind from the impact. Splinters criss-crossed across its surface and where there had been just one Gil staring back at him - haggard, maimed, gaunt, and hollow-eyed - there were now scores upon scores, every one a spectre of anguish and hatred.

Lorcán had visited that day for the first time, though he did not find Gil to be a welcoming bedfellow, instead uncharacteristically reticent and withdrawn. Lorcán did not mention the splintered mirror, if indeed he noticed it at all; but the nurse who came in after he’d left removed it without comment or expression, and it was not replaced.

---

The second night was lonelier than the first, and sleep came no less difficult. With the day bringing the bustle of people to, from, and around his room, he felt their absence that much more keenly in the silvery moonlight. In the midst of paranoia and forlorn isolation, Gil made a decision he'd been warned against by both his medical attendants and his own subconscious: he mustered all the strength he could from the depths of his wounded body, and with desperation for companionship in whatever form, pushed forth a clone. His body protested the effort immediately; his heart rate spiked dangerously and the ECG monitor he was hooked up to raised an alert accordingly. The on-call nurse burst in swiftly, mere minutes later, but was shocked into hesitation by the condition she found her patient in.

Gil was out of bed, arm bleeding where the IV had been ripped out in the fracas, wrestling on the floor with a copy of himself in a medley of skin and bandages.

One of the Gils managed to break away from the melee, attempting to escape the room, but was in no physical condition to do so even without the preceding brawl. Before her very eyes, the copy of Gil began to disintegrate, flaking away at the extremities. Gil himself couldn’t stop screaming about the Him With No Face, about the hateful imposter that needed killing before it could turn the same intention upon him, about the self-produced assassin bent on his destruction.

All the nurse saw, staring into the very-much-there face of a decomposing copy of her patient, was fear in the eyes.

Gil was sedated and returned to bed, and he slept through the third day.

---

Waking up on the fourth day, Gil found himself fiddling with his phone. There was a swathe of missed calls and unread texts. The university had provided a statement to the Coast Guard and the Canadian Government in the wake of Orcinus' sabotage and attack, the Harbinger's fatal explosion rocking the island naturally drawing the attention of the outside authorities. Much as H.E.L.P. and H.I.T. liked to keep things in-house, there were limits to what they were able to keep to themselves. News of the assault on their campus by Hyperion's Children wasn't well-received, but it was kept out of major news circuits; still readily available to the public, but only found by those who went looking.

Unfortunately for Gil, still fragile physically and mentally, Artie and Elle were people who went looking, and both expressed their concern for his wellbeing through frantic messages and missed phone calls. He stared at his phone screen. Artie was one thing; bitterness rose within Gil, confident to the point of enmity that his agent's only real concern was whether Gil was fit for on-screen appearances. He didn't want to broach whether he even cared about returning to the industry anymore with himself, let alone Arthur.

Elle was a different matter; the previous rose-tinted memories had been replaced with sharper, far nastier images, accompanied by spiteful words and still-tender actual injury. He knew, rationally, that she was truly concerned for his health; but right now, rationality was in short supply, and it was the paranoid abstract that seized him instead, demanding that this was simply a way to finish the job.

He returned no calls, replied to no texts, and ignored any further that came through for the rest of the day. Lorcán returned, but Gil remained taciturn and distant; the visit was shorter than the previous, but no less frustrating for either party, and once again Gil found himself alone and frightened as the sun sank beyond his window.

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: The Trials, Southern Plateau - Dundas Island}

Hope In Hell #2.053: Superego

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

_{"I'm sorry."}

Tiny-sounding, pointless words, squeezed out through labored breaths drawn into bruised lungs beneath broken ribs.

^{"I'm sorry."}

Not heeded, not wanted, not respected. Empty platitudes born of desperation and pain. And there was a lot of pain.

^{_{"I'm sorry."}}

Gil's already-broken nose took another kick and he felt a sharp pain shoot across his face. A tooth came loose and rattled around inside his mouth, before he managed to roll over, shielding his head with his arms, and spit out the tooth alongside a sizeable wad of blood. The kicks went for his side instead, and the already-broken ribs sent agonizing protests across his torso with every fresh blow. Tears welled up in Gil's eyes.

Hands reached for him; he swatted them away, before latching onto one that tried to pry his arms away from his head, and with adrenaline-fueled strength, twisted it and yanked hard. The owner - some uniform-clad copy, Gil was too woozy to identify which specific aspect of himself this doppelganger was supposed to be mocking - fell to the floor, but no one paid any mind in the midst of the frenzy; the clone received its own blows, vicious kicks and stomps and punches, but disturbingly, focused only on continuing its own assault of the original Gil. Thrashing and kicking on the ground, the clone caught a boot to its temple, and Gil heard and saw the distinct sound and sight of a skull fracturing into pieces, shards moving beneath the miraculously-unbroken skin. Blood and something else leaked out of the clone's ears, and he lay still.

Gil vomited.

Someone stomped on his ankle and he felt something snap and he cried out. He was so utterly sure he was going to die, and felt completely hollow about it. What would he be remembered for? One teen rom-com a decade ago, and a handful of episodes on a niche soap opera melodrama. He could count on one hand the people that would miss him.

He clawed his way across the grass as best he could; some of the clones mistook the corpse of their ex-comrade for their actual target, and their beatings began to mutilate the un-moving carcass, granting Gil himself some breathing room. There was a slight break in the mob, and it galvanised Gil; somehow, plumbing depths he no longer believed he had, he managed to push himself along with his working leg, the broken ankle dragging his other foot behind him at an angle he'd rather not contemplate.

He rolled himself onto his back with a not-inconsiderable amount of effort, and in the process managed to slip one of his broken ribs through the soft tissue of his lung. He felt the pain immediately - sharp, stabbing, white-hot, turning to a dull but persistent ache that only got worse with each labored breath. He coughed, the spasms sending their own agony through him, and began to gasp for air; every intake was ragged and bubbly, and the pace of his breathing quickened, short pants unable to supply the air he needed.

The dregs of the mob that had followed him now called to the others, and, finally, Gil gave up. His muscles screamed for oxygen his failing respiratory system was no longer able to provide. With the last of his energy, he held a bruised and bloody hand to the sky, swirling it in a smooth repetition of an elegant movement from only the night before; a more pleasant memory, with a girl he'd had nothing to pretend to be for. The cigarette appeared once more, and Gil placed it in his mouth, regretting the AR Suit's lack of pockets for the book of matches he'd had to leave behind.

He rested his head, trying to focus on the cool grass beneath him, and closed his eyes, waiting for the end to arrive.

Roman's Scrapbin

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: The Trials, Southern Plateau - Dundas Island}

Hope In Hell #2.053: Superego

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

_{"I'm sorry."}

Tiny-sounding, pointless words, squeezed out through labored breaths drawn into bruised lungs beneath broken ribs.

^{"I'm sorry."}

Not heeded, not wanted, not respected. Empty platitudes born of desperation and pain. And there was a lot of pain.

^{_{"I'm sorry."}}

Gil's already-broken nose took another kick and he felt a sharp pain shoot across his face. A tooth came loose and rattled around inside his mouth, before he managed to roll over, shielding his head with his arms, and spit out the tooth alongside a sizeable wad of blood. The kicks went for his side instead, and the already-broken ribs sent agonizing protests across his torso with every fresh blow. Tears welled up in Gil's eyes.

Hands reached for him; he swatted them away, before latching onto one that tried to pry his arms away from his head, and with adrenaline-fueled strength, twisted it and yanked hard. The owner - some uniform-clad copy, Gil was too woozy to identify which specific aspect of himself this doppelganger was supposed to be mocking - fell to the floor, but no one paid any mind in the midst of the frenzy; the clone received its own blows, vicious kicks and stomps and punches, but disturbingly, focused only on continuing its own assault of the original Gil. Thrashing and kicking on the ground, the clone caught a boot to its temple, and Gil heard and saw the distinct sound and sight of a skull fracturing into pieces, shards moving beneath the miraculously-unbroken skin. Blood and something else leaked out of the clone's ears, and he lay still.

Gil vomited.

Someone stomped on his ankle and he felt something snap and he cried out. He was so utterly sure he was going to die, and felt completely hollow about it. What would he be remembered for? One teen rom-com a decade ago, and a handful of episodes on a niche soap opera melodrama. He could count on one hand the people that would miss him.

He clawed his way across the grass as best he could; some of the clones mistook the corpse of their ex-comrade for their actual target, and their beatings began to mutilate the un-moving carcass, granting Gil himself some breathing room. There was a slight break in the mob, and it galvanised Gil; somehow, plumbing depths he no longer believed he had, he managed to push himself along with his working leg, the broken ankle dragging his other foot behind him at an angle he'd rather not contemplate.

He rolled himself onto his back with a not-inconsiderable amount of effort, and in the process managed to slip one of his broken ribs through the soft tissue of his lung. He felt the pain immediately - sharp, stabbing, white-hot, turning to a dull but persistent ache that only got worse with each labored breath. He coughed, the spasms sending their own agony through him, and began to gasp for air; every intake was ragged and bubbly, and the pace of his breathing quickened, short pants unable to supply the air he needed.

The dregs of the mob that had followed him now called to the others, and, finally, Gil gave up. His muscles screamed for oxygen his failing respiratory system was no longer able to provide. With the last of his energy, he held a bruised and bloody hand to the sky, swirling it in a smooth repetition of an elegant movement from only the night before; a more pleasant memory, with a girl he'd had nothing to pretend to be for. The cigarette appeared once more, and Gil placed it in his mouth, regretting the AR Suit's lack of pockets for the book of matches he'd had to leave behind.

He rested his head, trying to focus on the cool grass beneath him, and closed his eyes, waiting for the end to arrive.

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: The Trials, Southern Plateau - Dundas Island}

Hope In Hell #2.045: Id

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

The path went on for...god, it felt like miles, but Gil knew that the dark and the silence played on his perception of time and space. The absence of stimuli stretched every second into an eon and he wondered, not for the first time, if the journey was endless. If the eternal walk was his ultimate punishment; press forward into nothing, forever, until you simply collapse and die. He didn't stop himself from mulling that part over.

And then, all of a sudden, there was...something. Something on the edge of the silence, so imperceptible he wasn't sure he hadn't just started hallucinating. He whipped his head around, searching every corner of the dark for the source, a source he wasn't convinced even existed.

Nothing.

He kept walking.

And then there it was again; the faintest rustling, oddly familiar but still he struggled to identify it, couldn’t quite put an image to the noise. He paused again, closing his eyes and straining his ears. Again there was nothing. He sighed, tired and frustrated, and took a step forward, only to swing wildly when the rustle reoccurred. The tension made him feel feral, unchained.

There was...something. Something across the way in the dark. It was no wonder he’d not seen it at first; it was only as he swayed back and forth now that he could see, ever so faintly, the slightest hint of a reflection of light, winking back at him.

He hesitated. Now that he’d seen it he could keep a bead on it, but it moved no farther from him nor closer to him as he watched. Gil made more steps along the illuminated path, watching it all the while, and it moved with him, perfectly parallel. It was a person, he could see now, and the rustling was clear and identifiable as their footsteps.

The words of his alters rang in his ears. The footsteps of his mystery stalker grew louder around him, but the distance never changed, moving forwards only when he did. He grew angry; he chafed raw from the berating he’d given himself, and now this place only sought to toy with him further. It wasn’t even interesting, for fucks sake, it was just fucking grass and the dark.

He pivoted on his heel and took off sprinting so quickly that he only realised he’d done so when he was already five metres off the path and the light was left behind. He plunged headlong into the darkness, not caring for a second how utterly enveloping it felt, how it cloyed and pulled at his skin and invaded his lungs. All he focused on was that glinting, reflecting light in the distance, winking at him. He was vaguely aware of far-off laughter, but paid it no mind; gave no notice to his pounding heart, pushing viscous blood around his aching body and fit to explode from his chest, nor to his burning lungs, pulling in air that felt thick and hot and tasted like crude oil in his mouth.

Head down, he pressed on, his muscles screaming and the grass slick beneath his feet and his breath failing until finally, finally, he lost his footing and tumbled, head over heels across the field, gouging up chunks of dirt, muddying his arms and face, the brown mixing with the red to distort his features.

He lay there in the grass, pushed to his absolute limit, heaving great panting breaths in and out, the lights no longer visible; nothing visible, just the sensations of being cold and wet on the ground anchoring him to any reality at all.

There was a rustling. More footsteps. Gil was vaguely aware of a presence near his head, but couldn't bring himself to roll over from where he lay splayed on his back to investigate, wouldn't have been able to see who those footsteps finally belonged to even if he had.

There was a light chuckle, gentle and feminine, and a single tear rolled from the corner of Gil's eye and across his temple to the ground, the only water he could spare.
"If only you'd have chased me so passionately eight years ago, Gil."

Gil managed a dry chuckle, coughed a mix of spit and blood, and sank into unconsciousness.

---

When Gil woke up, his head rang and his throat was scorched. Someone held a bottle of water to his lips and he supped greedily, letting it flow freely down his chin and chest as he gulped, the bottle being upturned as it emptied and eventually ran dry. Gil went to bring his arm up to wipe his chin, and it was only then he realised he was restrained; only then that he realised he was not lying on wet grass, but sat on a plastic folding chair. His hands were tied behind his back. His joints ached. How long had he been out?

"And now we come to the crux of the matter, don't we, Gil?"

He looked up sharply. His vision swam but in front of him, perched daintily on a chair of her own, was the unequivocal owner of that voice. He would never forget that voice.
"Elle...I'm sorr-" "SHUT UP."

The ferocity of the command, reverberating around his head and shaking his very bones, stunned Gil into obeyance. He couldn't see Elliot, but he felt a blow hit him hard in his exposed stomach. He spluttered, doubling over and coughing.
"Too late for that nonsense now. You made our bed eight years ago. You fucking lie in it."

"Elliot...you'll get your chance." Said Elle, gentle but admonishing. Whatever presence he had, Gil felt it slink away.
"We talked about how empty you are, didn't we? But that's only half the problem, isn't it?"

Gil daren't speak, despite the screaming inside him. Whatever force this was wasn't interested in his protest, and he was still catching his breath where Elliot's sudden blow had winded him. He just sat there, hands tied, head hung, trying to block out the venomous words spewed by the only girl he'd ever loved. Thought he'd loved. Convinced himself he'd loved.

"We both know that the real problem isn't the emptiness, isn't that gaping hole inside you instead of a soul. It's what you use to fill that hole."
She stood up, walking toward Gil and pulling his head up by the chin with a single finger. They locked eyes, and even though it had been nearly a decade since he'd last seen Elenora Baines, every atom of her was still seared into his memory; every strand of hair, every pore of her skin, every fleck in her irides. He looked into her eyes, and for the first time since entering this sabotaged Trial, seized onto some certainty.

This was not Elle.

He cradled that fact like his own precious child; it anchored him, reassured him. The horrors persisted, but so did he.

Elle let go of his chin and pushed a finger painfully into his chest instead.
"You use people, don't you? You chew them up, squeeze them dry, and then throw them away. How long until you get bored of the current lot, do you think, like you got bored of me?"

Gil thought back eight years ago, desperately searching his memory for those last days in Los Angeles. Hazy sun and quiet arguments...
_{"I...I begged you to stay..."} he managed, his voice weak and mournful.

"And I begged you to come with me!" She spat back, her face a portrait of pained fury. "We could have had a real life, with proper foundations, not all that...Hollywood glitterati shit. But you couldn't leave the admiration behind, could you? No yes-men in Michigan. Only one person to adore you and love you and support you? Not enough for Gil Galahad, Hollywood's biggest has-been! You're pathetic."

She walked away, waving her hand over her shoulder as she went in some kind of signal; presumably to Elliot, wherever he lurked, but Gil still couldn't feel his presence. Instead, the restraints around his wrists simply fell away, and he pulled his arms in front of him, his shoulders burning.

"Say what you want. Justify it however you can. It means nothing to me. After all, I'm not even really here, am I?" Elle continued, as Gil stood from his chair and attempted to stumble after her. "I'm just what your own mind conjured up. How's that for pitiable? You actually do think all of this about yourself."

Gil stopped, hanging his head in shame.
"Were you ever really 'you' when you were with me, Gil? Are you even really 'you' now? Here, faced with the lowest moments of your miserable, superficial life, and you're still acting, aren't you? Which 'Gil' are you playing today, do you think?"

Out of the darkness, Gil recognised faces. His faces, over and over, stepping forward to circle him. Elliot, Elwood, Romeo were all here, as well as a few advertising gigs. But there were more recent copies of Gil, too: here was one in PRCU uniform, tie loosened and shirt-sleeves rolled-up; here was one in the university's athletic issue; here was one in beachwear.
"Which one, Gil? Which face are you wearing right now? The Gil that 'chills with his bros'? The Gil that smokes with Amma? The Gil that entertains fans on the beach? The Gil that suckers Harper in for another guaranteed dose of naive affirmation? The Gil that told me he loves me, but couldn't be with me?!"

They surrounded Gil, encircling him on all sides. Elle was out of reach, stood beyond the circle, and she pulled out a phone from her pocket and held it up.

Gil felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to face a sight that sent him stumbling backwards, reeling away. A final Gil copy, bruised and bloody and wearing the AR suit he was clad in in this very moment. The face was a blank veil of flesh, no features to speak of at all.
"That's the real you, isn't it Gil?" Elle taunted, her peeling laughter full of spite and enmity. "Nothing and no one! Why don't we see which version of you hates you the most?"

"Lights!"

Blinding floodlights exploded into life, finally illuminating the grassy field for miles around. Crestwood Common, that damnable set, filmed on-location. It always had been.

"Camera!"

Gil heard Elle's phone start recording, and behind the lights, he could suddenly see cameras on cranes, recording lights steadily blinking.

"Action!"

The copies came for him. All he saw was hatred. All he felt was violence.

Roman's Scrapbin

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: The Trials, Southern Plateau - Dundas Island}

Hope In Hell #2.041: Ego II

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

The path went on for...god, it felt like miles, but Gil knew that the dark and the silence played on his perception of time and space. The absence of stimuli stretched every second into an eon and he wondered, not for the first time, if the journey was endless. If the eternal walk was his ultimate punishment; press forward into nothing, forever, until you simply collapse and die. He didn't stop himself from mulling that part over.

And then, all of a sudden, there was...something. Something on the edge of the silence, so imperceptible he wasn't sure he hadn't just started hallucinating. He whipped his head around, searching every corner of the dark for the source, a source he wasn't convinced even existed.

Nothing.

He kept walking.

And then there it was again; the faintest rustling, oddly familiar but still he struggled to identify it, couldn’t quite put an image to the noise. He paused again, closing his eyes and straining his ears. Again there was nothing. He sighed, tired and frustrated, and took a step forward, only to swing wildly when the rustle reoccurred. The tension made him feel feral, unchained.

There was...something. Something across the way in the dark. It was no wonder he’d not seen it at first; it was only as he swayed back and forth now that he could see, ever so faintly, the slightest hint of a reflection of light, winking back at him.

He hesitated. Now that he’d seen it he could keep a bead on it, but it moved no farther from him nor closer to him as he watched. Gil made more steps along the illuminated path, watching it all the while, and it moved with him, perfectly parallel. It was a person, he could see now, and the rustling was clear and identifiable as their footsteps.

The words of his alters rang in his ears. The footsteps of his mystery stalker grew louder around him, but the distance never changed, moving forwards only when he did. He grew angry; he chafed raw from the berating he’d given himself, and now this place only sought to toy with him further. It wasn’t even interesting, for fucks sake, it was just fucking grass and the dark.

He pivoted on his heel and took off sprinting so quickly that he only realised he’d done so when he was already five metres off the path and the light was left behind. He plunged headlong into the darkness, not caring for a second how utterly enveloping it felt, how it cloyed and pulled at his skin and invaded his lungs. All he focused on was that glinting, reflecting light in the distance, winking at him. He was vaguely aware of far-off laughter, but paid it no mind; gave no notice to his pounding heart, pushing viscous blood around his aching body and fit to explode from his chest, nor to his burning lungs, pulling in air that felt thick and hot and tasted like crude oil in his mouth.

Head down, he pressed on, his muscles screaming and the grass slick beneath his feet and his breath failing until finally, finally, he lost his footing and tumbled, head over heels across the field, gouging up chunks of dirt, muddying his arms and face, the brown mixing with the red to distort his features.

He lay there in the grass, pushed to his absolute limit, heaving great panting breaths in and out, the lights no longer visible; nothing visible, just the sensations of being cold and wet on the ground anchoring him to any reality at all.

There was a rustling. More footsteps. Gil was vaguely aware of a presence near his head, but couldn't bring himself to roll over from where he lay splayed on his back to investigate, wouldn't have been able to see who those footsteps finally belonged to even if he had.

There was a light chuckle, gentle and feminine, and a single tear rolled from the corner of Gil's eye and across his temple to the ground, the only water he could spare.
"If only you'd have chased me so passionately eight years ago, Gil."

Gil managed a dry chuckle, coughed a mix of spit and blood, and sank into unconsciousness.

---

When Gil woke up, his head rang and his throat was scorched. Someone held a bottle of water to his lips and he supped greedily, letting it flow freely down his chin and chest as he gulped, the bottle being upturned as it emptied and eventually ran dry. Gil went to bring his arm up to wipe his chin, and it was only then he realised he was restrained; only then that he realised he was not lying on wet grass, but sat on a plastic folding chair. His hands were tied behind his back. His joints ached. How long had he been out?

"And now we come to the crux of the matter, don't we, Gil?"

He looked up sharply. His vision swam but in front of him, perched daintily on a chair of her own, was the unequivocal owner of that voice. He would never forget that voice.
"Elle...I'm sorr-" "SHUT UP."

The ferocity of the command, reverberating around his head and shaking his very bones, stunned Gil into obeyance. He couldn't see Elliot, but he felt a blow hit him hard in his exposed stomach. He spluttered, doubling over and coughing.
"Too late for that nonsense now. You made our bed eight years ago. You fucking lie in it."

"Elliot...you'll get your chance." Said Elle, gentle but admonishing. Whatever presence he had, Gil felt it slink away.
"We talked about how empty you are, didn't we? But that's only half the problem, isn't it?"

Gil daren't speak, despite the screaming inside him. Whatever force this was wasn't interested in his protest, and he was still catching his breath where Elliot's sudden blow had winded him. He just sat there, hands tied, head hung, trying to block out the venomous words spewed by the only girl he'd ever loved. Thought he'd loved. Convinced himself he'd loved.

"We both know that the real problem isn't the emptiness, isn't that gaping hole inside you instead of a soul. It's what you use to fill that hole."
She stood up, walking toward Gil and pulling his head up by the chin with a single finger. They locked eyes, and even though it had been nearly a decade since he'd last seen Elenora Baines, every atom of her was still seared into his memory; every strand of hair, every pore of her skin, every fleck in her irides. He looked into her eyes, and for the first time since entering this sabotaged Trial, seized onto some certainty.

This was not Elle.

He cradled that fact like his own precious child; it anchored him, reassured him. The horrors persisted, but so did he.

Elle let go of his chin and pushed a finger painfully into his chest instead.
"You use people, don't you? You chew them up, squeeze them dry, and then throw them away. How long until you get bored of the current lot, do you think, like you got bored of me?"

Gil thought back eight years ago, desperately searching his memory for those last days in Los Angeles. Hazy sun and quiet arguments...
_{"I...I begged you to stay..."} he managed, his voice weak and mournful.

"And I begged you to come with me!" She spat back, her face a portrait of pained fury. "We could have had a real life, with proper foundations, not all that...Hollywood glitterati shit. But you couldn't leave the admiration behind, could you? No yes-men in Michigan. Only one person to adore you and love you and support you? Not enough for Gil Galahad, Hollywood's biggest has-been! You're pathetic."

She walked away, waving her hand over her shoulder as she went in some kind of signal; presumably to Elliot, wherever he lurked, but Gil still couldn't feel his presence. Instead, the restraints around his wrists simply fell away, and he pulled his arms in front of him, his shoulders burning.

"Say what you want. Justify it however you can. It means nothing to me. After all, I'm not even really here, am I?" Elle continued, as Gil stood from his chair and attempted to stumble after her. "I'm just what your own mind conjured up. How's that for pitiable? You actually do think all of this about yourself."

Gil stopped, hanging his head in shame.
"Were you ever really 'you' when you were with me, Gil? Are you even really 'you' now? Here, faced with the lowest moments of your miserable, superficial life, and you're still acting, aren't you? Which 'Gil' are you playing today, do you think?"

Out of the darkness, Gil recognised faces. His faces, over and over, stepping forward to circle him. Elliot, Elwood, Romeo were all here, as well as a few advertising gigs. But there were more recent copies of Gil, too: here was one in PRCU uniform, tie loosened and shirt-sleeves rolled-up; here was one in the university's athletic issue; here was one in beachwear.
"Which one, Gil? Which face are you wearing right now? The Gil that 'chills with his bros'? The Gil that smokes with Amma? The Gil that entertains fans on the beach? The Gil that suckers Harper in for another guaranteed dose of naive affirmation? The Gil that told me he loves me, but couldn't be with me?!"

They surrounded Gil, encircling him on all sides. Elle was out of reach, stood beyond the circle, and she pulled out a phone from her pocket and held it up.

Gil felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to face a sight that sent him stumbling backwards, reeling away. A final Gil copy, bruised and bloody and wearing the AR suit he was clad in in this very moment. The face was a blank veil of flesh, no features to speak of at all.
"That's the real you, isn't it Gil?" Elle taunted, her peeling laughter full of spite and enmity. "Nothing and no one! Why don't we see which version of you hates you the most?"

"Lights!"

Blinding floodlights exploded into life, finally illuminating the grassy field for miles around. Crestwood Common, that damnable set, filmed on-location. It always had been.

"Camera!"

Gil heard Elle's phone start recording, and behind the lights, he could suddenly see cameras on cranes, recording lights steadily blinking.

"Action!"

The copies came for him. All he saw was hatred. All he felt was violence.

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

"And Cut! Great job people - that's lunch!"

Gil and Gil2 came apart, releasing each other from where they'd been grappling for the scene. In a series of staggered, mirrored movements they patted each other down, smoothed out their clothes, and reset their hair, before shaking hands, complimenting each other on the success of the scene, and turning as a pair toward the food bar. A crew hand promptly arrived to retrieve the prop-gun that had been integral to the shot, and Gil2 handed it over first, before it crumbled in the crew member's grasp; they chuckled politely, and then looked to the other Gil, who passed another prop over. This one also crumbled, and the chuckle this time was slightly less polite, and then Gil ceded the actual prop. The crew hand took it away, but not without a few moment's pause and a few sharp raps against the prop to verify it was as authentic as it looked.

Around them, beyond the set, the air began to buzz with chatter as cast and crew rushed to lunch, and the locals lingering around the perimeter of the set re-started their own conversations and clamour now that shooting had paused. 'Crestwood Hollow' had been on-location for 10 days so far, and as word got around the town after their arrival, the crowds had, at first, dramatically swelled. After a week or so the novelty had worn off, and it was now only the committed (or un-employed) fans who remained; saying this was still a disservice to the size of their impromptu audience, however, and many of the crew had expressed a surprised gratitude for how popular the show actually seemed to be, judging by the numbers still peering in from the edge after the initial groundswell had returned to their regular hum-drum.

They'd been shooting the two-parter mid-season finale, that pushed Elwood Dowd - Gil's on-screen character - into the climactic second-half of his character arc for that season, revealing the true identity of his so-far anonymous stalker and harasser: his very own evil twin, intent on reifying a combined downfall. It had been a cold and soggy shoot so far, plagued by the characteristic rain of the titular city, and right now Gil was thankful to shed his damp jacket and replace it with a warm towel draped around his shoulders. Gil2, clad head-to-toe in black in the outfit of the evil twin, had removed his own overcoat and done the same. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the lunch bar, holding paper plates and loading them with bread rolls, fried greens, and cold cuts. Another crew-hand approached them with a polystyrene cup in each hand, vapour rising into the cool afternoon air from the hot tea within; the Gils took a cup each and thanked him in stereo, sipping the scalding liquid and savouring every burn as it cascaded down their twin throats.

Across the set there was an exclamation that burst through the general hubbub; Gil and Gil2 turned simultaneously to see what the ruckus was about, and spotted a short, young girl - wrapped in a scarf and waterproof jacket - deftly weaving her way around production crew members and ducking through umbrellas and camera lighting rigs. She was bee-lining toward them, her face - freckled and bespectacled and framed by lightly-curled ginger locks that fell from her voluminous barnet - set with a look of ferocious determinism that would not be swayed. She waved excitedly as Gil came into her sight-line, and Gil2 waved cheerily back, which doubled the girl’s resolve. Gil, for his part, merely subtly held off the security guard en route to intercept, who raised an eyebrow before shrugging, taking a pastry from a nearby cart to chew on, and hanging back to retrieve the fan once the interaction was handled.

She was flustered and excited but ultimately steady enough to compose herself and actually manage some words. Her voice was soft and light and if the rain picked up Gil imagined he'd hardly be able to hear her at all.
"Mr. Galahad?" She started, the tremor in her hand betraying the confidence in her voice. "I'm a huge fan...I've been watching 'Crestwood Hollow' since the pilot, and Elwood is my favourite by far."
She rocked on the balls of her feet, bobbing up and down rather than swaying back and forth. She was a ball of nervous elation. Gil and Gil2 maintained easy smiles, and as they turned to face her proper, she was unsure which one to address, her eyes darting back and forth between their identical visages.
"Could I...get a selfie?" She asked, and then with a hitching inhale, dared: "...with both of you?"

Gil widened his smile and pulled out his own phone, motioning to Gil2 to circle around and position himself on the other side of the girl.
"Absolutely - but only if I can get one too!" He said, his voice warm to match his smile. They got in close, each Gil placing a careful hand on each of the girl's shoulders, and she emitted the smallest of squeaks as she reached out her arm, carefully positioned her phone, and clicked the button. As soon as she'd verified she was happy with the picture, Gil raised his own arm, and snapped a duplica-

His phone buzzed with an incoming call as the screen flickered to a photo of a gently-beautiful brunette laughing softly in dappled shade beneath a declining sun, and the name 'Elenora Baines' displayed brightly above her figure.
"Is that the Elenora? From 'Romeo & Juliet & Zombies?'" The girl asked, and Gil twitched inside at the sound of her name. "Are you still dating?" There was a hint of sad disappointment in her tone, but Gil recognized how well she had attempted to mask it.
"It is, and no," he answered, noting the girl's microscopic sigh of relief, "but we're still good friends. We like to stay in touch."
He declined the call, resolving - lying to himself - that he'd return it later, and held his phone up again to snap his own picture.

"That's a wonderful photo." He said, looking at the resulting photo on his phone, managing to convince the girl if not himself. It would be a wonderful photo after some slight touch-ups, and Gil was quite adept at in-phone editing. "What's your 'at'? I'll tag you in my story."

He looked up at the girl, who had paled quite fiercely, her eyes wide and deep beneath her glasses. Fear pooled within them, and Gil had a sudden sinking feeling like he'd done or said something quite wrong; headlines flashed before his eyes, social media comments, trending X hashtags. He looked to Gil2, who held a similar face of constrained panic, and could only offer a flustered shrug.
"Please don't post anything." The girl finally said, quiet but with a sense of urgency that unnerved the Gils. "My dad...we can't talk about..." her words were stilted, sentence fragments spilling from her mouth, but the pieces fell in place. "He doesn't even know that I'm..."

Gil nodded, putting a hand on her arm to steady her and offering a comforting smile.
"I get it. Not everyone is...accepting. Even 'Crestwood Hollow' isn't immune to it."
The girl smiled back, wiping her eye with her sleeve, pushing her glasses up to her forehead.
"It's just nice to know...that it's not the end of the world. Hypes are still good people, they can still be important. Thank you, Mr. Galahad."
"Please - it's Gil. If you ever need someone to talk to - don't be afraid to reach out. I'm just a person too, you know."

They chatted for a couple more minutes, and then crew came around about shooting resuming; Gil nodded, and said his goodbyes to the girl. He'd not asked her name, not gotten her handle, and even now, as she was escorted by the loitering security member back to the public crowd cordons, he was forgetting what she looked like, his last memory of this brief encounter the back of a black waterproof jacket and a messy ginger bun. He was back to his phone, staring at the missed call from Elle, but finding himself making excuses to avoid calling her back. Poor signal from the rain; a long day of shooting ahead of them; no time between takes. Whatever worked to soothe his conscience.

The girl would reach out to him on instagram a few weeks later, after an accidental manifestation of her own powers had resulted in her father throwing her out of the house, forcing her to refuge at her aunt's while her dad attempted to sully her name to all family that would hear it. Gil wouldn't see the message request, wouldn't check his instagram DM's, and even if he had, wouldn't recognize her from her profile photo anyway.

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: The Trials, Southern Plateau - Dundas Island}

Hope In Hell #2.040: Ego

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

Gil was rattled. He knew about the trials and what they usually entailed, the thrills and spills therein, the carefully-curated environment to test the student's limits and capabilities, but this was different. This was actual danger, and he cared very little for it. He was tired from his replicating, tired from fighting, tired from running; just plain tired, and bruised and afraid and now whoever had arranged this hostile takeover apparently intended to just keep on splitting the team. What was the point? Given what they'd experienced, Gil was fairly confident that if the intention was simply to kill them, that could have been achieved fairly neatly even before all the dramatics with the lights and the separation of students. Why drag it out? Was it meant to entertain some secret audience, or was the prolonged cruelty of it all its own purpose for being? Darkest of all, was it even a hostile takeover at all? That rankled, cynical part of Gil, shining especially brightly under the current circumstances, was delighted to openly wonder if this wasn't all orchestrated by the university themselves, an elevated Trials for their grand return, something to test the students even more thoroughly in the wake of Hyperion and the mess he'd left behind.

"So we just....go through our door?"
Calliope was first to break the silence, and Gil returned her nervous gaze with a steeled eye. The question hung in the air. Gil surmised it probably didn't matter which door they went through; if their surroundings were as fluid and manipulable as they seemed, they would each be walking into whatever they were intended to walk into, name on the door be damned.

Gil returned Calliope's nod, remaining silent as she and Banjo exchanged platitudes and promises; he held no such expectations for himself. Calliope forged on first, pushing through her door with familiar, stoic poise; Banjo next, brash and headstrong and assertive. Gil, alone, put a hand on the doorknob and left it there, standing in the dark of the corridor with distant crashing of metal-on-metal ringing down the hallway, frozen in the moment between the known fear behind him, and the unknown fear before him.

After a long while, the door opened of its own accord, and a crowd of hands grasped the arm that had rested upon it, and pulled him headlong into the darkness. The door slammed shut behind them, and the bang echoed and reverberated down the corridor, until the sound and hallway both faded into nothing.

---

Gil woke on wet grass, his hands and face slick with dew but the water-resistant A.R. suit easily shedding the water, rivulets trickling down his torso and falling to the ground from the crests and peaks of his form as he picked himself up from the ground and tried to get a grip on his surroundings.

It was dark - ever so dark - like a closed set, but for the singular orb of light, a shining pinprick some hundreds or thousands of meters above him, visible yet offering no illumination. Instead, some eerie, unearthly glow cast an aura of maybe four or five feet around him in a circle, its origin invisible and unknown, as if emanating from his very being; it moved with him perfectly, elucidating his immediate area with a spectral light, but cut off at its boundary so abruptly, into such a pure and unfathomable darkness, that it was if the world simply stopped existing beyond its circumference.

He took a few unsteady steps forward, watching as grass appeared ahead of him and disappeared behind him, rubbing his arm that still stung from the unnatural clutches of a hundred hands. He tried all directions, wandering in a slow looping circle, spiraling outwards from the flattened patch of grass where he'd awoken, but found no edge to the sprawling field, no end to the grass, heavy with droplets that clung to each blade; the reflected sparkling of the dew in the unnatural light only amplified the sinister atmosphere of the whole situation.

"Hello?" He ventured, calling out into the abyss. Only silence was returned, and the blackness seemed to swallow up his voice, like yelling out into an anechoic chamber. He thought to yell again, but was suddenly gripped with the paranoid fear that something, out there in the ink, might actually hear him.

He walked on, alone, bruised, tired. The darkness felt cloying, only barely kept at bay by the ghostly light, and the orb high above him was perfectly still, unflinching. Was the edge of the light closer now? Had it shrunk inwards, or was it merely his eyes playing tricks on him, noticing change where there was none, conjuring phantoms?

Steadily, slowly, he picked up his pace, exhaustion wiped away by a ramping terror. Was this it? He was trapped, alone, in the forever-dark, endlessly wandering for an exit that would never come, finding nothing in his travels but wet grass? He began to jog, his feet slipping slightly on the slick green, but gaining purchase as he accelerated into a run. Not alone. Not here. Not in the dark, forgotten and ignored, fading into nothing.

He didn't see the figure until it was too late, the all-black outfit springing into his vision far too quickly to do anything about; he felt his face crunch against the man's back, and he bounced off hard, reeling to the ground where the blood trickling from his newly-broken nose mixed with the wetness on the grass in an interplay of hot and cold across his features. He pulled himself up to a single knee, recovering as his head swam and vision span, trying to center his gaze on the person in front of him.

"Hello, 'Elwood'." The figure said, reaching an arm out to assist him. Gil's blood turned to ice, the blossoming painful throb from his nose completely numbed by shock and realization.

With no other recourse, Gil steeled himself, and took the hand proffered, standing. The figure pulled a handkerchief from within his coat, tutting as he held it out. Gil snatched it away and pressed it to his nostrils. He could taste the blood dripping into his mouth, and he stained his teeth with it as he licked his lips.
"Hello, Elliot." He replied.

Elliot Dowd, the evil twin, Gil's mirror. His outfit was perfect, thread-by-thread, like he'd just stepped out of costuming straight onto set. A tailored black suit, expensive and well-fitting, over a dignified black shirt and worn beneath a long woolen overcoat, all topped off with a pair of distinguished, but restrained, black gloves. Even the wig was correct, similarly dark, slicked-back with a subtle shine. Christ, he even had the eyeliner on.

"This is it then?" Gil said, his tone aggressive and accusatory. "The best they could do is myself from some years-old bit-part? I have to admit, having seen the Force tie-ins and adverts, I'd have thought the Big Bad Foundation could have conjured up something a bit more inventive."

Elliot sighed, and despite Gil's familiarity with his own face - through his copies, through his roles, through his own vanity - the way his features contorted on this doppelganger unnerved him. It was like he was mirrored the wrong way, and looking at him, Gil felt like he was the reflection.
"Do you ever get tired," Elliot began, removing his gloves and overcoat, holding them outstretched. Another pair of hands, attached to too-long arms and disembodied from any kind of visible torso or tertiary figure, appeared from the blackness and took them, slinking back into the dark. "Of hearing your own voice? Or is it only everyone else that suffers?"

Gil faltered. Elliot's manner was so far removed from Gil's usual friendly facade, which was to be expected, but there was also a hint of something else. Something Gil recognized, but didn't want to.
"I suppose, of course, that if it did bother you, you'd probably do something about it." Elliot continued. Gil took a step back, but Elliot moved with him, imperceptibly closer for the attempt. "As long as it's just everyone else, it's not worth worrying about, right? After all, we both know the only person important to you is you."

"Get away from me." Gil said, his words defiant but voice unsteady.
"No." Answered Elliot.

Gil changed tact. "Yeah, I've got a bit of an ego. Why the hell not, eh? I've earned my accolades. You'll have to dig a little deeper if you want to really sting."
"Well, that's just the problem, isn't it? There's nothing really there, after we've scratched the surface."
Gil laughed, smug and complacent. "So that's it? One weak blow and you're all out of hot air?"

Elliot chuckled, an apologetic and almost sheepish sound. "I do apologize; you misunderstand me. I mean, when we 'dig a little deeper', as you put it, underneath you're just...vacant, aren't you? As I said, there's nothing really there. I wonder if that's why we were so easy for you?"
"'We'?"

Elliot shimmered, and out of the dark stepped another Gil, dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and a nostalgic jacket. The actual Elwood, once again perfectly costumed, make-up applied, nary a trace of imperfection on his powdered face.
"Slipping in and out of us was just another layer of costuming for you, wasn't it? I remember..." Elwood paused, casting his eyes to the sky as he rested a finger on his chin, posturing as if deep in thought. "...I remember the writers saying they based Elwood on what you were like in real life. To make it more 'natural' for the screen. I remember how that made it harder for you. You had to portray a character, while also trying to act like yourself. Trying to do both at once was so tricky, wasn't it?

"In fact," came a third voice, "I recall that the less real we had to be, the easier the job was." This version held an arm towards Gil, proffering to him an open container of rich-scented sweets. Gil could see the Cachou Lajaunie branding along the side of the tin. "Ads were our favourite. A quick paycheque, and you didn't have to try and be human! Just shill the product with a smile."

Gil, justifying his retreat with a thought of 'I don't have to listen to this', and ignoring the sheer panic welling up in his chest that acted as his true motivator, turned on his heel and fled. He left behind a chorus of laughs, jeering and disdainful, but didn't get far. Those hideous pairs of hands re-appeared, pawing at his legs and arms, wrapping softly around his chest until they restrained him entirely. Gil expected them to hold him down and pull his limbs apart, drag his pieces into the dark to join them, but instead they just politely, firmly, gestured for Gil to pivot back, ushering him - again, polite but firm - back to his other selves. There was no jostling, no aggression; they just indicated the intended direction, and silently guided him back, ensuring he did not stray. As soon as he was once again stood before himself, the hands disappeared.

"Well, it was fun to watch, if inevitable and pointless. This must be what we mean by 'born for entertainment'." Elliot remarked, eliciting a chuckle from the other two.
"What do you want from me?" Gil said, exasperated and agitated. "Stand here in the dark and listen to you berate me?"

Elliot shrugged, splaying his hands out in a comical fashion. "It's more about...accepting some home-brewed honesty. As amusing as your escape attempt was, it's also rather apt given the circumstances, don't you think? Always running from the ugly truths of the self." He raised a single eyebrow, though his gaze went past Gil and to something behind him. Gil turned, and saw the figure he dreaded the most.

A younger Gil than the others, this one was clad in the formal accoutrement of a sixteenth-century nobleman. His face was pallid and gaunt, and an unidentified, off-colour liquid oozed from his mouth and stained his lips and chin.
"If it doesn't serve your ego, dump it and move on, right?" Said Romeo.
"Don't." Answered Gil, softly. Romeo just bent backwards, one hand clutching his heart, the other across his forehead, a theatrical and cheesy pose, but one flush with rancour and derision.
"If love be rough with you, be rough with love; prick love for pricking, and you beat love down." He espoused, in his best thespian dialogue.
"Shut up!" Gil hissed, vitriolic and desperate.
"The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head - go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;" the aura of light became a path, and the echoes of Gil parted around it and slunk back into the shadows, barely visible but for ghostly traces of their features.

"Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished," Romeo continued, as Gil trudged forward, no recourse but to press forward. At the very least, it put distance between him and the burdening, taunting words of his Shakespearean counterpart, that lingered after him to twist the knife.

"For never was a story of more woe."

Gil daren't look behind him for fear of what he might see; yet he understood that what - who - lay ahead of him would be infinitely more terrible a reckoning.

_{^{"Than this of Juliet...and her Romeo..."}}

Roman's Scrapbin

"And Cut! Great job people - that's lunch!"

Gil and Gil2 came apart, releasing each other from where they'd been grappling for the scene. In a series of staggered, mirrored movements they patted each other down, smoothed out their clothes, and reset their hair, before shaking hands, complimenting each other on the success of the scene, and turning as a pair toward the food bar. A crew hand promptly arrived to retrieve the prop-gun that had been integral to the shot, and Gil2 handed it over first, before it crumbled in the crew member's grasp; they chuckled politely, and then looked to the other Gil, who passed another prop over. This one also crumbled, and the chuckle this time was slightly less polite, and then Gil ceded the actual prop. The crew hand took it away, but not without a few moment's pause and a few sharp raps against the prop to verify it was as authentic as it looked.

Around them, beyond the set, the air began to buzz with chatter as cast and crew rushed to lunch, and the locals lingering around the perimeter of the set re-started their own conversations and clamour now that shooting had paused. 'Crestwood Hollow' had been on-location for 10 days so far, and as word got around the town after their arrival, the crowds had, at first, dramatically swelled. After a week or so the novelty had worn off, and it was now only the committed (or un-employed) fans who remained; saying this was still a disservice to the size of their impromptu audience, however, and many of the crew had expressed a surprised gratitude for how popular the show actually seemed to be, judging by the numbers still peering in from the edge after the initial groundswell had returned to their regular hum-drum.

They'd been shooting the two-parter mid-season finale, that pushed Elwood Dowd - Gil's on-screen character - into the climactic second-half of his character arc for that season, revealing the true identity of his so-far anonymous stalker and harasser: his very own evil twin, intent on reifying a combined downfall. It had been a cold and soggy shoot so far, plagued by the characteristic rain of the titular city, and right now Gil was thankful to shed his damp jacket and replace it with a warm towel draped around his shoulders. Gil2, clad head-to-toe in black in the outfit of the evil twin, had removed his own overcoat and done the same. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the lunch bar, holding paper plates and loading them with bread rolls, fried greens, and cold cuts. Another crew-hand approached them with a polystyrene cup in each hand, vapour rising into the cool afternoon air from the hot tea within; the Gils took a cup each and thanked him in stereo, sipping the scalding liquid and savouring every burn as it cascaded down their twin throats.

Across the set there was an exclamation that burst through the general hubbub; Gil and Gil2 turned simultaneously to see what the ruckus was about, and spotted a short, young girl - wrapped in a scarf and waterproof jacket - deftly weaving her way around production crew members and ducking through umbrellas and camera lighting rigs. She was bee-lining toward them, her face - freckled and bespectacled and framed by lightly-curled ginger locks that fell from her voluminous barnet - set with a look of ferocious determinism that would not be swayed. She waved excitedly as Gil came into her sight-line, and Gil2 waved cheerily back, which doubled the girl’s resolve. Gil, for his part, merely subtly held off the security guard en route to intercept, who raised an eyebrow before shrugging, taking a pastry from a nearby cart to chew on, and hanging back to retrieve the fan once the interaction was handled.

She was flustered and excited but ultimately steady enough to compose herself and actually manage some words. Her voice was soft and light and if the rain picked up Gil imagined he'd hardly be able to hear her at all.
"Mr. Galahad?" She started, the tremor in her hand betraying the confidence in her voice. "I'm a huge fan...I've been watching 'Crestwood Hollow' since the pilot, and Elwood is my favourite by far."
She rocked on the balls of her feet, bobbing up and down rather than swaying back and forth. She was a ball of nervous elation. Gil and Gil2 maintained easy smiles, and as they turned to face her proper, she was unsure which one to address, her eyes darting back and forth between their identical visages.
"Could I...get a selfie?" She asked, and then with a hitching inhale, dared: "...with both of you?"

Gil widened his smile and pulled out his own phone, motioning to Gil2 to circle around and position himself on the other side of the girl.
"Absolutely - but only if I can get one too!" He said, his voice warm to match his smile. They got in close, each Gil placing a careful hand on each of the girl's shoulders, and she emitted the smallest of squeaks as she reached out her arm, carefully positioned her phone, and clicked the button. As soon as she'd verified she was happy with the picture, Gil raised his own arm, and snapped a duplica-

His phone buzzed with an incoming call as the screen flickered to a photo of a gently-beautiful brunette laughing softly in dappled shade beneath a declining sun, and the name 'Elenora Baines' displayed brightly above her figure.
"Is that the Elenora? From 'Romeo & Juliet & Zombies?'" The girl asked, and Gil twitched inside at the sound of her name. "Are you still dating?" There was a hint of sad disappointment in her tone, but Gil recognized how well she had attempted to mask it.
"It is, and no," he answered, noting the girl's microscopic sigh of relief, "but we're still good friends. We like to stay in touch."
He declined the call, resolving - lying to himself - that he'd return it later, and held his phone up again to snap his own picture.

"That's a wonderful photo." He said, looking at the resulting photo on his phone, managing to convince the girl if not himself. It would be a wonderful photo after some slight touch-ups, and Gil was quite adept at in-phone editing. "What's your 'at'? I'll tag you in my story."

He looked up at the girl, who had paled quite fiercely, her eyes wide and deep beneath her glasses. Fear pooled within them, and Gil had a sudden sinking feeling like he'd done or said something quite wrong; headlines flashed before his eyes, social media comments, trending X hashtags. He looked to Gil2, who held a similar face of constrained panic, and could only offer a flustered shrug.
"Please don't post anything." The girl finally said, quiet but with a sense of urgency that unnerved the Gils. "My dad...we can't talk about..." her words were stilted, sentence fragments spilling from her mouth, but the pieces fell in place. "He doesn't even know that I'm..."

Gil nodded, putting a hand on her arm to steady her and offering a comforting smile.
"I get it. Not everyone is...accepting. Even 'Crestwood Hollow' isn't immune to it."
The girl smiled back, wiping her eye with her sleeve, pushing her glasses up to her forehead.
"It's just nice to know...that it's not the end of the world. Hypes are still good people, they can still be important. Thank you, Mr. Galahad."
"Please - it's Gil. If you ever need someone to talk to - don't be afraid to reach out. I'm just a person too, you know."

They chatted for a couple more minutes, and then crew came around about shooting resuming; Gil nodded, and said his goodbyes to the girl. He'd not asked her name, not gotten her handle, and even now, as she was escorted by the loitering security member back to the public crowd cordons, he was forgetting what she looked like, his last memory of this brief encounter the back of a black waterproof jacket and a messy ginger bun. He was back to his phone, staring at the missed call from Elle, but finding himself making excuses to avoid calling her back. Poor signal from the rain; a long day of shooting ahead of them; no time between takes. Whatever worked to soothe his conscience.

The girl would reach out to him on instagram a few weeks later, after an accidental manifestation of her own powers had resulted in her father throwing her out of the house, forcing her to refuge at her aunt's while her dad attempted to sully her name to all family that would hear it. Gil wouldn't see the message request, wouldn't check his instagram DM's, and even if he had, wouldn't recognize her from her profile photo anyway.

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: The Trials, Southern Plateau - Dundas Island}

Hope In Hell #2.040: Ego

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

Gil was rattled. He knew about the trials and what they usually entailed, the thrills and spills therein, the carefully-curated environment to test the student's limits and capabilities, but this was different. This was actual danger, and he cared very little for it. He was tired from his replicating, tired from fighting, tired from running; just plain tired, and bruised and afraid and now whoever had arranged this hostile takeover apparently intended to just keep on splitting the team. What was the point? Given what they'd experienced, Gil was fairly confident that if the intention was simply to kill them, that could have been achieved fairly neatly even before all the dramatics with the lights and the separation of students. Why drag it out? Was it meant to entertain some secret audience, or was the prolonged cruelty of it all its own purpose for being? Darkest of all, was it even a hostile takeover at all? That rankled, cynical part of Gil, shining especially brightly under the current circumstances, was delighted to openly wonder if this wasn't all orchestrated by the university themselves, an elevated Trials for their grand return, something to test the students even more thoroughly in the wake of Hyperion and the mess he'd left behind.

"So we just....go through our door?"
Calliope was first to break the silence, and Gil returned her nervous gaze with a steeled eye. The question hung in the air. Gil surmised it probably didn't matter which door they went through; if their surroundings were as fluid and manipulable as they seemed, they would each be walking into whatever they were intended to walk into, name on the door be damned.

Gil returned Calliope's nod, remaining silent as she and Banjo exchanged platitudes and promises; he held no such expectations for himself. Calliope forged on first, pushing through her door with familiar, stoic poise; Banjo next, brash and headstrong and assertive. Gil, alone, put a hand on the doorknob and left it there, standing in the dark of the corridor with distant crashing of metal-on-metal ringing down the hallway, frozen in the moment between the known fear behind him, and the unknown fear before him.

After a long while, the door opened of its own accord, and a crowd of hands grasped the arm that had rested upon it, and pulled him headlong into the darkness. The door slammed shut behind them, and the bang echoed and reverberated down the corridor, until the sound and hallway both faded into nothing.

---

Gil woke on wet grass, his hands and face slick with dew but the water-resistant A.R. suit easily shedding the water, rivulets trickling down his torso and falling to the ground from the crests and peaks of his form as he picked himself up from the ground and tried to get a grip on his surroundings.

It was dark - ever so dark - like a closed set, but for the singular orb of light, a shining pinprick some hundreds or thousands of meters above him, visible yet offering no illumination. Instead, some eerie, unearthly glow cast an aura of maybe four or five feet around him in a circle, its origin invisible and unknown, as if emanating from his very being; it moved with him perfectly, elucidating his immediate area with a spectral light, but cut off at its boundary so abruptly, into such a pure and unfathomable darkness, that it was if the world simply stopped existing beyond its circumference.

He took a few unsteady steps forward, watching as grass appeared ahead of him and disappeared behind him, rubbing his arm that still stung from the unnatural clutches of a hundred hands. He tried all directions, wandering in a slow looping circle, spiraling outwards from the flattened patch of grass where he'd awoken, but found no edge to the sprawling field, no end to the grass, heavy with droplets that clung to each blade; the reflected sparkling of the dew in the unnatural light only amplified the sinister atmosphere of the whole situation.

"Hello?" He ventured, calling out into the abyss. Only silence was returned, and the blackness seemed to swallow up his voice, like yelling out into an anechoic chamber. He thought to yell again, but was suddenly gripped with the paranoid fear that something, out there in the ink, might actually hear him.

He walked on, alone, bruised, tired. The darkness felt cloying, only barely kept at bay by the ghostly light, and the orb high above him was perfectly still, unflinching. Was the edge of the light closer now? Had it shrunk inwards, or was it merely his eyes playing tricks on him, noticing change where there was none, conjuring phantoms?

Steadily, slowly, he picked up his pace, exhaustion wiped away by a ramping terror. Was this it? He was trapped, alone, in the forever-dark, endlessly wandering for an exit that would never come, finding nothing in his travels but wet grass? He began to jog, his feet slipping slightly on the slick green, but gaining purchase as he accelerated into a run. Not alone. Not here. Not in the dark, forgotten and ignored, fading into nothing.

He didn't see the figure until it was too late, the all-black outfit springing into his vision far too quickly to do anything about; he felt his face crunch against the man's back, and he bounced off hard, reeling to the ground where the blood trickling from his newly-broken nose mixed with the wetness on the grass in an interplay of hot and cold across his features. He pulled himself up to a single knee, recovering as his head swam and vision span, trying to center his gaze on the person in front of him.

"Hello, 'Elwood'." The figure said, reaching an arm out to assist him. Gil's blood turned to ice, the blossoming painful throb from his nose completely numbed by shock and realization.

With no other recourse, Gil steeled himself, and took the hand proffered, standing. The figure pulled a handkerchief from within his coat, tutting as he held it out. Gil snatched it away and pressed it to his nostrils. He could taste the blood dripping into his mouth, and he stained his teeth with it as he licked his lips.
"Hello, Elliot." He replied.

Elliot Dowd, the evil twin, Gil's mirror. His outfit was perfect, thread-by-thread, like he'd just stepped out of costuming straight onto set. A tailored black suit, expensive and well-fitting, over a dignified black shirt and worn beneath a long woolen overcoat, all topped off with a pair of distinguished, but restrained, black gloves. Even the wig was correct, similarly dark, slicked-back with a subtle shine. Christ, he even had the eyeliner on.

"This is it then?" Gil said, his tone aggressive and accusatory. "The best they could do is myself from some years-old bit-part? I have to admit, having seen the Force tie-ins and adverts, I'd have thought the Big Bad Foundation could have conjured up something a bit more inventive."

Elliot sighed, and despite Gil's familiarity with his own face - through his copies, through his roles, through his own vanity - the way his features contorted on this doppelganger unnerved him. It was like he was mirrored the wrong way, and looking at him, Gil felt like he was the reflection.
"Do you ever get tired," Elliot began, removing his gloves and overcoat, holding them outstretched. Another pair of hands, attached to too-long arms and disembodied from any kind of visible torso or tertiary figure, appeared from the blackness and took them, slinking back into the dark. "Of hearing your own voice? Or is it only everyone else that suffers?"

Gil faltered. Elliot's manner was so far removed from Gil's usual friendly facade, which was to be expected, but there was also a hint of something else. Something Gil recognized, but didn't want to.
"I suppose, of course, that it did bother you, you'd probably do something about it." Elliot continued. Gil took a step back, but Elliot moved with him, imperceptibly closer for the attempt. "As long as it's just everyone else, it's not worth worrying about, right? After all, we both know the only person important to you is you."

"Get away from me." Gil said, his words defiant but voice unsteady.
"No." Answered Elliot.

Gil changed tact. "Yeah, I've got a bit of an ego. Why the hell not, eh? I've earned my accolades. You'll have to dig a little deeper if you want to really sting."
"Well, that's just the problem, isn't it? There's nothing really there, after we've scratched the surface."
Gil laughed, smug and complacent. "So that's it? One weak blow and you're all out of hot air?"

Elliot chuckled, an apologetic and almost sheepish sound. "I do apologize; you misunderstand me. I mean, when we 'dig a little deeper', as you put it, underneath you're just...vacant, aren't you? As I said, there's nothing really there. I wonder if that's why we were so easy for you?"
"'We'?"

Elliot shimmered, and out of the dark stepped another Gil, dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and a nostalgic jacket. The actual Elwood, once again perfectly costumed, make-up applied, nary a trace of imperfection on his powdered face.
"Slipping in and out of us was just another layer of costuming for you, wasn't it? I remember..." Elwood paused, casting his eyes to the sky as he rested a finger on his chin, posturing as if deep in thought. "...I remember the writers saying they based Elwood on what you were like in real life. To make it more 'natural' for the screen. I remember how that made it harder for you. You had to portray a character, while also trying to act like yourself. Trying to do both at once was so tricky, wasn't it?

"In fact," came a third voice, "I recall that the less real we had to be, the easier the job was." This version held an arm towards Gil, proffering to him an open container of rich-scented sweets. Gil could see the Cachou Lajaunie branding along the side of the tin. "Ads were our favourite. A quick paycheque, and you didn't have to try and be human! Just shill the product with a smile."

Gil, justifying his retreat with a thought of 'I don't have to listen to this', and ignoring the sheer panic welling up in his chest that acted as his true motivator, turned on his heel and fled. He left behind a chorus of laughs, jeering and disdainful, but didn't get far. Those hideous pairs of hands re-appeared, pawing at his legs and arms, wrapping softly around his chest until they restrained him entirely. Gil expected them to hold him down and pull his limbs apart, drag his pieces into the dark to join them, but instead they just politely, firmly, gestured for Gil to pivot back, ushering him - again, polite but firm - back to his other selves. There was no jostling, no aggression; they just indicated the intended direction, and silently guided him back, ensuring he did not stray. As soon as he was once again stood before himself, the hands disappeared.

"Well, it was fun to watch, if inevitable and pointless. This must be what we mean by 'born for entertainment'." Elliot remarked, eliciting a chuckle from the other two.
"What do you want from me?" Gil said, exasperated and agitated. "Stand here in the dark and listen to you berate me?"

Elliot shrugged, splaying his hands out in a comical fashion. "It's more about...accepting some home-brewed honesty. As amusing as your escape attempt was, it's also rather apt given the circumstances, don't you think? Always running from the ugly truths of the self." He raised a single eyebrow, though his gaze went past Gil and to something behind him. Gil turned, and saw the figure he dreaded the most.

A younger Gil than the others, this one was clad in the formal accoutrement of a sixteenth-century nobleman. His face was pallid and gaunt, and an unidentified, off-colour liquid oozed from his mouth and stained his lips and chin.
"If it doesn't serve your ego, dump it and move on, right?" Said Romeo.
"Don't." Answered Gil, softly. Romeo just bent backwards, one hand clutching his heart, the other across his forehead, a theatrical and cheesy pose, but one flush with rancour and derision.
"If love be rough with you, be rough with love; prick love for pricking, and you beat love down." He espoused, in his best thespian dialogue.
"Shut up!" Gil hissed, vitriolic and desperate.
"The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head - go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;" the aura of light became a path, and the echoes of Gil parted around it and slunk back into the shadows, barely visible but for ghostly traces of their features.

"Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished," Romeo continued, as Gil trudged forward, no recourse but to press forward. At the very least, it put distance between him and the burdening, taunting words of his Shakespearean counterpart, that lingered after him to twist the knife.

"For never was a story of more woe."

Gil daren't look behind him for fear of what he might see; yet he understood that what - who - lay ahead of him would be infinitely more terrible a reckoning.

_{^{"Than this of Juliet...and her Romeo..."}}

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

G I L G A L A H A D // H A R P E R B A X T E R
G I L G A L A H A D // H A R P E R B A X T E R

_{Location: Southern Plateau - Dundas Island}

Welcome Home #1.104: Fresh

---

_{Interaction(s): @Qia//Harper}

Amma faded into the encroaching darkness as the sun set completely, and looking around Gil realised he was practically the last member of Blackjack remaining. It really was late, and with the Trials tomorrow in mind, there was nothing left to do except retire to the tent and sleep.

He stood up, subtly returning a new copy of Amma's cigarette to his hands and twirling it between his fingers as he walked. Absent-mindedly, he ran a finger over the filter, and held his hand up to inspect where the lipstick had rubbed off onto his finger, catching a glimpse of the dark stain before it crumbled away into nano-fragments. He ran the cigarette beneath his nose, inhaling the spicy, slightly-sweet aroma that was so distinctive of clove. He could get used to that smell, mingled with perfume and warm earth and metal, leaned in close to drift up on body-heat currents.

He pushed through the flap of the tent, halfway-in when he spotted Harper tucked up in her sleeping bag, and it was in this frozen moment that he remembered he'd agreed to share a tent with Harper at all.

He artfully flicked the cigarette out into the night with the hand that was still outside the tent, and pushed a broad smile onto his face.
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything?" He teased, surveying the interior of the tent and spotting where his copy had tossed his bag earlier that afternoon.

Harper’s eyes lifted, a ghost of a smile gracing her lips, betraying the gravity of her contemplations. “No, you’re not interrupting,” she murmured, her voice a mere whisper in the canvas-clad expanse. “Just… pondering the unfathomable.”

As her gaze locked with Gil’s, a surge of emotions welled within her—a tumultuous blend of solace and trepidation. His presence, marked by a warm smile and the playful sparkle of blue eyes, kindled a yearning in Harper to divulge her deepest secrets. Yet, she found herself teetering on the edge of confession and silence, uncertain how to weave her tangled thoughts into coherent strands of speech. Instead, Harper’s eyes trailed his, her lips parting in silent astonishment.

“I can leave if you need to…?”

"The unfathomable!" Gil replied, faux-dramatics filling his voice as he stepped fully into the tent. "Sounds important. I'd hate to be a distraction."

They locked eyes for a long moment, and for the second time in the last half-hour Gil felt the spark of tension, uneasy but at the same time not unwelcome. He may have cut his time with Amma unduly short, but he was starting to realise he'd stepped out from the proverbial frying pan and straight into the fire.
"Oh - no, no you're fine." He replied, crossing the tent in a couple short strides and bending over to unzip the bag. He wasn't a pyjama kind of guy, and had he bunked with one of the boys he'd have likely bunked down in boxer briefs and nothing else, but for the sake of modesty and Harper's comfort, he fished out a t-shirt and clean pair of shorts. "It's getting chilly out there and you're already tucked in. Just give me a second."

He stepped outside again, changing his top and pulling off the PRCU-issue athletic trousers, replacing them with the shorts. Underwear would have to change tomorrow - a few scattered students still milled around the campsite, and he wasn't about to go tackle-out in easy view of cellphone cameras. God, imagine those tabloid spreads.

He returned to the tent and chucked his laundry into the corner by his bunk. "Good as new." He said, smiling again, before lying down. He faltered, not sure what to say, how to proceed, or even if he should. He fiddled with his phone, pulling up apps and closing them just as quickly.
"Calliope said you girls came up with some kind of combined rebel theme for the Trials tomorrow? Surely that idea wasn't prompted by anything in particular...?"

Thoughtful. As always.

Harper watched him until he disappeared beyond the tent’s threshold, and only then did she allow herself to roll onto her side. She feigned a casual tinker with her sleeping bag, a guise for her attempt to settle into comfort. A breath she hadn’t known she was holding escaped into the night, mingling with the cool air that caressed her skin, a soothing balm for the unexpected warmth flooding her neck.

The power at her fingertips beckoned—a gift, a curse, an ability that could breach the veil of privacy with ease. Yet, the moral compass within her recoiled at the thought, deeming it a transgression too grave to entertain. However, even if obscured from view, the mere whisper of temptation was a siren’s call she struggled to ignore. Eyes clenched shut, she sought refuge in the void, a respite from the lure of her own powers.

It was only his return that coaxed her eyes open, a small, heartfelt smile her silent greeting as he found his place once more. “Yeah,” she replied, her voice now a gentle murmur. “You look good.” The words slipped out, unbidden, and with them, a familiar rush of embarrassment. Her cheeks flamed, a telltale sign of her social faux pas, as she averted her gaze, once again feigning adjustment to her sleeping bag.

Why did her filters always fail her so spectacularly in his presence? It was as if his proximity sent her thoughts into disarray, leaving her tongue to navigate the chaos alone. An inward sigh marked her frustration, her mind scrambling for a semblance of recovery in the midst of a silence laden with an indefinable charge.

Relief, subtle yet potent, washed over her as Gil broke the silence. Harper found the courage to face him anew, her words flowing with a newfound resolve. “I think we were all feeling the pressure at the time, given the mess of the ceremony and our futures sort of being…in a questionable and scary spot. We felt that with everything going on, we needed to stick together more than ever. And if we could do that while having a little fun, all the better, right?” Her inquiry was genuine, her eyes searching his for a glimpse into his thoughts.

“Besides,” she continued, a playful edge to her voice, “who doesn’t love a good rebellion?”

Gil smiled, allowing Harper's slip-of-the-tongue compliment to pass without comment, though he noted the blush erupting across her face. He'd met a lot of different Harpers over the last two days - the usual authoritative disciplined Harper, the loose, flirty Harper, and now the bashful, flustered Harper. Each facet seemed as endearing as the last.

He rolled onto his side, propping his head up with an arm to look at Harper fully.
"It certainly seems opinion on the Foundation is at an early low..." he mused, thinking about his brief conversation with Amma, and her short inferences into what life under Alexandria might truly have been like. She wasn't the only transfer, of course, but she definitely came across...vitriolic about her time there. "I think everyone will appreciate a reminder that we all stand together here. And I doubt the 'rebel' theme will be lost on the Foundation, for that matter."

Conversation lulled for a moment, and in lieu of a better idea, Gil defaulted to self-aggrandizement.
"I'll admit, I was surprised you wanted to bunk with me, of everyone in the team. You're not worried about the paparazzi in the morning?" He grinned, trying to sell the joke. "Or maybe you're just looking to sell your story to the tabloids..." He rolled onto his back, spreading his hands out to simulate a magazine spread. " 'My exclusive night with Gil Galahad at PRCU!' "

Harper's initial reaction was to brush off her discomfort, laughing along with Gil's attempt to lighten the mood. However, as she gazed at his face, a sense of unease crept in, as if his playful remark carried an undertone she couldn't ignore. The joke felt a bit cringeworthy, and she couldn't help but wonder if he was implying something more. A tiny seed of self-reflection began to take root within her.

Had she ever given that kind of impression?

Her mind flicked through the moments they’d shared, searching for any hint of behaviour that might have led him to think she saw him as merely a star, an object of fascination rather than a real person. She recalled their first meeting, the small banter during training sessions, the times she'd marvelled at his charm and good looks when he wasn’t looking—a frown she didn’t quite notice formed on her lips as she delved deeper into these memories.

As another silence stretched, Harper’s gaze softened, her earlier laughter fading into a more contemplative expression. She needed to address this, to clear the air and ensure he understood her true intentions.

“Gil,” she began, her voice more earnest now, “I didn’t ask to bunk with you for any reason other than wanting to talk to you.” She paused, gathering her thoughts, an uncomfortable expression contorting her features. “I’m sorry if…I may have given the wrong impression before. I’m not a no-strings-attached person.” Her voice grew softer, more reflective. “Been there, tried that, never again.”

She glanced down, fiddling with the edge of her sleeping bag, trying to muster the courage to continue. “I wanted to spend time with you because I genuinely like being around you, not because of your fame or any tabloid story.”

The wisecrack didn't land, the joke's failure plain across her face as an awkward smile spread and faded at equal speed, before being replaced by a slight frown. She looked deeply introspective, and Gil steeled himself as the silence spooled out further and further. He'd finally overstepped, made one cheesy joke too many. Gil had just been enjoying the flirtation and looseness of it, but it was clear now from Harper's voice he'd been playing the fool with something more genuine than he'd realised, for the sake of coquettish thrills and stroking his own ego.

"Sorry, I didn't mean- I didn't want to imply..." He cleared his throat, sitting up and looking uncharacteristically solemn. "I didn't mean to insinuate this was a fling or a quickie or anything like that.. Truth is, it wouldn't be what I'm looking for either, and I'd hate to exploit a good friend in that way."

He set his phone down, removing the distraction and the degree of disconnection it afforded him, focusing solely on Harper. It was dark, but the shine of a full, clear moon filtered through, and the pale light spilled across both their features, making the pair look ethereal, gossamer-painted. "I'd love to talk. I appreciate I might have been a bit of a jackass lately...start fresh?"

He stretched his arm across the darkness, proffering a hand for Harper to shake, hoping she wouldn't notice the goosebumps running across his skin from what he told himself was the cool night air.

Harper's gaze lingered on Gil's outstretched hand, her thoughts swirling with uncertainty. His apology was unexpected, and it honestly caught her off guard. She had always been drawn to Gil's confidence, thoughtfulness, and charm, but this new side of him—the apology, the consideration of her feelings—revealed a depth she hadn't anticipated.

It was captivating to see him lower his walls and expose a vulnerability that mirrored her own, one that she only showed to a select few. And yet, it was also unsettling, forcing her to confront the possibility that the version of Gil she'd held onto might not be the full picture. Now laid bare, the complexity of his character forced her to replay the moments they'd shared again, each memory, each nuance of their interactions, painting a richer, more intricate portrait of the man before her. This was someone who could be more than just a charming face or a fleeting crush—someone who could truly understand and support her.

If she let him.

As she reached out to take his hand, Harper felt the weight of the moment pressing down on her. The warmth of his hand, the gentle pressure of his fingers, was like a gentle rain that soothed her soul, calming the doubts that had been plaguing her. He didn't see her as just a fan. She was his good friend. His friend.

Something within her stirred—a quiet voice that Harper did her best to ignore as she forced a small smile to lift her lips. She kept it contained, like a captured caterpillar, not letting it escape to become the storm of butterflies it was meant to be within her. Instead, she allowed it to form a shackle around her heart, its gentle movements a constant reminder of the potential transformation their relationship could undergo. If only she would speak.

The moon above served as a reflective mirror, casting a light that seemed to understand the quiet turmoil within her. It illuminated the contours of her face, the soft glow revealing the hope that lingered in her eyes, while the shadows hid her doubts, tucking them away into the night.

“Let’s start… fresh,” Harper finally echoed, her voice barely above a whisper, as she allowed her hands to be slowly enveloped by his own.