trans_9 | A hero is a terrible thing to waste

It was raining, she had opened a door and it was raining.

Something entirely too strange to ignore.

Sandy had inadvertently stumbled upon the Sensoriums like so many newly awakened pod poppers. And like most of them the first thing it had summoned up was memories of the homeworld. The place long gone thanks to the Ohm.

Sandy entered carefully feeling the rain on her skin. It was both familiar and yet peculiar as she'd gone an entire week without rain from her point of view.

But in this New York it always rained.

The door closed behind her and Sandy began waling down familiar roads and streets in an empty and creepy city. The rain pouring down from above in a dark and cloudy skies.

"Oh crap..." Her voice was soft and apprehensive as each step brought her closer to the scene she knew was waiting for her. She didn't want to see it, but she couldn't stop herself.

And there it was, a crowd of people gathered around, and an old man dressed in a tight suit being smacked around by other old men in strange costumes.

One of them had a boy impaled on a knife.

And there was Sandy in the middle of it all, eyes wide absorbing every drop of violence as the men beat the old hero senseless.

She was witnessing the death of spider-man for a second time.

"It's not real, it's not real!" She told herself over and over again finding herself rooted to the spot.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'm not going to hurt you," Eva prefaces. "These are the Sensoriums. It's a facility that takes images from your mind and tricks you into thinking they're real. Usually you can control them, but I guess if you didn't know what it's supposed to do, it would automatically latch onto whatever you were thinking about."

The idea itself was mind boggling to the little street urchin, "No way..." She responded and then felt rather dumb for it. "This is all...I mean how do you make it work? I didn't mean to turn it on it just like...happened."

"It takes a little getting used to. Try...try picturing the happiest place you've ever been. See what that does."

Sandy didn't need bidding twice. After reliving some of her worst memories a happy place would be a dream come...

...and just like that the duo were transported to...a mall?

It wasn't a very tidy mall, half the stores were closed down, but they were in Christmas villa.

"Wow..." was all she could manage suddenly surrounded by tall fake pines an Sana's throne. swankie digs considering the state of the rundown old mall that had been there before.

"It worked..." She noted her mouth hanging open with Awe "This place is...nuts."

"You wake up on a ship made out of flesh and this is what makes you feel nuts? Alright then. Whatever rocks your boat." She looks around the mall. "So I take it you like to shop or window-shop?"

Sandy gave her a very flat look Shut up, I'm not used to this stuff." She pouted a little but walked closer the the village, "I don't really shop alot. But I remember this place always made me happy."

And really...what kid didn't like Christmas decorations?

"Hey, nothing wrong with the mall at Christmas. I was just conjuring something similar the other week, over the holidays. It's nostalgic."

"What holidays?" Sandy asked suspiciously as the music faded away in her calm and she found herself sitting in the food court surrounded by nice smells and treats she could never afford. "It was like...the middle of September back home before I woke up here. What month is it? Do we even have months anymore?" It was all a little much for a kid to process really.

"Most of the ship celebrated Christmas a few weeks back, so I assume that whether or not we have a schedule, there's at least some sort of consensus on what day it is. You want to grab something to eat? It tastes better in here than it does in the cafeteria."

"Wait what? How does that work?" She'd gone from one mind boggling concept to the next in a matter of seconds and while they were hardly the most difficult to understand ideas Sandy was barely keeping up. "Do we just like...ask for food?"

"Well, I could buy you lunch. But there's no money system aboard Stacy yet, so you could just tweak your image of the mall to have the food be free if you'd rather."

Sandy gave her a very blank look as she tried to figure out exactly how it would work, "But like...if this is all fake how does the food become real? Or do I just think I'm full but I'm not?"

"The latter. I mean, you can bring food in here and have the Sensoriums trick your mind into having it be something more edible, but if there's nothing basic in here it'll just trick your mind into thinking you're eating."

Sandy shrugged, "I-I guess...OK um." Sandy looked at the closest place, a Pizza place. All the listed prices were suddenly shifted to "Free."

"Wow..." She grinned as a rush of excitement came over her, "This place is awesome!" Short term memory was a wonderful thing.

Eva grins and nods. "It really is, once you get the hang of it. I'm Eva, by the way. Seems I forgot to introduce myself."

"Oh um...Sandy Marko." She shuffled her feet and looked like she was trying to decide if she should offer to handshake or not. In the end she decided against it. "Um...listen can you...not tell anyone about like...any of this?" She looked away unable to meet Eva's eyes, "It was just an accident I didn't know this place would like...make monsters or any of that." And she was REALLY uncomfortable with anyone knowing about her stone skin. Hitgirl had said super powers were OK but...well old habits were hard to break.

"Don't worry. Consider my lips sealed and locked with the key thrown out. We all have our stories here and I wouldn't consider it my business to go around spouting yours."

Sandy visibly relaxed. "This is all just...alot to take in. I mean bac khome you're lucky if you even know your neighbor's name but suddenly I'm surrounded by all these people and we're supposed to like...save the universe together?" She sounded suspicious, "How do they even expect that to work?"

Eva shrugs. "When you figure it out drop me a line. I have no idea. But it seems like, a few people exempted, people get along pretty well here for the most part. Not like we don't have our share of idiots, self-serving slugs or bigoted morons, but they're easy enough to ignore."

Sandy gave a grin, "So it's just like New York after all." and then laughed. Not a bad joke for someone her age.

Eva laughs. "Yes. Exactly. But without all the traffic."

A hero is a terrible thing to waste

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