✦ Twice Divided, Twice United ✦

A Story by J

(Warn: blood, angst, crying, bone cracking)

2/22/2022, 2:22 PM.

Tessa sat cross-legged on her bed, head bowed, eyes flicking between the digital clock on her nightstand and the dim glow of her phone.
Her fingers trembled. She didn’t know why.

A cold sweat dampened her back. The numbers on the clock blurred, not from exhaustion, but from something pulling at the edge of reality.

She pressed a hand to her chest.

Thump-thump. Thump. Thump…

Her heartbeat slowed.

Then-
SNAP.

A jagged pain shot through her forearm, sharp as lightning.

“Wh-what the hell?!”

Her skin pulsed beneath her hoodie, veins glowing green, spiderwebbing up her arms. She clawed at her sleeves, gasping as fingers twisted backward, joints popping, nails splitting down the middle. Skin cracked apart, peeling away to reveal smooth, pastel-green bone.

She collapsed to her knees.

“N-No, please, please!”

Her scream turned into a wet gargle as her jaw snapped sideways with a sickening CRUNCH. The lower half of her face reshaped, tugged into a smooth, rounded curve, her human mouth sealing over with green, alien geometry.

Blood dripped down her chin, pooling on the carpet.

Her back arched, spine bending like a bowstring drawn too far, vertebrae cracking one by one. She felt her legs shorten, feet reshaping, toes fusing as they morphed into cartoonish limbs. She tried to push herself up, but her arms buckled beneath her, not her arms anymore, just limbs shaped for another purpose.

“M-Mom… Dad… somebody… please!”

A deep voice rumbled inside her throat.

“At last… I’m free.”

Her tears turned cold as her mind caved inward. Tessa’s thoughts shattered, her voice fading into a faint, echoing sob in the dark recesses of her own mind.

And standing in her place, where a human girl once knelt, was Two.

✦ Days into Years

The world passed in a haze.
Cities crumbled. Time flickered.
Two roamed, searching, hunting.

Inside, Tessa’s consciousness floated like a ghost.

She banged her fists against invisible walls, screaming, howling into the void. But Two was a perfect cage, and her voice slipped away like dust on the wind.

And far away, waiting, was X.

A 4’7, bright-yellow figure with jittering fingers, restless legs, and wide, anxious eyes. X felt it. He felt the world tilting wrong, a piece missing, a weight pressing down on his chest. Without Four, his own laughter rang hollow, his nervous fidgets grew frantic. He waited, and waited, and waited.

✦ 4/4/2044, 4:44 PM

The sky split open.

Two dropped to his knees, clutching his chest as a violent blue fissure tore down his body. His green glow flickered, veins bulging under his skin.

Inside, Tessa’s consciousness surged upward, slamming into Two’s mind like a drowning swimmer desperate for air.

“I’M STILL HERE! LET ME OUT!”

Two let out a shattered roar, the British accent cracking into raw, primal growls. His fingers stretched, claws bursting through his flesh, bones tearing apart and reforming into new shapes. His body convulsed, skin rippling from Skirret Green to Curious Blue, arms darkening into Picton Blue, a black outline sharpening like a knife’s edge.

Tessa felt every snap, every tear, every nerve screaming.

For one heartbeat
she surfaced.

In the blurred mirror of his mind, she saw herself: broken, green-stained skin, eyes wide with terror.

“Help me…”

And then she was crushed under as Four emerged, gasping into existence.

✦ Reunion

Across the field, X stumbled forward, chest tight, voice shaking.

“Four…? Is it really you?”

Four’s eyes flicked toward him, narrowed, guarded.
The claws at his side twitched. But the icy blue softened, not much, but just enough.

“Hey, X.”

X let out a shuddering laugh and sprinted forward, arms wrapping around Four’s waist, face buried in his chest. Four stiffened at first, claws hovering awkwardly then slowly, carefully, he rested a hand on X’s back.

“I missed you, you know,” X murmured, voice shaking.
“Don’t leave again.”

Four closed his eyes.

But deep inside, behind the calm mask, the claws, the blue glow
Tessa screamed.

“I’M STILL HERE.”

Her voice bounced off the walls of Four’s mind, unheard.
Her tears bled into his thoughts like old scars.

And as X clung to Four, sobbing into his chest, Four’s eyes darkened at the edges, shadowed by something even he couldn’t name.

The world had balanced itself again.
But it had come at a cost.