Long Past Dawn

Jikan will be ok... right?

Someone slips a cup into my hands, it's warm and a brown liquid is inside of it. I take a sip, it tastes horrible. "Ugh, it tastes like sludge..."

Stephen looks over at me a twinkle in his eye, "Yes but it's caffeinated sludge, drink up."

I guess this is what coffee tastes like then, it's just as gross as I imagined. But it's warm and I'm feeling really cold so I tip back my head a little and chug the whole thing down.

It slightly burns my mouth but it still warms me up so I'll take it. "H-how is she?"

Stephen looks away. He's a horrible liar, "I-I don't know all the details..."

We sit in silence for a few minutes, Stephen pushes his glasses up every few minutes, it makes him look kinda cute.

After a few minutes, Batman walks over with Superman. Superman starts, "Jikan is..... Dawn, you need to understand that none of this is your fault..."

Batman then says, "Dawn, she's dying. Her genome is contracting, her organs are also failing, she has a scorching fever, along with way too many cells dying. I'd say she maybe has a week."

Week, one word and one syllable. Yet the word seems to weigh down on me. But she seemed so happy and healthy. "How did this happen?"

My voice sounds more like an echo. Batman sighs like he doesn't know either, "It could be so many different things, chemical imbalances maybe. But just like you, her genome is switching between what you would expect in a human and whatever that other thing is, but it's on a much larger scale. I hate to say it but... I think whatever that chemical that makes you guys, well, like you are is killing her..."

What? This power is killing her? "B-but... Is there anything you can do?"

Batman shakes his head and I feel like I've been submerged in cold water and thrown into a fire at the same time. It's hardly been two days since Batman told me that everything was a lie and now...? Now I'm being told that someone else I was starting to care about is going to die. How many times must my heartbreak before the world is satisfied? Why does the world hate me so much?

"Then what about me? Am I going to die too?" Yeah, that would be a great way to die. The world hasn't taken enough away from me yet. Hey so now that you know pretty much all your life has been a lie and the little kid you care about is going to die... Congratulations! You get to die too! Something like that maybe?

"We don't know yet, but if we do a blood test we can probably figure it out from that and then we can proceed accordingly," Batman says and I'm starting to think he doesn't have any emotions.

I'm too mad to be polite anymore, "Proceed accordingly? What bs. Do you even care? I bet you think it's funny that I've lost everything and am still losing more." I spit the words in his face.

Stephen starts to get up from his seat, "Dawn that's-"

"No, let her. I want to hear what she has to say." Batman says and extends a hand to stop Stephen from getting up.

I'm standing at this point but I don't care, the blanket also fell off my shoulders a long time ago, "You act like you know everything! Like you're better than everyone else. I guess that's what you get when you're a multimillionaire by day and a crime fighter by night. Do you ever think about other people? All your talk about proceeding accordingly but be f*cking honest for once." My breath is coming out ragged now but I don't care. I don't f*cking care anymore. "You have no clue what is going on. You don't have a clue what's wrong with me or Jikan so you can shut the f*ck up about all this 'proceeding accordingly' bs."

I know I'm taking this out on the wrong person. I know I shouldn't be yelling at Batman but honestly, I hate him. None of this is his fault but I just need someone to blame, someone to be able to say 'this is all your fault'.

Tears are again rolling down my face. I've never cried so much as I have in these last two days, I've never lost as much as in these two days.

As I yell all these things Batman doesn't seem to react at all. Why? Why can't he tell me I'm wrong? That none of this is his or my fault. That it will all be ok.

I crumble, I fall to my knees. I've lost all my strength to fight back. "Why? Why don't you say I'm wrong?"

"I'm whatever the world needs me to be. And if for you that means that I have to be a villain so you can get back up then I'll be your villain."

I try to wipe away the tears but I can't. "Then why let me make you the villain?"

"...Someone once told me that the point of Batman was that he can be the outcast."

Damnit, why does he have to make sense? "Thank you."

Stephen looks over at me in surprise, I was just cursing him and now I'm thanking him, I would be confused too if I wasn't the one saying it. "I... I'll do the tests."

Batman nods and I get up off the ground, he leads me over to a chair in the corner of the room.

"I'm going to do a blood draw, ok?" I just nod, I've gone back to feeling numb.

Funny thing is that I've never minded needles, all the other kids hated them but I didn't mind them. But for some reason when Batman puts the needle in it feels like I'm on fire, it's not that he wasn't careful about it, my god was he careful about it. But it just feels so painful.

After a moment he takes the needle out and the pain stops. I look down at the spot where the needle was, a little dot of blood marks the spot. I wipe away the blood expecting to see a small cut but no... there's no sign that the needle even touched me...

I then realize that my cuts haven't been hurting. At the time, sure, I marked it up to be the work of medicine but no. It would have to start hurting at some point. I roll up my jeans like it's the end of the world and tear of the medical gauze that had been protecting it and... there's nothing there. I mean my leg is there but it looks good as new like it was never injured, to begin with.

My hands are shaking, how is this possible? I-it shouldn't be possible to heal so fast.

I roll up my hoodie sleeve to see if the cut on my arm is still there, with the sudden movement I get a stinging pain traveling across my arm. Yep, still there.

Ok, think this through. all the cuts from the glass and such have healed but the cut I gave myself hasn't. Does this mean that if something hurts me I can heal myself but if I hurt myself it takes as long as usual? What's with that cheat level ability?!

Ok, but you don't know for certain... But you can't test it on yourself since we know that it probably won't work. I turn to Batman for help, "Cut me. Please, I know I sound crazy but I need to make sure of something. It doesn't even have to be a big cut! A small one will work!"

Batman has a look on his face like he knows I've finally lost it. "Please just trust me! I promise I'll explain everything later!"

Batman sighs but grabs a scalpel and on the back of my hand makes a small cut. Blood jumps through the cut to meet open air. I wipe it away to make sure my guess was correct and the skin doesn't even look like it might have once been broken.

I was right.