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Her name is Kai. Her last name is a mystery, even to me. My papers tell me it's Chuuwu? Or something like that. She honestly must have said the name as a joke and for some godforsaken reason it stuck. My father tells me it’s Corechuu. My DNA tells me it's Gomez. My heart still hopes for Parker, deep down. I don’t believe in any of them.
My name is Sonic Boom. I like being called SB for short. I am the #1 ranked hero. I smell faintly like cinnamon and coppery blood. My own blood is blue. My body is littered with white freckles that resemble stars I can barely see. My scars heal over in time. Kai’s never do.
Kai’s scars cut deep below the surface, sharp as a knife and twice as painful. Kai’s 3 years old and being strapped down to a cold, metal table for the first, but certainly not last, time. Kai’s 8 years old and feeling his bones protrude out of his back and tear through flesh and sinews before breaking through the skin. Kai is screaming for help but no one is coming as his chest collapses and from that cavity blue spirits seemingly dance about. One spirit for every death, perhaps?
Kai’s 11 years old as the bullet shatters Eden. Kai’s simultaneously 17 as the blade digs deep into her chest. Kai’s 21 and she feels death close in around her. It’s icy. It’s cold. It’s not the first time. It will never be the last.
Those scars just can’t seem to heal.
Spark tells me I’m still a person, even if I’m not human anymore. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think Kai thinks so either.
I fix up Kai with plaster and wrap her up in cloth and I lay her down to rest. And everytime I come back, she’s broken all over again. I tell her that’s what she gets for letting someone in when I wasn’t there.
Kai ends up with a new scar every day, and every day they don’t appear on my skin. It’s like they never happened at all.
My name is SB, and I am held together with what feels like sculk veins and spite. Kai’s a shell. They’re held together by a mosaic of harsh memories and sharp words and she’s as human as a plastic toy a child throws away given the first chance at something newer, shinier, and less difficult to deal with.
My name is Kai. Every scar I carry is only below the surface, so when the layers of skin above it are peeled away I appear rotten inside to the others.
Perhaps they’re right.