(AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN…) A MEETING OF INSANITY

Over the next few days, it became increasingly clear just how far things had worsened.

At first the explosions appeared on the news in brief segments tucked between other stories, delivered in the same appropriately sad tone anchors had mastered, even as footage of smoke and broken storefronts played behind them. 

That changed quickly. The segments grew longer and more frequent, stacking one after another in a way that made it impossible to treat them as isolated incidents. 

One morning while she ate breakfast, the television showed a blast from a neighborhood she barely knew, the camera lingering on shattered glass and a cordon of yellow tape while reporters spoke softly about injuries and ongoing investigations. Later that same day, the same footage appeared again on a screen in a convenience store window as she walked past on the way home, replayed without sound while pedestrians glanced at it only briefly before continuing on their way.

By the time evening arrived, there would be another location, another damaged street, another report accompanied by images of firefighters picking through rubble and paramedics loading someone into an ambulance.

By the third day, the explosions stopped feeling... noteworthy, and became a fixture, as much a constant as the gangs were in the city. They still frightened people, and the sound of a distant blast was enough to make heads turn and people flinch, yet the events had begun to settle into the same uneasy category as everything else wrong that defined the city. 

Brockton Bay had always been a place where crime and danger existed alongside daily life, and the people who lived there had long since learned that continuing forward was often easier than stopping to confront the full weight of what was happening around them.

Some would probably call that resilience, while others might see it as indifference. The truth, as far as Taylor could tell, was simpler and less flattering than either explanation. Most of the bombs were not destroying important buildings or entire neighborhoods in the city yet. 

They just tore up streets, storefronts, and cars. Sometimes someone died, and sometimes no one did. When the victims were strangers, when the destruction appeared on a screen instead of outside one’s own door, it became possible to push the fear aside long enough to finish the day.

If you did not know the victims, life went on.

Taylor saw it everywhere.

One afternoon she stood in line at a small cafe while someone’s phone chimed with an alert about an explosion downtown, the owner glancing up only briefly before returning to the coffee machine as though the notification were little different from a weather warning.

Another day, while she was walking along the sidewalk, a distant boom rolled through the air. People paused just long enough to look toward the source of the sound, and then the moment passed and conversations resumed as though the interruption had been nothing more than a passing siren.

No one pretended it was normal, but they kept acting like it had to be.

The PRT, unfortunately for them, did not have the luxury of treating it that way.

Their presence on the news had become nearly constant. Press conferences appeared every day, sometimes more than once, usually showing officers standing behind podiums with the city seal stamped across the front. They spoke about ongoing investigations, about coordination with local heroes, about the importance of cooperation and patience. 

Occasionally one of said local heroes stood nearby in costume, visible over the speaker’s shoulder as a reminder that the city still had protectors. At other times the heroes themselves addressed the press, their statements blending reassurance with warnings about the seriousness of the threat.

Yet as the days passed and the number of explosions continued to climb, the speeches began to blur together into background noise. For many people, including Taylor, the broadcasts gradually became something that filled the air without truly demanding attention.

Was that fair to them? Probably not. She understood, in a distant way, that the people standing behind those podiums were not idle, that investigations took time and that situations like this rarely resolved quickly. Still, fairness did not carry much relevance when the same footage appeared again and again, repeating the same images of smoke and caution tape and death.

School, meanwhile, continued through all of it.

The Dockside hadn’t been hit yet, which meant Winslow remained open, and classes went on whether anyone liked it or not. The decision seemed almost absurd at first, but after a day or two it settled into place like everything else had.

Her dad had told her she could stay home if she wanted. He’d said it carefully, like he was testing the words before offering them, watching her reaction closely. There had been concern in his voice, but also something else, a recognition that he was trying to give her space without pushing her too far in either direction.

Taylor had shaken her head.

Staying home sounded worse than facing school again.

The routine helped; getting up, getting dressed, and walking out the door forced her mind to move forward instead of circling the same thoughts in the same room. It made the days something predictable to look forward to.

Therapy helped too, in its own way. Talking to Jessica had loosened something inside her, easing a pressure she had been carrying for far too long enough that she could breathe again.

But talking didn’t really help deal with the root cause of the problem. Which, in her case, were the loops. 

If she stayed in her room too long, she knew what would happen. The thoughts she had pushed aside would begin to close in again, pulling her back toward the same dark places she had already spent far too much time in.

School, for all its problems, was at least a temporary escape from that certainty.

And things there had… changed.

Winslow itself had not changed. The hallways still smelled of cleaning chemicals and old lockers and grime, and the same groups of students gathered in the same places they always had. 

What had changed was the way people looked at her.

They recognized her now.

The girl from the bus.

Taylor noticed it in small ways at first. Conversations dipped slightly when she walked past, voices lowering before rising again once she had moved on. Sometimes someone met her eyes and offered a brief, awkward smile rather than looking away. A few students had approached her outright over the course of the week, their gratitude hesitant but sincere, usually accompanied by an explanation about a cousin or neighbor who had been on that bus that day.

It felt strange, being the focus of that kind of attention after so long spent trying to avoid it. So she did not quite know how to respond. She mostly nodded when people spoke to her before continuing on her way.

But even that was preferable to sitting alone in her room with nothing but her thoughts.

On one particular afternoon, the sky hung low and gray as she walked home, her backpack slung loosely over one shoulder. The streets were not empty, but they felt sparser than usual, the familiar sounds of the city dulled beneath the tension everyone was pretending not to feel.

Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed.

Taylor heard them and kept walking without turning her head. Over the past few days the sound had become almost as common as the news reports, another reminder that something had gone wrong somewhere else in the city.

She rounded a corner, already thinking about getting home and finding something to eat before her dad returned from work, when her steps slowed and then stopped altogether.

A woman stood partway down the sidewalk ahead of her, patting her foot rapidly as she leaned against a streetlight, as if she had been waiting there for a while. There was nothing immediately threatening about her posture or the way she stood there, yet the sight of her felt wrong in a way that was difficult to explain. In a city filled with people looking high-strung, the woman’s relaxed stance stood out too clearly.

The woman noticed Taylor staring and smiled.

It was not a friendly smile, nor was it openly hostile. There was curiosity in it, and an intensity that suggested she was studying Taylor just as closely as Taylor had been studying her. It did not promise anything good.

She did not know the woman’s name yet, or who she was, but Taylor had the distinct feeling that she was about to find out.