(AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN…) A NEW TYPE OF PAIN (CONT’D)

By the time Taylor finally stopped screaming, the sky had gone dark.

The realization came to her slowly, surfacing through the haze of overwhelming panic only after her voice gave out entirely. What remained of it scraped against her throat in ragged, broken breaths that hurt almost as much as the memory of the fire itself.

She sat slumped against the wall of the alley she had stumbled into after the reset, one arm wrapped tightly around her middle while the other still clutched weakly at her throat. At some point she had started crying too. Taylor honestly could not remember when.

The alley around her was quiet now, lit only by the orange glow spilling in from the street beyond. Somewhere farther away, a siren wailed briefly before fading into the distance again. Otherwise, the city had moved on without her.

Her breathing slowly became even, but still, the feeling never fully left. She could even see her own hands well enough in the dim light, pale and unburned and shaking violently whenever she moved them too much. 

Eventually, she forced herself upright.

Her legs nearly buckled beneath her at first, weak from exhaustion more than injury, but they held. Barely. Taylor swallowed and immediately regretted it as pain scraped through her throat hard enough to make her eyes water again.

“How long was I here?” she rasped weakly.

No answer came.

That was probably for the best.

Confusion began settling in alongside the exhaustion as she looked toward the mouth of the alley. The street beyond had emptied out considerably compared to before. Most of the nearby storefronts were closed now, their lights dark behind metal shutters.

Night. Actual night.

Taylor stared for a moment, trying to piece together how much time had passed while she sat there falling apart. And more importantly, why had nobody done anything?

There were no ambulances, no police, and no paramedics trying to drag the hysterical teenage girl off the sidewalk. Nothing. Had nobody checked on her?

Slowly, Taylor began patting herself down, half expecting to find something horribly wrong the moment she looked too closely. Missing skin. Missing fingers. Missing anything, really. Her heart pounded unpleasantly while her hands moved over her arms, stomach, ribs, and neck.

Everything was still there.

A shaky breath escaped her.

Then her hand brushed against an empty pocket.

Taylor froze.

She checked the other one.

Empty too.

For a second she simply stood there staring downward in disbelief before an exhausted sort of irritation pushed through the lingering panic.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she croaked.

Her cash was gone.

It wasn't much cash, admittedly, but enough that she wasn’t afraid of being stranded. Somebody had apparently found the screaming, half-catatonic girl collapsed in an alley and decided to rob her.

Honestly, that felt weirdly fitting for Brockton Bay.

Taylor rubbed tiredly at her face before immediately wincing when the motion dragged against skin roughened by her not-so-brief bout of madness.

This loop was probably ruined already.

Even if she somehow found Lung now, she doubted she was in any condition to do anything useful about it. The moment she closed her eyes, she still saw fire, and her body reacted to every trace of warmth like another attack was coming.

But she was already here. And if this loop ended badly anyway, then she could at least make herself useful before it did.

Taylor let out another hoarse breath and pushed herself away from the wall, her legs still unsteady beneath her as she stepped back toward the street. Then, ignoring the ache in her throat and the faint terror still crawling beneath her skin, she started walking deeper into ABB territory.