rekindledtitan | (Reply)

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Jesse is suddenly attentive again, sitting forward in his seat again, craning his neck to see all he can and looking from one catch of the eye to another.

Seeing this place overgrown and abandoned, destroyed in some spots, is...not sad, but it's something along those lines. Haunting? That might be it. Sobering? Though he does take some comfort in seeing that plant life continues to thrive and is hard at work taking back the land.

Everything that looks like a distinctive building, a landmark, an important street, he stares hard at it. Hoping something like a memory or at least a stirring of one will take place in his head. Even if it's not HIS Calgary, it's still Calgary, right? Maybe even just the lay of the land, a particular route, something, will conjure some kind of recognition.

But the further they go and the longer he goes without anything resembling an epiphany or recollection, the more Jesse starts to realize that's just not how these things work. Because that is what he hoped for, wasn't it? Something would spark inside him and he'd suddenly remember who he was and what he did before he died. In whole, not just the vague patches that feel more like he's remembering facts about another person entirely. But nothing. There's nothing. Just a city as dead as he is.

"What happened here anyhow?" he finally asks, determined not to dwell on his disappointment. It was irrational, what he was hoping for.