—Nothing changes. Nothing ever changes. Nothing nothing nothing everything is the same every day is the same, every and every and it's always

Trunks knows. He knows, he knows he knows how it works how everything works, everything the same, every day the same, it melts together in the corners but he knows it he does he can until—until:

—that

—drowning god i think i'm drowning god i god please

(but—god is dead)

He remembers his mother that day, most of all. Graying—no, not graying, gray, already, pinched eyes and mouth and forehead and he doesn't know any different, but Gohan said it and—

—and his mother. He remembers her that day. He remembers her most days; he remembers, he thinks, every day, but it's that day—the day he first did it, the day he first became a Super Saiyan. He remembers her. Sitting at her work bench, ice cold coffee in hand, lost in staring at blue prints—like they hold the answer to everything, the mysteries of the universe (oh, but they do, she thinks they do—). He is covered in blood that day.

She sees it. Stands in alarm. Moves towards him and then away—he's covered in blood, but it's rain, he remembers, mostly rain, even—ki doesn't leave much blood—and she knows that if it's not him then—"Where is he?"

Runs a few feet past him. She knows. They know. Everyone knows. But he still tells her: "Dead." His voice is calm. His hands ache, are scabbed and stained and dried with his own blood. "Gohan's dead."

I'm drowning—

There is a funeral that he doesn't go to. It's hard to bend his fingers (pierced right through the skin and muscle, didn't you, that day, clenched your fists so hard that) and he laces his boots slowly.

And finds them.

—#18 says: "God takes away one thing and gives us another."

"We're truly blessed," her brother replies—

—His mother brings him home, bloodied and drowning.