Steel 📜

ALT Panel 1: Audrey quietly leaves Val's apartment, closing the door with a soft click so as to not wake her up. It's a sunny morning outside, illuminating the apartment building's outdoor second floor in a soft cool light. Panel 2: As Audrey turns around and begins walking towards the staircase down, we see that they have three tiny yellow flowers growing out of their head. Each of the flowers is saying something, but it's too quiet to be discernible. Panel 3: Audrey is now sitting at a bus stop, holding their purse in their lap, with the river that runs through their town in the background. The flowers have grown bigger and now have smiling centers in the color of Audrey's skintone. We still can't quite hear them. Panel 4: Audrey is now sitting on a bus, staring blankly forward. The flowers are now very prominent, having eyes and mouths and look distinctly like Audrey's. They're louder than ever, but we still can't make out what they're saying.

ALT Panel 5: Audrey's apartment from inside. Pink walls and a pale yellow floor. A wall-mounted coat rack and a wooden shoe rack on the floor. A grapefruit-and-yellow striped welcome mat. A cabinet next to the door with stacked mail, and a bin with discarded mail next to it. Panel 6: Audrey bursts through the door, still staring blankly forward. The flowers are huge now and look like the reflection Audrey saw of themself with five-o-clock-shadow in the morning, albeit still with yellow petals. They're saying "TRICKING HER!", "WEIRDO!", and "PERVERT!" Panel 7: Audrey, with eyes staring blankly forward as if to avoid acknowledging them, grasps the flower stems at their bases as they continue chattering, and ... Panel 8: ... rips them out, taking a bit of hair along with them. The flowers become silent.

ALT Panel 9: The background becomes pitch black as Audrey stares down at the flowers in their hands with a wide-eyed quiet malice. Panel 10: One of the flowers, the only one facing Audrey in their hand, looks Audrey directly in the eyes and speaks: "You can rip me out all you want, Adrian. I'll grow back." Panel 11: "My roots are still there," it finishes, as Audrey drops the flowers into the dark abyss that has become their surroundings. Panel 12: We zoom out to see that Audrey is standing on a cliff and dropping those flowers off of it -- but at the bottom is already a sea of dead flowers that has accumulated over the years.

ALT Panel 13: Audrey looks forward blankly, clearly hurt but unsure of what to do. Panel 14: A memory comes back to them, of looking in the mirror that morning. In the memory, they are hairier than they were (even having chest hair), their face is more chiseled, and their brow is more prominent. Panel 15: Audrey puts their hand over their eyes, rubbing them, as the memory swirls in their head. Panel 16: They part their fingers slightly to allow their eye to see between them and say to themself, "gym."