Hopeless -5minutefreewrite (x3, not) Chibera Nanowrimo

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"And why am I never told what occurs in my house?" Kyla demanded in a loud voice. Janice covered her ears, hoping her mom wouldn't notice her. Mom got upset sometimes when dad got in one of his creative moods, but dad could usually soothe her. She didn't think she could take getting yelled at herself, though, now that she was the one who was in a creative mood.
"Honey, the white walls were fine, but Janice had the brilliant idea to make them pop with color!" noooooo.... Why was dad involving her? Oh god, I'm a human shield. I cannot trust Dad anymore. He will protect his relationship with mom by pushing me in front of her ire.
To her very great surprise, Mom did notice her, and immediately, her demeanor changed. She was not angrier nor kinder, but there was a fierce determination in her voice and eyes. Oh god, this is just like one of those movies where dad is a goofball, and mom has to do the real parenting. Like Mrs. Doubtfire. The 10 year old Janice stared into her father's face, which was, for once, not expressive, she couldn't figure out what he was feeling, or perhaps she could have, but she had more important things to do. She stared into her father's eyes, intently memorizing the details. Those kids in that movie should have known that was their dad. She wasn't going to be caught not knowing her dad. Alright, he had a brown shape coming from the pupil of his left eye. Oh god, how common is that? Am I going to think someone else is my dad just because they have that shape, but otherwise look nothing like my dad?!? Mom was talking.
"...library." Wait, what? Mom was finished talking already? That didn't seem like... where did the words go?
"Kyla, I... will see you after the library. Bye you two, have fun. I love you." Dad's voice crackled on the word "love" Which was extra weird because it was a word he said all the time. Like, if there was a way to count "most common phrases", Dad's would absolutely have been "I Love you SOOOOOoooooo much" And there would have been so many o's in that so that it would take more time than going to the library and back would have to write them all. Dad was the one to take her to the library. Well, that wasn't fair. Mom came along plenty. This was fine.
Janice sat silently in the red Honda Civic as it hummed along. "What's the gas mileage on this?" was all she could think to say. And she already knew the answer, so she didn't ask the question. She wracked her brain for something to say to mom on the 15 minute drive to the library. Something about school? There was nothing. All that was going through her head were describing words for her feelings. I was happy and then suddenly sad. There's nothing worse than that. There's something nice about going from sad to sad, or even bored to sad. Because at least sad is something. But happy, joyful, exuberant is better than sad, and that's just the worst transition. Well, no, angry to sad is worse. but happy to angry isn't as bad as happy to sad. That's weird, isn't it? There's something powerful about angry. Maybe I should be angry right now. Angry at mom. She thought about it, but couldn't muster the energy for a good "angry".
When they got to the library, mom seemed to want them both to pick out a DVD to take home, but she didn't say it outright, just said, "I want to just veg tonight." so Janice walked off quickly to the fantasy sci-fi section. There was Escape from Prism and Quozl, both waiting for her to take them home there. They were like new friends. A month ago, she'd started reading Escape From Prism here, but last week it hadn't been on the shelf, so she'd started Quozl, and now she was a few chapters into both books, entirely hooked and feeling so torn between reading each that she couldn't start either.
"Why don't you check them out and take them both home?" Kyla's voice came from behind her.
"No... No." She couldn't explain that reading them at the library made them feel like an escape. Made it feel like there was a special other place where she was safe from sadness and that had whole worlds for her to explore.
"Sure, they're your library-reading books. I have those, too." Mom sounded like she understood without being told. That was an odd feeling, to feel understood by mom.

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Everything in nature moves. Rocks shift. The Earth spins. The wind blows.

Jani watched it all tumble around her. It was moving too much. There was no ordinary movement in the trees. The rustle of branches bent by birds and scrambling mammals. The wind pushing leaves - there was none of that. There was only the movement of violent crashing and breaking. The whisper of warning from a far away corner of the world that something had to be done had to be done had to be done.

Jani could not stop this monstrosity from destroying the world. Only the human exhaustion of a long hard day of murder could stop him. The animals that could flee had all fled. The trees that survived with scrapes were comforted and carefully bound to help, if they were left to survive on their own, to heal. Jani followed his path of destruction as he circled back to the village. She watched him from afar as the buildings swallowed him up and the battered forest around her heaved a sigh of relief. We cannot feel relieved. They will come again. Jani and the forest could not rest tonight. They needed a plan.
What what what? Jani felt so hopeless. Allies? crossed her mind. Power? What if all the true arbiters came? No, no, that would leave other portions of the forest defenseless. They were already spread too thin, and besides, there was only so much mana. Mana. That was the key. They key to the power of these machines and the key to defeating them. But Jani didn't know as much as she'd pretended to know about the mechanisms by which mana was created, replenished in this system, and if they didn't know now, there was surely no time to learn.

So, what? Die in a misguided, feeble attempt to overwhelm an entire city? Jani had felt the thought creep into her mind from some part of herself, she couldn't pinpoint which, and at the same time reject itself. She climbed into an unharmed tree and sat there, staring out at the village. There couldn't be an answer that made the hopeless hopeful. There were homeless critters-critters whose burrows and nests had been smashed -crowding around her on the branch, curling up in her lap, letting her pet and comfort them. Some of the boldest - squirrels and rats - were shivering violently, perhaps with the chill night air coming on, perhaps with fear.

Jani touched the tree, asked consciously for guidance, and let herself drift into unconsciousness.

"What was the deal with telepaths?" Janice knew she was Janice in this moment. Her separate self in this dream world held her mind apart from Jan's.
"What do you mean? I can't just understand your meaning if we're not sharing a mind." Came Jan's irritated, impatient response. Her dream body had none of the images Janice remembered having on her own body when she was Jani.
"When I first popped into your mind, you were going on and on angrily about Telepaths. You thought I was a telepath, and you were blaming them for every little thing... also, what about Longlegs... why did we have a little army of squirrels instead of fierce giant spider beings?"
"Are you victim-blaming?" Jan had gotten this concept from her close proximity to Janice.
Janice sighed. "I don't know. I just feel helpless. I guess that's a thing people do when they feel helpless. Easier to blame someone weak than to actually take on someone strong and malevolent."
"Well, don't. I don't know where anybody is or was. Maybe there are other things going on or maybe the Longlegs were feasting on frightened rodents. The forest community is not a monolith." This was another useful concept Jan had gotten from Janice. "Yes, wouldn't it be easier of the forest were more like the people, and had violent imperialistic armies that could wipe humanity from the face of the world, or at least threaten them and control them." Sarcasm felt good. It wasn't useful, she reminded herself, oh goodness, that was more of Janice's thought processes coming out, but still, getting angry felt better than getting sad, and there was no one to get angry at here except Janice.
"Didn't you say that used to be the way of it from the Forest? That the cities of man existed by the grace of the forest?"
"Yes. But that's different. I think."
"And then there was... something... mana..."
"Yeah. Hey how come I remember concepts from your mind, but you seem to have a hard time grasping my memories and knowledge?"
"Because you are my dream, and I need clarity."
"Oh no no no no no. I am not a dream. This isn't even a dream. We're in the spirits of the forest, and yes, this is different than the physical realm, but a dream is just a random mish-mash of meaninglessness. This is not a dream - uhbuhbuh - and it's not a defense mechanism. This is real."
"Ok." Said Janice. "Regardless, how are we going to get the humans to leave the forest in peace?"
"We have to kill them all," said Jan.
"NO." said Janice.
"Yeah, that seems like we might be incapable of it. But we gotta try."
"NO." said Janice.
"Then what's your big plan?"
"I don't know." said Janice. "I don't have a substitute plan. I don't I don't. I want there to be a mystical, 'convince all the people' button."
"Well, as far as I know, there isn't. They have the power to destroy us. They seem willing and eager to use it. The consequences for them of destroying the forest are huge, but they're in the distant future for individuals of a species that only lives a couple hundred years."
Both sat in silence in the spirit realm where a moment of silence might last a thousand years or less than an instant.
A tendril of green sprouted between them, reached up, and gave birth to a cloud. It rained on their toes.

Jani opened her eyes. The heavens had opened and the rain poured down. We have no plan Jani thought, then turned her face up to the rain. None whatsoever

She nestled with a hundred small, soft bodies, tilted her head down and slept dreamless sleep.

---

Jani woke up to the sound of buzzing. Soaked through, drip drip dripping, a wet wasp landed on her nose. Jani crossed her eyes to watch it. It shook its wings, quivered its long fearsome thorax, and a single drop, hopefully of water, possibly of poison or venom or whatever wasps have - allergens - Jani should know - flew from its stinger and landed on the tip of a swallow's beak. The swallow took off and flew back into the forest.

Wasps. Jani looked up to the sound of the buzzing. A giant paper wasp nest hung above her. It was beautiful, intricate. Jani felt like she should know exactly how they made it, but it seemed like an impossible thing. There was an elegant sadness to it, as if it were crying out to be admired, but knew that only a human eye could admire it, and it was not intended for humans. It spoke of danger, with fierce, fearsome wasps crawling in and out of it, buzzing through the trees and returning. It took Jani's breath away for a moment. She could not imagine a more beautiful... gah, she was at a loss for words. She just kept staring, trying to memorize every detail.

For https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/weekend-freewrite-11-10-2018-part-1-the-first-sentence