Shattered Moon

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

[Meena Lalita Kumar continued from Fragment 24d]

Meena refused to sleep, and wandered listlessly through the evening and snow until the beckoning of the warm and dark became stronger than the beckoning of the cold and dark. All the while, Ren tailed behind, and Meena refused to speak to them, answer their questions, give them any more ammo to shoot holes through Meena's walls with.

He she he needed a new name she wandered into the cellar, tiptoeing through the church in the dark of night, unwilling to see if the shadows that danced in the periphery of her vision were living or dead. Ren was down there too, and offered to guard, but Meena refused to sleep. They lay down on the floor, but refused to close her eyes. At some point, Ren muttered something about wanting to be woken up so they could take a turn, even though that wasn't necessary and really if they were smart they'd just get the free sleep Meena was offering them. If she was kind, she'd let them have it anyway. But no, she woke them up anyway, not because she wanted to sleep, oh no, but because she hated how peaceful Ren looked after a few hours of it. Not that she said that. She didn't say anything.

Why didn't they just ditch her already? Meena was nothing but horrible to Ren.

In fact, her first words came only after the announcement. She knew they were speakers or somesuch in here, but they filled out the space in the cellar in a way that suggested they wanted to boom out in the open.

If she thought about it hard enough, she could think of good reasons to hate most of the people mentioned as dying, no matter how petty, no matter how little Meena actually knew about them. Suddenly, she'd be a dedicated hater of theater kids, country music, sports, and the school's unfortunately named Christian club. But instead of any of that, the first words out of Meena's mouth were a muttering.

"...dammit Kitty..."

[Zetsu]

[Ren Vu continued from Fragment 24d]

Kitty, Janice, Przemyslaw, Quinn, Kitty again, Janice again, Jacob, Jessica, Aracelis, Jezzie, Shu. Kitty, Janice, Przemyslaw, Quinn, Kitty again, Janice again, Jacob, Jessica, Aracelis, Jezzie, Shu. Kitty, Janice, Przemyslaw, Quinn, Kitty again, Janice again, Jacob, Jessica, Aracelis, Jezzie, Shu. Kitty, Janice, Przemyslaw, Quinn, Kitty again, Janice again, Jacob, Jessica, Aracelis, Jezzie, Shu. Kitty, Janice, Przemyslaw, Quinn, Kitty again, Janice again, Jacob, Jessica, Aracelis, Jezzie, Shu.

The names circulated through Ren's head, crystallizing, committing themselves to their memory, where they were slowly sorted through and rearranged. Ren could not afford to forget any of them.

The hike had been good. Meena's steps had been aimless; they had meandered, it seemed, all over the island, save for the slight peak that grew from its heart--a dormant or long-extinct volcano, perhaps, if Ren's scant knowledge of islands and volcanoes was usable to any extent. The route suited Ren--the more ground they covered, the better to find their other friends: Kai, Cali, Cedar, Trinity, and--especially--Kitty. And if it so happened that Ren found the silence was choking, that they were more alone and emptier than before, that in response to their questions Meena remained wordless as a stone--if it so happened that this was the case, then it did not matter so long as they could look for Kitty and keep Meena alive. This they had done, turning their neck into a swivel joint, their head constantly spinning back and forth as they scanned their surroundings for Kitty, and for threats. When they could not move without making noise--and Meena had not been taking particular care to keep her roving presence a secret--Ren had called for Kitty softly, as they surely already had the attention of anyone within earshot. Ren had been sure that someone, one way or the other, would take notice--but if anyone had, they kept clear of the pair. Ren had seen no one at all.

When at last Meena decided to cease her wandering and settle down to rest, it was past sundown. Meena had led them to a church, perhaps randomly, perhaps not--Meena knew Ren's feelings there. And then she had refused to sleep.

Kitty, Janice, Przemyslaw, Quinn, Kitty again, Janice again, Jacob, Jessica, Aracelis, Jezzie, Shu.

Ren had refused too, at first. They were deathly afraid that Meena would leave them as soon as they had fallen asleep, that they would wake up the next morning to the sound of static and a crackling voice, announcing Meena's death at her own hand. But they were no good to Meena exhausted, and so they had closed their eyes and asked Meena to wake them up when the time came for their watch, knowing as they did so that this very well may be the last thing they ever said to her.

They had jumped a little when she woke them up.

Przemyslaw, Quinn, Jacob, Jessica, Aracelis, Jezzie, Shu. Kitty, Janice.

It had been an easy watch, all things considered. With only one exit, the cellar was a death trap, but this also meant that there was only one entrance to keep an eye on, and as Ren could hear the steps of someone walking on the church floor long before they even got close to the trapdoor, it didn't even need to be a particularly close eye. At one point they had even tried to pull out the book they had brought with them, Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey--they'd been itching to read it for some time, would've read it on the bus if they didn't get motion sick. They couldn't find it, of course. Someone had taken it.

After that, there had been little for them to do. They'd looked at Meena, once, before looking away quickly--her face, in its blankness, was a little too much like Ren. Otherwise, they snacked on grist, paced back and forth whenever their eyelids felt heavy, stared at the door, and listened. They hadn't minded it, much. Now that Meena's quiet didn't mean anything, they were no longer afraid of it, and could almost relax. All had been quiet aside from the skittering of the rats.

Until, of course, the announcement had come on, at which point Ren had felt compelled to gently shake Meena awake.

Przemyslaw, Quinn, Jacob, Jessica, Aracelis, Jezzie, Shu. Janice.

Nine killers. Eight names to remember, if you didn't count Kitty's. What each of these names would mean to Ren, however, had yet to become clear.

Dammit, Kitty, they heard Meena say.

"We have to find her."

Ren turned to Meena.

"Not immediately, of course," they added, though their body was screaming at them to leave and resume the search immediately. "But--sometime. Did anything happen to anyone who's important to you?"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Nobody was important to Meena, because Meena wasn't important to anybody.

Well, that was a lie. There were a lot of people who lived rent free in her head in a bad way, while they thought nothing or less of her. She had the sinking feeling that Kitty would become one of them, in her last days. Actually no, it wasn't a sinking feeling, it wasn't a bad thing. Actually yes, it was a bad thing. But it was a thing that Meena was planning on fixing, and not by kicking the thought of Kitty out of her head. It wasn't like Ren was gonna do that anytime soon, after all.

"To be honest," she lied, "I hated most of the victims."

It wasn't a complete lie. She hated Robin, at least - Ren probably knew that. Maybe it was an exaggeration to say she hated Iliya but she was definitely a jerk to her that one time - Ren probably also knew that. Worship-And-Prayer was full of obnoxious people - the more she thought about it, the more every victim seemed to have something obnoxious about them, enough so that with time to stew in her resentment towards everyone and everything, Meena's lie would become true.

She kinda wished she said she hated all of the victims.

[Zetsu]

Ren blinked. There it was again, that cold, biting malice Ren had felt in the garage. It didn't belong in Meena's voice, but then again, how could Ren blame Meena for reacting badly to being kidnapped and made to kill? Nobody was themself when they were here; that was the point.

Besides, she was talking. She was even taking the risk of being honest with Ren, despite yesterday. The least they could do was graciously accept the second chance they had been offered.

Ren frowned, replaying the announcement in their head. They hadn't been able to afford paying close attention to the victims' names, for the most part. "Robin, of course. And she also killed Liya...Mal was a piece of work, yeah. Oakley...Steve. Not that I wished death on any of their heads, of course, but I can't deny that there is something like...a terrible relief."

It twisted their stomach to admit it, but Ren had felt that terrible relief when the name of every victim was revealed during the announcements. Some had been forgotten instantly, some registered only faintly, and some...if Robin or Mal had died before coming to the island, Ren would have skipped the funeral.

There was one exception, of course. "Tana, though. I'll miss her...god, it sounds banal when you put it that way."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Ah, Tana. Meena wanted to find something obnoxious about her too, but just... couldn't.Tana was in that terrible, frustrating blind spot where Meena knew her casually, enough to remember thinking she was cool sometimes, very occasionally, but she didn't really know her enough to know anything she could use to refute those scant positive thoughts.

Ren's plan was to find Kitty, and presumably their other friends too. Similarly to Tana, Meena knew of most of them, but didn't know them enough to hate them in a way that would actually hurt them, which was also frustrating. She only hated them in the impersonal way she (or her true self, anyway) hated everybody. Maybe if she spoke crueler words about Kitty, Ren would finally just ditch her. Crueler and colder, slowly sliding down that slippery slope. At what point would Ren decide she was a lost cause?

Meena just nodded.

"...um... weren't Kiera and Shu dating?"

She was going to say something about it giving her one more reason to believe love was fake, which Ren probably heard from her at least once during her post-breakup nosedive into depression. Maybe if she vocalized that particular thing again, Ren would realize that their presence had never truly solved anything.

[Zetsu]

"Were they?"

Concentrate on the conversation at hand, Ren. Don't try to figure out the secret implications.

Shu's name had rung a bell; you don't forget someone as pretty as he was. Ren was vaguely aware that he was dating someone--again, one keeps track of such things*--but they couldn't remember who. Had it really been Kiera?

Ren bit their lip, tapping their finger against the floor several times as they tried to find the memory. They eventually arrived at an image, Shu and Kiera together, Shu and Kiera holding hands in a school hallway as Ren ambled along behind them--but it was entirely possible that their mind had conjured the scene wholesale, given how generic it was.

"I'll take your word for it. In which case...well. That's alarming. And it was barbed wire around the neck, that's..."

Like something you would write, they were going to say, but their voice trailed off.

______________________
*What the fuck.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

"Someone asked me to write something like that once. Not the barbed wire bit, the guy-kills-his-girlfriend-on-SOTF bit. I didn't do it, obviously."

For just this once, Meena was telling the truth, more or less. They omitted who that someone was, allowing Ren to assume it was one of Tumblr's infinite variety of anonymous strangers like she initially did, and leave out the part where it turned out to be someone Meena had known and spoken to for months. They never told Ren about that. They left out the details of that person's requests, all the little bits and pieces clicking into place of which exactly of Meena's characters they wanted to do the deed with various alterations and a suspicious amount of detail about the point-of-view character, which made her wonder if they were trying to get her to write a fictionalized account of a real person, or even a real, horrible incident on Survival Of The Fittest. They also never told Ren about that.

She left out the real reason why she didn't do it, because (this time) Ren had already heard her rant about how bad a reputation her sphere of the internet had, how unfair it was. It was unfair that people thought that them writing something meant they condoned or even romanticized it, and it was unfair that, as if to give the annoying moralizers ammo, there were people out there who actually did romanticize it.

But like, it was less that the rumours, and the things Esper said about Meena's fellow writers, were false, more that they got it the wrong way around. Meena's constant writing and reading of murder, unhappy endings, and horrifically unhealthy relationships just a symptom of whatever was wrong with her, in all likelihood.

When Esper admonished her for getting worked up over drama in the discord because writers are immature (ergo, she had to expect this), he didn't mean writing made you immature - it was that only immature people wrote fucked up things and posted them on social media. And immature, how else would you describe someone who dragged a one-sided friendship along for nothing but positive attention and a petty desire to bring someone along for the spiraling downward ride? He knew, and he might have known all along-

...did Esper ever even like, respect her? Now wasn't the time to unpack that.

[Zetsu]

Well! It sure was fortunate that Ren hadn't completed the thought, in that case!

Ren couldn't help but be distracted by that last word, obviously. What was it about Survival of the Fittest that made it different from the other settings Meena wrote in? Was it simply that the merry little death game they were now trapped in was real? Too soon, in bad taste, don't write about real tragedies that had happened to real people, etc.? That was the wrong question, though. Better to ask whether Ren themself would mind being a character in a real-life horror fic. Or, would Meena?

"Of course not. God. The anon who sent you that is probably going to find someone else and submit a request for Kiera, now."

Ren shuddered. They didn't know Kiera particularly well, but she had seemed sweet enough. She certainly didn't deserve that. Then they realized they had expressed the thought aloud, and winced. They had been getting a good grade in coaxing Meena into talking to them (something that was both normal to want and possible to achieve). They couldn't ruin things again so quickly.

"Apologies. I shouldn't have put that image in your head."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Meena's first instinct was to say it's fine but someone once told her that that phrase was actually a horrible way to accept an apology, because it implied the behaviour was fine, when it wasn't. But also Meena didn't want to accept the apology, so there. It wasn't like she was particularly offended or disturbed, she just-

"It's not that bad," she muttered, flopping back down on her back, staring up at the ceiling. "You saying that, I mean." After all, far worse sights were yet to come - Meena could see them approaching in the rear-view mirror, and they were closer than they appeared.

Her hand dug into her nearby pack and fished out one of the protein bars. She unwrapped it without taking her eyes off the ceiling, and took a bite without sitting up first. Something about the specific way swallowing worked meant that Meena could be upside-down and still be able to swallow food, perhaps with increased choking risk. It'd be a kind of disappointing way to go, unless Ren decided to object and Meena kept doing it and then...

Yeah, no, it'd still be fucking stupid. But maybe Meena deserved an undignified death? She always figured that if she was in one of her own stories, or in a story of one of her colleague's, she'd be some unnamed victim. Not the one that had no name because they had your name, one of the background extras who existed to pad out a killer or monster or whatever's body count.

She stopped, and swallowed the bite of protein bar, and didn't choke on it. No, it couldn't end like that. Not like that... then the rest of her classmates would never know the big thing about Meena. Or like, maybe that was on them for being unobservant? Wow, even on murder island Meena was still indecisive, go figure.

[Zetsu]

If only Ren were any good at keeping things in perspective, maybe they wouldn't care so much about Meena's response. As it was, they forgot to hide their sigh of relief. No, it really wasn't that bad, nor would it be particularly bad if Meena never spoke to them again; and yet here they were, letting the selfishness of continuing to know Meena triumph over the selfishness of keeping Meena alive.

Speaking of which, they had allowed themself to be sidetracked. There had been a point to thinking about Shu, and Kiera, and barbed wire around throats, one that had nothing to do with yandere fiction and anons and...

As Meena slumped onto her back and began digging around her bag, Ren also began searching their bag--their backpack, that is. Przemyslaw, Quinn, Jacob, Jessica, Aracelis, Jezzie, Shu, one. Janice, two. The names scrolled through their mind again--eight names, the correct number of names, for them to record, as soon as they found their pencils and notebooks, which really shouldn't be this hard to find. Slowly the floor became littered with Ren's things--shrimp crackers and restaurant mints and hard candy (also from the restaurant) and paper clips and their mini stapler and ibuprofen in a plastic bag, but no pens, pencils, or notebooks. Gone to wherever their book was, presumably. Ren could understand taking away their electronics,* but why rob them in this way as well?

"Meena," they said, "Are you perchance also missing your paper and writing utensils and such?" then they looked up and saw Meena munching on the floor, eyes on the ceiling.

"Please don't eat like that. You can choke," they said, automatically, and then remembered. "I mean. I will heimlich you if it comes to that, and I suspect that's something you don't want to see any more than I do."

______________________
*Revise later; this sounds suspiciously like empathizing with the terrorists. On second thought, perhaps leave as is?

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Meena sat up, not because Ren asked nicely or anything like that, but because she decided that choking on a protein bar would in fact, be a stupid way to die. She needed drama.

"Yeah," she said with a nod. "I noticed a while ago."

Back in the trapping camp, she'd notice that the weight and imprint of the notebook she brought on the trip was missing - Meena checked for such things pretty regularly. She'd noticed again when she tried to take it out to pass the time in the garage, and that was the moment she decided to just stare at the vehicles she hated so much instead. The decision was not related. In fact, she hadn't really processed her notes being gone, not really.

Well, it wasn't that big of a loss. Almost everything Meena had committed to recording was already on her computer. But even then, why did her stomach sink at the thought? Her parents didn't know her password, she doubted anyone in the writer's discord could hack into her account, so all her drafts...

"...all my drafts..."

..were fucking stupid anyway! Meena wasn't a good writer anyway! So WHAT if her written rough drafts and her typed closer-to-final drafts were lost forever? Nothing of value was lost and she refused to be sad about it!

She turned her head away from Ren, because getting misty-eyed about losing her fucking notes was just. "...not good anyway..." she muttered, before taking another bite of the protein bar.

[Zetsu]

They were distracted again.

"You know that's not true."

Ren winced at the sound of their voice, which was still too cold to provide comfort.

They nevertheless continued, "Or, at least, it'd be news to me if they were."

Their own drafts were gone too, of course--the ones in their notebook, anyways, and the ones on their laptop--the ones that weren't in google drive, anyways, which was most of them. Their last backup had been...three months ago? Four? Four months of poetry lost, though to be honest, most of it was dreck anyways. Ah, that was a hypocritical thought, wasn't it. Except unlike Ren's clever-but-ultimately-heartless drabbles, Meena's stuff was actually good...okay, who were they kidding, that wasn't an excuse they would've accept from Meena.

Their eyes scanned the room for a camera, eventually settling on a little black hemisphere, set into a white base and embedded into the wall. They stared at it; the lens stared back.

They cleared their throat. This was going to feel weird.

Mateo, Pedro...okay, one, you probably shouldn't be watching this. But if you're here, then here's two: there's a flash drive on my desk, and my old notebooks are...you'll find them somewhere. Most of my old poetry is there, and, since I'm a hypocrite, I'll go ahead and say that most of it is pretentious drivel that shouldn't see the light of day. But if you find any that you genuinely like, I'd appreciate it if you'd hang on to them for me.

It felt dreadfully self-important, rehearsed in their head thusly. Ren glanced away awkwardly, conscious of being watched. It wasn't enough; they laid down, so that the camera was no longer in their field of vision, and stretched.

"Mine are gone too," they said, not knowing who their words were for. "All the new stuff, anyways, no one will ever find them...well, you can't find what doesn't exist, and I'm sure they've all been destroyed by now. Meena, know this: I would've wanted to read your drafts, even if, as you said, they weren't any good. The ones you haven't shown me yet, that is. I'm sorry you lost them."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Meena fell silent, for a moment.

Of course Ren would say that. It would have been better if Meena just kept her mouth shut, maybe then she wouldn't have to hear that. Maybe she wouldn't feel like she was one of those people, who tore themselves down purely to attract the cooing, coddling attention of their friends. When Meena said she sucked, she meant it. She didn't want to be refuted. That's why she rarely said such things out loud. It was better to show and not tell.

If she was anything like Ren, Meena would turn to them and say same to you, because she actually liked Ren's poetry - what she'd seen of it, anyway, because it felt only right to read something of a friend's if that friend read something of her own work. You know, back when Meena cared about appearing like kind of a good person at least to her friends. Actually, was that the reason? It didn't really matter anymore.

She finished the protein bar, and lay back down on the floor, mirroring Ren. "Don't be. Wasn't your fault."

Her eyelids felt heavy, like they had for a while. Maybe if she stayed stubbornly sleepless for long enough, she could trick her brain into thinking she wasn't tired. It'd fade into the background like the rest of Meena's bad feelings usually did, but did she want that, either? When those bad feelings faded into the background Meena started feeling... okay? Okay enough to laugh. She didn't want to feel that good. Best to dredge it all back up and keep it fresh.

Did that mean it was now time to unpack... she didn't know, the everything?

"After all, the only drafts I didn't show you were... the ones in my email... addressed to Esper... well, that and the one profile I FINALLY completed, you know the one," (Meena had complained a bit about how hard it was to fill out Job's final profile) "That I was planning on posting when I got back home from the trip. God."

She wasn't sure why she added that bit to the end. Stupid tongue, giving Ren an out from talking about Meena's ex.

[Zetsu]

Would it be pedantic to point out that it had been what they had seen described as a 'sympathy sorry,' and not an apology? It probably would be.

They stared at the trapdoor, thinking idly about going out and looking for writing materials. They really needed to do that soon, before they forgot any more details; the names were sticking, but they weren't all that mattered.

They couldn't, though. There was somehow something comforting about the cellar, something about it that carried the hint of a basement slumber party. Then there was the matter of Meena's current chattiness. Ren, being as they were an unpacker of things, couldn't risk disrupting the vibes. They wouldn't take the out, either, though they would give Meena herself an out.

"I mean, I would hardly have demanded to see your letters to your ex. Wouldn't have objected to reading them, if you wished it, but I'd understand if they weren't for my eyes."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

"They weren't."

They weren't for his eyes either, really.

The basement wasn't quite as warm, definitely not as warm as Meena's second-story bedroom got sometimes when the heating was on. Thank some quirk of how heated air moved for that. However, it was hardly as cold as outside. Maybe it was blizzarding - okay, it probably wasn't, they'd probably hear the storm from down here. Still, this place was sheltered in a way few places on the island were. It was dark and infested and probably going to be home to a few bodies sooner or later, but for now it was actually kinda nice down here.

That was why Meena couldn't stay.

She sat up again and shoved the wrapper into her bag, zipping it up and getting to her feet - she stumbled on her way up, in her hurry.

In the same way running a glass jar under warm water caused it to expand and loosened its stuck lid, Meena's breath had warmed and produced all this overly-sentimental noise. To an outside observer, it was probably not that much more open, but to Meena, it was like the lock to a vault was slowly creaking open.