Curtain Call

[Namira]

((Kammy continued from In Silent Seas We Drown))

Kammy sat cross-legged on a bed, staring at a wall.

Two, maybe three hours she'd been there. 'Thinking' probably wouldn't be an accurate description for what she was doing. Numb from head to toe, like her head had been dunked in ice water, freezing all the parts of her brain that were supposed to send signals to the rest of her.

Empty.

That announcement. How long ago was it now? She was losing any sense of the passage of time. Kam had listened to an announcement with Joey and then they'd separated. She hadn't told him her reasons. He hadn't told her his. It would have been easy to become desensitized to hearing name after name of people you knew, friends, classmates...

And somewhere in the middle of it all, Eliza and Cody had wound up killing each other.

There was no satisfaction from knowing that Eliza was dead. Kammy hadn't had the chance to look Michelle's killer in the eye, hadn't been able to stare her down and simply ask- no, demand to know why, why did she do it? Maybe - probably the answer wouldn't have been good enough, it sure as hell wouldn't have cleansed the pain of Michelle being gone, but at least it would have been something.

Instead Eliza had died, and taken her brother down along with her. No closure, no confrontation, no revenge, however meaningless it would have ultimately been.

That had kept her going. The thought that she would be able to track Eliza down and then - well Kammy hadn't got that far in her plan, it was just a goal, an objective, a drive. That being taken away had scythed the legs out from underneath her. At some point, she'd slept again, at some point, she'd woken up, and at some point, she'd found herself here on this bed.

Kam could feel the eyes of the cameras on her. She'd picked out three just in this room. One nestled in the corner above the door. One under the vanity table. One affixed in plain sight at the corner of the window. All angles covered, huh? A starring role - here she was with more screen time in one piece of fucked up film than the biggest actors in Hollywood.

She was tired. Tired of walking around, tired of setting any little task for herself just to keep going. Survival had turned into not lasting through the day, but hour by hour, minute by minute, from 'find a place to rest' down to 'get a change of clothes' down to 'sit up from where you slept'. What was next, trying to motivate herself for each step she took, each breath she made?

Hearing about Michelle, finding her in a place that she'd been, killed by someone she'd met... That had torn out the heart of any resistance, broken the will to continue. What little motivation she'd clawed to proceed had bit by bit ebbed away before finally being dealt a killing blow.

She just... didn't want to do this any more.

What was the point of trying to make it out the other side? The sole survivor of hundreds. What life was worth it to be on her own like that? Kammy would never be 'normal', she didn't even know if she could face up to anyone that hadn't been through this hell.

And while she'd be alive, she'd be living without the one person she cared about most.

Even if, after the numbers whittled down and the last desperate few clung to their chance to go home, she, by some miracle, was the last one left standing, nothing awaited on the other side. Kammy didn't want to be known as the survivor of a terrorist attack; she'd wanted to be famous for herself, for the things she had done not the things that she'd endured.

And she wanted, after opening weekend and the box office came in calling the movie a hit, that the critics had gone while, to come home and see Michelle, and touch her and embrace her, and ask her how the day had gone, and say hi to their cats - cause that was a given that they'd have cats - and then share some silly joke and curl up on the couch and watch movies, but not too late, cause Michelle had the morning shift...

Kammy looked at the gun in her hand.

She looked at the cameras.

"I'm sorry."

A steady aim.

Blam - the camera above the door

Blam - the one under the dresser

Blam - the one by the window


Outside, one of the cameras picked up the report of the fourth and final gunshot.


G008: MAKATALA SO'OIALO: DECEASED