The barrel of the rifle followed Darlene all the way to the ground. That she asked stung in a way Erika found difficult to place. She didn’t like being the person who got to dictate whether something like that was okay or not. Already Erika knew she was taking away everything this person was and could have been. It seemed so wrong to ever be that petty, to take away a simple comfort like that, too. No response came to the girl’s request besides a hint of a nod.
In spite of the gun against her head and the one pointed at her chest, Darlene was remarkably calm. It didn’t make sense. She knew what was happening and she just sat down. The shakiness in Darlene’s voice betrayed her fear, but the words she said made it clear fear wasn’t defining her last moments. She didn’t make a last-ditch attempt to save herself, didn’t go down clawing at anything within reach. Didn’t condemn Erika for what she was doing, or try to turn her away from it.
Once again Erika found herself standing over someone, but it didn’t feel like a victory this time. When it had, the feeling came from knowing she’d accepted a truth that kept her alive. It was a path that served a purpose. That was the difference between her and the corpses; she understood, they didn’t. She continued, and they would rot. Looking at Darlene, all Erika felt was the profound sensation that she’d missed something, that she hadn’t paid attention to some crucial detail, some piece of information that would’ve let her be anything other than what she’d chosen to become.
Then Darlene complimented her hair, and Erika wasn’t sure whether she was going to burst into tears or instinctively squeeze the trigger.
“Oh. Uhh, thanks. I…”
After an unsteady moment, she found the strength to do neither. Blinking the hints of moisture from the corners of her eyes, she took a deep breath and found the voice that could answer Darlene’s question. While her voice and gun hand were steady, her free hand tapped the collar radar nervously against the side of her leg.
“I got rid of them because they were in the way, I guess. I fidget a lot and so making them felt like a good way to calm my nerves. Made me feel like me, too! I have a hard time with that. The charms were things I collected, things that had memories in them. They were… good memories, I think. They helped me know who I was. So, I left the charms in the woods. Only took what I had to take with me."
Back then it felt like shedding a humanity that was going to weigh her down. It seemed to make intuitive sense to give up herself in order to save it. It was a path that she understood. Now more than anything, it made her feel lost.
"If I’d have known just how things would’ve ended up, maybe I’d still wear ‘em. But from where we're standing, that stuff might as well be on the moon.”
The reason why Darlene even asked the question seemed difficult to comprehend. The fact that she was able to do so calmly, like they weren’t in this situation, like she was comfortable with her fate - it seemed surreal. Erika wanted desperately to understand it, but it felt like her ability to do so was left in that pile of jewelry and charms and hairbands.
Erika looked down into unfamiliar eyes, hoping to see the humanity in them. She wanted to feel that painful tearing feeling in her chest, the subconscious imitation of the pain and sadness she perceived.
The way emotions of one person subconsciously seemed to mirror those of another – it was the reason society didn’t operate on the same rules as this place did. It was why Danya and his organization, if they meant anything by the title of their operation, were wrong in their assumptions about people. They needed the collars because those assumptions they must’ve made about people didn’t really hold up.
Yet Erika didn’t feel anything other than confusion and melancholy. Something felt missing. Like there was a blank space where some part of her used to be. She’d broken it down, consumed it to keep going. It made her nauseated and paralyzed with fear to even try and approximate it. Like a kind of rot she hadn’t yet acclimated to.
She spoke again, the barrel of the Martini-Henry wavering ever so slightly as she did so.
“I don’t understand this. You. I can’t imagine what you see right now. I’m not like you.”
I'll Probably Get Homesick, I Love You, Goodnight
Private and also this may get a little funky/get edited much more than my norm because we've got a key played with no net for a few days.
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Grand Moff Hissa
- Posts: 2754
- Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 1:37 am
"I, what I see..."
Darlene's brows came closer together, her lips pursing as she squinted. Erika's words hadn't been a question, but they felt like one anyways. But how could it possibly be answered? Darlene saw Erika, tattered and jagged, wounded and dangerous and something less than she'd once been. She saw the gardens all around them, stretching into the distance but not all that far into the distance because she was sitting low to the ground and there were bushes all over blocking her view. She saw more concrete planters like the one she leaned against even now, and she almost laughed because she'd gone from pressing her back against it as she sought shelter to letting her weight rest on it for support, but it felt just the same on her shoulders. She saw the sun high up in the sky, peeking from between banks of low clouds, and she saw those clouds actually moving with the faint atmospheric winds in real time, occluding the passage of the light.
She saw the flowers, all around, calla lilies and birds of paradise and little scraggly weeds with bright blue blossoms and other things she'd never know the names of. She saw creeping waves of ivy not only swallowing the earth beneath them but beginning to climb and strangle fallen planks from the houses and old ornamental pillars and rocks that might've been brought here or might've just been thrust up from the earth a million years ago. She saw Jonah out of one corner of her eye, and his gun out of the other. She saw Michael, and she saw them all how they'd been before, too, talking about Harry Potter and then fighting and yelling at each other, and she thought she must've done something wrong then, or if not wrong at least maybe she could've done something better.
She saw the frames of her glasses, and how the world got blurrier outside those boundaries, and her nose right in the middle of everything, because she was really paying attention and that overcame the part of her mind that edited it out most of the time. She saw the grease on the lenses from her fingertips, the little dark spots of crud that accumulated behind the nose pads.
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know what you see either."
She was almost forgetting the whole point of this talk, which was buying time for Christina to run even further. She was almost forgetting the ending. It was nice, built a good moment, but she didn't want the foundation to be self deception. She tried to think of something else, of a song, and the one that came to mind was She Moved Through The Fair once again. Taking a while, Max had said. Sing me a song. That was another request she wouldn't pass along to Erika.
"I don't really know why anyone does anything," she continued. "I don't think I ever have."
Her hand was shaking, but mostly from the weight it supported. Slowly, she let the muzzle of the gun dip away from her temple.
"This is, it's heavy. I'm going to set it down now."
Slowly, she let her arm drift down to her side, making sure to not point the gun at the girl in front of her. Only one of them knew it wouldn't do anything, after all. The final page of this book was written, but Darlene still felt no hurry to flip ahead.
"Did you get to see the, I mean, did you go to the Newseum?" she asked. "On the trip? There was, they had this room full of old TV sets, and..."
Her voice had been getting quieter as she spoke, until finally it disappeared. What was the follow-up for that, even? "It was pretty cool?" "You should check it out?" Darlene shook her head back and forth, just a fraction of a degree, and then leaned it back so it rested against the planter. The pressure on the spot where bandages padded her scalp hurt, but not enough to matter, not enough to rise above the press of everything else.
She didn't close her eyes, or look away, but as she waited for Erika's response her attention drifted just a bit. Her first attempt to stir her vocal cords didn't work. Her mouth was dry, even if she wasn't trembling anymore now that the gun rested gently in her lap. She ran her tongue over her lips and tasted salt, tears and sweat and snot, but the movement got just enough saliva flowing.
So quietly probably only she could hear, Darlene hummed, a single low note held as long as she could that vibrated through her entire body.
Darlene's brows came closer together, her lips pursing as she squinted. Erika's words hadn't been a question, but they felt like one anyways. But how could it possibly be answered? Darlene saw Erika, tattered and jagged, wounded and dangerous and something less than she'd once been. She saw the gardens all around them, stretching into the distance but not all that far into the distance because she was sitting low to the ground and there were bushes all over blocking her view. She saw more concrete planters like the one she leaned against even now, and she almost laughed because she'd gone from pressing her back against it as she sought shelter to letting her weight rest on it for support, but it felt just the same on her shoulders. She saw the sun high up in the sky, peeking from between banks of low clouds, and she saw those clouds actually moving with the faint atmospheric winds in real time, occluding the passage of the light.
She saw the flowers, all around, calla lilies and birds of paradise and little scraggly weeds with bright blue blossoms and other things she'd never know the names of. She saw creeping waves of ivy not only swallowing the earth beneath them but beginning to climb and strangle fallen planks from the houses and old ornamental pillars and rocks that might've been brought here or might've just been thrust up from the earth a million years ago. She saw Jonah out of one corner of her eye, and his gun out of the other. She saw Michael, and she saw them all how they'd been before, too, talking about Harry Potter and then fighting and yelling at each other, and she thought she must've done something wrong then, or if not wrong at least maybe she could've done something better.
She saw the frames of her glasses, and how the world got blurrier outside those boundaries, and her nose right in the middle of everything, because she was really paying attention and that overcame the part of her mind that edited it out most of the time. She saw the grease on the lenses from her fingertips, the little dark spots of crud that accumulated behind the nose pads.
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know what you see either."
She was almost forgetting the whole point of this talk, which was buying time for Christina to run even further. She was almost forgetting the ending. It was nice, built a good moment, but she didn't want the foundation to be self deception. She tried to think of something else, of a song, and the one that came to mind was She Moved Through The Fair once again. Taking a while, Max had said. Sing me a song. That was another request she wouldn't pass along to Erika.
"I don't really know why anyone does anything," she continued. "I don't think I ever have."
Her hand was shaking, but mostly from the weight it supported. Slowly, she let the muzzle of the gun dip away from her temple.
"This is, it's heavy. I'm going to set it down now."
Slowly, she let her arm drift down to her side, making sure to not point the gun at the girl in front of her. Only one of them knew it wouldn't do anything, after all. The final page of this book was written, but Darlene still felt no hurry to flip ahead.
"Did you get to see the, I mean, did you go to the Newseum?" she asked. "On the trip? There was, they had this room full of old TV sets, and..."
Her voice had been getting quieter as she spoke, until finally it disappeared. What was the follow-up for that, even? "It was pretty cool?" "You should check it out?" Darlene shook her head back and forth, just a fraction of a degree, and then leaned it back so it rested against the planter. The pressure on the spot where bandages padded her scalp hurt, but not enough to matter, not enough to rise above the press of everything else.
She didn't close her eyes, or look away, but as she waited for Erika's response her attention drifted just a bit. Her first attempt to stir her vocal cords didn't work. Her mouth was dry, even if she wasn't trembling anymore now that the gun rested gently in her lap. She ran her tongue over her lips and tasted salt, tears and sweat and snot, but the movement got just enough saliva flowing.
So quietly probably only she could hear, Darlene hummed, a single low note held as long as she could that vibrated through her entire body.
Darlene spoke and Erika listened, motionless. She started and stopped, answered without actually providing much of an answer. Erika stared down at Darlene, but past her more than at her. Her lower left eyelid twitched a little bit, as Darlene expressed an inability to discern the motivations of others. It was the only part of the exchange that seemed at all tangible.
Over the years Erika had learned not to trust herself too much. Her own biases and pathologies made it sometimes impossible to accept her own perspective without criticism, without self-doubt. She deferred to others, if ever possible, to help approximate what reality might really be. Am I actually pretty? I don’t see it. I’m not crazy to be afraid of this, am I? Do I have a right to feel this way? No one person had some objective measure of reality, but enough people’s opinions collected and challenged against one another could give someone an approximation. If enough people told her she had a right to be scared, that she really was beautiful and she focused too much on little imperfections, that she wasn’t overbearing or annoying - she could eventually believe some of it, begrudgingly.
When truly irreducible problems beset her mind, she had a habit of asking people the same questions over and over, almost obsessively. It made her feel bad that she was always coming to someone with a problem. Like she wanted to talk about other things, but she had to figure out a way to address this nagging abstraction that refused to go away.
In a sense that was what she was doing, at gunpoint. Demanding an answer from someone to a question that they couldn’t ever really understand. What do you see was painfully vague, but she at least imagined it would invite some kind of answer. Something to pull away from this interaction. Erika had closed the distance to hear her out. She’d seen Darlene’s face, learned her name, allowed herself to once again dwell on the nature of herself and her actions instead of dispassionately blowing a hole in a silhouette and moving on.
It cost her more than she’d intended on spending in a situation like this, when her reserves of emotional and physical energy seemed to be rapidly running out by the minute. Every point in the conversation where she felt like pulling the trigger, that demand for an answer kept butting in, kept insisting that she let Darlene continue. Even when this person had nothing to say! At least, nothing that could pry out that sliver of doubt that Erika was really any different than the corpses on the ground. That she hadn’t killed away all the things inside that made her resemble a human being worth saving.
“Darlene…”
Something made her more than a silhouette or a radar signature. Something impossible to ignore. It made her able to put the gun down, to keep talking about nothing at all even under the threat of death. Accepting that whatever she was doing, it was enough.
Erika looked down at the bodies. Michael, Jonah. In them she saw things she knew and understood. It was so easy to see herself there, she drew comparisons to anything else. To the worms, to the birds, to things that killed because they had to. It was easier. It made sense.
She looked at Darlene, and saw nothing she recognized. Nothing that seemed like her. And she should’ve seen something. Something that made it okay. Something that made Erika think she might one day see last moments as moments still lived, instead of something to delay at all costs.
I don’t know what I am anymore, do I?
Erika’s eyelid twitched again, and she instinctively blinked and looked away. Out of habit, she checked the collar radar, not unlike she might’ve checked a phone back in the real world. This time, the screen didn’t just read the two of them. Just towards the edge of its range, two more signatures appeared. Approaching slowly, but without pause.
Nodding as Darlene trailed off, Erika switched off the collar radar and stuffed it back into her pocket. It was a silent agreement with herself, to act according to what she seemed to be now, in lieu of a better answer. Gambling in the hope that once the smoke cleared, she’d see nothing more to wish for, than to live. With any luck, the devil she knew would once again offer a hand in friendship.
She thought for a second about saying something to Darlene. Days earlier, she’d told herself what her answer to these situations had to be. Silence, or bullets. All she had to give if she wanted to be honest. That she’d spent so much time here was yet another reminder it wasn’t just her physical strength that seemed to be failing.
Moving with a proficiency and certainty that didn’t seem to belong to her anymore, Erika aimed the rifle directly at Darlene’s chest.
Her answer soon followed.
Over the years Erika had learned not to trust herself too much. Her own biases and pathologies made it sometimes impossible to accept her own perspective without criticism, without self-doubt. She deferred to others, if ever possible, to help approximate what reality might really be. Am I actually pretty? I don’t see it. I’m not crazy to be afraid of this, am I? Do I have a right to feel this way? No one person had some objective measure of reality, but enough people’s opinions collected and challenged against one another could give someone an approximation. If enough people told her she had a right to be scared, that she really was beautiful and she focused too much on little imperfections, that she wasn’t overbearing or annoying - she could eventually believe some of it, begrudgingly.
When truly irreducible problems beset her mind, she had a habit of asking people the same questions over and over, almost obsessively. It made her feel bad that she was always coming to someone with a problem. Like she wanted to talk about other things, but she had to figure out a way to address this nagging abstraction that refused to go away.
In a sense that was what she was doing, at gunpoint. Demanding an answer from someone to a question that they couldn’t ever really understand. What do you see was painfully vague, but she at least imagined it would invite some kind of answer. Something to pull away from this interaction. Erika had closed the distance to hear her out. She’d seen Darlene’s face, learned her name, allowed herself to once again dwell on the nature of herself and her actions instead of dispassionately blowing a hole in a silhouette and moving on.
It cost her more than she’d intended on spending in a situation like this, when her reserves of emotional and physical energy seemed to be rapidly running out by the minute. Every point in the conversation where she felt like pulling the trigger, that demand for an answer kept butting in, kept insisting that she let Darlene continue. Even when this person had nothing to say! At least, nothing that could pry out that sliver of doubt that Erika was really any different than the corpses on the ground. That she hadn’t killed away all the things inside that made her resemble a human being worth saving.
“Darlene…”
Something made her more than a silhouette or a radar signature. Something impossible to ignore. It made her able to put the gun down, to keep talking about nothing at all even under the threat of death. Accepting that whatever she was doing, it was enough.
Erika looked down at the bodies. Michael, Jonah. In them she saw things she knew and understood. It was so easy to see herself there, she drew comparisons to anything else. To the worms, to the birds, to things that killed because they had to. It was easier. It made sense.
She looked at Darlene, and saw nothing she recognized. Nothing that seemed like her. And she should’ve seen something. Something that made it okay. Something that made Erika think she might one day see last moments as moments still lived, instead of something to delay at all costs.
I don’t know what I am anymore, do I?
Erika’s eyelid twitched again, and she instinctively blinked and looked away. Out of habit, she checked the collar radar, not unlike she might’ve checked a phone back in the real world. This time, the screen didn’t just read the two of them. Just towards the edge of its range, two more signatures appeared. Approaching slowly, but without pause.
Nodding as Darlene trailed off, Erika switched off the collar radar and stuffed it back into her pocket. It was a silent agreement with herself, to act according to what she seemed to be now, in lieu of a better answer. Gambling in the hope that once the smoke cleared, she’d see nothing more to wish for, than to live. With any luck, the devil she knew would once again offer a hand in friendship.
She thought for a second about saying something to Darlene. Days earlier, she’d told herself what her answer to these situations had to be. Silence, or bullets. All she had to give if she wanted to be honest. That she’d spent so much time here was yet another reminder it wasn’t just her physical strength that seemed to be failing.
Moving with a proficiency and certainty that didn’t seem to belong to her anymore, Erika aimed the rifle directly at Darlene’s chest.
Her answer soon followed.
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Grand Moff Hissa
- Posts: 2754
- Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 1:37 am
Darlene's quiet humming held for a time, wavering and rippling but persisting still. It wasn't staccato, like her heartbeat, or arrhythmic, like the sounds cast by the insects. It felt like it could go on forever and ever, like as long as she maintained it the spell would last. She would hum and the world would hang there, paused, except for Christina running farther and farther away.
But she couldn't hold it indefinitely. She tried! She made it longer than probably she ever had before, everything poured into that note, as it spread outwards and inwards, connecting her to the world and the dirt and the ivy and the planter and Erika and the sky far away. Her throat hurt for a new reason now, and her lungs burned, and she wished she'd thought to count in her head, just to know how long she made it. Erika hadn't noticed. That was good. This wasn't for her.
Finally, the break point came when Erika glanced at the device in her hand, and Darlene silently gasped and gulped in fresh air. She did this as quickly as she could, but it stopped her from coming up with anything else to say, or even quite paying attention. For a few seconds she just breathed, feeling her lungs working and the tangy air passing between her lips, and then once she had recovered she took one more big breath, ready to start the humming all over again.
There was a tremendous thunderclap of sound and fire and she slammed backwards against the cement, felt it crack and fragment not from the force of her body but from something else punching straight through her. Her eyes went wide and she coughed, jerked once, felt the trickle from her mouth and tasted the salt and it wasn't sweat or snot or tears now, not mostly. She couldn't breathe and the couldn't feel and the pain was incredible anyways.
Everything was darker, a haze of smoke hanging over everything, faint whiffs of gunpowder and sulfur almost like the Fourth of July. It wasn't Christmas, but it wasn't such a bad day either. The fireworks were okay, except for how loud they were. Everything was ringing, the same as all these past days and more, and the world was going dark, and she thought, one more moment. One more moment, even if it was it was a terrible moment like this was. One more, one more.
She'd always imagined it would take a long time to die.
It didn't.
But she couldn't hold it indefinitely. She tried! She made it longer than probably she ever had before, everything poured into that note, as it spread outwards and inwards, connecting her to the world and the dirt and the ivy and the planter and Erika and the sky far away. Her throat hurt for a new reason now, and her lungs burned, and she wished she'd thought to count in her head, just to know how long she made it. Erika hadn't noticed. That was good. This wasn't for her.
Finally, the break point came when Erika glanced at the device in her hand, and Darlene silently gasped and gulped in fresh air. She did this as quickly as she could, but it stopped her from coming up with anything else to say, or even quite paying attention. For a few seconds she just breathed, feeling her lungs working and the tangy air passing between her lips, and then once she had recovered she took one more big breath, ready to start the humming all over again.
There was a tremendous thunderclap of sound and fire and she slammed backwards against the cement, felt it crack and fragment not from the force of her body but from something else punching straight through her. Her eyes went wide and she coughed, jerked once, felt the trickle from her mouth and tasted the salt and it wasn't sweat or snot or tears now, not mostly. She couldn't breathe and the couldn't feel and the pain was incredible anyways.
Everything was darker, a haze of smoke hanging over everything, faint whiffs of gunpowder and sulfur almost like the Fourth of July. It wasn't Christmas, but it wasn't such a bad day either. The fireworks were okay, except for how loud they were. Everything was ringing, the same as all these past days and more, and the world was going dark, and she thought, one more moment. One more moment, even if it was it was a terrible moment like this was. One more, one more.
She'd always imagined it would take a long time to die.
It didn't.
G024, Darlene Silva: DECEASED
12 Students Remain
((erika stieglitz continued in Madness in the Method))
12 Students Remain
((erika stieglitz continued in Madness in the Method))