Goodnight and Go

[Brackie]

((Insert poetic crap about Clio Gabriella continuing from Fight or Flight here))

~*~

Churches. Some of the oldest buildings in Modern times, since there was no real way to close one down the conventional way. They would always be updated to suit the modern times, but there was no real way to close down a church. This one, the one that stood tall and proud in St. Paul Minnesota, was currently being renovated. Large construction workers were on their lunch break, standing on the railings that were spruced up overnight so they would be able to work on the highest of places, and eating their lunches. She avoided one of their gazes in particular. She had the distinct honor of having once slept with his son.

Opening the large door, she surveyed the place. There were few people there, an old woman wearing a scarf around her head and carrying a hospital brand walking stick, and a young couple who were sitting in the front row on their knees. They didn't look like they were from around the area, since they dressed too...oddly, for this church in particular.

Clio made her way around the seats to her destination; the confessionals. It had been a long time, far too long, since she'd last confessed.

-

"Bless me father, for I have sinned."

"It's been 6 months since my last confession, and I need to confess far too much."

"Go on."

"When I was 17, I met this guy, on the internet. I...really liked him, and I thought he liked me. I thought that...he was in love with me. I eventually found out where he lived, and...it turned out he had a girlfriend. I was so angry, father, that...I hurt him. I hurt him really badly, and then...I don't know what happened really after that, it's just that I don't know where to begin. At school, I...I wanted some attention. I was always the loner girl, or the freaky immigrant kid, and so...I found out guys really liked me. By really liked me, I mean really attracted to me. So...I started to sleep around a lot. In the last few months, I've had...10 boyfriends. I mean, I thought I liked them, and I thought they liked me, but...nothing worked out. But...that's not the worst of my sins, father. I was speaking to this girl I know the other day, and...she was speaking to me like I was dirt. She treated me, just because of my past sins, like I was nothing to her. She was so...arrogant, and smug, that I was seething. I wanted, worse than anything, for her to know how I feel. That night, I was yelling at myself, and crying. I hated her, I hated everyone so much. I was cursing at them so loudly, my parents wanted to know what I was doing to cause such noise, and I told them to leave me alone. I was crying, and...I wished that they all knew how I felt. I didn't care about any of them, and I tried to...I tried to wish that all their parents would die, right in front of them, so they'd know. So that they'd all know how I felt. Just so they could stop laughing at me."

-

Several prayers, several more other less striking confessions later, the father told her to go forth. Her sins had been absolved. But secretly, deep down, she knew it was bullcrap. The whole thing had been simply a taste of what she knew was to come. She'd signed up the previous Friday for the Christian group at school. They could probably help her. This whole ridiculous game of cat and mouse with any boy she came across was becoming too much for her to handle. And the laughing, dear lord the laughing, not just in front of her but behind closed doors and on the walls, was agonizing, every moment. In her worst moments, she'd even wished her year would be abducted for that terrorist program known as Survival of the Fittest, just so she could kill them all, one by one. But then she'd calm down, come to her senses. It was worthless, having to put on a charade of a friendly girl, a sewer, an archer, a runner, a nice person, when all they did was treat her like a whore.

She reached the outside again, and started to walk down the street. It had been so long, she didn't notice the father of one of her previous encounters eye her from atop the church as she walked away to the mall.

~*~

It must have been so ironic to all that watched at home that one of the biggest killers on the island was now spending half of her time hiding and crying. Hiding from the world, just wanting to be alone, back at home, and not realising how fruitless her measures were in her vain attempt to do so. Crying because no matter which way she looked at it, she was a dangerous, uncontrollable person, plain and simple. Even with her little WORTHLESS promise to herself that she was going to wait, to stop herself.

She was evil. She didn't deserve to get off this island if winning meant she had nothing to come back to. What use was trying to tell herself that she wasn't a killer if she couldn't even control the complex but instrumentally important instinct in her body that told her that if she didn't she was going to die?

So that was why she hid. Not for herself, but for everyone else. It would have been so much easier to take the gun to her heart and joining the other 40 or so of her classmates who had already given up or been forced to halt. But every time she raised the gun to her head, or to her breast, her hand shook too much to continue.

But as she lay there, bunched up on the seat of the abandoned ferris wheel cart, she made up her mind. With tears in her eyes, pain sucumbing her hand, and her small but deadly weapon lodged cleanly inside of it, she decided.

Laying down on the seat, her shoes rested uncomfortably on the metal bar that made up the small gate, she looked up. The sky, in all it's blue, it's surrealism, it's tranquility, would be the last thing she saw.

Raising the gun to her mouth, she let out a final whimper, curled her finger around the trigger, and compressed.

G069 - Clio Gabriella - Eli-
*click*

That was what would have happened in a perfect world for everyone. In a perfect world, her head would decorate the seat several new shades of red, brown, and brain matter grey. In a perfect world, a desperate person would have come along, found her body, and taken the gun for themselves. They would live longer than she ever deserved to at this point. In a perfect world, they would win the game, because they took the time to actually notice her and respect her body, no matter the situation. But it would never be her little perfect world. The gun was empty, because the reality was that she killed someone, not with one silly little bullet, but 6 of them. She emptied her clip into him like he was simply a mook from an action movie, and nothing more.

She screamed in anger, no longer making any attempt to hide herself. Clio threw her gun, far away. It skidded across the ground, and Clio was brought into a ball again, sobbing and hysterical. Fuck her, fuck everything. She didn't know what she was going to do anymore. All her instincts that god himself gave her were telling her to live, but to what cost? At what cost?

Night was coming. The sun spilt shadows over the dead body that lay sprawled across the fair ground. The only impact it had on her was that she was relieved she didn't have to off anyone extra. But such thoughts, such stupid, evil thoughts...

Night was always coming in her mind. A long beatiful night.

But...what she needed, where she needed to stay right now was not some dingy little amusement park. She wanted to see the ocean again. She'd seen so much there already, when she met all her newfound enemies, when she made herself a wanted murderer, but the circumstances of her new arrival there would be so much different.

Finally stretching her legs after a long days attempt at a slumber, she walked across the ground, picking up her gun on the way. She forgave her instinct, and didn't load the gun. That instict would be somewhat held back for now. She still had a promise to herself she needed to fulfil. Watching one of the camera's swivel around as she strode out, it was as though she could feel the whole world was still watching her. So much was going on, yet she could feel the weight of the world pouring down on her and her alone.

There was nothing left for her here.

((Clio Gabriella continues...))