Consuelo's Departure

[MethodicalSlacker]

[Lili Williams continued from Heel-and-Toe]

Lili stood outside of the warehouse. The building's height paled in comparison to the radio tower, but she could still feel the building looming over her, threatening her with each stray breeze. She could feel the muscles in her body tense up, rooting her to the ground where she stood. Inside the building, she could hear the echo of voices, but from this distance she couldn't tell if she recognized any of them. There were two main outcomes to the situation: either she stepped inside and dealt with the consequences of whoever dwell within, or she turned tail and ran away. Either way, the likelihood that she would find anything inside dropped immensly with the knowledge that other people had been inside before her.

Well, she'd do something more dignified than run, she imagined. She wasn't that far gone. Lili would just walk away, carrying all her stuff with her...

...along with a few things that still weren't quite hers. Like the white shoes she found, or the light saber on her waistband, she had only picked up new items since she woke up, not losing a thing she had started with except for the crackers she ate and the bar she traded. All her belongings were with her. At this point, she could even consider the lighter in her pocket that she had taken from the medical kit more hers than anything else she had found in her bag. Its familiar shape reminded her of home, but more chiefly of the relief of smoking a cigarette.

Lili still had yet to find anything she could use to calm her down. Would withdrawal symptoms start setting in soon? What was more likely, she realized, was that they had already made their move. Since she had left the radio tower, she felt an indescribable fatigue overtake her body. At the same time, she felt restless, unable to take a moment to stop moving except for just now, in front of the warehouse. Even then, her fingers played with the lighter in her pocket, rubbing its outer casing with the tips of her bony fingers. At this point, her material possessions were the closest things she had to friends. Almost nothing she had on her would suddenly come to life and hurt her. Her nightstick, her light saber, her lighter, all her friends.

But not the shoes. The shoes were a spectre of an unseen classmate of hers, alive or dead. The only way she would ever know exactly who it was would be if the girl who left them behind was on the announcements, she figured, ruling out the possibility of them being alive before she even considered it. Even if they were alive, she didn't want to meet them, out of fear of being recognized. What if they were a killer, themselves? What if discarding the shoes had been a ploy, a purposeful, premeditated act? What if the bag left behind wasn't there's, but someone they woke up beside? Were they faking their own death?

The hidden conspiracy theorist gears in Lili's brain were starting to turn for the first time ever, and the noise of their grinding against each other drove a stake through Lili's skull. Lili winced, a sharp pain driving itself into an undefinable point in her head, so much so that for a moment she thought that she had been struck with something. She felt her scalp through her hair, searching for the pain, but came up empty handed. Just a headache. She needed to stop thinking so hard.

She needed to stop thinking, period.

People who killed? Bad.

People who didn't? Good.

It was as simple as that. Follow those rules, and she could rest easy. Cut and dry. She sighed.

Any sense of comfort she had before was gone. She was standing, defenseless, outside of a warehouse, in broad daylight, on an island full of...did she really have to say the rest? What sense did it make to stay around any longer?

Lili dragged her feet off the ground, walking away from the warehouse. Maybe she would come back, sometime later, and check and see if any supplies were left over, even though they probably weren't. Besides, she had a good amount of stuff anyways, she could afford to wait a bit until she drove herself crazy looking for more. Lily was wrong about the water: she had to be. It was the only way Lili's comfort could return.

She walked back through the gate to the compound, the bag slung over her back feeling strangely lighter, though her bones were just as tired. She needed somewhere to hole up for a while and rest.

A place to rest, and a place to plan.

[Lili Williams continued in Prince of Nothing.]