Sorrow So Deep

[Megami*]

((Sera continued from Schoolhouse Rock.  Gail continued from... who fuckin' knows?))

Female Student no. 29, Sera Wingfield, gasped for air as she hit the top of the hill overlooking the school building.  This was where they had been just a few hours prior... right before everything turned sour.  Indeed, the fresh corpse of Kayla Ravoy was still laying on the ground, being illuminated by the pale and ghostly moonlight.  It was eerie now that she was alone, looking at the dead girl that Matt had shot without so much as a second thought.  Then again, now definitely wasn't the right time to feel pity for the same girl she had threatened not long before.  It was kill or be killed, and there was something about that girl that just didn't sit right with Sera or Matt.

But Matt was gone now, and it was her fault.  She had killed him... murdered him.  Shot him in cold blood.  Killed him in his sleep.  He would never wake up, and Sera Wingfield was the only person who could accept the blame for that.  Despite that, a maniacal smirk was attempting to pierce the corners of her lips, even through the tears that refused to stop rolling down her porcelain cheeks.

What's wrong with me?!

She kept imagining his face, except his eyes weren't closed peacefully like they had been when she'd shot him.  Instead, he was glaring... pointing at her... accusing her of murdering him.  No matter how bad she tried to fight it, the mental image of Matthew Drew's face just wouldn't get out of her head.  Sera let out an anguished scream, falling onto her knees and curling into a fetal position on the damp grass.

"Do you feel bad now?"

The voice that echoed out nearby caused Sera's head to shoot up in alert, her tear-filled eyes searching blindly through the darkness for the person who had called out to her.  It only took her a moment to locate her.  There, standing a bit lower on the hill on which Sera sat, was... a ghost?  The moonlight that cast down over the porcelain skinned girl certainly made her seem that way.  It was only when she drew closer that Sera recognized her.

"You..." she uttered quietly.

"You should," the girl continued, her expression hollow and vacant.

"What the hell do YOU know, Gail Smith?" Sera shot back, her face contorting in anger.

"Oh," Gail answered in a monotone voice, her expression never once waivering from its stationary position, "I know everything."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sera barked angrily.

"I saw," Gail replied.

Sera's eyes widened a little bit.  This person standing before her, she looked like Gail, she sounded like Gail, but she definitely, definitely wasn't Gail.  She looked hollow... like a shell... it was probably the most horrifying thing she'd witnessed on the island to date.  Nobody else she'd encountered had actually gone insane, but this girl... it was like she was there, but there was nobody home upstairs.  What had happened to her during all this time on the island to have made her completely lose it?  Gail Smith was a quiet, introverted girl who was absent from school a lot due to her illness... this wasn't her.  It couldn't be.

"You saw WHAT?" Sera demanded, her voice raising an octave.

"Everything," Gail responded coldly, "I saw you seduce him.  I saw you kill him."

"I didn't..." Sera started, her features contorting in anger again, "You don't know anything do you?!  I had to do it!  I had to!"

"He was sleeping."

"SHUT UP!" she screamed, aiming the Ruger Redhawk she'd been clenching desperately between her palms toward Gail, "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!"

Sera pulled the trigger on the gun, but the blind rage that coursed through her veins hindered her ability to fire and the bullet flew to the far left of Gail.  Gail didn't budge, or flinch, or falter.  She just stood there.

"What do you want?!" Sera demanded.

"I want... to die."

Sera clenched her teeth together tightly and pointed the gun at the girl again.  Still, Gail didn't react.  It freaked Sera out more than a little bit.  Her eyes locked with Gail's, and a horrifying sensation ran through her body.

"I've seen things that no human should see.  Creatures like us... we aren't human anymore.  We don't deserve to exist with other humans.  I want to leave this weak, fragile vessel.  It is the will of God.  It is why we are on this island.  It is because we do not deserve to live... because we have all committed sin.  I... have embraced that."

"You've lost your fucking mind," Sera scoffed.

"No," Gail corrected her, "I am the only one who is still sane.  I will leave this island.  I will be purged from sin.  Come, I will take you with me.  You, too, have sinned.  You must repent."

Gail stretched out her hand as if reaching for Sera, but the blonde immediately knocked it away and backed up.

"Stay away from me," she stated flatly.

"You should not fight your destiny.  You should embrace it."

The girl came toward Sera again, and she blindly pulled the trigger, ejecting a bullet into Gail's shoulder.  The other girl screamed in agonizing pain, bringing her hand up to her profusely bleeding shoulder and craddling it in her arms.  Sera smirked lightly and pointed the gun toward Gail's head.  Without warning, Gail sprung forward, causing Sera to pull the trigger and fire a bullet up into the sky.  She toppled backward onto the ground and the gun flew out of her hand.

Gail's long, slender fingers wrapped themselves around Sera's neck in an attempt to strangle her.  The physically stronger Sera quickly regained the advantage, though, delivering several strong blows to Gail's face and knocking her onto her back in the process.  Sera's own hands wrapped around Gail's neck with much more force than the doll-like girl had had when trying to strangle Sera.  Gail gasped for air and flailed about wildly, so Sera bashed her head into the ground a few times to stop the resistance.

Soon enough, Gail stopped moving.  Sera continued to gasp for air, her breathing wheezy and problematic from the force placed on her trachea.  She stood up and gave the deceased girl a hard kick for good measure.  She'd lost her small gun somewhere, presumably in the tall grass nearby.  It didn't matter, she still had the only weapon she really needed.  After casting one last look to the girl laying on the ground, Sera meandered back over to where she had dropped her daypack and leaned down to extract the shotgun.

BAM!

The next thing she knew, an intense, burning pain was entering her chest and the ground below her was painted red.  Sera let out a loud scream and pointed the shotgun at Gail Smith, who had risen from the ground.

"You got sloppy," Gail muttered.

Sera fired the shotgun at the same time that Gail set off another shot with the pistol.  Loud screams erupted from the hill above the school as another bullet pierced Sera in the chest and a hail of buckshot from Sera's shotgun tore through Gail's flesh, ripping, shredding, tearing holes and letting blood pour through the open wounds.  Both girls landed on the ground, Gail having died before she ever hit.  Sera, however, wasn't quite dead yet.  Her bleary eyes looked up at the pale moon above her, and tears began forming in them yet again.

Big girls don't cry, Sera... big girls don't cry...

FEMALE STUDENT NO. 6 - GAIL SMITH - DECEASED
FEMALE STUDENT NO. 29 - SERA WINGFIELD - DECEASED