Severed

[Kermit]

((Michael Froese continued from Dance Yrself Clean))

He ran. Hours passed. He kept running. His lungs burned. He felt like at any moment he'd pass out from heat exhaustion. He kept running. He hated himself. He kept running. He hoped Jonathan was alive. He kept running.

Trees turned to houses. He dove in through the entrance of the first one he saw and closed the door behind him. He quickly scanned the room, and seeing nothing out of place, he collapsed to his knees and doubled over in a heap. The floor felt cold against his forehead and he let his tears wash the sweat from his eyes. He tore off the cult robe and the windbreaker, then rolled his shirt's sleeves all the way up, trying to get as much skin-to-air contact as he could without taking his shirt off (the floor was gross and icky and covered by a few decade's accumulation of detritus and he didn't want to deal with that).

He slid his backpack off and grabbed a bottle he'd filled with rainwater a few days prior. He drank the whole thing.

Eventually, he managed to stand back up. His feet felt like they were on fire. He stumbled to the house's bedroom, dragging his belongings behind him. He draped the robe over the bed as an impromptu bedcover, and looked around the room for something he could use to barricade the door. There was a hefty-looking chair in the corner, and he pushed it along the ground until it blocked the door (he also made sure it was locked, just to be safe). He threw the backpack on the bed, fwumped himself onto a part of the bed covered by the robe, and promptly passed out. He hadn't slept since the night before he'd killed Camila.


__

He was pretty sure Justin was, in fact, thinking about suicide.

He was pretty sure Justin'd just died.

He didn't know if he'd ever be back.

The onomatopoeia for "the one" was ... wacky. Michael was pretty sure it was a joke, anyway.

Right now he was floating on the ocean. Ocean waves were gently but surely crushing him. One of his arms had detached, and he was floating on the ocean with it. It was unreal. It was like he'd never left the ocean.

Someone - whoever it was - had saved his life.




...

...

...sorry.



He felt like he was going crazy.

Someone had just killed Justin.










Shit, someone had just killed Justin.

Michael was in shock. Justin was on the ground. Michael's head was in Lori's lap. It was the strangest feeling ever.

"No," she whispered. "It's OK. I'm with you."




They needed to figure out what had happened.

They were both lying on the ground. Her hand had invaded his, and he was in no way impaled, stabbed or otherwise injured. He didn't even know what happened next. Bullets didn't make her feel good. Even if he was a murderer she wouldn't have given him a chance to say anything. He'd be more like a warning, and sooner or later the gunshot would ring out and the pressure in the room would turn to bear down upon him.

He was in no position to stop the fight, even if his wild imagination ran wild with possibilities. At some point during their exchange, Michael landed a kick to the gut that sent Lori laughing. She didn't move. For a split second she seemed to consider what she was about to do, but made the split second decision to parry. With one swift motion of her free hand, she parried his kick as well. It was a draw, but it was a draw she thought she could still win.

He didn't waste any time in taking aim, and fired.

Lori had no intention of parrying.

He hit her. She was caught off guard. She fell. She hit the ground-


__

-turned to the source of the screeching.

"H-hey, hey, it's okay, it's okay…" he whimpered. "It's okay, I promise."

The smile returned, this time around. It was different, it was sad, it was maniacal.

"I'ma just play the victim. I'm not a monster, really. Just lonely, I think."

He clutched at his head for dear life.

"Don't worry about it, I got you."

The hug ended, and he turned to look at the source of his voice. It was harsh and sarcastic. It came from before. The island, before the prophecy. Before Beryl's parents died in a car crash while on vacation with Michael and Lori. Before he died from a heroin overdose while trying to help Beryl. Before he left her for a heroin addict.

He knew that much.

He was still his own worst enemy.

He was glad that he was still his worst enemy.

They stood there for a moment, silently waiting.

"Bye Michael. Be back in a minute."

They would get some food in their stomachs before the big day.

"Bye Beryl."

They would go speak with the dead for a while.

"Hold on to your heart, it-


__

The door was rattling. A muffled voice from outside.

“H-hello?”

Michael's eyes shot open, blinked a few times. He was awake now, he was pretty sure. The room was dark, and he assumed he'd slept into the night. He wasn't sure if he recognized the voice. It was a girl's voice, and it sounded familiar though he couldn't quite place it. He sat up, and his hand wormed its way into his backpack, grabbing his pistol. He kept quiet for a few seconds, hoping the voice would leave. Part of him was scared he'd kill whoever it was if he let them in.

The door kept rattling.

"...Hi?" he said, unintentionally upspeaking the word into a question.

“Oh thank god. Um, can you open up?”

There was an implied urgency to the voice's words, he thought. He made sure the safety on his pistol was off. "Why? What's - what's going on?"

The voice was much quieter as it spoke again. “Someone’s out here.”

Someone other than the voice, he assumed. Potentially someone who wanted to kill the voice.

"Do you know who?" he asked, the volume of his voice mirroring that of the one from the door.

“N-no. He hurt me before.”

'Hurt' could have had any number of meanings, and none were particularly positive. For all he knew, the voice had already been fatally wounded. He was suddenly acutely aware of the vial of insulin and syringe he had stashed in his pocket. The voice had used the word 'he' when identifying its attacker, which narrowed down the identity of the person the voice was trying to escape from to probably Justin, Lorenzo, Zach, Marco V., or maybe Claude (for Lori's sake, he hoped it wasn't Claude). Other than himself, they were the only regularly male-pronouned people who he knew had been consistently killing or acting crazy during the past few days.

"Hurt how bad? With what?"

“W-what’s with the third degree? I’m bleeding pretty bad.”

The voice was going to die if he didn't open the door. He knew he wasn't going to open the door. He knew he wanted to keep the door closed. He knew he'd listen to whoever this was get murdered. He knew he was willing to throw the voice's life away only because letting them die was just another way to hurt himself. He knew he'd been stuck in this pattern since day one, only he was slowly escalating.

"H-hey, it's okay," he stumbled over his words a bit. "What's... what's your name?"

He was talking like how Tony had talked to him on the first day. He was talking like he was talking to someone who didn't realize they'd just had their legs blown off by a landmine. He was talking to someone who was about to die.

“...Sammy.”

He wasn't sure if he knew anyone named Sammy. He knew of a Sam, but she hadn't been on the trip. At least, he was pretty sure she hadn't been on the trip. Maybe he was wrong about that, or maybe he'd missed someone while going over names in the yearbook.

"Okay, Sammy. I need you to tell me where - how far away is this guy? I just need -" he needed an excuse to stall, "-to put my gun together. It's, uh, big and heavy and I took it apart to carry it easier. I'll try to be as fast as I can, I promise. Keep talking to me, tell me about home," he made clickity-clackity sounds with the pistol, trying to simulate gun-putting-together sounds.

“Home? I -” there was a noise that could have been an intake of breath. “-just let me in. Please. Please.”

He shut his eyes tight for a few seconds, inhaled, then exhaled. The nails on his left hand dug into his palm. His voice was soft, and he meant to sound reassuring, though some underlying dread bubbled through. "Listen, you're going to be okay. I promise you, you're going to be okay. I just - I just need to put this together before I open the door. I won't let you die."

The door rattled again. “Why?” The voice sounded flat more than plaintive. Had she realized what he was doing?

"Because - because if the scary guy's out there with you, I'll need to shoot him. Listen," his voice creaked, "I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

“You coward! He’s coming, don’t you get - Wait, no! NO!” A gunshot. A heavy thud.

That was it, then. Sammy was dead. Michael could feel blood starting to pool in his left hand; the gunshot had caused him to flinch and press his nails through his skin. He stared at the door blankly, made a face like he was about to start crying, and silently fell back to the bed. He closed his eyes tight once more. His hands were still.

He wasn't sure what was going on in his mind. He knew there was a murderer outside. He knew he'd undeniably just made a choice that had killed someone, and yet he wasn't sure if he still felt anything about it. He'd gone numb, built up a tolerance. There was nothing stirring in his chest. More of the same.

He wondered if the killer would shoot him through the wall. He wondered if he'd finally fucking die.

He didn't.

He lay there on the bed for a minute or so, looking at the inside of his eyelids. He didn't really feel like sleeping. There was still a possibility that he'd be murdered, and he wanted to die conscious.

His eyes shot open as he heard the voice again.

“Get the fuck out here! Fuck!”

She wasn't dead. She had to be dead. He'd heard her die. He'd heard her hit the ground. She wasn't dead. She was talking. She sounded... not happy. She was -

- wait. No. This was - he didn't understand -

Sammy. Cammy?

Camila.

Her voice didn't sound like Camila's.

It had to be Camila.

He rolled over and pressed his face into his bag. He let out a low, guttural cry, muffled by the backpack.

He was insane. He'd lost it. He was hallucinating. He hadn't done any LSD that day. His brain was actually like this now. He was psychotic.

He was conscious of the fact he was psychotic and it -
- it just hurt. It hurt.

"I'm sorry," he choked, "I'm sorry."

“Fuck off!” The door shook with a sudden impact. “Open the door!”

He clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth together. He was apologizing to nobody. There was nobody there. He knew there was nobody there. He'd talked himself into going 100% crazy. He'd actually gone 100% crazy. He was a psychosomatic psycho. His brain was literally inventing things to make him feel bad.

He was done. He was so tired of running. He was tired of lying to himself. He was tired of lying to everyone. He was tired of trying to feel guilty. He was tired of trying to convince himself he felt guilty about things he thought he'd be blamed for. He was tired of feeling guilt about not feeling actual guilt about things he thought he'd be blamed for.

He supposed if he actually felt bad about any of it, he'd have tried to change things.

No more trying to hold on to his humanity. He'd gone crazy because of his humanity. Maybe he'd gone crazy because he wanted to feel like he had humanity. Didn't fucking matter.

He breathed in deeply, and sat up. His whole body was shaking, not out of fear or guilt or pain, but out of contempt. It took everything he had not to shoot through the door. He didn't want to waste the bullet on a hallucination.

Maybe he'd just lost himself. Maybe he'd just found himself. He knew it was one of the two. He didn't care which. He was done caring. For real this time. Really for real.

His voice began as a low growl, slowly building into not-quite-but-almost a roar. "No. Fuck you. I'm not opening the door. I don't even feel bad. I never fucking felt bad. Go fuck yourself. You said yes. You told me to shoot you. None of this was ever my fucking fault. That's on you. That's your fault. This is the freest we've ever been, and I'm done fucking acting like I'm still in Chattanooga. I'm tired of this bullshit. Get the FUCK out, Camila. Even if I could, I wouldn't change anything."

Silence.

Was that enough to do it? Chase a hallucination formed from a guilty-not-guilty conscience away?

Silence.

Then a low, derisive laugh.

At least he still had enough self-awareness for his subconscious to be able to laugh at itself. It was pretty funny, he supposed. He'd have exhaled amusedly if he'd been watching this.

He deflated back onto the bed. He felt calm. Peaceful, kind of. He didn't know. He didn't need to know. "...Fuck," he exhaled quietly. His obsessions were tinged with internal consistency problems.

“If you have to tell yourself you don’t feel bad, you feel bad.”

"I..." he paused and grimaced. Brain Camila was right, wasn't she? This was his brain telling him to stop trying to be something he wasn't. "...I don't disagree," he mumbled. "But what if it's like... I don't know if I actually feel bad or if I'm just trying to convince myself I feel bad, like, so I can pretend I'm a good person; like I'm just method-acting a character, y'know? I dunno. I feel like I'm trying to bite my own teeth."

“I’m not your fucking therapist. Let me in!”

He scratched the back of his neck. If his brain wasn't doing this for, like, therapeutic purposes, he wasn't sure what it was doing.

Maybe it was trying to get him to finally make his choice and stop existing in his weird state of superposition. It was forcing him to finally figure out what he wanted his definition of 'him' to be. He could decide not to choose, he supposed, but that would be a choice in of itself.

Not caring versus caring. Letting go versus trying to stay grounded. Door closed versus door open.

He'd always hated having to intervene with the universe. He liked letting the cards fall where they would, and watching how things turned out.

He couldn't do that anymore, he supposed. He had to decide.

Everyone was dead no matter what he chose. The net suffering would be the same either way. The only factor that really mattered in the decision was him.

So he made his decision. He sat up again.

"I already told you no," he stated flatly.

“Fine.”

Six successive gunshots resounded from the far side of the door.

He felt at least one bullet pass through the air beside his head. He closed his eyes and inhaled shakily. He knew there was nobody there. He knew there was no gun. He knew the only real thing happening was him sitting alone in a dark room, talking to himself.

His pistol still had four shots left in the mag. He raised it above his head with his right hand, barrel pointed at the ceiling. He opened his eyes, started exhaling softly through his mouth, pulled the trigger, pulled the trigger again, and finished exhaling.

He blinked away a few pieces of ceiling plaster. Catharsis. He pursed his lips, waiting to hear if the voice in his head was still there.

“...You aren’t worth it.”

He chewed on the inside of his lip and let his mouth curl into a bittersweet almost-smile. "You're goddamn right," he mumbled.

He felt the warm and fuzzy feeling in his chest.

Validation.

A truth. He wasn't worth it. It didn't matter what 'it' was. He wasn't worth it. He didn't matter.

He felt great. It made him feel great. Maybe not great, but like... fuck it, he didn't need to define it. Calm. Exorcised.

He didn't hear the voice again after that.

He waited fifteen minutes or so and then popped roughly six dexedrine-spansule pills. He sat there, thinking for a bit, staring blankly at the wall. After an hour or so, his eyes flitted to the door.

Even in the dark, he could make out six bullet holes.


"..."

He blinked.

He pointed at the door. "That's fucking HILARIOUS."

He hadn't been hallucinating. Someone had actually tried to murder him and he'd thought they were his brain yelling at itself. Quinn. It had been Quinn's voice. Goddamn motherfucking QUINN hadn't even found him worth murdering. He'd annoyed her out of murdering him and he hadn't even fucking meant to.

He'd out-crazied the actual school-shooter kid. What the fuck. What the actual fuck.

He was so fucking done with all this bullshit.

Validation and catharsis. They were the only things he still wanted. They were the only things he'd ever fucking wanted.

He wanted to hurt someone. That was what he wanted now.


He shoved the chair out from the path of the door, packed his bag, reloaded his gun, and checked the fuck out.

((Michael continued in the woods))

[Namira]

If she ever heard that voice again, Quinn was going to rip its owner's throat straight down the middle.

Nice and slow.

Hide behind a door then.

((Quinn continued in Fly Back To School Now, Little Starling))