Futility

[CardboardAirplane]

He wasn’t cut out for this game. That was what he was learning.

(Perante Losoa continued from Lullabies to Paralyze)

His legs dragged him forward, the only sign that he was moving was how the trees were inching ever so slightly closer to him.

Dumbass, you ran out of there like a fucking idiot. Made yourself look stupid, didn’t you? Bet they’re probably laughing about it now, how you just walked in and left as soon as it happened.

Perante felt dizzy and he found it hard to think straight. He was pretty sure he was getting sick. Like, physically sick. As he moved through the snow, it felt like his brain had turned itself off and turned itself back on; one moment he’d see a tree just a little ahead of him, then it was a couple of steps behind him before he even realized it.

Time, time, he was running out of time. He let out a shaky breath.

Seriously, of all moments you have to be thinking about this now. Get over it, you’ve done this like, a million times already. Time is passing, we’re all gonna die. Just get that through your head already.

It was five days in, and nothing has gotten better regarding his fear. Hell, it’s gotten a lot worse. He thought for sure that by this point he’d be able to move past it and stop worrying about it. No matter how much he tried though, it was futile. There was an embarrassing amount of time where he thought about what it felt like to be stabbed in somewhat graphic detail. In that moment, he thought he would suffocate instead.

How many of them were doing what Danya wanted? At least a dozen or so had killed others. A hell of a lot more than he expected. He was fairly sure all of them were playing to win. All of them were active killers.

He was quite sure none of these people killed anyone on accident. You don’t aim a gun at someone without intending to maim or kill. You don’t swing a bat or a knife at someone without hoping to do some damage. Even if you didn’t intend to kill, you still wanted to hurt someone. For that, he couldn’t trust any of them. He didn’t want to risk it. He was too afraid. Just thinking about it made you a bad person, that’s what he wanted to tell himself.

Except that’d make him a hypocrite, it’d be lying to say he never thought about getting Chester. Or anyone else. Maybe he’d find Kitty and at least that would be justifiable. He could play hero if he desperately wanted to. But that'd still be lying if he tried to say he killed a killer to save everyone. He had to admit that he was no better than anyone else here.

Maybe he was just being too emo right now. Why couldn’t he just suck it up and deal with it like everyone else? Just stay calm and stop thinking about it.

Oh, he knew why he couldn’t deal with this by now, because he was just being a dumbass. He was sure everyone else had gotten over it already. He was just being weak. Some were paranoid, but it wasn’t like they were actively being destroyed from the inside. Did he ever see someone as horribly fucked up as he was? No. He didn’t. If he knew he was overreacting then jeez, he should’ve just stopped being like this by now. But just because he was aware he was being a dumbass doesn’t make it easy to stop being a dumbass. Shit, doesn’t it make it worse since he hadn’t amended everything by now?

He was scared. He was afraid. Just by walking along a road, his heart rate was rising way too high. How did he even live this long in the first place? It wasn’t like he had a chance. He thought just maybe he could fool himself into thinking he did, but what the fuck was he supposed to do as the numbers dwindled? Take on a dozen people by himself? He was so small in the grand scheme of things. He had no advantage here. He wasn’t a gambling man. Instead of seeing his classmates die off as him being one step closer to living, he just saw it as a clock ticking down to his death.

He was fucked, he was so unbelievably fucked. He didn’t want to die, but nobody sure as hell did. Still, if he had to choose between burning alive or jumping from a burning building, he didn’t want it to be drawn out. A flurry of bullets thrown his way for him to slowly bleed out over an hour or two, he didn’t want that. He could risk trying to win, but pain was the only outcome he could imagine.

At this point, he’s sure he'd drawn his death out five days too long.

…

Part of him wished someone stopped him. He wished someone could arrive and understand just what was going on. No need for him to say anything, he’d feel bad doing that. If someone could just… Read his mind, understand just how shitty things were without him having to say anything painful.

He needed to meet halfway for that though, and he was never going to put in the effort to do so. Wasn't complaining considered a bad thing?

He stopped for a moment. What was he thinking? What were they thinking? What would everyone think?

For the last time, he thought he’d try to clear the narrative.

(Perante Losoa continued at Avoidance)