The Dead Shall Walk the Earth

[Jazzfat]

John kept a little bit of distance from their new found redpilled friend.

..God why did I say that? Like, Jesus, that was awful. John beat themselves up over that stupid joke. John beat themselves up over a lot of things. Like that time they kept forgetting to do math homework. Or that time they accidentally insulted that friend, it was so bad that she cried. Like…man.

Or that time they were ghosted. Or that time they kept misgendering themselves - oh wait that’s all the time. Fuck you Mom and Dad. Why couldn’t you just use their correct pronouns?

John…I guess they needed some alone time. I mean, all things considered, being in a death game, they haven’t really seen many people who want to…death other people. Okay, that doesn’t make sense, but you get what I mean. I guess they’re lucky. Lucky they haven’t run into a real killer. A player, I guess you could say, since they’d be the people to go and play the death game.

…Damn.

John kept stepping, crunching the snow beneath their feet.

It was really cold, John thought. I mean, it’s snowy, so the snow was probably getting into the boots. Eugh. Great. Wet feet. John remembers one time camping, taking off their boots and seeing that their feet were fully clammed up. For some reason, they were always the they to get their feet wet. To have the snow get into their boots, and have all the snow melt into their socks. John felt that right now, but on a more…macro scale. Not only with the boots and clammy-slash-wet feet. But also the game. Why them? What did they do to deserve this?

Well…a lot. Oh, boy, here comes the self-beating again.

I’ll save you the trouble and say John did do bad things, as many people do, but they also did some not very bad things. Some things were also good. Very good. Some also neutral. But John mostly focused on the bad and the neutral. Oh, and the neutral things? Those were actually bad. And the good things? Well, people just SAY they’re good. They’re actually hurt right now, and they hate John. They hate John so much, that they won’t even tell them they hate John. And they’ll pretend to be John’s friend. Like everyone else. And John’s parents? They hate them too. They all hate John. And honestly? John deserves it.

Then John thought for a moment. When did I become so self-centered? It’s all about me and what I feel, huh? Why does it have to be about me? Half those people probably don’t care about what happened all those months or years ago.

But at the same time, that feeling of loneliness and loathing was still there. Everpresent. To never go away.

John felt dead. As if they were just a body walking. Their head…felt weird. Weightless. Not in the sick-lightheaded kind of way. The dissociating kind of lightheaded.

For the rest of the walk, John completely tuned out everything. And their body took over as the autopilot.

((John stopped walking, but their body kept on moving.))