The Pain Felt By Those Left Behind

[jimmydalad]

((Sharon Austin continued from The Things We Lost in the Fire))

As soon as she patched the others up, Sharon had almost immediately left them. It was mostly due to the way that she was approaching the game that she took the callous approach, but she didn't want to have to look after two people who don't have any supplies. She was going after players and she didn't want to have to give up her rations to the other two in risk of having nothing left pretty soon.

Sharon had spent the night in the pool, waiting for Steven to come back from his talk with Katarina. The unsettling sight of dead bodies was something that still affected her. The fact that there was not one, but three of them, strewn around the place made her feel like she was in a morgue. The bodies also served as a reminder of the situation that she was in right now. People were dying. She couldn't pretend that the names announced were just names and nothing more. They were real people, her classmates, and reality wasn't being kind to her with that regard.

She didn't know when or how she fall asleep. The only reason she knew she was asleep was that she was awoken by the announcements. The voice caused her to jump, her head swishing both ways violently. After taking a moment to realize what woke her up, she payed attention to the announcements. Steven wasn't here. She listened out for the names of those who had fallen. Someone had tried to rebel and died. The next name that came up though caused Sharon's mind to shut down.

"N-no." Was all that Sharon could get out, clutching onto her spear for support, even though she was sitting on the floor. The thought that Steven would die never registered in her mind. He said she would be easier to talk down. He said that she would be easier than Theo. Thinking back, Steven even said that she had a gun. Yet Steven was the man with the plans. A part of her thought that he was invincible, a man that could talk his way out of anything. The fact was though, that now he was dead. The power of words couldn't overcome that of the gun.

All she could do was sit, clinging to her spear, trying to let the truth sink into her. Her mind was fighting the facts and she almost thought that the announcements were some sort of cruel joke. Yet she was fighting against the evidence again. She knew this. There was no reason for them to lie, but she wanted it to be a lie so badly. Steven had been her only ally and now even he was dead. Shot by the person he claimed would be easier to talk down than Theo.

Why did he lie to her? That question ran through her mind. Why tell her that Katarina was easy to talk down? She wished she knew the answer to questions that she knew that she will never know. Did he do it because of an error in judgment? No. She knew he wasn't like that. She was one of his friends. Steven would never make that mistake, especially considering how determined he was. Could it be to protect her?

That bastard. Why the hell would he do that? She smashed her hand against the wall, the adrenaline from her anger numbing the pain as her anger started to rise. How dare he do something like that. Why did he have to go risk his life and die? Why the hell did he leave her behind with the pain that she was going to be alone again.

Alone.

She really was alone. Her anger was uncontrollable now. She needed to vent. She couldn't just scream. She had never felt such anger. She needed to hit something or someone really hard. Looking around, she saw one of the dead bodies at the doorway. Who it was didn't matter to her. She stood up, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She clutched the spear hard in both of her hands.

Once she had reached the other body, Sharon raised the spear and brought it straight down into the back of the dead student. The glass shards pierced the skin and she felt a perverted exhilaration as she pushed the spear harder into the body, the glass being unyielding at first to her demands before eventually fully piercing the skin and lodging itself within the body.

"How dare you fucking die for me Steven!" Sharon screeched, using all of her strength to pull out the improvised weapon from her unfortunate victim. The weapon was stubborn, but eventually yielded to the adrenaline-fueled power of Sharon. Some of the glass shards remained in the body, but Sharon didn't care. She once again stabbed the back of the girl with all her might, tears running down her eyes as her eyes squinted in sheer fury. She shouldn't have been left behind. She should've said something. She should've stopped him.

Once more, she withdrew the spear from the body and stabbed again. At this point, most of the glass had fallen off and Sharon just lost all of her strength. Blood covered the tip of the once improvised weapon, as grief overcame her. She slid down the weapon, her right hand and jeans getting covered with blood. She wailed loudly, wailed louder than she had ever done before for the only person on the island she could've trusted. Yet he was gone now and once again, she was all alone.

[jimmydalad]

Her tears had been expended. She had reached a point where she felt like all her tears had spent. She had left the broken spear in the body, knowing that she wasn't going to be able to use it anymore. Her eyes were stinging and red while her glasses were in her hand, having taken them off sometime before so that the tears didn't blur the glasses to the point of them being near unusable. She was gripping onto them in her right hand, not gripping tightly in risk of breaking them.

Standing up, she moved towards where the rest of her things were and slumped against the nearest wall. She let her body go limp, her eyes vacant. Now that Steven was gone, she wasn't really sure what to do. Steven was always the one who knew what to do and she had looked up to him when times got tough. He probably was the reason why Sharon even went out and look for players in the first place.

Yet looking out for players was what got him killed. Was it because he was careless? Was the same going to happen to her? She thought back to her encounter with Hansel, another killer on the island. She couldn't get him to stop robbing the two people, but at least she managed to get him to run away. Sharon was able to improvise and make the best of the situation she was given her.

It probably just was good luck though. Her lack of encounters with death up until this moment seemed to indicate something of a lucky streak and she wondered if she was still here through her own merits or riding the coattails of others. A part of her wished that she went after Katarina, not Steven. She wished she said something, but then again, how would've she known about what would happen?

Sharon grimaced. Did she know what she was going to do?

Nope. She was just going to jump into the world blind and see where she went from there. Maybe she'll find something, maybe she'll die.

Whatever it was, it was better than just sitting here.

((Sharon Austin continued in Reflections))