The View From Halfway Down

[VoltTurtle]

((Marceline did not stray very far, after she left Diego behind.))

After she had separated from the boy, she had watched herself wander away from the gardens in a daze, going in no particular direction. She had just wanted to get away, like she always had when tragedy struck. She ended up wandering into danger zones in the process, only turning around once the incessant beeping began. Inexorably, her aimless path ended up twisting in on itself, and she found herself in the gardens once again, only half-aware of that fact.

She was sitting with her back against one of the garden's many ceramic pots, some distance away from where Roxanne had died. She was completely drenched by the rain, her clothes sticking to her skin. Her eyes were still just as red and puffy as they had been when she departed, serving as the only sign that she had been sobbing on and off for the last several hours.

In the aftermath of what happened, there was only one thought that Marceline's mind had found itself fixated upon. A thought that she didn't want to consider, but one that intrusively and unceasingly echoed through her skull over and over again nonetheless.

Roxanne was dead. She was alone. It was all her fault.

It ate at her, gnawing unending at the inner recesses of her mind. She couldn't quite fathom the fact that she had murdered not just one, but two different people whom she had loved. The fact that the second murder might be considered self defense didn't make it any better. The only reason they had ended up fighting at all was because she had chosen to confront Roxanne, to try and make things right between them, only for it to get so much worse so much more quickly than she could have ever imagined.

All her regrets kept bubbling up from underneath the surface, threatening to drown her under their weight. Telling her of all the ways that she could have prevented Roxanne's death from happening. She shouldn't have come down in the first place. She shouldn't have stuck around when Roxanne began to approach. She shouldn't have stayed once the fighting broke out. She shouldn't have fought back at all.

Yet, she came, she stayed, and she fought.

She wanted nothing more than to take it all back, to turn back time and undo her mistakes, but it was too late. The deed was done. Just like everyone else she had loved, Roxanne was gone forever, and she had no-one to blame but herself.

Now with Diego gone too, it was just her. The last of all her social circles, and the sole remaining member of Beyond Human. This was what it was to be the sole survivor, the all-too-great a price that she paid in the name of reaching her goal. She felt that loneliness, the isolation threatening to scar her very soul. At least when her friends had died, they still had someone left to grieve for them. By contrast, should she die right here and right now, there would be no-one left to mourn her.

She had made sure of that.

She sniffled, slowly blinking. The cut across her left hand, her bruised shoulder, and her busted lip continued to ache incessantly. The marks that Roxanne had left behind were still there to remind her of what happened, ensuring that she wouldn't be allowed to forget, even for a moment. She groaned, leaning her head back against the rim of the pot, angling it back, falling raindrops hitting her face.

Marceline couldn't help but reflect on what had brought her to this point, all her struggles and everything she had hoped to accomplish with the time she had left, and what it all meant for her. For instance, all this time, even as her goals gradually shifted and changed, she had wanted nothing more than to enact her vengeance on d'Aramitz for what they had done to Dolly. That was in spite of the fact that she knew that no amount of death would bring Dolly back, and undo the damage that had been done. The inherent emptiness of revenge simply hadn't mattered to her, because she wanted more than anything to make them hurt the way they had hurt her. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Well, she was just as bad as them, a fact that she was now more acutely aware of than ever. She had done even more harm to her loved ones than them. She had taken away someone else's love, in the same way that they had taken hers. By her own metrics, she deserved the same suffering that she continued to wish upon them. Best delivered unto her by someone she had wronged in the same way they had wronged her. If there had to be an end for her, that would be the poetic one. Being treated as she had treated others. Suffering a monster's death, serving as the white whale to someone else's captain Ahab.

She shifted where she sat, growing discomfort in her lower back getting the better of her. She picked her head up from where it had been resting on the rim of the pot, looking down at her belongings. Roxanne's bag and shotgun sat on the ground on her left side, next to her sheathed sword. Dolly's knife sat in her left pocket, while Amelia's pistol remained in her right pocket. Of the four weapons, only Roxanne's shotgun had not yet taken a life. She began to wonder, before she came to be here, before all the tragedy had transpired, could she have ever imagined that she would one day murder three different people, two of which were her dear friends?

Before, she had been so sure of what she was doing. She had knowingly and willingly decided to play the role of the villain, if only as a means of keeping her promise. She had even gone so far as to place the sole moral weight of her actions on the terrorists without a second thought, in an effort to absolve herself of responsibility. Yet in the end, it didn't work. She couldn't kill her own humanity, and she couldn't handle the guilt over everything she had done. Now in the wake of Roxanne's death she was starting to question her certainty and whether or not this was really what she wanted, just like she had done so many times before.

She had wanted to keep the promise so badly. It was the only meaning that she had left to cling to in her short, sad existence. Yet, in her dogged pursuit of it, she had chosen to twist herself into something unrecognizable. Maybe Roxanne had been right to question her, and how much of her was really left. Maybe the girl known as Marceline really had been replaced by a pathetic creature wearing her identity like it were a costume.

Or, maybe this was who she really was all along. Maybe it was all she would ever be.

She shook her head, a desperate attempt to clear her mind. She was parched, despite all the water pouring down onto and around her. Absentmindedly, she reached over to her bag, unzipping it just enough to stick her hand inside, before rummaging around until she felt one of her water bottles. She pulled it out and uncapped it, before beginning to sip at the water contained within.

Oblivion still called to her, as it had been doing for some time. She had never stopped yearning for death in the wake of Dolly's demise, for the chance to finally embrace the void as so many others already had. The only reason she wasn't already a decaying corpse was because of the promise, and only because she wanted to honor her girlfriend's accidental last request. She could always give up and finally bring an end to the misery she had inflicted on herself and others, there was nothing physically stopping her from doing so. Except, as she had already considered before in the wake of each of her killings, she had to keep the promise now, didn't she? If she failed and died, then that would mean that she had murdered Amelia and Roxanne and even Nick for absolutely nothing. She couldn't do such horrible things and then let them be all for naught.

She had to keep going.

She had to. It was all she had left.

When she was halfway through the bottle, it was only then that she finally noticed the distinctive black marking on the cap held in her hand. Immediately she panicked, spitting out the water that was still in her mouth, before recapping the bottle and chucking it as far away as she could muster.

Oh no.

Her heart began to race, as the anxiety and stress began to set in. That was the bottle that she had pilfered off of Amelia. The one that had to have been marked for a reason, a reason that she still had yet to discover. Did that mean that she had just ingested poison?

Oh no, no, no, no.

That was bad. That was really bad.

Was she going to die now? Was this seriously how it was going to end for her? Dying all because she wasn't paying attention to what she was drinking?

She curled up where she sat, wrapping her arms around her legs. She remained there for what felt like an eternity, waiting for insides to begin to twist in on themselves, or for her vision to start going dark, or any other sign that death was imminent. Only, the suffering never came. The rain had slowed down significantly in the time that she had spent waiting. She maybe felt a little different, she thought, but she wasn't sure if that was some kind of placebo effect or whether or not she had actually ingested something.

She kept waiting for something to begin to happen, and once the clouds began to clear, she finally noticed the edges of objects being more colorful than normal, almost as if she was looking at them through soap bubbles. Her mouth felt dry, tasting almost of chalk. She definitely felt strange in general, too, like nothing she had ever experienced before. There had to have been something unusual in the water that she drank, but what exactly was it?

She looked back up at the vibrant sky, the clouds having mostly cleared. It was beginning to turn an orange-red, the telltale sign of a soon to be setting sun. Perhaps she should head inside again. After all, it wasn't like she needed to sit outside in order to mope. Plus, it was dangerous to be out in the open like this. Who knew who could stumble upon her at any moment.

[Emprexx Plush]

((Marco Hart Continued From It All Went Wrong))

Marco trembled. He assumed he always had, but it was one of those things he couldn’t honestly say was a habit for as long as he could remember because he didn’t remember it. He didn’t notice it unless a finger twitched the wrong way and double-tapped a key as he was writing, maybe whipped his cursor over his trackpad. He also noticed when it spiked. When the anxiety got to him worst he shook so bad it felt like he was going to come apart. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to touch him then. Garnet might have known. Nick definitely would have. He would never be able to ask them now and hadn’t thought to when he still could, so he worked on assumption. Between the lack of caffeine and his general state of being he had to shake so badly all the time Katelynne could see it without even touching him. Despite that she’d told him to put the crossbow he was hefting around to practice. He hadn’t so much as fired it yet, and there were goats all over the forest. Katelynne’s gun would stir up attention if it went off, but nobody was going to hear him taking shots unless they were already right on top of them. Failure had to be an assumption given his inexperience, but he couldn’t argue the low risk to potential reward.

He also couldn’t adequately express his surprise when he knelt down to aim and found his hands steady. Perfectly steady, that was his first impulse to describe them, but it wasn’t accurate. There was sway to them. Their grip felt awkward, it demanded readjustment. His breath shook the sight up and down. The creeping rise of his pulse got him shaking all over again. When he actually squeezed the trigger his shot sailed short and off to the left with his prey bucking off with a bleat before the bolt hit the ground. Assumed failure had come to pass by as clear standards as could be asked.

For a few moments, though, he had been steady.

They tried again. Much of that day was spent carefully sneaking through the woods trying to improve his odds by position, with more than a few attempts ending before he took a shot because of the rustle of a bush, a snapped twigs, disrupted birds, imagination could run wild with complications. Those times where he was able to pull the trigger ended in bolts sailing harmlessly out of the way every time, but he was learning. Marco understood space. He could measure distance as easily kneeling in place as he could interpreting a map. The theory of a well placed shot came together through experience and what second-hand knowledge he and Katelynne could half remember between them. They had little better to do but implement its practice.

And he was steady.

It had to be some fifteen, twenty, maybe even more, over-corrected shots and retrievals later before the woods in sunset echoed with a new kind of cry. Undertones of the same distress that sent all the other goats he had fired at running but they were overwhelmed by pain. The only factor lessening the intensity of the bleating he was used to had been the Doppler effect, but this sound grew weaker as they approached it. Excitement had been their first reaction together, subdued as it was; shouting congratulations would have defeated the purpose of using a quieter weapon but they were both radiating the validation of hard work bearing fruit. They exchanged no words but he could feel they were on the same wavelength on approach, and maybe it was in his head but he almost felt their pace slowing in the same moment, the realization dawning as more practical concerns peeking over the horizon now that they’d accomplished what they both had to have thought was an unlikely success at best. What would they do with it now? They had nothing to prepare it with assuming Katelynne knew anything about how to safely prepare a wild goat for consumption. All they had to skin and cut it was his glove, a prop item sharpened by an amateur that would hardly hold up to tough fur and bone for their purposes. Then what would they do, light a fire to cook it? If no one noticed smoke in the dying light they would notice the flames after the sun went down. Shelter would be necessary to safely make use of their efforts and it was not as if either of them was strong enough to haul a goat to who knows where in hopes that it would still be safe to eat by the time they stopped. All of this raced through his mind as they made their approach, and he was nearly to the point of opening his mouth to object when he saw the goat lying on the ground.

Marco did not have the expertise to be certain where he had hit it from their position along the treeline but as they closed the gap thirty feet, twenty feet, ten, five, yes, from the angle the bolt was sticking out and the way its legs had twitched in irregular rhythm growing more feeble by the movement there could be little doubt. Marco had nailed it somewhere along the spine. It was not dead yet. Marco was no more an expert in goat biology than he was goat hunting but it might not die at all from a wound like this, not immediately. Infection, exhaustion, starvation, dehydration, blood loss, shock, any number of factors could kill it left like this, but they would be slow. Every moment it was still alive was another of unnecessary suffering.

He did not trust himself with another shot.

He did not voice a word of concern to Katelynne before untying the glove from around his waist.

He did not hesitate to strap it to his hand for the first time in half a week.

He did not flinch as he slid its blades across the goat’s throat.

He was steady.

That’s what found him alone on his way into the garden today. Splitting up was a mistake from most angles. It halved their effectiveness and left them vulnerable to being picked off alone. It was just as dangerous for them to be wandering blind from location to location though, so they had worked out a plan. Together they cleared shelter in the neighborhood the island’s leadership had set up for themselves and put together a crude barricade. It wasn’t safe to hole up in one location for long, not when a danger zone could make it uninhabitable any morning, but they needed somewhere to operate out of day to day. The general idea was that one of them would stay wherever they were working out of for the time being and the other would go out for supplies, patrols, that sort of thing. They had worked out some signals for each other on entry and exit in case of trouble. If they didn’t get the right one from either side, they were supposed to split with no questions asked. If they saw each other they saw each other, and if not? Finish strong. Simple. Not easy, but simple.

The gardens connected to the housing areas offered a few advantages. He was small and they were wildly overgrown, there was plenty of cover for him to drop into if something went wrong and plenty of ways he might be able to crawl away to a less compromised position. They were more likely to attract smaller game that they might have an easier time preparing, though he couldn’t say he had any examples right out of memory. The most important factor was that it was close enough to bring back anything he hit, or to sneak back if he heard any sounds of trouble.

Trouble was he didn’t hear anything before he saw her.

Physically Marceline didn’t look all that different than she had the day she shot Nick. She’d made no more impulse alterations to her hair and her outfit was unchanged. He could just barely make out patches of bandages under all the blood. A busted lip and a new gun were about all he noticed at first glance.. Marceline was staring off into the blank space without any recognition there might be someone approaching her, still the same murderer that had held his last goodbyes at gunpoint with no eyes for anything but her target.

He saw all this down the sight of his crossbow without so much as a tremor.

She was closer than the goat had been. Bigger. She wouldn’t jump quite so fast as all the ones that got away had, which meant there was some point in following up in the five bolt clip the crossbow carried instead of stopping after one missed shot. If he pulled the trigger all five times one of them had to do some damage she wouldn’t be able to limp away from before she could get her pistol up.

Or he could walk away.

Marco wanted her to die, but his story didn’t belong to Marceline Carlson. There was no requirement to get any more blood on his hands, not when she was just spacing out in the field. Most likely he could make it all the way back to Katelynne without her ever noticing him if he was careful, the odds that she would suddenly bolt up and chase after him guns blazing were slim. For now. For now Marceline was just a wounded girl staring into space.

Would she care if that was all he was if their positions were reversed?

He tightened his grip on the crossbow and approached. At about twenty feet away he called out. “Hands off the guns, Marceline.” It was a command. His voice carried neither anger or hesitation. It was firm.

Flat.

Steady.

[VoltTurtle]

Marceline knew that it was only a matter of time before karma would finally catch up to her. She had been dreading it all this time, wondering when it would finally come to make her pay the moral debt that she owed. Whether it be now or years down the line, she knew that it would come to collect, eventually. A single moment of emotional weakness leaving her vulnerable was all it had taken for her foes to descend upon her like jackals. Her destiny was here now; it had finally arrived.

Who else other than Marco was more fitting to catch her off guard and have her dead to rights? She was the same to him as d'Aramitz was to her, after all. They were thieves of heart, the both of them, and now one of them was finally having to answer for the theft. She had even predicted this outcome. In the aftermath of Nick's death, she had told herself that she wouldn't blame Marco should he try to slay her. Now, here he was, in the prime position to make it happen. All he had to do was fire off that strangely-shimmering crossbow of his, and he would have the vengeance that he no doubt must be craving.

She stared at him in a wide-eyed stupor, taking in his stalwart expression, the tip of his unusual-looking crossbow pointing directly at her. He looked almost ethereal in a way, as if his body was dancing in and out of reality. His shirt seemed to be in motion, almost as if it were flowing downwards like rain on a glass window. In a way, he was sort of how she had always imagined a psychopomp would have looked while coming to take her soul away. Distant yet familiar, ghostly yet tangible.

This was her end. She was defenseless, she had no weapons already in her hands, and was likely visibly impaired by whatever it was that she had just ingested. There was no way out of this for her, the fact that she wasn't already dead courtesy of a bolt through the eye was a miracle in and of itself. To be hunted and caught out like this was what she deserved. Her end would be a monster's end, one that was karmic and ironic all in one. A punishment both for her cruelty and for her lack of commitment.

Only, he wasn't shooting at her. Instead, he was just telling her to stand down, to not fight back.

Why?

If their positions were reversed, she would already be firing shots. Doubly so if she was in a similar position to d'Aramitz as he was to her. This was not a situation that she could so easily escape from, and especially not a situation where she had a real shot at being able to fight back. There was no reason at all for him to have not already gotten his vengeance. So why was he holding back?

Without considering the consequences of her actions, she began to sit up, slowly pushing herself up off the ground on arms that felt heavy, standing on legs that wobbled like gelatin. When she was finally standing, she was slightly hunched over, lurching forward like a marionette with its strings cut, her arms limply dangling from her shoulders. Her hands remained away from the weapons in her pockets, just like Marco had asked, staring at the boy with with dilated pupils.

She felt oddly calm, despite the circumstances. Her life was in danger, so by all means that meant that she should be desperately trying to think of a way out of her predicament. Beg him for her life, pester him with questions to distract him, dive behind cover, or maybe just make a run for it. Yet, she didn't, because the threat he posed just didn't feel real to her. Right now, it felt like she was in a dream, that none of this was real.

That was why she wanted to know-

"Or what, you're going to shoot me?" She finally replied, defiantly. "Why haven't you already?"

[Emprexx Plush]

On another day he would have let the first bolt fly when she started to stand. Whether it hit or not he’d send a second. A third would follow into her path to him, her attempt to flee, her body on the ground, all would have been about equal until the trigger no longer produced results either because it was empty or he wasn’t able to pull it. Assuming he lived to reflect on it at all he would not have been able to pinpoint an exact moment he decided she had to die insomuch as a moment she could no longer continue what she was doing. All the rest would have been swallowed by panic.

That was not the Marco he was choosing to be today.

Marco did not look her in the eye when she spoke. The crossbow moved to stay centered on her chest when she rose with his finger flush against the trigger, but he did not squeeze. He did not squeeze because while he would not look in her face he allowed himself a glance at her hands here and there, which remained loose at distance from her weapons. Marceline had complied. As far as she was capable of understanding anything in the glassy eyed haze she was projecting she understood the conversation they were in.

“Yes. If you go for a gun, I will shoot you.”

She didn’t believe him.

On another day he would have shot her before she finished her question. She was vulnerable to him, experience would mean nothing in the delirious state he’d found her in. He could have convinced himself that she could not even lift a gun to defend herself. What could have come next was just fate, a bloody rampage ending in whimpers. At this distance he could have hit her, he could have put that first shot where it counted most, he could send her to the ground with a boot to her throat and once again empty the clip in imagined context so much clearer than the panic he pictured before, so much more vibrant, so cathartic There was no question about the kind of tools he could have worked with after. With her sword and his knives he could have taken her apart not out of blind desperation to confirm the impossible but as a deliberate effigy of evolution. He could have carved Marceline apart as himself. Made sure the whole world knew that this time, there were no accidents.

“But I don’t need to kill you.”

That was not the Marco he was choosing to be today.

He would not clap himself on the back for bold ethical decisions in the face of death. It was not as if he looked at her and decided that there was value in her life at this moment; Marceline, like Justin, did not deserve to live. Marco wasn’t Garnet either. He had been afraid of giving in to some quest for revenge because he knew it would consume him, but having her dropped in his lap like this? If he could bear Kayla on his conscience, he wouldn’t notice Marceline’s weight. Marco wasn’t deciding to spare her out of moral compulsion. It was just business. “I don’t need the attention killing you could bring.”


Did anyone still care about Marceline Carlson after all she’d done? He couldn’t say. Nick’s murderers hadn’t sounded like mercy or self defense when they were played live and Marco had still chosen to believe him. Katelynne had stayed with him in spite of Kayla. He could even imagine a world where if Marceline and her friend had killed him that next morning at the waterfall Garnet would have been chasing them through the forest with her shotgun screaming insults. Death does things to people. Helps find forgiveness you never imagined. Even if nobody alive could imagine killing for who Marceline was now, there could be somebody out there who would want revenge for the girl she’d been. On a less speculative level Marceline was a fresh killer who came off armed with at least a gun, so anyone paying attention knew she was a threat. If Marco took her out, he was a threat. All things considered it wasn’t any different than when he told Nick to smash Yuka’s leg instead of her head.

“I could put one in your knee,” without pause to consider how easily the threat came out of his mouth, “but it would not change much. I’m okay letting you walk away.” His eyes narrowed into the center-left point where he’d put the bolt. “Just not your stuff. You drop everything you’ve got and you get to go be somebody else’s problem.”

His proposal was simple. It was up to Marceline to make it easy.

[VoltTurtle]

Leave her stuff behind?

Who exactly did he think that he was speaking to? Was he aware of everything she had gone through to get these weapons? She had earned each and every one of them all through the shedding of blood and sharing of misery. All of them belonged to her, not to him. To allow them to slip from her grasp so easily would be to render all the harm she had caused moot, and leave her wide open to be picked off. To cede her belongings now was already tantamount to death.

So no, she couldn't. If he wanted her to die, then he would have to do it himself. She wouldn't allow him to make her 'someone else's problem.' More than that, why didn't he want to do it himself anyway? He claimed it was simple pragmatism, but she had hurt him so badly, among so many others. He had to want to kill her for that, didn't he? This was what she deserved, so why wasn't he already shooting?

In a better state, Marceline might have been able to come up with a way out, either in the short or long term. Perhaps she could have talked her way out. Perhaps she could have created a distraction, gotten behind cover, and taken him out with her superior skills and firepower. Perhaps she could have feigned compliance and given away her belongings, only to silently follow Marco and garrote him with her shoelaces while he was unaware. Regardless of what she did, it would have been easy for her, far easier than any of the other depraved things she had done so far.

Right now, however, all she could think about was how unbelievably angry she was at the indignity of the situation. Her blood boiled as if it were responding to her rage, her whole body feeling hot, like her skin would burn anyone that dared to touch her. All this time she had wanted vengeance for the suffering that had been inflicted upon her, so she had expected others to want the same. Yet here Marco was, pretending to be the better person, pretending that he didn't want this, pretending that she didn't deserve this.

If he wanted her to die, then she would make him do it himself.

She stared at him, unblinking, unflinching, as her right hand went for her pistol.

[Emprexx Plush]

And he shot her in the chest.

Maybe Marceline thought he didn't have it in him. Twice she'd come after Nick in search of justice and neither time had she thought to extract some from Marco. He understood or at the very least tried to; Kayla was not important to Marceline like Beryl had been. It was not a judgement. With over a hundred names ready for the memorial by now Marco certainly couldn't name all of them. There was nothing personal about it. Marceline was no better or worse for only remembering the crimes that affected her. So maybe she thought he would repeat his command, or that he would try to aim for a wound to preserve his desire to stay off the announcements, or he would freeze up because he never had it in him to attack her at all.

But he shot her in the chest.

Maybe she tried to look at his face as the bolt carried her to the ground. What would she expect if she still had bearings for expectation? Was it a lucky shot made with wide-eyed shock that even he couldn't believe had hit? Would the rage she had to expect from him have finally bubbled over in twisted victory thankful for the excuse she had given him? What about tight lipped stoic silence, an unflinching rock only operating on an inevitable cause/effect scenario he knew would play out before he even approached? All these and other scenarios unknown to him could have played through her mind before she looked into his face, but for his own speculation he imagined a reaction coming full circle to shock. Not his shock but hers when she realized the most defining emotion in his expression was sadness. A tired sort of sadness, soft at the edges where the lines of his eyes and lips sank into a grimace.

Under the sadness came tinges of frustration turning to resignation. Marceline deserved to die. He wouldn't deny it. Marceline had to die for Marco to grab the life he'd denied himself for so long, he wouldn't deny that either. As they both continually reminded him he very much wanted her to die to the point of repeated fantasy about how she might die at his hands. What he was doing now could hardly be called a murder, every one would see that she went for a weapon and he gave her ample warning, it was clear who the monster was in this garden.

So why was his heart aching?

Marco had thought about choices a lot lately. About the kind of people those around him chose to be, about divergence and pivots, the stories they wrote themselves into without ever realizing they still had the pen. That the ending could change any time. How every second mattered, even long after they thought the clock had run out. In every person existed possibilities, not in some redemptive intrinsic goodness of man nonsense that anyone still alive should know first hand wasn't true but simple ability to be...different. Every person could be something other than what they were if they chose.

Marco didn't know what Marceline was like before all of this, and he couldn't say when the bloodlust got into her. He could imagine, though, that once she was alone and stripped of all supplies, nothing and no one to lash out at, no outlets left for all that anger and judgement and fear and sadism, take it all away and leave nothing but a blood stained girl with nothing to lose and no hope of gain...he couldn't tell you what the infinite spiral of Marcelines who could rise out of that moment would be like. Marco was not so arrogant as to believe rock bottom would make her a better person.

She could have been so many different ones though.

He was shooting all of them in the chest too.

Her hands splayed away from the guns as she fell. He'd heard something crack but he was still to focus on them to be sure. All he knew was that she wasn't trying to shoot him anymore. At the other end of his sights she was completely still. "Why did you make me do that?"

Marco spoke so quietly it was likely no one heard him at all.

He drew back the handle to chamber another bolt.

[VoltTurtle]

The bolt that struck Marceline in the chest sent a shock wave reverberating throughout her body, followed by an explosion of abject agony, the worst pain she had ever felt in her entire life. She immediately toppled over, the sudden pain and shock overcoming her already tenuous balance, her head smashing against the rim of the pot on the way down with a sickening crack.

In the aftermath, her ears were ringing, her vision was blurring, every part of her body felt like it was on fire. Suddenly, drawing breath was difficult, and it hurt. The world spun and she felt nauseous, like she was on the cusp of vomiting. A disquieting warmth radiated out onto her chest, not dissimilar to how it had felt when Amelia's blood had spewed forth onto her legs.

She closed her eyes, remained still, shut out the world around her, all to try to wrest some kind of control over the cataclysmic assault on her senses that was taking place. In that single, crystalline moment in time, all she wanted was for the agony to stop. Except it refused, and she remained alive, lying there on the ground completely still, her suffering seemingly unending. Seconds stretched on into minutes stretched on into hours stretched on into days. She had thought that she had experienced enough spans of time that felt like eternities in this place, but this was by far the worst.

Eventually, she decided to finally open her eyes again as the world stopped spinning, to see what exactly she had invited upon herself, and it was a grisly sight. A bloody foreign object sticking directly out of the upper portion of her chest, having seemingly embedded itself between her ribs, turning the area of impact into a mess of bloody meat. In her stupor, the blood pouring from the wound seemed to shift and shimmer as it soaked into her clothes. For a moment, she couldn't believe that what she was seeing was real, but the pain kept her grounded in what was really happening.

She knew, immediately, that she was going to die.

The horror at that realization managed to overpower everything else, the weight of the entire world crashing down upon her, blowing away everything else. She had thought before that she desired oblivion, but only now that it was finally upon her did she realize just how much she really didn't want to die. A cocktail of volatile emotions swirled within her head, threatening to tear her apart from within. Guilt and regret for what she had just done, panic and fear at the encroaching end, but most of all, despair and sorrow for everything she was about to lose so suddenly.

She had failed, again. That was just like her, to take something that she could have accomplished so easily and then screw it all up in a moment of weakness. Marco wasn't the one that had killed her, even though he had fired the shot that was now bleeding her dry. No, she had killed herself by provoking him, all he had done in effect was assist with her suicide. She had taken the leap off the cliffs herself, and now she was halfway through her descent, looking down at the drop below, and realizing that all she wanted was to be back on solid ground.

She wasn't going to keep her promise to Dolly. That hit harder than anything else. Her girlfriend had expected so little out of her, and yet she had failed her again. Not by going down in a blaze of glory, outmatched and outgunned by someone she couldn't be blamed for losing to, not by dying a monster's death, trashing and gnashing all the while, but instead because she let her emotions get the better of her at the worst possible time. She had let Dolly die and then crushed her last wish, she was the architect of her own undoing.

All of the atrocities that she had committed in the name of winning were going to wind up being completely pointless now, too. At least if she had won, then that would have meant that the suffering she had inflicted had accomplished something in the end. Now it didn't matter, the lives she had stolen away were nothing, and she was nothing. She was horrible. Nothing more than a monster, a failure, a worthless pathetic mewling dying creature that accomplished nothing and left nothing behind in the wake of her departing this world.

That was her. That was the girl known as Marceline.

She would be forgotten.

She was afraid.

The pain began to subside enough that she was able to start verbalizing, as she lay there in the dirt, bleeding out.

"No, n-no, no," she whimpered, clutching the key pendant with one hand, her cheeks wet with her own tears. "I'm s-so sorry Dolly, I f-fucked up... I-I'm sorry Amelia, I'm sorry N-Nick... I'm s-sorry Roxy, I'm so, s-so sorry..."

Every breath was like needles shooting through her chest. Every word was like knives slicing up her throat. Every choked sob was like acid burning her up from within. It all hurt, everything hurt. Yet, all she could think was that this was what she deserved. This is what she had made her victims go through, before they died. It was only fitting that she experienced it for herself.

Marco had said something that she couldn't quite make out over the ringing in her ears and her own ragged breathing. In the immediate aftermath of the injury, she had only remained dimly aware of his continued presence. She turned her head to get another look at him, another wave of agony passing through her as she moved. The world around him shifted, melted, distorted, more colorful than she had ever seen it, yet he remained anchored and real, much the same as he did before.

With one shaky hand, she reached for Dolly's knife, before weakly tossing it onto the ground in front of her, letting out a pathetic, pained whimper as she did so. The knife barely made it into the air, landing only a foot or two in front of her head.

"G-Go ahead," she choked out, between the sobs and her continued struggles to breathe. "F-Finish me, sl-slit my f-fucking throat... m-make me suffer, I d-deserve it... "

[Emprexx Plush]

Conventional writing wisdom was that the moment the monster died should be full of catharsis for the audience if no one else. The blow could be anything from decisive to desperate, the spectacle of demise one explosive moment or a long, slow, certain torture, the hero left standing tall or gasping at their last breath, all and in between was so much window dressing to the core idea that when the things men made into monsters finally perished there should be a collective sigh of relief pumped straight into the flames of celebration tearing its way through the epilogue regardless of what was on the page. The Watsonian world could feel however the author desired, but if the monster's death was not a thing of triumph in the Doylesian observer had a monster been crafted at all?

Marco wondered how the people seeing Marceline fall behind screens reacted. Did people have the gall to cheer when people like her died? Like Quinn? Like Justin? If they were too afraid to let the noise out aloud would they covet it inside themselves, this reassurance that in their most regrettable acts of passion they were still something more forgivable and human than the murderers they flinched away from on broadcast? And if they were cheering did they cheer only for her death, or was killing a monster the only thing needed to turn someone like Marco into the hero of their parasocial revenge strategy for the few brief moments of her last breath?

Marco didn't feel like a hero. The relief he felt grew only from assurance that he had made the right choice in staking his future beyond vengeance. He could not begin to comprehend the whiplash if he had sunk all of his hope for satisfaction on the death of Marceline Carlson, Murderer, Monster, Moby Dick and Monte Cristo stamped into the same coin, and found her end like this.

The Marceline in front of him begging for death wasn't a monster. At the least she had been denied a monster's death, all teeth and carnage and impossible odds. She was just a person who kept making the wrong choice until she ran out of options. Like every other flaw he found in her it did not redeem her. Marco did not drop his weapon and sweep her up in open arms with breathless reassurance that he would carry her memory or some other forced resolution nonsense. He kept his distance from the knife and his crossbow on her through her entire act of sorrow. He would not compromise to her level.

But he did pity her, and he did meet her eyes.

"You're gonna die." Softly. Just for them. "I'm sorry. I can't stop...no. Maybe I could. I won't though." Marceline had to know how much he should hate her. She wouldn't believe any attempt to sugar the truth, and he wanted her to believe what came next. "I don't want you to suffer. That's not...I don't get anything out of that." He let the crossbow dip enough that she could see his face unobscured. "We're in this together now so, so how do you want it to go? I could-" He paused to nod to the knife, but couldn't bring himself to repeat her. Slit your fucking throat myself. Some variation of that statement had bounced around his head more times than he cared to count anymore, probably more involving her than anyone else living or dead. Yet when the time came to let the sentiment live outside his own mind he only shrugged. It could live and die in her lips.

[VoltTurtle]

Marceline didn't understand.

In her wildest dreams, she never could have imagined this encounter going like this. She hadn't given much thought to the idea that Marco would be the one to kill her, but she expected that if he had managed it, then he would want to make her hurt. Just like how she had wanted to make d'Aramitz hurt. Yet, here he was, saying he didn't want her to suffer. Why? He did want for her to die, and he clearly hated her. Yet instead of reveling in his vengeance, he was offering to put her out of her misery, on her own terms.

She didn't respond to him, not initially. Instead she put one weak, shaky hand on the swirling, dancing dirt underneath her and began to push herself up. Agony shot through her chest as she did so, pain like razor blades cutting its way through her core, traveling up and down her body in echoes. She whined and whimpered as she moved, but through great effort, she managed to prop herself up against the ceramic pot once more. Blood continued to ooze out of her wound, running down her tank top like a tiny red waterfall. The blood—her blood—on the ground where she had just been lying seemed to dance in front of her eyes, almost as if it were taunting her about her impending demise.

She looked back up at Marco, now that she was better able to see him. His sky blue eyes betrayed a strange sort of sorrow. As if he felt bad for her, as if he was pitying her. Why, she asked again, why would he feel that way about her? She didn't deserve his pity. She deserved nothing but his scorn. She wouldn't have given d'Aramitz the same courtesy, so why was he giving it to her?

Maybe he really was being the better person, after all. Far better than her. She still couldn't understand why. What had she done to deserve to have dignity in her final moments? To be denied a monster's death, denied excessive suffering as penance for what she had wrought? She didn't understand, she didn't-

When she finally spoke, she did so weakly, between shallow, pained breaths.

"I don't understand, I... I hurt you, a lot," she choked out. "I thought you would want to hurt me back... yet, you didn't, y-you don't, and I d-don't deserve... so why-"

She coughed, small droplets of blood flying out of her mouth.

"...why are you being... so nice to me..?"

[Emprexx Plush]

Nice wasn't the word Marco would have chosen to describe watching someone die. Nicer on the relative scale to all that he could have done instead, but they hadn’t made their way to nice yet. Marceline was in a lot of pain, and the kindest thing he wasn’t doing was putting an end to it. Her conversation was as unnecessary as her death. They couldn’t really have anything to say to each other. A nice person...no. He couldn’t walk iit back that far. He was still only dealing in degrees of nicer rather than nice when he considered how best to land a second shot to end her suffering immediately. To call that nice was a delusional rationalization he couldn’t have bought into at his lowest point, yet unlike every other action in these last moments there was no struggle in Marceline’s assessment of his character. The question was not if he was nice but why he was nice.

It made him wonder against all his better judgement what Nick’s last moments must have been like. If nice was watching ragged breath force more blood than air out of a body barely self possessed enough to move, did Marceline consider herself nice? She said that she did not deserve this. Assumed worse. Had done worse, maybe. Probably. Certainly. He bit his lip until he tasted blood to try and maintain focus but he was back again, sun-clad door open wide. Marceline in the doorway. Nick standing tall under her sights. That was the last of it that he could know for certain other than the gunshots, how many gunshots, he tried to count in his mind but he only heard echoes building to the cacophony of a hail of bullets tearing into Nick’s body at the joints buckling his knees shattering his arms crumpling him face down when he had no leverage to rise any further but still he wouldn’t die somehow it was just obvious he wouldn’t die and somehow the shots kept ringing even as she walked forward even as the sun on the door shone into the blade held over her head towering hanging stretching on into the perfect position to maim again and again bisected angles without a single swing leaving him alive for every possible agonized minute and he had to know he would make her tell him and then they could talk about suffering and and and and and and

And Marco let out a deep breath as his finger slid away from the trigger. He made the choice that he didn’t need to know anything more. Whatever had made Marceline Marceline did not make Marco Marco. The consequences he dealt her would be direct. That’s why he would only hurt her when she asked, by word or by action.

It didn’t make him any less cruel. It just made him Marco.

“I’m not being nice,” he affirmed for her as well as himself. Marco shrugged. “I think you could say I’m being selfish.” She was still looking at him but it seemed like it was taking everything she had. He’d see her going for a weapon well before she could get it raised, so he allowed himself to relax further. The crossbow hung low in his arms with its barrel pointed almost to the ground now. He kept his eyes on her face with only the occasional glance to her hands. “I’m...I’m going home, Marceline, but not by myself. Nick, Kayla, Garnet, Michael, Princess, Katelynne, maybe there should be more names, but they’re all coming with me, I don’t get any say in that. So I decided I wasn’t going to kill you, I, I wasn’t even gonna look for you until you were…” He trailed off into another shrug. “But you’re gonna make me take you with me. I don’t get a say anymore. Means I’ll be seeing you for a long time, hopefully. I don’t want to see you suffering every day.”

For the briefest possible moment he allowed himself to close his eyes and try not to let any scenes rush to the front of his mind.

“I’ve got enough suffering.”

He opened them again.

“So how do you want to end this?”

[VoltTurtle]

His explanation made sense, in its own way. He wanted to be the sole survivor, just like she had wanted to before this happened. He didn't want to have to live the rest of his days with the memories of all the suffering. She had her own burdens like that, with all the broken bodies that she had left in her wake, and the ghosts of her misdeeds that would forever haunt her until she left this Earth. After this, when she took her last breath, she would haunt Marco in the same way that Amelia and Nick and Roxanne continued to haunt her. Echoes of her life carrying on in his head, long past the point where she ceased to exist.

There was something to be said about the desire to live on in the memories of another, to have one's influence outlast their corporeal form. It was a certain kind of immortality, to have your story be a part of someone else's, having changed them inexorably from the path they would have otherwise walked. If he managed to do what she couldn't and win it all, then his memories of her would shape him more than she could shape anyone else, possibly even that of her surviving family.

Marceline looked back down at the bolt sticking out of her chest. She couldn't tell if the bleeding had slowed down at all in the stupor she was in, but she knew that it wasn't stopping, and there was no way she could treat it on her own. Not in her current state, with her grievous injury and her thoughts muddled by whatever had been in that drink. She was going to die, and she was scared, but that meant she had to make something of it. This would be her last chance to answer the question of what exactly it was all supposed to mean, before she ceased to be.

Marco had asked her how she wanted it to end. She didn't know exactly how she would prefer to go out. Having inflicted death upon others and now experiencing it for herself, she could say for sure that dying was horrible, no matter how it happened. She had spent all this time wishing for death, doing her best to invite it upon herself, accidentally or otherwise, but now that she was here, she was afraid of what would come after. She didn't want herself, her memories, her entire being to be obliterated in the aftermath, she didn't want it all to come to an end so soon. As agonizing as her current state was, she wanted to hold on, for as long as she could.

"I..."

She coughed, another bunch of droplets of blood flying out of her mouth, shock waves of pain once again traveling through her body from where the bolt remained.

If she was asked what she wanted out of her own death, she wouldn't quite have an answer. If she could really choose, she would want to leave behind no loose ends. Like how she had never figured out who she really was, and what she had wanted to become after all of this was said and done. Roxanne hadn't helped her figure it out, and even after deciding to win, she had never spared much of her own thought to what would have happened in the aftermath, she had just wanted to do it for Dolly's sake. Now that there wasn't going to be an after for her, maybe all she could do was try to figure it out as well as she could, while she still could.

In her current state, she had very little in terms of what she could choose from, but perhaps those limitations would be what finally allowed her to settle on something. Before she had been so free that it had restrained her, paralyzed her at the thought of making the wrong choice. That was why she didn't know what she had wanted to do after high school, why she had never been able to plan very far ahead. She always lived in the moment instead, doing whatever happened to feel right at the time, and that wasn't going to change in her dying moments. Right now, all she had to decide was what influence she wanted to leave behind in her absence. She didn't know for sure, but she felt that she wanted it to be better than what it was right now. All the harm she had so pointlessly caused could never be undone, but perhaps she could use her final actions to leave behind something just a little nicer.

Something peaceful.

"I don't want you to end it, I," she began to speak, again, her voice slightly steadier than it was before, but still ragged and weak, coming in short bursts between shallow breaths and pained whimpers. "I know I'm going to die soon, and I know you don't owe me anything..."

Her mind swirled with possibilities, much like the environment around her. If she had to make a choice about how she wanted it to end, the only thing she would choose was to not be left alone. She wasn't built to be alone, and never had been. She was afraid of isolation more than anything, afraid of being trapped with nobody but herself. Even though Marco wasn't her friend, even though he was responsible for exactly what she was going through right now, she hated herself far more than she could ever possibly hate him.

"...but could you just... stay with me, until I go?"

After all of this, all she wanted was a return to normalcy. Surely it wouldn't be truly normal, both with her addled state of mind and the burning sensation emanating through her chest, but she could try to get close. Marco was under no obligation to provide that courtesy to her, of course, but if he was offering, then she would ask. No matter what had transpired between them before, all there was left was a dying girl's last request. Nothing more and nothing less.

"T-Take the guns away, if it helps..." she continued, struggling to keep her speech coherent between all the places her mind wanted to wander. "I won't... I won't stop you, just, please, stay, I'm scared to die alone..."

[Emprexx Plush]

It wouldn’t be long. Before he could recoil at the whiplash of her request he had to remind himself that. Marceline had already lost a lot of blood, more than he’d seen since Kayla. He wouldn’t be so surprised if her grip on reality was already starting to slip and the wish for him to stay didn’t come from a rational assessment of his person but that rapidly fading desperation to not be alone at the end. Walking away now wouldn’t change what everyone else heard. It probably wouldn’t do much to change what anyone else saw. It was his right to refuse her, that was the one cruelty that no one would be able to argue wasn’t deserved. The very last thing he owed her was company. Even if he took everything she had then left her pleas on deaf ears who could rightfully judge him?

He imagined that. The screaming. The begging. Words did not come through clearly in his mind but he felt the competing intent stretched taut between them. He imagined her face, how even if he did not turn back to look at it once he could picture it just as he pictured it now, pale, drooping, tears mixing with snot mixing with blood running down chasms etched in agony. He imagined that face behind his eyelids. Her voice waking him up in the middle of the night.

His path brought him closer to her.

He walked around behind her and knelt with the crossbow balanced flush against her back as the last nod to practical paranoia before he stripped the guns from her pockets one after another. He threw them a few feet away from her before following his footsteps back to sit between Marceline and where they had landed. The knife was still somewhere amid the garden tangle, the sword still slung where she had left it, but Marco barely thought of them. Throughout the whole process she had not so much as flinched to resist him. Any outs she’d had left in mind were lost to her. Marceline was done. They just had to wait for her body to realize it.

Marco looked off into the garden behind her and said the first thing that came to his mind. “I loved him, you know. At least I think I did.” His hands lay atop the crossbow in his lap, trailing along its edges. He wouldn’t need to fire it again. “I’d never been in love before Nick. Sometimes the future looks so clear and I hope-” he noticed the squeak in his voice before he felt the tears well up “-I hope I never feel it like I did with him again because it’s so, s-so fucking terrifying to need somebody that much. I don’t...don’t know how people do it over and over and over and over and…” Marco’s voice drifted away a little farther with each repetition until he forced himself to re-center with a swallow. “I just wanted you to know it was real. I didn’t let him go like, like,” he tried to snap his fingers in the air but they were too soaked with sweat to get traction. His hand drooped back over the crossbow.

[VoltTurtle]

Marceline didn't struggle as Marco took away her weapons. There was no hope left for her—she had lost so much blood already—so harming him as some kind of last gasp ploy of vengeance didn't do her any favors. All she could do now was to try to come to terms with encroaching oblivion, and allow him to make the whole process just a little easier for her.

She hadn't been looking at him as she felt the pistol leave her pocket and heard the shotgun being shifted away, her gaze instead cast skywards. The clouds in the amber sky above her twisted themselves into exotic patterns, all while shining brilliantly in all sorts of colors. It was a gorgeous sight, far more beautiful than anything else she had ever seen before. It was fascinating, enchanting, she felt like she could look at it for the rest of her life. Perhaps she would, in effect.

The pain was beginning to subside, too. Or perhaps not subside, but rather she had rapidly grown accustomed to it. It burned, it ached, it enveloped her whole body, spreading from the point of impact, but it was just one sensation of many. Maybe it was just because of whatever she had accidentally ingested, but she had come to accept it for what it was. It was the most pain she had ever felt in her whole life, but it no longer bothered her.

He spoke to her as she stared transfixed at the sights above. She listened, his voice anchoring her to the world around her. She felt the pain in his voice, the sorrow behind his words. She understood how he felt all too well. She saw a lot of herself in him. There was no taking back what she had done, but what little remained of her humanity wanted to make it better, however she thought she could.

"I believe you, and you'll find it again, I think..."

Her words came out weaker than before, her speech slow and slightly slurred, still spoken in short bursts between pained breaths. She didn't know quite what she was saying, or if there was a conclusion she was trying to reach, or if her words would have the impact she wanted, but she was going to try anyway.

"It won't be scary, when you do, it'll feel right..."

The bleeding was definitely slowing down, now a drizzle rather than a downpour, and she felt like the world was slowing down with it. The sound of her own voice and the sensations she felt were dulled, almost as if she were underneath the ocean. Was this how Dolly had felt, when she had been dying in Marceline's arms?

"I understand how it feels, though," she choked out, despite the agony she was suffering in both body and mind. "Needing someone like that, and being scared of that need..."

She reached one arm up, weakly, feeling for the key pendant again, her last connection to her girlfriend, one she held onto so dearly. She curled her fingers around it, held it close. It felt warm, familiar, safe. As if Dolly was still by her side, helping her shuffle off this mortal coil in return for how she had helped before.

"Dolly was my anchor, she made me feel secure in myself... I needed her more than, than anyone else, ever..."

Remembering everything that happened, tears welled up in her eyes again, likely for the final time.

"So I understand what it's like to lose that person, too..."

She had let herself become what she had hated most. How foolish she was, for doing that. She wished now that she was dying that she could take it all back, but she knew that desire was a hollow one. Born more of regrets for not necessarily what she had done but rather the consequences of her actions. Still, she could try to make amends in her dying moments, even if it was likely it would fall on deaf ears. Maybe it would give him a little peace, and it wasn't like she had anything else left to lose.

"I know it doesn't mean much, coming from me, but... I'm sorry that I took him away from you..."

A half-baked apology spoken by a dying girl. She did feel bad about it, but she wasn't sure what else she would have done. She hadn't known that Nick had actually been telling the truth until it was far too late to back out, after all. Not that it made her words any less genuine; she didn't need to apologize, she didn't owe Marco anything, but she wanted to anyway. Now it was up to him to decide how he wanted to handle it.

For the first time since they started talking, she looked away from the sky, and to Marco, making sure that she was looking him in the eyes.

"You don't have to forgive me," she whimpered. "I'm not expecting you to, and... I don't deserve it, anyway..."

[Emprexx Plush]

Marco let Marceline hold his gaze through her explanation. The urge to look away was powerful but his attention seemed important to her. It was how she decided she wanted her life to end. He had offered her that choice. He would see it through to the finish. So he watched until she finished speaking, brow furrowing deeper until he couldn't help himself.

"What are you apologizing for?"

Timing said enough about why to answer him in a fashion. She was facing certainty that she would die. Talking about Nick had stirred up her own feelings of loss. Combine down the middle for a mixture of mortality and morality and it was clear that she wanted absolution from him while expecting that she would not get it. Marco understood the necessity for an apology but he wondered if she had a solid notion of what she was apologizing for beyond her own guilt.

"Nick was...he was a murderer," Marco began cautiously. "I knew that when I fell in love with him. He knew I was one too and we, there were excuses about mercy, mistakes...but we killed people." One finger plucked at the crossbow's string. "We knew someone would come for us. Nearly everyone we met attacked one of us. You weren’t-" special, he wanted to say, “different.” More diplomatic. Marco's vision was drifting in and out of focus with his mind pulled a dozen directions but he tried to bring it back to her. "You killed him because he hurt your friend. Nick took someone from you. It didn’t matter why. Back home there’s probably people who saw it happen and still don’t, I mean I can’t, I didn’t see…” Because he hadn’t. Marco had tried to lie to her about Nick’s innocence before and it had fallen apart so badly Nick didn’t let her respond before giving up. “Whatever else you did, you killed Nick because he killed your friend. Sorry for taking him away is sorry for making things right with her memory. Nick wouldn’t want-” Marco stopped short and shook his head. He wouldn’t hide behind Nick. “I don’t want to live for revenge like that. I don’t want to be the person you are.”

He looked away.

"But I don't hate you, Marceline."

Marco was not a talented liar to anyone but himself. That's why he told her nothing but the truth, and why no permutation of 'I forgive you' appeared anywhere in his response.

[VoltTurtle]

Marceline began to laugh.

Or she tried to, anyway. She managed to let out one singular chuckle before the pain in her chest flared again, turning her would-be laughter into a wheeze and a short coughing fit. When it finished, and the pain began to subside again, she spoke once more.

"That makes one of us... I guess..."

The gaps in her speech were growing longer, her breathing more rapid and shallow than ever. Her body was quickly beginning to fail her, leaving her feeling disconnected from it. Like it wasn't so much a part of her being, but instead something she was merely piloting, something that didn't have to obey what she wanted it to do and go where she wanted it to go. Any illusion of invulnerability she might have had before this point had been dispelled, the mask of the monster ripped away. She was nothing but a scared, broken girl, cloying for some kind of meaning and stability in a meaningless, chaotic world.

One she was about to leave behind.

She wondered if there was ever an outcome for her that didn't end like this, that didn't have her lying in a pool of her own blood, clinging to the last seconds of her life as they slipped away from her. She didn't think there was, in hindsight. Maybe if she had stayed with Diego or had remained steadfast in her resolve then this wouldn't be happening, but all her problems, all her failures, ultimately came back to her and her alone. She had always been her own greatest enemy. Nobody else could compare to how much she interfered with herself. Marco inflicted the wounds that would soon end her life, but it was only because of her own inadequacy that he was able to inflict them in the first place. If she had only managed to overcome herself, to resolve to not let her own doubt get in her way, then maybe she would have been able to keep her promise, maybe she would have been unstoppable.

But that was never going to happen, was it? In the end, she could never overcome herself. She was the one foe she could never face, the one enemy that would always get the better of her, no matter how hard she tried. She had tried to fight against her own nature over and over and over, only to fail again and again and again. All along, she had been doomed the moment she had woken up in this place. All because she could never escape the mental prison of her own making.

At least Marco didn't hate her. It wasn't forgiveness, and it certainly wasn't redemption, but it was enough, it made her feel just a little bit better. Maybe if Marco couldn't bring himself to hate her, then that might mean that others might not hate her too. Maybe it meant that Nick would be wrong, that everyone who cared about her wouldn't necessarily be ashamed of her.

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Silence filled the air between them, in the absence of speech. Marceline didn't quite know what to say, or if she had anything else to say at all. Marco, for his part, didn't seem to have much else to say to her, and she couldn't blame him for that. Maybe she could try to tell him her story. Marco hadn't heard any of it, after all. Maybe that would make his memories of her a little more complete, if he took her with him beyond this place.

"You know, this might sound weird... but I don't really know who I am, or what I wanted to do with my life..."

She had never been able to figure it out. Paralyzed with choice as she was, she instead chose nothing at all. Always living in the moment, always avoiding the bigger picture until it was staring her right in the face. Just like Roxanne, she had never managed to arrive at an answer. Maybe there was never an answer to find, to begin with.

"So I always focused just on Dolly... because she was the only thing that gave me any stability, so I never really lived for myself..."

She tried to tighten her grip on the pendant, but her fingers were too weak. They barely moved, despite her protests. The memento had run dry, it had nothing left to offer her, the comfort it used to provide no longer able to reach her. It didn't feel warm in her palm, anymore. It and everything else for that matter felt cold instead, as sensations continued to dull.

"Before she died, she told me that I had to live..."

Now she was dying. Everything slowing down as her whole body grew heavy and numb. Before now she never could've imagined that this would be what dying felt like. She had known ever since she first understood death that she too would die eventually, as all living creatures do, but before she arrived in this place she had never given it much thought. It hadn't felt like it was a real possibility, like something she would have to actually confront one day. Even after she found herself here, she still hadn't considered how it would actually feel to die. Maybe some naive part of her still believed that it was too distant, too fake, too unreal to consider. That part of her had been so very, very wrong.

"I didn't know why, really..."

She still didn't know why. She still couldn't fathom what Dolly had seen in her, what made her valuable to other people. All she ever did was make everything worse. For herself, for her friends, for everyone. She had thought that by surviving, she might have been able to figure it out, and leave behind a good impact on the world, despite what she had done here. Perhaps it was good that she was dying. Perhaps the damage she continued to cause with her very existence would finally stop.

"I didn't know what else to do, so I tried to make it happen... but now..."

She was done. She had failed. To her very last breath, she had continued to accomplish nothing other than making the world even worse.

"She knew my problems... maybe that's why she wanted me to survive... that way, I'd have the time I needed to figure it all out..."

Time she no longer had. Time that was rapidly running short. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Precious seconds bleeding away as she continued to ramble to someone who likely didn't care what she had to say. The act of speaking itself only growing more and more difficult with each passing second, as she slowly slipped away.

"But... I'm never going to find out now, huh..."

Not that it mattered, anymore. Soon she would have no more thoughts left to think, no more soliloquies left to say, no more emotions left to feel, no more memories left to ponder. Time would obliterate her entire being, soon enough. There was some measure of comfort in that. She wouldn't have to try anymore, and wouldn't have anyone left to disappoint.

"That's okay, I guess... my life was never worth anything, anyway..."

Truer words had never before passed her lips.

She stopped speaking for a moment, breathing hard and fast, every breath a struggle just to stay alive. She observed Marco through glassy, vacant eyes, while he returned her observation, continued to listen to her dutifully. He had every reason to turn away, every reason to use one of her guns to end her right then and there despite her wishes. She didn't deserve this attention from him, she didn't deserve his kindness. If anything, she deserved his scorn, his spittle, his fury. Yet he stayed, he paid attention, he listened. He gave her the same courtesy he would likely give anyone else.

It meant nothing. It required nothing of him, but somehow she felt like it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.

"Hey, thank you for listening Marco... you didn't owe me anything, but you stayed anyway..."

Her own words sounded distant, indecipherable to herself. She wasn't sure if he even heard her speak, but she continued anyway. She wanted to thank him, she had to thank him.

"I think I understand... what Nick must have seen in you," she murmured, faintly. "You're very sweet..."

Her eyelids drooped. Remaining conscious was taking active effort. She continued to fight for every last second, raging against the dying of the light. This was all she had before eternal oblivion, she might as well make it last as long as she could.

"I sorta wish...... that we could've been friends...... before all of this......"

She could feel it now, more than ever. The void calling her to it. Her vision was starting to go dark, stars appearing all around her. She knew that she couldn't keep fighting the inevitable forever. Despite that, she wasn't afraid like she had been before. Instead she felt oddly calm. It was strangely peaceful, in a way, as everything slowed to a crawl and she started to feel herself melting away.

In the distance, the sun was beginning to set. It mixed together with the sky and clouds, all of it shining with beautiful iridescence. The stars in her vision mixed with the vista, creating a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors. It was out of this world, like something from one of her dreams. Maybe this really was all a dream, after all. Just another nightmare that she would soon wake up from. With all the surreal imagery and all her fears seemingly coming to pass all at once, it certainly felt like one. Maybe all she had to do was go to sleep now, and then she would be back home with a new story to tell her friends.

She closed her eyes.

G009 - Marceline Carlson: Deceased