The Making of a Soul

[MethodicalSlacker]

Ben's body was not the only one on the rooftop.

[Lili Williams continued from Minus Something.]

Lili wasn't even exactly sure how she had found her way up there, considering she had eventually found her way outside. She went back around the side of the building, looking around for something to do, and eventually came across Kizi again. She was caught off guard by just how long it looked like Kizi had been there already, considering that it felt like just a few minutes ago that Lili had set her down. Lili sat next to the body for a bit, ate some food to lighten the load a bit, and then went back inside, wandering around for a little while before she found some stairs and began ascending. She just kept on climbing, without a care in the world, until after a while she made her way out onto the rooftop. Seeing the state of the roof itself, she left her bags behind on the top step. Let someone shoot her, she didn't care. She'd rather keep her balance without having to worry that a badly held gun and a gust of wind would topple her over the edge.

She could see the top of the bell tower, the same place she woke up all those days ago. All of Spiderland laid out before her again, she felt almost nostalgic for that simpler time, when she hadn't already been let down so much by everyone that she met here. Maybe Spiderland needed a name change. Frownland? No, she'd had a relatively happy time here, apart from the last day or two. Shadowland? It was pretty bright out here, so that name wouldn't work. Lili knew she couldn't call it Rainland or Drainland or anything like that - even if it was still just as cold as it had been before, if not worse, still bad enough to keep her shivering underneath her thin clothing, clothing that reminded her of temperatures back home - because it had stopped raining this morning. Spiderland would have to do for now, as much as the name felt tired and used, like a shirt that didn't quite fit anymore.

Here she was, kneeling over Ben's corpse. The girl nearby must have been the person that Lili was asked about the last time she saw him. That's how they left. First, it was Ben, looking for someone else for better company. Then, it was Kizi, carried off by her own ideals into the fell clutch of circumstance. Alessio was gone too, the only departure that Lili felt comfortable calling even remotely welcome. Even if it had been Lili that left Penelope, Raina, and Johnny, they had already been long gone in spirit. Everyone was someone else, somewhere else, and Lili was still just right here.

That's Nine Inch Nails again. I swear, if the last song I hear in my head is Hurt, I'll skin my own fucking foot.

Did she even care enough to eulogize another fallen friend? She hadn't quite seen Ben die, nor had she held him as he passed on from the world. There wasn't nearly as much of a connection or a sense of intimacy with this death that Kizi's had held. It was precisely this that made her unable to empathize enough with the lifeless body that she insisted on calling Ben. It startled her, just how much she could desperately separate herself from death. The smell, the ugly contortions of the face, none of it mattered to her anymore. Despite the filth and blood, these bodies weren't as human as they seemed.

Lili proved that to herself shortly. She leaned down, rolled Ben's corpse over, and kissed him on his cold, lifeless lips.

The texture alone was enough to make her gag. Lili pulled herself away, coughing, confronted with a new sense of dizziness and disorientation. She couldn't let herself do anything like that ever again. No, corpses were off limits, as far as kissing went. Was she really so desperate to have crossed that off of her bucket list to have smooched a corpse? It felt disgusting. Only apathy, a growing desensitization to her circumstances, could have driven her to do such a thing.

Once more, with feeling, she kissed him again.

Tasted just as bad. Stiff, gross, raw, filthy. What was it called when the body tensed up after death? Rigor mortis, or something. That probably meant that Ben had shit himself too, though for the oddest reason, Lili couldn't smell anything strange coming up from his body. Well, apart from blood, but that couldn't really be considered anything other than par for the course at this point. The other body didn't smell too bad either. Lili made her way over to it, and checked it over to see exactly how she'd died. There were bloody bandages covering her chest, which Lili took as a good enough sign that she'd been shot or stabbed or something.

Lili took the surgical mask off of her face. Now this? This smelt bad. Lili tossed it over the side of the roof, and shuffled on back over to Ben to tear some fabric off of the bottom of his shirt, enough to wrap around her arm. She felt like that was enough time with corpses for her today, so she left the roof, going back over to the stairwell.

Now, she set about organizing her things. She'd leave two of the bags up at the top of the stairs, filled with some surplus food that people could help themselves to if they so pleased. There was enough stuff in her own bag - nightstick, the smaller gun, some food, all the medkits, and all the water - to last her for long enough if she decided to go about this in a more survivalist way.

She wasn't so sure if that was the route she'd take, though. Lili felt herself in the middle of a crossroads, with multiple possibilities ahead of her. Her brain, the old Lili, told her to find someone to spend time with as these last few days ran down. Maybe even a warmer pair of lips to kiss? No, that'd be too much for her. She'd be content to find some lonely corner of the island, chew some crackers, and sing to herself. Company would be nice - was Asuka still out there somewhere? - but it wasn't truly necessary. Her hand ran over the muzzle of Al's gun, feeling the smooth metal in her fingers.

Her gut was telling her to take this gun and kill with it. Be the last person standing, if need be. Her gut was telling her to live, for everyone else's sake, everyone who had failed to do just that. Jennifer, Kizi, Ben, other girl, whoever the hell stood in her way. They'd all manifest through her, and she'd be a walking scrapbook of all their memories. It was just self important enough for her to hold onto, but active enough to keep her alive as well. Lili liked the sound of it.

Thoughts split down the middle, Lili sat at the top of the steps for quite some time, resting her head on the wall and holding the shotgun to her head. The barrel pointed right into her temple, but her finger was nowhere near the trigger. Even though she'd never fired the thing before in her life, it was already starting to feel like it was part of her. No, it was more like a friend, someone she trusted being around and the only one that hadn't separated from her yet. In that position, she dozed off for an hour or two.

Then, she picked up her bag, gun in her hands, and walked down the stairs.

She didn't really mind being a scrapbook.

[Lili Williams continued in Ship's A Goin Down.]