Sun Giant

[MethodicalSlacker]

Well, she hadn't been bumblestumbling through here yet. And it was really nice. It just was. Rainy, but it was alright. It was okay. She had things. She wasn't hungry. It was alrightokay. It was alrightokay okay?

[Violet Schmidt continued from Play Me A Song To Set Me Free.]

She really just couldn't stop thinking about it. The whole recursion thing. Challengefighting it from whicheverwhatway she could manage. It was really unbeatable. No way around it. Stuck between hardrock place and mental projection of astral reality she was. Her left eye had some dustdirt in it or elsewise she just had a twitch. When she tried to sleep last night she heard gunfire echoing around the inside of her brain. It was still the same day. The crossbow jangled around in her bag, plus bolts. It was heavy. She'd have to get rid of some stuff soon, because she wasn't builtmade for that kind of pack mulery. She needed also to pray to something. Violet had arrived at the idea sometime before that perhaps appealing to the right spirits might alleviate her burden, though it would never reverse it.

Violet passed over some bodies. They callnamed her an angel. Maybe she was. Preparing them for heaven she was. For now only witnessing. She had to work herself up to contact because she wasn't quite readyset yet. On the touching of dampness. How old were these? None recognizable. It made her feel squickygross. Not in the same way as living did. Living ones. This was the kind of gross she felt picking up a piece of mushy food up from the kitchen floor with a napkin. Tolerable. Not on fire. Not on fire she was not on fire no. Violet was being rained on, consistently. She stood on the edge of a rice paddy on solid ground and stared around, surveying in the raining.

Her forehead started to itchscratch. Bandage getting old. Violet gave in and tore it from her face, yelping with temporary pain as she did so. Violet threw the bandage into the water. Her forehead felt kind of soft to the touch, the tracepattern of a wound dug in fairly deep but not bleeding not no more no. She'd have to be careful not to pick it again but otherwise it was alright, okay, alright. She bent down to go trawling in the water for a body to blessfold and that was how she was.

[Sh4dE]

Behind her was standing a girl with a swordbreaker in hand.

"Drop your weapon or you're fucking dead."

Got her.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Was this Abel? It was hard to tell. He'd partly wishwashed away. He was twistbented in all sortways of directions but it was still sort of him and that made her feel sad. Sorrowful at least. Distinction to be made, but a hierarchy there was not. She bent down to fold his hands over and did-so, because he'd look more peaceful that way. Maybe that was impossible, but she'd try regardless. Trying was the key. Let the spirit rest. Let the spirit go on. She could not. She would not. She



was being held







at knifepoint.








Violet shivered at the sound of the voice. That oh-so familiar voice. A voice that for a while, she had lived with. Shared roomspace. This was a trial she had not been entirely expecting. Layla was alive. She hadn't realized that, or remembered hearing it, absorbing that information into any part of her being. Layla's continued existence. She thought she'd found salvation. She thought she'd made it out, but instead she had fallen. Violet guessed most had at this point. The distance between them and her was shrinking, but it was not zero. It could never be. There were words to be said, right now. Grovelling to happen. Begging to do. And that wasn't just necessity speaking, not anymore. Was necessity ever speaking anymore? She felt those things. She felt desire. She felt it in many ways.

"Layla?" she asked, scared and afraid and infant-like, "Layla, is that you? It's me, Violet. We roomed together on the trip? Layla?"

What could she do? She was bent over, with something pointed at her, something pointy and sharp, and if she moved she'd get slashed, and if she ducked she'd get slashed, and if she stood up maybe she could stand up fast enough to not have her throat slit but it'd hit something else and Layla was close Layla was very close and it made Violet's heart race and palms start to sweat sweat mingling with rain bullets falling to the ground she rained like a cloud of anxiety and worry and suddenly things were very hot as she realized that she was very, very close to Layla, and Layla was almost touching her, and she wanted to be as far away from Layla as possible, but she couldn't move.

She couldn't move.

"Layla?"

[Sh4dE]

"I'm sorry."

What a cliche. Layla slowly moved her weapon closer to Violet's neck, sweating. But before she could touch the skin with it, she dropped the swordbreaker.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Violet stayputteded therehere, her knees hurtfeeling like they'd give wayout and send her careenfalling into the blade at any momentsecond, right into downhell, tormentinfinitemoments of anguishtastrophe, her heart pumpracing, her eyes waterfalling, breath quakequickening, ready for the stinging initial painsation of release, the tearing of cordfiberwires in herself, release of soulful aura energy, release, release, release.

Layla released the swordbreaker. It fell between Violet's legs and landed in the water with a splash.

She scrambled forwards, leaping away and stumbling up over circumscribed Abel rose to full height as she whipped around and faced Layla. Water stained the bottoms of her pant legs. Water soaked all of her. Layla. The rain would never let up. Violet towered over Layla. She'd felt this tall feeling before. Acute awareness of a difference in power. The Trial of Layla. The confusion and panic disappeared in an instant, transmogrified into a sense she couldn't put a name to.

Control? That was it.

Violet knew the gun was loaded. She'd kept it that way. The gun was pointed in the rough direction of Layla's head in seconds. Her finger flicked the safety off.

For a moment, Violet stood there, staring Layla down over the top of the gun, following the way the barrel pointed at the tip of Layla's nose.

Then, abruptly, she flicked it downwards to point at Layla's thigh.

And she pulled the trigger.

[Sh4dE]

Layla screamed. Violet shot her! Violet shot her!

She dropped to the water, looking at the bleeding wound in her tigh.

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Layla."

Violet watched as she fell. The blood seeped from her leg and stained the water red. The color didn't last too long or gather too much, broken up and sent out rippling by the force of rain drops sploshing against the surface. The rain. Violet couldn't hear her thoughts very well above the sound of the rain.

Layla wasn't dead. Violet didn't want to kill her yet. She felt for a little while like she deserved the chance to redeem herself for what she did. That's why she aimed at her leg. It was a chance at redemption that Violet didn't have. That Violet wouldn't have. She'd dropped the swordbreaker. Maybe that was a sign that Layla felt regret. Shame. The desire to atone for what she did, the mistakes that she had made in creeping up on Violet. She wanted a chance to apologize, and maybe Violet could grant her that. She was, after all, an angel. Like they said. An angel of death. Layla would die, but she'd get the chance to say sorry. To repent. Violet didn't want to kill her. The air smelled like iron and salt and shit. Violet didn't want to kill her.

Her hand snapped back on the lever of the gun, ejected the spent casing. She snapped it back into place, loading the last round she had chambered into its right place.

"Layla," she repeated.

But Violet couldn't bring herself to cause Layla to suffer. That's right. Layla would suffer if Violet kept her alive long enough to say something. She'd scream and beg and plead to be put out of her misery. Violet couldn't touch her in time to dress the wound. She learned that with Dante. She didn't want to even think about the wound while the person attached to it was still alive. It made her feel queasy, and nauseous, and like her world was spinning. She shook her head back and forth and the thought dropped out of her ear. That's why she was eager to do this. It was necessity. She needed to put Layla out of her suffering and pain. That was what she needed to do.

So, Violet changed her mind. Or rather, added to it.

Violet didn't want to kill Layla,

but she had to.

She took aim at Layla's head and pulled the trigger.

[Sh4dE]

Layla's brain splattered out of her head all over the place.

[Super Weegee]

((Matthew Hunt continued from The Spirit World))

After what happened yesterday, Matthew wasn’t exactly in the best of moods.

Honestly, it would’ve surprised him if he didn’t feel like shit. There were dozens, if not hundreds of ways Regina’s death could have been avoided. For what reason Caroline had for even pulling the trigger in the first place, he didn’t know.

Hours passed with Faith in tow and they didn’t find anyone again, of fucking course. They once again found a place to sleep and wait for the rain to stop. One look at his water bottles, though, and he saw that it was getting low. He can survive without food for a bit, as unhealthy as it was, but he needed water if he was going to survive long term.

With the rain outside, Matthew got the idea to use it to refill their bottles. It didn’t help that much, but every drop counts.

When the next announcement happened, he was only concerned about whether Shauna was involved or not and he really only marked down the repeat offenders. He believed her when she said she was innocent, sure, but the guy on the speaker can easily call bullshit on that. And as it turns out, he was correct about what he thought happened. Only one thought came to his mind after the announcements came to an end.

I’m an asshole.

Regardless, he can’t just spend all day moping around. Even with the weather getting worse, he and Faith had to walk around for supplies and weapons, on top of finding their companions. The umbrella thankfully helped once again with keeping them dry as they walked around the island. To his increasing frustration, they’re not finding a single soul.

“Why the fuck aren’t we finding anyone?” Matthew complained to Faith as they continued onwards. “Are they all hiding?”

Since following the trails wasn’t exactly giving results, they decided to investigate what looked like a field of sorts. A place that big has to have somebody, right?

When he stepped into the field, he expected it to be wet. Since it’s raining, it’s no surprise. He didn’t expect it to be that wet and muddy. The squelching sound that accompanied each step made it more and more uncomfortable for him. Thank god his parents didn’t go cheap with his shoes.

Before he and Faith got far into the field, a gunshot rang out. And it was close.

Setting his umbrella and bag on the ground, he spoke to Faith.

“I’ll check it out. Stay here for a minute!”

Without waiting to hear what she had to say, Matthew began to run towards the direction of where he heard the shot. The sounds of his feet meeting the mud beneath him was audible as he tried his best to get there as fast as he could. He wasn’t being too careful, however, as his foot caught on something and almost made him fall face first into the ground.

As he barely caught himself and focused on recovering, a second, closer gunshot rang out. That just motivated him to try harder to get there.

What the fuck did I get myself into?

Eventually, though, he reached the scene.

And it seemed to be already over. A figure he recognized as Violet standing over a body he couldn’t see very well. It didn’t take a genius to see who killed them.

Since hiding wasn’t exactly an option, open field and all, he looked at her and asked one of the many questions that he had.

“What the fuck happened?!”

[MethodicalSlacker]

The way it all just sort of tumbled out was sort of mesmerizing. It was hard to think of the bullet as having left the gun that she was holding. It seemed more like she had pointed this magic stick at Layla's head and sucked out or pulled on a cork, and the pressure built up inside her skull made everything that was packed inside shoot out and cover the ground, the water, the mud and grass, everything around her. Violet knew what the gun actually was, of course, and pretending that she was doing something like releasing the pressure in someone's head instead of putting a hole through their skull would be indicative of a lunacy beyond her current status that she did not actually possess. She knew that much. It was only a necessary way of compartmentalizing all of this. It was necessary.

And despite how prescient that answer was in her mind—to every question, every moment of self-doubt, every wrinkle in her will to keep forward—she couldn't bring herself to give it to Matthew when he appeared out of nowhere to challenge her.

She had made it about halfway to Layla's body when she heard his voice. Instinctively, she whipped around and raised the gun in his direction, then lowered it when she saw how far away he was and how little power over her that he actually had. He had tossed in her path a question, and nothing else. There was no actually physical danger inherent in what he was doing to her, so there was no need for the gun. It was lowered. See? Pointed at the ground.

What happened here?

Violet raised a shaky finger off the gun and pointed at Layla.

"She tried," Violet stammered, "she tried to rob me."

It didn't look like that. Not in the slightest. Violet looked over and saw the glint of metal on the ground, hobbled over, picked it up, raised it.

"She held this, held this to my throat."

[Frozen Smoke]

((Faith Clementine Marshal-Mackenzie continued from The Spirit World))

Things were just as worse as they were better. Matthew talked a lot, and maybe in school that would have annoyed her, but here his constant questions and remarks were a comforting thread of normality. Yes, some of the shit he said was dumber than two rocks fucking, but the mundanity of it helped keep Faith from thinking about yesterday. It helped keep her awake too, given that her eyelids felt like lead as they trudged through the muddy terrain, the sun hidden behind a thick layer of cloud that made even the middle of the day feel like dusk. At least sharing the umbrella with Matthew meant she was dry, and the carefully nursed bottle of water in her hands hadn't quite run out yet, whilst her first aid kit sat relatively safe in his bag.

She tried not to focus on the announcements as they came, but the recognisable names still made her stomach churn, reminding her of it's emptiness as much as it served as a reaction to the information. Erika, Mercy, Kayla, Mikki. Some dead, some killers. Faith stared at the ground, making sure she just put one foot in front of the other as it washed over her, concentrating on that and nothing else. At least she'd been right about Shauna, her name not trickling out of the motherfucker's mouth, just wrapping things up with the same smarmy cunt tone he always seemed to use.

Matthew cut through the daze it had all left her in with another observation of the decidedly obvious, but phrased as a question this time. Faith blinked for a moment, as she searched for an answer, before realising just how good of a question it was. They'd been travelling for hours, and there'd been no-one on the same paths as them, not even any footprints to follow. Maybe everyone was just hunkering down until the storm passed?

She was about to reply, when a gunshot rang out. It was close, maybe a few hundred yards away, the crack was sharp and had little to echo off making the direction of it easy to ascertain. It sounded high calibre, nothing like the dull thud of the shotgun that had haunted her fitful sleep last night. Before she could do anything, Matthew had reacted, his bag and umbrella thrown down into the mud as he ran in the direction.

Faith was stunned. There was an annoyance in being left behind, him assuming he could fix everything himself as he rushed towards danger, whilst leaving her behind. Like she had to be protected, like she wasn't just as capable of facing the heat as he was, as she quickly picked up his belongings before they sank into the dirt. Another gunshot rang out as Matthew's footsteps grew more distant. There was every chance he'd come running back in her direction before too long, once he saw whatever was going on. There was no-one to save, not this time, and she had to be ready for that.

The silence stretched alongside her patience, the rain pattering on the umbrella making it impossible to hear if anything was going on.

She'd give him exactly what he asked for, a minute, then she was going after him - Dragging him out of harms way by the scruff of his neck, if she had to. There was no way Faith was going to let another friend die without doing something about it.

"One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi."

[Super Weegee]

Matthew instinctively flinched when Violet aimed her gun towards him. After an intense couple of seconds, she seemingly calmed down and lowered it.

Great, thanks for the goddamn heart attack!

A part of him wanted to blame her. She already got what she wanted; does she really have to be so paranoid? Not everybody here is exactly a murdering psychopath. That quickly died out as soon as he remembered that he snuck up on her without really trying. For all she knows, he could've been calling out to his group if he had one.

Still, he couldn't stop himself from glaring at Violet as she explained that the girl she killed was trying to rob her with a knife and it was self-defense. Really? That dead girl just marched up to someone holding a rifle and expected it to go smoothly? That's either incredibly bold or suicidal, probably the latter.

Scratch that. That's assuming that she's telling the truth, which she isn't considering how she has a good reason to lie to him. Even if she was being truthful, something feels off about her story. She apparently got robbed in the middle of an open field. That alone raises some more questions.

"Assuming that girl wasn't stupid," he said, pointing towards her corpse, "how the hell did she sneak up on you in the first place? What, were you mesmerized by the rain?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

"I-"

Violet didn't have a good answer. She had an answer that satisfied her. She had an answer that made sense to her. It was internally consistent according to the logic by which her world operated. It was functional inside her own head. If Violet received the explanation for what Violet was doing from someone other than herself, using her own words, she'd accept it because it made sense. Violet now could communicate with Violet six months ago and tell her everything that had happened to lead to this moment and Violet would accept it. She was sure. It was necessary for her to act this way. There was no other way that it could go, and that made sense to her.

It would not make sense to anybody else.

She knew how she looked.

To Matthew.

To the cameras.

To the people on the other end.

Holding a gun. Holding a knife. Drenched, head to toe. Standing unnaturally upright. Cloaked in a lunatic's robes. Pendant above several corpses. Staring Matthew down with eyes filled with their own emptiness.

A revelatory, fulfilled smile on her lips.

"I was folding Abel's hands across his chest,

"so that he would look more peaceful,

"knelt over, I had the knife pressed in front of my throat,

"I was caught off guard."

[Frozen Smoke]

"Twenty-four Mississippi, Twenty-five Mississippi, Twenty-seven Mississippi-"

Wait, she'd missed a number there.

Shit, what number had she even been on? Faith had been too busy straining her eyes, looking through the unkempt plantation that formed a mass of green and brown in front of her, shaking in the wind as it brought gusts of heat and water to slap at her under the umbrella. There was no sign of Matthew yet, no footsteps coming back in her direction, although thankfully there had been no more gunshots. Her grip on the umbrella tightened a little as she realised she'd almost been expecting that, another gunshot, a scream. Or worse, silence. It was almost familiar, now, that chain of events. She'd replayed it in her head even when she'd tried not to, and it had haunted the little, fitful sleep she'd managed to cling to last night.

"Fuck it."

Faith ran too, more carefully, Matthew's ungainly stride having marked a clear path in the mud for her to follow. Eventually, voices began to surface above the patter of the rain, indistinct and murky as she kept moving towards them. It was only as she crested a small ridge in the path that the scene unveiled itself. Two bodies, one old and recognisable, one fresh and decidedly not. A lump formed in her throat as her eyes locked on to the one she knew. Abel, lying there, his arms folded over his chest.

He looked almost at peace with it all, but it wouldn't have been like Abel to die any other way, was it? He'd always been at peace with his failures. Faith wanted to laugh and cry at the same time as she remembered prom, remembered him in his Tux, how she'd tried to make fun of him in that way that showed she meant no harm with it and how he'd laughed with her and agreed. It should have taken all the fun out of it, but Abel, Abel-

"I was caught off guard."

The other person spoke, and Faith wrenched her eyes from his body, and to the girl clad in a long robe. She didn't recognise her, not from this far away, but the other body on the ground spoke for her. It lay on the floor, head cracked open like a cross between an egg and a watermelon.

"So you fucking blew her head off?" Faith asked, in response, her tone incredulous.

It was all too much.

[Super Weegee]

...Ok, that seems slightly plausable. She probably tried her best to adjust Abel's corpse and make him look presentable for a funeral. Not that anybody was going to find them in time, that is. Matthew shouldn't really complain, considering what happened yesterday. There was one problem with Violet's explanation, though.

Her smile.

It was barely visible considering the distance between them, but it was there. That wasn't the look of remorse. It wasn't the look of someone who wished things have gone differently.

That was the face of a person who didn't regret anything. There was something else that he should be remembering, something about her, but nothing's popping out at him...

The retort that Matthew had in mind was cut short when he heard Faith's voice near him. What the hell was she doing here? Wasn't she supposed to wait until he got back? For all he knew, it could've been a goddamn ambush! She might as well have been running towards her own death!

Well, it doesn't matter now. Faith decided to follow and he can't exactly do anything about it now. She's talking to Violet now and-

-He remembered now.

Violet's a repeat offender. Now it makes some sense.

"And I bet you enjoyed it," Matthew added on, his glare at Violet intensifying, "just like you did with Kyle."