Wishing Well

[storyspoiler†]

(Alice Boucher continued from Cruel Justice)

She should have buried her.

She should have given her a final resting place. A cairn, a libation. At least a prayer.

Instead she walked.

She felt like a zombie. Dead, undead. Her skin was ashy, flaking. The food here hadn't been good for her. She missed cooking.

My American friend. Sarah. My American friend.

Part of her was filled with fury. Sarah Atwell would probably become a meme, an internet meme, never a tragedy, because this was entertainment. Bloody, bloody entertainment. She would be a meme with her hilarious kills, with all the things she wouldn't want to be remembered by. They would have highlight reels, and it would be Sarah's kills of Eve Walker-Luther, Brock Mason, Christopher Carlson that would be there. Her near-rape by Maxwell Lombardi, her naked chest, bleeding, calling would be looped on the internet with sped-up lines from movies dubbed in. She remembered what Andrea said. Survival of the Fittest was a media phenomena. They were all just entertainment. And that's what Sarah would be remembered as.

But she is a person! She is a person! How can they not see her as that?

It was disgusting.

But fury wouldn't help her now. It just made her want to vomit, want to cry, as if she had acid in the back of her eyes. Her body was rebelling, stomach acid in her head, dizzy, heaving, through the forest, help me but no one was coming to help, her mother wasn't here, and the kind people, the ones who would help a surly French girl, they were all dead, Sarah was dead, Sarah was dead, I hurt her, I slit her throat, she was calling for me and I slit her throat, and she's dead, please help me, she's dead, please tell me what to do...

Mama!

A body. A body, headless. Not a named body. A body. Get it away from me!

A note. She wouldn't read it. She didn't want to read anything. Didn't want to read English. She wasn't sure she could speak, read anything in English now. She wanted to go home.

Help me. Please, please, somebody help me.

She was curled up on the ground. She was crying.

(Alice Boucher continued in Me And A Gun)