When A Curious Hate Oozes Calamity

[Pippi]

((Kat Locke-Baldwin, continued from And All Because Of A Snail))

The tip. Perfect. About summed up how the rest of her day had gone so far.

Kat stumbled as she made her way into the centre of the dump, struggling to keep her balance, one hand bunched into her blazer and keeping it firmly pressed against her nose and mouth. The two bottles in her bag didn’t add a huge amount of weight, but it was just enough to throw her off. Her foot caught a bulging rubbish bag, and she was inches away from tripping and falling face-first into a pile of rotten, forgotten crap.

“Ffffff-“

She threw her arm out in a desperate move to regain balance, and twisted her body away from the bag, running down the rest of the slope, like she was back in primary school and she’d discovered the hill she was trying to walk down was just too steep for her little legs. A few seconds later, heart firmly in her mouth the entire time, and Kat came to a stop in the middle of the dump, a trail of empty crisp packets and mouldy fruit kicked up behind her.

So here she was, in the town dump. Great. Just where anybody wanted to be.

She’d accepted her plan might end up this way. Not in the middle of the tip, exactly, trying not to breathe, but ending up… nowhere. Ending a day with nothing to show for it, a fruitless day of searching for people, or any signs of people, and coming up empty-handed. They weren’t a huge class, and as far as she could tell, they’d been scattered all over a decently sized town. If the announcement earlier had been correct, there had only been a handful of kills as well.

Still, she was pretty miffed that the only people she’d seen in the past few hours had been Victoria and fucking Virgil.

Kat ruminated on announcement as she trudged along the dump, trying to look out for anything that stuck out in the rubbish surrounding her, anything that looked new or usable. Four or five people dead, she couldn’t quite remember. Most of them unremarkable names. One of them she was intensely familiar with, all stemming from one party earlier in the year, the name of a girl she despised with a burning passion, someone whose entire existence in Kat’s world had been to make a mockery of her and act like her shit didn’t stink.

Kat’s reaction to Calista’s death was the same as all the others; a shrug, a brief moment of reflection, and then she moved on. She wasn’t about to celebrate someone’s death, that was psychotic. She wasn’t happy that anybody had died, not at all. But she also wasn’t going to mourn anybody she didn’t care about or didn’t like. It wouldn’t be sincere. It would just be an empty act that served only to waste time.

It was the only sensible way to go about this, really.

Besides, she cared much more about the helicopter that had flown over the town a little while ago, and the explosion that had followed it. Odds were, it had been an American chopper, performing… ‘percussive maintenance’ or whatever bullshit military term they’d choose that really meant ‘murdering kids’. If it had been British, that explosion would probably have been much, much larger, and there wouldn’t have been the sounds of the helicopter flying off again afterwards, either.

But it got her thinking. If the British army and air force did manage to land another successful assault on the town, and rescue them all… well, it made Kat’s plan all the more attractive, really. If help was coming, she could hop onto a helicopter without a moment’s hesitation or remorse over what she’d done, and there wouldn’t be any asinine reason for the soldiers to stop her from coming aboard. But if, as the general had said, there really was no chance of help, then she still had a plan she could follow and that would take her to the very end.

So long as she could actually fucking find anybody.

Kat turned, looking through every pile of rubbish to try and find somebody, living or dead, an abandoned rifle or a discarded rucksack, and as she did, a gust of wind caught her at the exact wrong angle, tugging the blazer away from her nose and carrying a particularly rancid smell of rotten meat coated in years upon years of discarded filth.

Her nose wrinkled in disgust, and she took a step backwards, before she felt her stomach revolt, and she was powerless to resist. She bent double, barely missing her shoes as she threw up, coughing and choking, eyes stinging from the stomach acid scorching her throat. She stayed like that for a moment, panting, hands on her knees, before she stood up straight and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Whatever. It was gross, and she felt rank, but she’d have to suck it up. If rooting around in the dump helped her come out of this alive, then she’d do it all over again without a second thought.

[Irina Ivanov]

((Lucy Arkwright continued from BORN TO DIE / WORLD IS A F**K / 鬼神 Kill Em All 2026 / I am trash man / 33 DEAD BRITS))

The last place Lucy expected to go to was a landfill, but hey, this was no rosy-smelling, pink tinted fairytale, and that meant Lucy no longer had any sort of expectation. She didn't care really, about the smell or the her knees stinging in pain, due to the bacteria from the rubbish rising up to her open wounds. She'll patch up later, she supposed. Didn't have the motivation, nor energy to do anything right now.

Ankle deep in some sort of liquidfied fish, Lucy gave up. The fish was pretty much cemented by now, and walking was simply too hard. Taking one last step to bring her foot up and away from the paste of fish and whatever else was making it sticky like honey, Lucy sat down on a rotting wooden chair that seemed to have moulded into a sort of moldy soft block.

She was filthy, this whole place smelt bad, but that was strangely okay. It gave her...something. She'll prefer hell to a soundless, black isolated darkness ten times over. Once her senses were deprived, she'll start thinking, and if she started thinking...

She'll be reminded of...him. Lucy was not a masochist, even she didn't like intense negative emotions.

Frowning instantly, Lucy kicked a rusty metal crate, satisfied when the crate responded with a loud crashing sound and a large dent in the crate. She didn't really care if it brought her any attention or not, Lucy was just so tired, so....empty, she couldn't care less. Her hearing was like it was underwater, her vision was unfocused, and everything she touched felt so far away. It was as if she was not controlling herself, but rather, was looking through the eyes of someone else.

She just wanted to sleep, but at the same time, she didn't like the emptiness sleep provided her. So she stayed awake barely, experiencing the worst of both worlds: The dissociated feeling of a dream, and some of the worst smells ever in reality. Her eyes were crying unwillingly from the stinging stunk of years old garbage.

Everything was just...dull. Lucy noticed Kat, but she didn't do anything. Lucy just sat down on a moldy block of wood, kicking ringing metal. She didn't dare take a deep breath in this garbage, but she did have a trance-like look on her face. She was so tired, only the slight ringing of shoes on steel kept her awake.

[Pippi]

What the fuck was that?

Kat spun as the thundering, crashing sound echoed through the dump, seemingly coming from every direction at once. It sounded like… like someone beating on a car door with another car door. Or like steel drums straight out of a nightmare. War drums being pounded in a sinister beat as a final warning before the horde came rushing onwards. It was easy, in this pit of towering filth, to imagine monsters and rusting robots creeping up behind her, lurking in the shadows, ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

She felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck, and her heart in her throat, and she was glad, in a sense, that she still could feel that way.

It was not, however, good for her chances of survival, so she closed her eyes and took several deep, soothing breaths to calm herself down, and when that didn’t work, she bit the inside of her lip until she could taste blood and the sting replaced the fear as her point of focus. The clanging sound slowly stopped surrounding her until it began to emanate from a single location. She drew the bubble gun from her pocket, and held the torch in her other hand, walking steadily towards the noise, sweeping the light in front of her, making sure nothing escaped her sight.

She hadn’t been certain what to expect, once she found the source, but a girl kicking a metal crate over and over hadn’t been anywhere close to making the list.

Christ, did everyone in her class want to die or something?

Then again, this was Lucy, and Lucy was fucking weird, to put it nicely. It was best to keep any conversation with her brief, unless you liked someone waffling at you for hours about nothing important at all. Truth be told, Kat had half expected her name to crop up on the wrong side of the announcements by now. Guess all that creeping around after people was good for something after all.

And, hey, she’d found someone. That was all she needed. Didn’t matter who the person was.

“Cut that out,” Kat said, pointing the torch at Lucy. She kept the gun pointed to the ground, half hoping Lucy wouldn’t see it in the dark. “You might as well have a sign saying ‘shoot my brains out’ above your head.”

[Irina Ivanov]

Someone was coming towards her, apparently, if Lucy wasn't asleep or waking up to some sleep paralysis. Although it was a cacophony of a sound for everyone else, her increasingly smaller kicks at the metal crate warped into rather, a metallic lullaby for Lucy. If Lucy was not deeply dreaming, then she certainly was on the verge of it. Her vision blacked out multiple times, and even if she wanted to, she couldn't think. Her legs, as if they were being weighed down by all that sticky...black stuff, stopped swinging, and Lucy seemed to be asleep. If ever so lightly.

Just a few hours ago, Lucy had accepted that, as likely as she was going to be a name on the announcements soon enough, that, as long as....him was around, she would be motivated to live. If only for him. But...now, she couldn't care any less. Honestly, the only thing that kept her going were special someones and the fact that an eternal resting place of nothingness was worse then anything else. Even if life was empty all on its own. Maybe, if that someone over there wanted to increase their odds of living, then Lucy would die.

Strangely, she felt okay with that. At least for now.

Lucy's eyes did not wake to darkness, however, rather, the opposite. She woke to artificial light, intentionally shining at her. She looked up to see that, she was still in a rank dumpsite, and that, a girl stood before her, shining light at her. Lucy didn't really care who this person was. Squinting her eyes, Lucy tried to see who this girl was. Lucy recognised her immediately.

Katana. Lucy met the mean girl a few years ago, after Lucy had gotten herself pumped up with excitement due to meeting someone she liked. Although everyone for some reason seemed to already be unsettled by her excitement, Kat was the worst of all, if that queen bee and her minions didn't count. Teasing remarks, snide comments, that was all Lucy had ever gotten from her. Even speaking about things she liked had gotten nothing but uncomfortable, ungraceful exits from the attempted conversations.

Strangely, that made Lucy interested in this sarcastic, small girl. But that was a long time ago. Lucy was not interested right now.

Lucy, after recognising Kat, looked back down, fiddling with her fingers. She replied to Kat, a lazy and dispassionate response, empty of motivation. Her usually high pitched, giggly voice had sunken down to a slow, choppy, monotone tone.

" 'ready did stop. Eh, guess there's more painful deaths. Sleeping eternally isn't a bad way to go, I s'ppose. Is that's what you got as a weapon? A suicide sign? Won't be surprised."

[Pippi]

Good God. Yeah, that was Lucy all right, without a doubt. Each strand of thought expelled verbally and getting tangled with entirely different strands, until what had started as a relevant reply had turned into something completely different, like a one-woman chain letter. She didn't bother wondering how Lucy had ended up here, or why she was just sitting in the middle of the dump. Probably searching for fairies or some idiocy like that.

Kat rolled her eyes, tapping her foot in irritation. She didn’t have time for that bullshit back at school, and she had even less time for it now. It was annoying and gave her a headache, and worse still, was nothing but a stupid distraction. Time wasn’t quite of the essence yet, but she knew that more and more people would end up succumbing to fear, or hatred, or stupidity, and start pointing their guns and knives and chainsaws at each other as the hours ticked on.

And she didn’t wanna be the only person in the town left without a weapon as the numbers started to dwindle.

What was a little concerning was the fact that Lucy didn’t seem like she was too scared about that prospect, or even about dying at all. It made her plan that much more difficult, if Lucy was just in her own little world and apathetic to everything else around her. Kat considered herself in control of this scenario, by sheer virtue of the fact that she wasn’t Lucy fucking Arkwright, but she would really have liked to guarantee that control rather than presume she had it.

Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

“Yeah, genius,” Kat tutted. “I decided ditching something like that as soon as I woke up would be way too smart, and I’ve been carrying it with me ever since.”

She made a dismissive noise, rolled her eyes again, and pointed the fake gun at Lucy.

“This is my weapon.”

[Irina Ivanov]

Really, it wasn't so much that Lucy messily pieced trains of thoughts together in her sentences, to the point of her response becoming a train-wreck. It was more so that, her reply had no train of thought behind it, an empty remark in the truest sense of the word. Her responses was always the two extremes, much like herself sometimes.

In school, the fact that she was only known as a creepy dreamer made sense. Lucy couldn't decide what demeanor she should have, what facade she should have day to day. Even if she did, some days, she didn't even have the motivation to keep that manic, energetic, high-pitched persona up. Either that, or she got bored with it, and decided that being the polite good girl or the cool outcast fitted her better. No mask had ever fit perfectly though.

Today, if the fairly normal concept of day can ever even apply here, was one of those days where she gave up, and reverted to her true 'personarlity.'

Lucy looked down, not having a reason to face Kat. She futilely tried to shake off the solid-fied....whatever that black stuff was, off her feet by shaking her feet after taking off her shoes. It didn't work, it took far more then a few slow shakes of the legs to shake off that stuff, Lucy wasn't even sure if a shower could wash it off. Assuming that she'll ever see a shower again at home.

Which is of course, never. Those messy visions of home that collided with her perception of the present were just daydreams, they could never be reality. They were just annoying hopes, distracting her from this reality.

"A sign like that means nothing. It'll be the same whether it was a sign saying 'screw the yanks' as it is 'kill me'. They're just words, and words have no place in a weapon. It's better then..."

Lucy herself didn't even understand why she was omitting the truth at this point. She didn't bother with logic anymore, every thought was just too messy, too mangled to manage.

"....say, an squeaky hammer. Yeah, I actually saw that on someone. You can actually beat someone with a sign, at least. Even if a brick or a glass shard will do the job just the same."

Lucy looked up tiredly, as if even blurting out useless words like what she just did tired her out. If Lucy was speaking, those words would have faltered at the sight of the gun, but despite not speaking, it still had the same effect anyways. Lucy gasped, and her eyes widened. Her heart, if even only for a second, was flooded with adrenaline-caused fear. Backing away from Kat instinctively, Lucy nearly fell from her warped rotten chair, catching herself at the last second. She was dizzy, and her vision blurred, covering Kat's face most of all.

".....Are you going to use that? Well, are you going to become a killer!? Are you SO selfi-"

Replying in sudden, impulsive energetic rage, Lucy glared, as a cover for the fear she felt. A fear, that leaked out of the hole in her heart, a rapidly emptying emotion. Every second depleted the emotion from her body, and although she was still breathing harshly and still emotional, Lucy went back to quietness quickly. With how her mind was, what she was feeling couldn't be calmness. Her words this time, were far less listless then the words she would have spoken just a few minutes ago, and it retained that impulsive anger and fear. She spoke fast, knowing that she had just signed her death warrant with that remark, and with every word, Lucy lost more and more of that initial emotion that had led her to that outburst.

".......Sorry, I guess. Guns are scary, especially pointed at your face for the first time. If you were going to shoot me, then you would have done so before. If you ARE going shoot me, then...just....do so a-already......You have a better chance of going home, with that."

Those last words were a hollow passive-aggressive compliment. Lucy felt sick, and scratched her clammy hands nervously. What she just said was insane, absolutely raw, unchecked madness. If Kat decided to use that weapon....

[Pippi]

Kat’s mouth slipped into a small smile. Lucy still had enough determination and drive to live to be scared of the gun at least. It was something. It was more than Virgil had, at least. It still wouldn’t be enough to get her home alive, but it was enough that Kat merely remained annoyed by her, rather than out and out angry. And it was enough that she could still pull this plan off. She needed to have control, and she needed people to respect her, and to do that?

She needed people to be scared of her.

Most of Lucy’s words washed over her, rambling and aimless as usual, but there were two things that stuck out to her, as she kept the bubble gun trained on the girl’s forehead, focusing as hard as she could on this moment, as the stench of the dump assailed her senses.

Number one was the fact that, really, she’d gotten comparatively lucky. A bubble gun wouldn’t do anything for Kat in a life-or-death situation, she couldn’t use it to save her life if someone was charging at her with a sword or a spear, but what it did give her was the sense of control, the façade of power, so long as she never pulled the trigger or let anyone get too close a look at her weapon. And in this sort of situation, a façade could be exactly the same as the real thing, if you played your hand right.

Number two was the fact that, for once, Kat agreed with Lucy. She didn’t like the girl. She didn’t like most of her classmates. She hadn’t shed any tears over Rue, and she wasn’t gonna shed any more over most of the names on the announcements yet to come. But there was a difference between that, and staring down at someone before you shot them through the skull and drained the life from their eyes. She’d have to do it, eventually, when it was just her and one other wannabe soldier left alive. But to kill people from the very start? That was evil. It was twisted. Worse still, it meant there could be no such thing as heroes out here. You could do everything in your power to try and do so, but you wouldn’t be able to stop people from killing, because as the announcements told her, this town was filled with psychopaths. Any plan you had, any course of action that took you to the end, would be morally questionable in one way or another.

And the only justifiable action you could take at the end of it all was to kill those people who’d swallowed the American dream wholesale, and become nothing but murderers.

“I’m not gonna pull the trigger,” Kat said, and the words came easily because they were true. “Well. Not unless you try and pull some sort of stunt to attack me, and even you’re not thick enough to charge down someone with a gun.”

Kat’s eyes flicked over to Lucy’s bag, then back to her face. Her smile had long dropped from her lips.

“You know what my weapon is. Now you’re gonna tell me yours.”

[Irina Ivanov]

Lucy couldn't tell what Kat's smile meant, so she interpreted it as mocking, arrogant, and triumphant. Lucy, in turn, returned a grin made of fear and faux-bravado. Kat might indeed, have control over her, with that evil thing on her head, ready to blow out her brain, but Lucy was not going to show it. Such pride and irrationality was a bad idea, Lucy knew that, but she couldn't resist it. Even if she was scared, what little motivation and self-esteem she had prevented her from accepting the danger she was in. Maybe it was just plain insanity. That would explain quite a bit actually.

Looking at the gun with blank, unreadable, tired eyes, Lucy truly looked strange grinning at Kat. The ringing in her ears and the glaring blurriness of her vision was unbearable, and they consumed up any thoughts. In other words, whatever Lucy did, would be impulsive, thoughtless. Even if she had pulled herself out of that dreary hole of un-motivation and emotionlessness, she had fallen into another empty hole, the hole of empty thoughts and personas. In other words, she had traded sincere listlessness for fake politeness and cheeriness.

The blank manic cheeriness in school that had caused people be driven away from her. And the cheeriness that had made people like Kat dislike her.

"Oh...don't worry, I'm not bothering to do anything like that."

Lucy would have said feel free to pull the trigger, but it wasn't true. Just a minute ago, if would have been the case, but now it wasn't. Something that had kickstarted her motivation to play pretend, had also sparked a tiny will to live. Her willpower however, was still low. She was telling the truth, she couldn't be half-arsed to do anything so stupid as to resist. Believe it or not, Lucy was not thick-headed, merely impulsive. When it came to academics, she could have excelled if she wanted to, it was just problem solving and logic she had trouble with.

Of course, being book smart, was far less important here, where street dumb people like her would be picked off. Lucy's smile, much like Kat's smile, also dropped when Kat asked about her weapon. Because simply..

Lucy didn't have one. And she couldn't bother to take out the possibly bursted inflatable hammer at the bottom of her bag, so slowly, she picked out the messily reattached hair pin. As her hair came loose and went all over her like a madwoman, Lucy waved around her sharp metal hair pin like a wand. It did look like a wand, now that the butterfly ornament dropped off completely.

"I had to make-do my weapon."

[Pippi]

“Ugh.”

Kat didn’t bother to hide the disdain in her voice as soon as she realised what Lucy’s weapon was. She shook her head and lowered her gun so it was aimed at the ground. She didn’t put it back in her pocket just yet. There was always a chance, now that Kat appeared to be standing down, that Lucy would rethink that ‘charging down’ idea.

“Useless.”

It wasn’t, really. In terms of combat potential, it was about as good as your average knife or dagger, and as Lucy had just shown, could be disguised and hidden away, making people let their guard down, letting them get close to you, right where you wanted them to be. But that wasn’t the sort of weapon Kat wanted. She already knew her stance on killing. A shitty little butterfly hair pin wasn’t going to strike the same fear into people as a gun would. And if push came to shove, you still needed to get up close and personal with the pin. She had the two bottles in her pack for that.

On top of that, if she had to ‘make-do’her weapon like she said, then whatever the Americans had originally given her had to be totally worthless, and so, too, was Lucy in terms of Kat’s needs.

“Whatever. You can keep it, I don’t need that. I-“

Kat was about to make her dues, and get the fuck out of the dump before the smell drove her mental, when the screeching noise of the tannoy system started up again, and announcement number two started to play. She folded her arms, listening in mild curiosity. Six names. Six names for whom her feelings ranged from “ambivalent” to “wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire”. Nothing interesting there, really. But there was one thing that caught her attention.

She glanced at Lucy. She really didn’t need to waste any more time with this girl than she already had, but… something kept her around. Innate curiosity, maybe. She wasn’t sure. It didn’t really matter.

“Four killers this time,” Kat said. “And none of them the same as from the first announcement. What do you make of that?”

[Irina Ivanov]

Lucy put down her pin, no longer waving it about, and instead, held it tightly on her lap. Indeed, Lucy was starting to rethink her dismissal of that idea of attacking Kat. It wasn't out of the fact that Kat had finally stopped pointing that thing at her (She swore a full shade of colour returned to her as soon as Kat stopped threatening her.), but the fact that, despite her usual tolerence, Lucy was sick of Kat's honest conscending tone torwards her.

At school, Lucy had recognised that disdainful tone from lots of people, a passing passive-aggressive remark, and some mocking sniggering there and there. But maybe because all that was hidden under the guise of politeness, it meant that Lucy simply ignored them, or rather, denied they existed.

But what happens, when that disdainful attitude was right in front of her, in full force, in a world where anger and fear could lead to chaos? That's right, that mild hatred for her back in school, was completely different to the ticking time bomb that was negative emotions now. Lucy had every right to react differently.

Her reaction, was to grip her pin tightly, contemplating thoughts she had never rested on before. This was mental, she knew, but she couldn't stop her reactions guided by irrational emotions. Glaring at Kat weakly, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

And was bombarded in static noise that gradually turned to a voice. The announcement. Dropping her pin onto her lap, she tried to close her hands around her ears in renewed panic. She knew exactly what would be included on there. She didn't want to hear it

Too late. Lucy heard it anyways. Instantly, her expression turned from a lazy glare, to a wide-eyed stare of frozen horror. That name kept being recalled into her mind over and over again. It was the last name she'll ever want to hear.

Daniel Newhouse.

It was strange, Lucy couldn't even remember his appearance, and his face warped around in her mind to something unrecognisable. She didn't even know what he did, what he said. If she did, she would have blocked it out. In a sense, Daniel was a stranger.

But yet, the surge of emotions made her realise that, Daniel was someone she cared for, even for a little bit. Well, cared for wasn't the word...it was more like a sort of...needing. Without him, Lucy felt empty.

Without knowing why, without looking up, or without a sound, Lucy began to cry. She didn't seem to move, and her hands were still on her ears, her unkempt hair spilt all over her face.

[Pippi]

She should have seen this coming.

Lucy didn’t make an attempt to answer Kat’s question, instead dropping her pin, covering her ears, and crying freely into her lap. She guessed the girl had heard a name she recognised on the announcement. She folded her arms and looked down at Lucy, but didn’t do anything more than that.

It would have easy to have been dismissive of Lucy’s actions, considering her own non-reaction to the announcement, but the thought never crossed her mind. She couldn’t empathise with the girl on this occasion. She sure as hell could sympathise. Cause maybe, in the future, there’d be a name on an announcement that Kat did care about. And maybe, in the future, she’d break down in the exact same way. She just hoped that nobody would be around to see it, if that was the case.

She considered just leaving, for a long few seconds. Debated it in her head, weighed up the time she was wasting standing around here whilst weapons were trading hands and being lost elsewhere. Then she scratched behind her neck, tutted, and spoke.

“Listen, Lucy. I don’t like you,” Kat said, hands in the pockets of her blazer. She was tempted to just leave it at that and walk away. It would have been pretty funny for a few moments, but it would also have likely increased the chances of Lucy running up and stabbing her by about tenfold. Which kinda didn’t make the whole thing worth it.

“And, well, I dunno what you think of me and I don’t really care. But this isn’t gonna get any easier. People are gonna keep dying and the announcements aren’t gonna stop until there’s only one person left standing. It’s real easy to just curl up and stop moving when everything goes Pete Tong.”

Kat turned and shrugged, speaking over her shoulder at the other girl.

“But, I dunno. I feel like there’s something more inside of you than that. Some strength you don’t know about.”

She gave a small smile as she looked back at Lucy.

“Just a hunch.”

Lucy wasn’t going to make it to the end. Kat was beyond certain of this fact.

But, maybe, this would let her live a few more days, see the sun rise and hear the birds and the ocean a few more times before she died. Everyone deserved that, at the very least.

[Irina Ivanov]

Lucy cried soundlessly and as emptily as she felt on the inside. She wasn't even sure why she was reacting like this, hysterically crying in front of someone. Lucy usually never cried, since she didn't have the extreme emotions to do that. If she did, then it was only for a short time. Never, had she cried in front of someone.

Daniel Newhouse. Lucy felt nothing, and yet everything towards him. So much of every emotions, that it blurred together into something that resembled nothing, as different emotions clashed together to ultimately result in nothing. If she was both equally upset, yet happy to have met him, then there must be a middle ground between happiness and sadness. That middle ground was an emotion that could hardly be described as one.

Still, the empty tears kept flowing out, and Lucy's breath was haggard. Her choppy breaths eventually turned into hyperventilation, as Lucy closed her eyes, and remembered.

Lucy remembered everything that she had purposely locked away behind listlessness. Lucy first met him in the fish market, where they carved in their names together for Dan's doomed rebellion, formed out of a naive, idealistic view that no one would play along with the Americans' game. Then....just like that, they walked into the wrong house, with a panicked girl with a glass shard...

In a second, Dan was gone. He had gone cold, bled out from stab wounds. Dan took some of Lucy's feelings with him. Those memories came back, in both vivid and yet, also impersonal, blurry details. She could remember Dan's body, and that puddle of blood...but Lucy didn't feel anything, not even nausea. The tears still kept going, slowing ever so slightly.

"....H-huh? Wh-what?"

Lucy looked up, eyes red at Kat. Kat was aloof as always, fidgeting, and bluntly admitting that Kat didn't like her. Lucy's eyes narrowed. Was that all she was going to tell Lucy? Something that's pretty much common knowledge and agreement around the school? Lucy gripped her pin tightly, although she wasn't sure why.

Lucy took in the strange lecture Kat was holding. She had no expression on her face, but her tightened, somewhat strained expression meant that she was listening. She was getting more confused by each word, until she finally spoke, slow and disheartened.

"I know that, of course. But they're facts everyone do know by now. But it's not like facts and truths match up with emotions and feelings."

Sure, tell someone to stay strong, anyone would follow that logically. But emotions, affected people far more then logic, and what happens when that emotional side of them tell them to be weak and irrational? Most people will obey it to the letter. Kat would never understand, unless she felt that same pain Lucy did, then she'll act just the same as Lucy.

Lucy looked up, her expression brightened, but still confused. 'I feel like there's something more inside you then that, Some strength you don't know about.' That couldn't have been any more wrong, what Kat just said. Without others, Lucy had nothing inside her, nothing but emptiness. Without others, motivation didn't exist for her. People made her feel full, because Lucy's heart was a weak, empty, hollow one.

But of course, Lucy didn't know what was inside her heart. Perhaps, hidden under nothingness, was her very own strength. She wiped away her tears.

"....Thanks for the pep-talk."

[Pippi]

“Sure. No worries, and all that.”

Kat gave a quick jerky motion of her hand, in lieu of a wave, and started to head off. She couldn’t help but ruminate on Lucy’s musings, though. She wanted to make some sort of snarky remark about it, about how all this talk of logic and emotions and feelings made her sound like she’d stepped out of her parents’ shitty Japanese cartoon shows.

Except, y’know, she’d kinda hit the nail on the head.

It wasn’t something that Kat had been forced to deal with yet, no like the tearful girl sitting surrounded by rubbish, morning the loss of a friend, or a partner, or a sibling, the only information given to her being the cold, mechanical sting of the announcement. But the knowledge that, out there, somewhere, was one of her very few friends, kept on orbiting around her head, floating to the forefront every now and then.

People would need to die for Kat to be the winner of this, and she was going to be the winner of this. That was the fact. One of Kat’s friends could be the very last person she needed to get through. That was the emotional blockade that had already started forming.

Ugh, she couldn’t be thinking about this. Time really was of the essence, now. 24 hours, or close enough to it, had passed by now, and she still didn’t have a proper weapon to call her own.

Time to find a way out of this literal shithole and step on the gas.

((Kat Locke-Baldwin continued elsewhere))

[Irina Ivanov]

Lucy didn't react, or even realise that Kat was leaving. Even if the worst of it was gone, that longing, that...need for Dan, it consumed all of her attention. It was like a toxin that wouldn't go away, going into remission over and over. Love was like that to Lucy. It was a bit like the love described in books, she guessed, but why was it so...horrible feeling at the same time? Wasn't love meant to be so wonderful?

Wasn't literature and shows meant to be true to reality, or even truer? Lucy had spent so much time, watching shows one after another and reading books to the point she forgot to talk to others. She, from the bottom of her heart, hoped that all that time in fairytales, had not cost her everything else.

Although that obviously didn't happen. Look where she was now, crying in a dumpster, with no energy to defend herself, and no skills to make any allies. All this about winning, living, finding allies...Lucy didn't care any longer. Maybe she will later. Everything that might have helped from a logical perspective, such as finding herself a weapon, fixing up the graze wounds on her knees, heck, even hiding. All of that was pushed in a 'later' that might not even happen.

Lucy noticed Kat had left. Usually, since no one was here to watch her, Lucy would have thought she would have started crying again, maybe she would have started crying even more. After all, crying in front of people was weak, and for Lucy, made her look mental, so the few times she did cry, it was usually never in front of someone. Over time, it became natural, as soon as Lucy was alone, the waterworks would start all on their own.

But strangely, no tears came out. Maybe she ran out of tears for Dan, or maybe, she didn't even have the energy to cry. Lucy stared at the waking skies for she didn't know how long, just absently watching the sun ever so slowly come up, while Lucy ever so slowly started to see darkness. It was strange, wasn't the sun meant to brighten things?

Lucy tiredly closed her eyes, and fell onto the rank, trashed floor, asleep. She was so still, she looked like a corpse. She was just so tired. Maybe later she'll start living, but for now, Lucy was content in a hollow way. For now, she was perfectly fine with looking like just another corpse, another piece of trash in this tip.

((Lucy Arkwright continued in Sing Us A Song; You're The Piano Man))