When the Wizard Gets to Me, I'm Asking for a Smaller Heart

[delicateMachine]

((Above all else, Alice wished for the luxury to observe the massacre, five years past.))

As it was, she was flying blind, relying on theory and intuition to decide her course. What wouldn’t she give for a chance to analyze the actions of the sole survivor, objectively decide what it was that had given him the ability to claw his way into the history books as more than just a name on a memorial? To witness the failings of everyone he had left behind him, figure out what strategies would statistically be most likely to kill you?

Unfortunately, the only thing she had left to bargain with was her life, and she was rather attached to it. She’d have to make do with a rudimentary cost-benefit-analysis.

She could comfortably live atop the lighthouse for at least two days, she guessed. Irene hadn’t come back for her supplies, and Alice hadn’t leapt at the opportunity to offer them to her. She likely wouldn’t be able to restock them; but if she ended up living long enough for dehydration to become a serious concern she’d have bigger problems to avoid getting murdered by. As far as she could imagine, the only serious drawback of the tower strategy was that if someone with a gun realized she was up there and decided to press their advantage, she’d be fucked. Unambiguously.

However, with the harpoon gun gone, the only way to remedy that would be to leave, and either steal or scavenge a weapon off a corpse. Too risky, too random. No way to get an informed decision on where to search, and even if she did find something usable she’d still be weak, wounded, unarmed, and likely ambushed, to boot.

If she stayed, at least she could theoretically ambush someone as they climb the stairs, pushing them over the edge of the tower. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was the only offense realistically available to her, and Alice didn’t see a reason to give up the only advantage she had for a vague hope of finding a gun, somewhere, somehow.

So, that settled that. She was staying. Now came the part she didn’t want to think about, but it’d only get worse the longer she put it off.

After cautiously peering over the edge to see if the gunfire had attracted anyone, Alice descended the tower to look Eris in the eyes for the final time. She didn’t avert her gaze from the corpse once she reached it, didn’t flinch when she saw the ugly holes that had torn through Eris’s head. It had been quick, for whatever little that was worth.

So. Alice was going to stay in the lighthouse. Eris’s corpse was going to stay at the foot of the lighthouse, unless something was done about it. This was a problem.

Discounting how psychologically traumatizing it’d be to have the knowledge hovering in the back of Alice’s mind that her best friend was lying dead not even a hundred feet below her would be, well… the corpse would start to smell, eventually. It’d attract scavengers, both ravenous and calculating.

Alice turned her head towards the lighthouse cliffside. Further than she’d like it to be, but doable. No distance would have been short enough to make what she was about to do pleasant, regardless.

If their positions had been swapped, if Alice had been lying dead and Eris had been left alone, she’d be doing the same thing; Alice told herself as she grabbed hold of Eris’s arm and slowly, painfully, began to drag the body. This was a rationalization, but it wasn’t just a rationalization. Humanity might be a mystery to her more often than not, but after years of friendship Alice was fairly confident that she understood Eris; at least as much as anyone could really understand a living being.

They both knew a lost cause when they saw one. Neither of them would want someone they cared about to get hurt trying to clean up after their own mistakes. They both knew that prioritizing your own well-being over anyone else’s didn’t mean you couldn’t care about them.

She let go of the corpse (not Eris, not in any meaningful way, not anymore), exhausted. Given time, she might’ve been able to figure out a more efficient way to transport it, but she was already dangerously exposed and she hadn’t even covered a quarter of the distance. She could rest all she needed after she was done. She caught her breath for another minute, then continued her work without regard to either of their dignities.

Nothing meaningful separated Alice and Eris. She hadn’t survived through any exceptional act of valor or mental calculation, once they had already passed the point of no return. Recognizing that there was only one valid path ahead of her to take wasn’t worthy of praise. She hadn’t seen anything wrong with Eris’s intention to stretch her legs, either - had even considered doing it herself, once her friend had returned.

Nearly halfway there, now. The corpse left a trail of blood in its wake as she dragged it, bumping awkwardly across the uneven ground. Alice might be able to hide the source, but she’d never clean up every trace of what had happened.

Why was she alive, then? Because of her greater tolerance for confined spaces and stilted silences? That couldn’t be it, could it? Something as meaningless and arbitrary as that? Eris would have been somebody, once she escaped the drudgery of high school; no one could have any doubt of that. She would have become a renowned name in whatever field she ultimately settled in, would have molded generations to come. She would’ve deserved every bit of recognition, too - she had worked herself almost past the point of reason for years; striven for perfection and often found it within her grasp. A lifetime of ambition, erased in less than five minutes.

Nearly there. Alice could hear seagulls cry above, hear the waves crash below.

A giant tear had been made through history, rippling and erasing countless futures. Eris had been the brightest star, but she hadn’t been alone - surely there were others who would have left a mark on the world. What one person could be trusted to spend the rest of their existence trying to fill that void? Not a short-sighted idiot like Irene. Not a murderous psychopath like Katarina.

Finally, it was over. She left the corpse at the edge of the cliff. She fought back the urge to apologize. If there was inexplicably an afterlife, Eris would have much more interesting things to occupy her attention than the final fate of her mortal shell. None of them would be having open-casket funerals, regardless. With one final grunt of exertion, she rolled it over the edge. She didn’t wait to watch it fall before she turned back towards the lighthouse.

Alice was smart, but she knew she wasn’t a genius or a prodigy. She wasn’t special. Still, she was the only person left she could trust to realize what was at stake.

She would survive. No matter the cost. She would claim the single spot off the island, and she would spend the rest of her life trying to pay back the debt of the future she had earned. She would excel. No matter the cost.

When Alice returned to the lighthouse’s top, she collapsed against the wall, utterly spent.

((Finally, she allowed herself to cry.))