Your Bones

[Maraoone]

((Johnny Lancer continues from There and Back Again))

He'd told himself yesterday that trauma had diminishing returns. He'd hoped that was the same for pain. Grief.

Yumi was gone, now. As was Brandon. Kyran.

Roy.

He could've prevented that. He could've stuck around. Or maybe done something about Irene when they'd had the chance. The idea of stepping in between Roy and Irene came to him again. The idea of getting Rachael to stay a bit longer, perhaps. To live a bit longer. The idea of stepping in between the two, Irene's harpoon passing through him. Johnny acting as Roy's human shield. The idea of him finally having some utility.

The idea passed. And he was still here. And they were still gone.

Those were half of the friends he'd had left on this island. Vanished. He could count the ones remaining on one hand. Dan, Soren, Kitty, Daniel.

Were they even worth meeting?

Johnny's collar was beeping now. He himself was leaned against a tree, eyes squeezed shut, frozen. He didn't know whether to scream or cry, so he did both. Tears forced from his eyes as he rocked himself back and forth, mouth open, screaming silently.

Dan would want nothing to do with him. He'd just left Soren. And he couldn't even look Daniel in the eyes, after what had happened to Rachael.

Maybe meeting Kitty would be nice. Or maybe it'd go just like with Soren. With Rachael. People too far gone to be helped.  

Rachael had been too far gone to be helped.

There was less space between the beeps now. He stayed.

The thought came to him, without warning. And yet it stayed. Some stray idea that suddenly took permanence. She'd been too far gone. And the time he'd spent with Soren was a waste because there was nothing that could have been done for him, because he didn't want anything to be done for him. And,

what was worse? The idea that he'd known this the entire time, or the idea that he'd just realized this now? The idea that he'd knowingly, or unknowingly wasted precious days of his life, of his friends' lives, on someone who couldn't be saved? On someone who would get themselves unsaved anyways?

He wanted the idea to leave. It was unwelcome. It had come to him without warning, it should leave without warning. Because he had worked so fucking hard to help Rachael, and this idea, this thought of her being a burden, a waste, it was not something anyone deserved. And yet, it lingered, it stayed. It took root.

He'd wasted days on Rachael. He'd wasted days on her that couldn't be bought back, that couldn't be used looking for his other dead friends anymore.

He should've let her leave that day, when the three of them were still at the mess hall.

The screaming shifted suddenly from silence to loud, piercing sound, briefly overwhelming the fast beeps.

And then, he stayed frozen a minute more. Tears stopped flowing. His face turned to stone.

He looked at the nearby camera. Like the one he'd talked to last night.

This wouldn't be it.

He got up, finally. Walked out of the woods, past the tar pits. He didn't look back at them. The beeps stopped, eventually.

A few minutes later, he heard a gunshot behind him. From where Soren had been.

He continued walking.

((Johnny Lancer continues in some day we may come to peace with the world within ourselves))