Man is Born Unto Trouble

[Namira]

((Tas continued from Virtue's Last Reward))

-

She kept doing this, she kept on fucking up. That was three, three times now. She could excuse herself the first one, getting jumped and all - at a push the second time, when the response to the accusations had been a bullet; not aimed to kill but aimed at the girl nonetheless. But going on from there? It started to look less like Tas was getting herself into bad spots and more that she was looking for trouble, looking for opportunities to pull the trigger. That blow to the head, delivered in a panic and winding up fatal, and then just now...What kind of fucking moron just fires a gun in every which way and doesn't even think they might kill someone?

Her kind've moron.

Tas stopped walking for a few seconds, then blinked once, twice, three times, having to make a conscious effort to force her eyes to focus behind her glasses. Wait, what was...

There was a tree in front of her, a pine tree.

Anastasia stared. Beyond it were, well, more trees. The stands. She'd... she'd come back here again? After the third acci- after the third kill, Tas had just ran away, anywhere but there. She must've looped the town, maybe ran right past... and wound up right back amongst the trees. Again and again and again Tas found herself in the same place, retracing her steps.

It was like some kind of fucked up metaphor.

Tas didn't even register that her knees were buckling until her head almost went smashing into the tree. Her hands snapped out, dropping the rifle, bark digging into her palms with a harsh scrape. She swore, turned her hands over. Beads of blood were already beginning to well up, skin torn with off the surface. Another curse, more emphatic, cradling her stinging hands to her body. A few seconds of that, and Tas wiped the blood off on her hoodie, pressing close for a seconds to try and stem the flow. The blood left vivid marks on the white fabric, but the thing was so stained with sweat and dirt already that a patch of colour was practically an improvement.

She started to pick herself up and then stopped, slid sideways against the tree, and stopped. Just... stopped. She was so done for this, so sick of this valley and those trees, the cameras and the smarmy announcer. What was the goddamn point? Go back and forth and back and forth until her motor ran out and she died underneath a tree?

Fuck.

For a few seconds Tas stared into space, and then her eyes were drawn downwards, to the rifle, which lay where it'd fallen. Some self-protection that'd been; like defending yourself from a fistfight by knifing someone. Then again, if she hadn't used it, maybe she'd be dead now. ...though thinking back that didn't seem to square away with how things had gone so far. Couldn't, or at least, shouldn't dwell on the what ifs.

As if it were that simple. Tas scooped the rifle up and planted it into the ground, using it to lever herself up onto her feet. If she hadn't needed it before, she sure did now. Her name had been on the announcements three times; twice in a row, earlier. Most everyone would know who she was from school, and what kind've hope did she have of talking anyone down? Real fucking slim.

She needed a change of scene, to find a different part of this stupid, messed up valley.

Hands still held a little gingerly, Tas moved off towards the trees.

((Tas continued in The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed))