We're Runnin' Right Back, Here We Go Again

[MethodicalSlacker]

Katie looked at the two shouting faces again and sighed. The boy on the ground looked shaken as all hell, and there wasn't a thing she could do to move him to some other place. That was the problem with the others, she realized; they were unable to change, to be changed, to undergo any sort of motion, to shed their ego, to move on from the past and accept that, for all intents and purposes, whatever they used to be was already dead. Leaving behind any preconceptions about the past could only be good. Where, then, would the drive to kill come from? There was no home; it was already gone, sunken underneath the waves. The stars in the sky had moved, and so had she, but nobody else. Life and death were pointless when you had already been through both.

Of course, it was impossible to pass on such wisdom. There was no chance that any of these people could come with her on her journey, a journey with a wise one like she. That was the kind of person Katie decided she would become in her final earthly days; wise, and movable, not fixed. Far off Chiron, esoteric and unknown—that was the greatest, easiest analog. Half girl, half beast. Movable, but still.

Her eyes fixed upon the one on the ground. Writhing in agony. She felt compassion for his soul. She was death, and she was life, and she was neither of those things. All that kept her tied down to the Earth was pain, but judging from the frenzied expression on Floorboy's (she was allowed one last indulgence, one final misnomer) face, the pain that she felt in her body was nothing compared to the soul crushing defeat that he felt sitting on his chest. Maybe she would do something that could lift him up and out of here. A life preserver for his faltering spirit.

"This isn't going to be over anytime soon, I guess," Katie said, shrugging her shoulders, "If I were you, I'd cut my losses and go somewhere else. It's what I'm about to do, after all."

Inwardly she marveled at just how meaningless her words had sounded, but the intent behind them was clear enough.Leave this place, go off on your own, find your self, kill it, and wear its skin as a coat. Maybe not those last parts, but the rest, that was all she wanted to tell him.

Quietly, she drifted away from the three just as easily as she had drifted towards them. There was nothing left for her in the field of flowers but boredom and frustration with others. Perhaps she would spend her last hours looking at the stars and trying to divine some kind of fate for the others. Someone would have to win, and she wondered if the stars could tell her who.

As she was leaving, she tripped on a bumpy patch of dirt, landing on her hands. Picking herself back up, she glanced behind her, brushed the grass off her knees, and kept walking.

[Katie Gittschall continued elsewhere.]

[Wham Yubeesling]

And then she responded.

Looked at him. Talked to him. Said that this game wouldn't ever end for him, at least not anytime soon. Told him to leave. Cut his losses Go somewhere else because (it's clear you're useless here it's clear you can't help daniel) it was clear he couldn't do anything. He couldn't stand. He couldn't talk. He couldn't talk with his friend he couldn't stand up by his friend he couldn't even help him because he couldn't even get through his own problem he couldn't just get past the fact that Felicia was dead (and you can't deal with the fact that you're the one who killed her, you're the one who abandoned her, you're the one who hasn't even tried to fulfill Paris' last wish because you're just so selfish you're just so much of a monster you can't do a single good thing because you can't think of anybody but yourse-)

And then she turned.

Left.

Tripped, on the way out.

"Wait-"

And that finally prompted his body to move. Crawl. Stand. He didn't know why. He was walking, half-running after her and he was leaving Daniel, he was leaving him alone when he needed the help of another person most

(i'm sorry)

to go after the blue haired girl. To go off to wherever she was going off to despite the fact that he needed to stay. He needed to help. He needed to be helped

(there's no way to help)

because he couldn't deal with this. He couldn't deal with anything. Felicia was dead and Felicia was gone and he'd never be able to see Felicia again and it was all his fault and he just couldn't deal with that. So why? Why could he run? Why was he moving?

(i'd suggest you cut your losses)

(go somewhere else)

"Come back-"

He didn't know.

He couldn't think.

His body was moving, running, and all he could do was add it to all the other things he didn't have an answer for.

((Maxwell Lombardi, continued elsewhere))

[Deamon]

Sympathy wasn't something that could be conjured from thin air. The magic of it required an emotional connection. He wasn't listening but that wasn't surprising to her. His mind had been made up from the moment he had seen her. Her words were meaningless in the space they occupied, leaving her mouth to be picked up by the cutting wind and carried away to another place entirely. When they returned the meanings were changed, different, unrecognizable; wrapped by a different intellect with its own feelings.

The yelling continued but still, she was calm. The other two left and she gave them only the most fleeting of looks before her focus realigned with what was important at that moment. He was still in front of her, the boy who suddenly had a spine. Whether he had always had it and kept it hidden or had found it in the reality of the new space he occupied was unimportant. The words he said did not matter to her either, they were empty of true action. He was talking loudly while carrying nothing.

She continued to meet his face, neither reacting or changing. She felt the time passing into the darkness around them, lost forever on an issue that would not see a resolution. She knew what he wanted from her, so she spoke, as always her voice calm and level.

"It's better for her."

A pause. She moved closer, acting as his mirror. The second half of his statement didn't prey upon her and she did not pray for it to apply to her. It wasn't something that meant anything.

"I don't matter."

[delicateMachine]

Again, again, again Kris said that what Rachael had needed most was to stop existing, and Daniel knew that there was a certain twisted logic to it, that she'd been afraid, and in pain, and things probably weren't going to get any better, but like, you couldn't just look at her life, at anyone's life and decide that there was no hope, so it was better to kill the possibility of hope ever happening, right? Like, there weren't any boats coming for them, and Daniel knew that, but he didn't know that, and neither did Kris! No one had the right to make that decision, especially someone who evidently hadn't been affected by it in any meaningful way!

Kris moved closer, but there wasn't any point to looking at her face, was there? He knew what he'd see. Nothing. She was close enough that the only thing separating his momentary daydream of wrapping his hands around her throat from reality was the realization that he had a gun in his bag.

Daniel didn't want to hurt her, he made sure to think, ignoring the whole 'strangling' thing he'd literally just pictured. The gun wasn't even loaded, he was pretty sure, unless Brandon had messed with it. He just wanted to scare her. The rage and nausea sloshed together and coexisted in a pretty bad burning feeling in his stomach, and maybe he was scaring himself a bit, too, but it was fine, because all he wanted was an apology. Did he want an apology? If she apologized, if she broke down and cried right in front of him at gunpoint, maybe he'd be weakened by the human misery in front of him, forget the human misery that had been caused. Maybe he didn't want her to do anything. Maybe he wanted her to keep up her statue act so they could find out if Brandon had loaded the gun, together.

He had already started to turn away when she spoke again, and he paused despite himself, but since he paused while looking away from her for the first time in like five minutes that gave his brain time to realize that Maxwell wasn't there anymore, which also gave him time to realize that he hadn't thought about Maxwell at all, which gave Kris's words time to bounce around in his head a bit, and now he was just sorta standing there like an idiot, looking at nothing, with a whole bunch of shame and nausea in his belly.

Maxwell had just... straight up broken down in front of him, and Daniel had promised to help, and then broken that promise in record time. How self-absorbed could you get? How self-righteous? How self-defeating? Maxwell had kept him going for an entire day, but as soon as Kris showed up and brought a siren song of revenge in her wake, he'd stopped mattering. Everything had stopped mattering, except for her.

Now here she was, giving him a way out. Daniel looked at her for a long moment, utterly spent. "You're right. I... don't care about you. I care about what you did, but Rachael's dead, the end, and there's nothing you can do to fix that. You don't matter anymore."

He started to walk away. Paused. Turned his head one last time. "...Don't get me wrong. You're gonna get judged by someone - or something, I dunno. Maybe God, maybe history. It just won't be me."

((Once he was a safe distance away, he puked and cried and collapsed on the ground for a while. He didn't collapse in his puke, at least. Also, the gun was loaded. He checked.))

[Deamon]

For a time they were face to face, close enough together that they had the opportunity to do whatever they wanted to each other. Neither of them made that move. The boy was close to broken and she didn't care enough about him to do anything further. Her words and presence were enough by themselves. His vision broke from her and he began to leave. Before he fully departed the ground they stood upon he gave her some further words, all characterized by his own version of what had happened. She did not correct him. It was an example of the danger of belief. An attempt to assuage guilt. She did not join him in the endeavour.

His choice made and words spoken he departed. She let them drift around her body like leaves caught in the wind. She stayed for longer, considering things and what they would yield. Meanwhile, the emptiness sang to from all around. The sky rolled and passed the clouds overhead, silent in any judgment they possessed.

Eventually, she moved on.

((Continued))