Now I know that hello is a show for a sweet goodbye

[Pippi]

((Mercedes Guenther continued from Catastrophe))

She forced herself to drown the whole world out.

A Sisyphean task, given her entire life was nothing but flames. A task that she needed to perform, however. She could still hear their voices in her ears, their last words to her, maybe to anyone. Her affirmation that she would remain, that this was the path she had settled on, that there was no swaying her from it. His three words, words that had been on the tip of both of their tongues for so, so long, that he had finally said at the most vital of times, and at the most devastating moment possible.

And outside of her head, too, there was the constant thrum of his gift, growing greater and greater by the second, crackling filling the air, the tell-tale noise of a fuse on the verge of popping. The scent of ozone had overpowered his smell of lavender. She felt as though her head was about to burst.

She made herself focus on everything else instead, on the sound of each foot thudding on each step, on her ragged, harsh breaths, breathing like she’d just been held underwater to try and get her to crack, on the rising sea of lava bubbling up once more inside of her. Anything to make her head overpower her heart, everything to distract from her self-destructive gut instinct to turn around and drop everything and run right back into that room, shutting the door and turning the latch forever.

There was one thing that she couldn’t, wouldn’t, scrub away, though. She could still feel his lips against hers, still feel the last lingering moments of that kiss. If she’d been a romantic - and maybe she could have been, given time, given a fucking chance, - she might have claimed that she was rubbing her eyes and wiping away tears solely so they didn’t wash away that sensation that clung to her lips, the last vestige of the boy she loved.

But Mercedes had always kept herself grounded. She just didn’t want to be turning her back on her friends and family and lovers, only to trip down the stairs and break her neck because her goddamn eyes were misted up.

She reached the bottom of the stairs, stumbling on the last step, her gift working itself into a frenzy as she forced her body forwards. She immediately pushed on, moving down the corridor, a belabored stagger rather than a walk, hands pressed to the wall to assist her movement. She didn’t have a location or a goal in mind for the moment, but she didn’t need one. She just needed to keep moving, move as far away as she could from the room upstairs until she was safe. She didn’t think she could take a step outside in her current state without keeling over and collapsing once more, but there had to be somewhere inside the compound she would be safe to hole herself away in. Safe, and away from that room. Leaving it behind, physically and mentally. Leaving it upstairs. Leaving him inside those four walls. Leaving him to… to his decision.

Mercy choked back a sob as she hauled her body forwards, feeling it grow heavier and slower with each step. Where would be a safe place to stop? She vaguely recalled, in some recess of her mind, that hiding under a stairwell was a decent plan in case an earthquake hit, or maybe a bomb, she couldn’t totally remember. But that would mean doubling back immediately, and intentionally bringing herself closer to the impact zone.

And she still didn’t totally trust herself not to throw everything away because her heart had suddenly decided to bleed.

She was also pretty sure she’d seen stairs leading down, when she’d been tearing through these halls on her first visit inside. If there was a basement, or some kind of underground storage room or whatever, that sounded like a good bet for relative safety. Odds were it would be cooler, too, so

The thunderclap hit without warning, without remorse. The ground gave way beneath Mercy’s feet, and she was flung forwards, landing on her front and kicking the wind out of her. Her head spun. Her vision blacked out. All sound vanished without a trace, and all she felt was her body go numb, even the ever-present heat having been knocked out of her and scattered to the winds.

She lay there, one arm pressed against the floor under her chest, waiting for her body to be ripped apart, to disintegrate, for the walls to topple down on top of her.

A century passed. The silence stopped, and the ringing in her ears began. She barked out a cough, lungs filling with dust, wiping her watery eyes with her free hand. Her left hand was starting to throb, a stinging sensation jabbing into it, an inch from the right, and with a groan and a kick to the side, the furnace inside of her kicked into gear once again.

And as she rolled herself over onto her back, and pushed herself backwards until she was slumped against a wall threatening to collapse any second now, the final aftershock of the explosion, the realization, slammed into her.

She had known exactly what he had the potential to do, what he had been storing inside of himself and suppressing for so goddamn long. She knew what his plan had been. She knew what the endstate was. It all made sense. It all made so, so much sense, and it even fit perfectly with her own view of this ‘game’. If you weren’t prepared to fight for your way out of here, if you couldn’t see any chance of escape coming to fruition, and if you wouldn’t even be able to hurt a fly that was standing between you and the exit, it was best for everything to end right there and then. He had accepted it. Leila had too. Mercedes had let it happen.

And even with all that knowledge in her head, she couldn’t stop herself from tipping her head back and screaming out August’s name, until her throat grew hoarse, and her strength gave way.

As her vision faded out, Mercy was sure she could smell lavender in the air, and tiny purple lights drifting in the dust.

((Mercedes Guenther continued in Your Actions Have Consequences))