★

[Wham Yubeesling]

“Okay.”

Breath.

Breath.

She could do this.

She could help him.

“Take…”

She brought her left arm in. She took her left arm out. She brought her left arm in again and she kept it there. Didn’t shake. Reached out.

“Take my hand. I’ll… pull you up. Or- wait.”

She brought her left arm in again. Brought her right arm out. Kept that.

“It’s your left that’s messed up, so… I think this is how the math works."

[Cicadan]

He would’ve joined her in solidarity with the indecisive movements. Really. But staring at her with mild confusion written into his otherwise Taylor Swift-tier blank space of a face was about all he had the presence of mind to do.

“Uh… that is how it works. My left, your right.”

Actually he wasn’t sure how it mechanically worked. On her right side he’d lean his left side, so the support would be… No no, actually, he wasn’t even sure he could articulate which of his legs was busted. He knew it was on a side of his body, but it was a 50/50 crapshoot as to which. The pain kind of leaked into both legs. And all over the rest of his body. One big walking wound, he was like.

They guessed right, anyways. It took a minute, and the longer version of that arbitrary unit of time. He wobbled, she hauled ass. He was plastered against her shoulder. They started to walk.

“I think… getting better.”

Still a bad looking limp, either way. Tim had always felt he had two left feet but at least he’d had two. One of them dragged now, barely lifting with each step, as the knee above it continued to weep his energy away.

[Wham Yubeesling]

They got there eventually. Found a position that worked. Verity to the left, Timothy to the right. His arm above her left shoulder, her hand around his right hip. Her right leg doing it’s best to support Timothy and hers combined weight, his left leg… just kind of hanging there, as they took their first step. Like a three legged race where she was the one doing all the work. She looked at him, before they did it again. Made sure that this was working okay for him. He wasn’t screaming in pain or telling her that he was in pain otherwise, so… yeah. Maybe this was okay. Maybe she could do this. Maybe she was helping him.

Maybe.

They’d see in a minute, she supposed. When she was walking him to a safer place. Whether she was helping. Whether this could work.

Just had to start getting there.

[Wham Yubeesling]

It’d been a minute.

Probably more than a minute, actually. She wasn’t sure. She’d heard from survivor stories that days out here on this show felt more like months after a while and maybe it was setting in for Verity now. It’d been something — less than an hour, the cameras she could see only started recording when they got close — but they hadn’t gotten far with it. The place where they were before was only twenty or so metres behind them, and the scenery hadn’t changed much. Now the… wall? hut? whatever that was was to her left rather than her behind. Now the railing was to her right. Wasn’t much of a change — wouldn’t be for a while — but it was something. Eventually the background to this would look different. Eventually it’d felt like the two of them had made some distance.

(then what?)

They hadn’t really talked. Not about anything meaningful. Occasionally he’d be like “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh” and Verity would have to stop. Let him take his breaths. Give as much time as needed for the wave Timothy was experiencing to abate. Sometimes he’d be like ‘hey sorry about this but can we pause a bit, my leg’s being a little much’ and that would give her time to breathe. Rest a bit. Put her free hand on her knees as she slouched down and tried not to look at all the blood on Timothy’s. It was fine. Sometimes when there was silence Verity would go this isn’t fine this isn’t fine this isn’t fine but it really was actually fine, for once. Hard to talk when the both of them were going through the most exertion they’d exerted this year. Maybe once they got to a safe place and found that bed they’d have time to relax. Talk. Have a catch up that was better than the catch up that’d just happened.

(then what?)

Then they’d… do something. Maybe look at what was in the medkit. Bandage his knee. If they had a medkit. There was blood. If there was blood then there would be an infection. If they stopped the infection and hid out then maybe Tim would be fine. At least for a couple of days.

(then what?)

(what happens once he has to move? what happens when this place becomes a Danger Zone?)

(look at him)

(he can’t even walk without you to be his legs)

(what happens when the both of you need to run?)

(think this through, for once)

(you can’t win like this)

Then what?

(make it quick)

(the game hasn’t even started yet and you’ve already killed him)

(stop inbetweening)

(stop compromising)

(stop delaying)

…

…

She stopped walking.

[Cicadan]

It was hard to elucidate his own thoughts. Some time had passed. Tim didn’t know how much for sure, but the pain occasionally shocked the abstraction of ‘time is passing’ into ‘this is the specific amount of time’. Tim was happening. Nothing much, in terms of happening, but he was still a thing that took up space and occupied time.

Verity’s time, specifically.

He groaned when they stopped again. He wanted to say something. Thanks, maybe, but he didn’t know how to express it. If he had the cognizance to. Or what words to use. Hard to tell someone what something like this meant to them. The words ‘thank you’ definitely weren’t enough. Were there any vocalizations that could capture the true depths of the gratitude?

Was he even feeling it? He wasn’t sure.

He lingered on. Passively tried to weaken his grip on her, as if that would help her out any.

Just made him heavier, when he lost the sense of balance and started to sag.

He shouldn’t have bothered trying.

“Verity…”

What was there to say? What point was there to saying it?

[Wham Yubeesling]

(look)

(over there)

(past the railing)

(there’s a great big ocean way, way, down below)

(you think he can swim with his leg like that?)

(you think he can fight back if you try to push him off?)

(it’ll be easy)

(you’ll be rid of him)

(and then you don’t have to look at what you did no more)

(no more leg)

(no more blood)

(no more “friend” to let you down)

(do it)

(push him off)

(can you think of any downsides?)

(can you think of any honest reason to keep him?)

…

…

She shook her head.

“Sorry. Just got in my head a bit. Was trying to… process. All this. Sorry. I’ll…”

And she started walking again.

[Cicadan]

Make the effort. He could at least try to make the effort, to help her, to make it easier on her, but...

Would it really, at the end of it all, change anything? He was still a burden. He was still, almost literally, dragging her back. He probably didn’t deserve this.

“Are you… alright with this?”

She’d said something about getting into her own head, and he should have responded to that, instead of redirecting the attention to… himself, or whatever you were supposed to call that limp thing melting off Verity’s… shoulder on one side. Left, right. He’d lost track. He’d never known at all to begin with.

“You could always…”



((word goes here once i figure out which one it should be))

[Wham Yubeesling]

(be real)

(this was always going to happen)

(remember what you said? back at band camp? in that time in the music room you’re not even sure was 9th or 10th grade)

(you said you’d go for the win)

(take everyone out)

(no mercy)

(and now look at you)

(you did one thing and now you’re balking out)

(but that’s really who you are, isn’t it?)

(you’re the girl who doesn’t have any friends. it's not because nobody likes you. it’s not that everyone makes fun of you behind your back like you all think they do. it's because you get in your head and think everyone hates you and use that as the best excuse possible to leave them all behind, hole yourself up in the place where you can pretend it isn’t your fault. you’re failing school. your parents hate you. your life’s going nowhere. you get in your head and have all these dreams that something was always going to happen to you and this is it. you’re here now. your life has changed forever and guess what? you’re not even doing anything with it. you’re just pretending this game hasn’t started. you’re just going to keep inbetweening. keep compromising. keep delaying until you do nothing and then you die.)

(because let’s be real)

(that was always what was going to happen)

(you’re nothing)

(you don’t deserve to be here)

(do you even have a life worth taking back?)

…

She stopped walking again.

(then prove it.)

(do something.)

(be something for once.)

She took a breath.

She took a breath.

[Cicadan]

He remembered it with an eerily stark clarity, what she’d said, how she’d said it. He kind of remembered. Some of the details were off. [urlhttp://sotfmini.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=281&t=2390&start=41]Distorted, warped.[/url]

He’d accepted it so suddenly when she’d said it had never happened.

Now that he thought about it…

A void of consequences and possibilities. Timothy got the sense that there was something he needed to understand, some logical chain of cause-and-effect and X-and-Y and he just couldn’t do it. When he tried nothing came out. Something was happening in that empty cavity he called a skull but nothing seemed to come out right. Nothing important. Might as well have never happened.

Eventually it would stop altogether, and that wouldn’t be a particularly happy day, but it’d at least be easier. Giving up always was.

He wondered why he wasn’t doing it. Why he was still trying to make a difference, to make change. To clumsily peel himself off Verity as she paused, taking a tentative step to his left or to his right because he still didn’t know how dimensions worked. Even two dimensions now, a binary choice, represented a total failure of his frontal lobe. Tim couldn’t even make himself work in 2D. Somewhere in that train of thought lay a joke about his writing prowess.

But still he put a bit of distance between himself and Verity? Like… one step. So it felt. Maybe he was closer still. Maybe he was still right there on her shoulder by his sweaty, tear-stricken, greasy-smelling cheek and he hadn’t moved at all and it was all in his head like all his best words and actions and decisions were.

Even that safe space was losing functionality.

Tim lurched, felt his stomach cuddle with his windpipe. He held back the vomit, and choked out words instead, through the tightness of his throat.

“I can… almost think I can walk. Feels alright to.”

His knee disagreed vehemently but he wasn’t the sort who took hints easily or at all he guessed, no matter how loud.

“Just stay here a bit. Then I can pull my own weight.”

[Wham Yubeesling]

“Do you, um, want me to hold your bag? It… might… make walking easier, if you don’t have a big thing on your back.”

[Cicadan]

“Y-yeah.”

His arm flapped. As if he’d made the effort.

“Go ahead.”

It was still strapped to his back, unmoving.

((Tim thinks thoughts. And I’ll write those out at some point but they’re not that important.))

He tried again, his elbow crooking. It wasn’t broken. It wasn’t even bruised. It could move a bit, but not all the way there. The effort lasted a bit longer this time.

Just a bit.

It faltered, and fell, and was lost. The bag hung in place, inert as all the rest.

[Wham Yubeesling]

“Let me-”

She scrunched her mouth. Brought her right hand up from his hip to his shoulder. Touched the strap of his bag and pulled it down the length of his arm. It only held on by one strap. On his left.

“You want to do the rest?”

She stayed still. Tried her best to smile as she brought her right hand back from his shoulder to his hip. Kind of kept the same expression on her face the whole way through. Looked like she was looking through him.

[Cicadan]

Tim nodded.

“Sorry.”

Didn’t need to say it, and he had anyways. He shrugged. Fitting gesture, and somehow it had still almost been too hard.

The bag slid off his whatever-side shoulder, fell to the earth with anticlimax.

[Wham Yubeesling]

And then she took her hand off his waist and pushed him into the railing.

((SS01: Begin))

[Cicadan]

((Description of hitting the railing))

((will work this out later.))

Movement through time disrupted, a lag spike in so many words. He’d been standing before, hadn’t he? At least kind of. Some amount better than not standing at all. He didn’t understand what had just happened, he couldn’t put words to it. Wasn’t enough air left in his lungs to say it anyways, whatever it was.

[urlhttps://imgr.com/a/gD9BqYO]He didn’t know what to think. H[/url]e didn’t know what to feel./url]

He looked at his attacker. Just looked at her. Glared, stared daggers, spit, other verbs were too strong. They meant too much. What was happening had no intensity, no import. It had just happened. Timothy, by some description, put into some amount of words that no one would care about, that no SOTF blogger would ever bother to type out a draft for, he had hit the ground with no amount of running or walking or crawling. No verbs at all. He’d folded like a house of cards.

His head had hit the metal of the rails. The sound was deafening. And on the wrong side of his skull. The light behind his eyes was flickering. The shutter speed of his eyelids, only the command between brain and body to blink was also working on a delay.

He stared at Verity like he was already underwater. He nominally wasn’t. Hise eyes were beginning to droop down, towards the floor, even when the thing shouting at him was right in his face. A couple of inches, maybe, between his ass and the where the skyline dropped suddenly and swooped to meet the sea.

“What’re you-?”

...

Not much fight left in his voice.