Leah closed the book and frowned at the announcements coming up.It’s not an ending, not really. The only people whose stories ended were the ones who died. The rest of us just moved on to the next chap-
She was expecting the mark of Cain, for her name to be put out there, with all the casual air of somebody grading an essay, but when she closed her eyes and started hyperventilating the voice started to fizz out in a sea of glitch and static.
Her eyes closed. She pressed her hands against her ears. How many people have died since she’s met them?
Hailey, Mateo… Dale and Rebecca…
And how many murderers did she meet?
She wasn’t sure.
Some of her classmates were to her what she was to them, maybe. The delivery of their sins was pushed back by half a day, twelve hours, which in the grand scale of things was absolutely nothing, but it felt almost unfair of her to have this big of an advantage on this field, like she didn’t deserve it, because she didn’t. This wasn’t an advantage, this was pure anxiety for her, knowing that it’s going to come and it’s going to ruin her, it’s going to destroy her and she would never pick herself back together again, and all she could do was wait.
She didn’t know how the others did it, managed to rack up kills like they were points (they were points, weren’t they?) because she just couldn’t understand. How did they not break down like she did?
Leah had so much empathy in her that it was physical pain. Every time she hurt somebody, she always felt like she was being hurt and hurting herself. Every thought she had she couldn’t help but dwell on, and every single bit of guilt she had weighed her down, constantly, until she could barely drag herself with all these chains holding her back. She was so sensitive to people, to their emotions and opinions and presences, and she didn’t get how other people could just treat someone like a statistic. And she said she didn’t watch the show because she was scared of the blood, and that was true (she threw up on the body and she hated the taste of bile on her tongue) but it wasn’t just that. Not really, well, it was, but it was because of a lot of different, sickening reasons all mashed up together.
It was because the bodies used to be people. And she watched them die, and every single time, she desperately wanted to help them, and every time one of them fell it was a punch to the stomach, knuckles twisting in, forcing itself into her organs and rearranging her guts and neurons and thought process. When she thought about death sometimes she felt dizzy, but mostly only when she was thinking about other people dying.
Leah was crying again. She cried an awful lot when she was a child, and she felt like a little girl that needed to be hugged and kissed and comforted right now, but her mother never liked hugs, and her dad was never there to hug her, so she learned to wrap her arms around herself and use a pillow.
Except there wasn’t a pillow, and Mary wasn’t looking at her, and she bit down her sniffles pathetically as she hugged herself, arms wrapped around her chest and holding her shoulders.
Gosh, she looked so sad right now. Her mother wouldn’t let her go out with puffy red eyes when she was younger because it made her look bad. Would the producers edit this to make her look prettier?
She wasn’t really sure if everything she said to Jewel on the first day was true but it felt like every negative thing about her that she listed out were definitely, absolutely right. Not because she knew herself, but because she hated herself.
They wanted to prey on that, she knew. They’re cutting the space down, at the same rate the kids were being cut down. They were making the bucket smaller so the crabs would keep on fighting, even though when they got out they would just land in a bigger bucket. And Leah didn’t want to fight, but she knew that she had to, if she wanted to survive, and they were eagerly looking forward to her next televised breakdown.
She looked at Mary, besides her, and resisted the urge to hold her hand just for the comfort of it. And squeeze. As hard as she could.
A finger traced the bandages still wrapped around her throat. It was going to scar, if she lived long enough for it. Part of her wondered if Gregory was still alive, if he’s killed somebody yet. How close was Seo to reaching her goal? Did Olivia shoot anybody yet? Is Pippi alright with dying? What about Beau? What were Mateo’s last thoughts? Did he ever wake up?
She wiped her tears with a blood-caked sleeve and shuddered. There wasn’t anything to do here, except to worry.
Then, she looked at her book.
And flipped to the last page.
---
“There’s very little good things in the world,” dad said, holding her hands. “And you were lucky to be born to a family that has them.”
No, Leah thought, I wasn’t lucky at all.
“So you have to fight for them. It's sad, but that's how the world works, you understand?”
“Yes, dad,” she said, and she knew in her heart that she probably wouldn’t.
“Good girl.”
Almost ten years later, a much older and still pessimistic Leah looked down at the blood on her clothes, and the weapon she used to kill a girl. She named this dart, didn’t she? She named him Benny. Or something like that. Just the human need to have something she could trust, even when the trust is delusional and in an object used to kill.
Now, she had Mary. Who her mentor would tell her to trust, but she just couldn’t and she felt just a little bit guilty for that.
Leah closed her eyes. In her mind, she was in a garden. A big, beautiful garden, filled with flowers she couldn’t identify and bathing her in sunlight so bright it made her eyes water. A god was looking down at her.
“Do you think I deserve good things?” She asks the figment of her imagination.
The god wearing her face smiled and shook her head.
“That’s fair.”
She opened her eyes again to the thump of the book sliding off her lap.
---
Ms. Hemingway is a musician.
She’d like to call herself a performer, really, but the truth is that she’s just an artist.
And what is art but a reflection of our world?
She looked at the screen, at her daughter crying, and she saw both a tragedy and an inspiration. There was no way for her to wipe her child’s tears, not when society was assigning it reviews and people a thousand times richer than her were profiting off of it.
So she did the only other thing she could, and began writing a song.
---
She had a test next Tuesday. It's alright, she's always hated math.
---
Leah took a swig of rum and tucked the empty bottle in her backpack.
She would never drink again, she told herself, and she would never have the chance to. Rebecca’s possessions were tucked in the bag containing everything she ever needed, and it felt a little like theft, but she needed new clothes and food and something to cry with. The jacket was so soft, and that made her feel even worse. Was it important to Rebecca? Did she buy it herself or did her mom buy it for her?
Leah closed her eyes and wept.
And sleep took her.
---
Her dream wasn’t a pleasant one. It was surreal, really, and it was sad in that way where she woke up and realized that she was still stuck here. She was on the beach, a little rowboat on the side. And besides her, a tall, black-clad woman with long black hair that pooled onto the sand like an oil spill. The sky was cloudy, but still beautiful. The sun was setting. They just stood there, basking in the presence of one another for some time. Then, the woman pulled out a cigarette and lit it up.
“You know,” she said with the voices of a thousand people, “The problem with you is that you’re so indecisive.”
Leah frowned. The smoke blew into her face.
“You’re so scared of picking a path and sticking to it. You say you’d do one thing and you do another.”
She looked down at her hands. They were coated with salt.
“And you better choose now before somebody chooses for you.”
Her reflection in the water was distorted.
Leah closed her eyes and listened to the seagulls in the sky. They were so far away, high up where no bird should be, and yet so loud.
“What if I want somebody to choose it?”
The woman turned to her, and Leah couldn’t tell what color her eyes were. She’d say they were hazel, but they were more yellow, bright in a way that couldn’t be normal. Her face was oddly familiar, but distant, indecipherable.
“You won’t, because now you just can’t decide on who instead of what or how. And you hate it when you're with somebody else.”
Leah swallowed as the woman reached a hand towards her. She shrank back. The woman took a step closer. Leah took a step back. The woman reached out to her collar and grabbed at it and Leah pushed her. She looked at her with understanding eyes and fell, melting into the ocean and coloring the water black and red.
Leah woke up.