Yesterday Was Better

[Pippi]

((Lucia del Pirlo continued from FEAR stands for fuck everything and run))

She wasn’t going to find Marcus again.

There might as well have been a billboard constantly looking down on her and telling her this, it was so obvious. She had run off with no idea where she herself was going to go, and she hadn’t stopped since leaving the theatre. How in the world was Marcus supposed to find her if they were both constantly running, searching for one another? He could begin his search in one area only a few moments after she had left the same one.

But Lucia kept on running, because at this point it was the only thing she knew how. She kept on running and kept on telling herself that there was some chance that she’d run into Marcus again.

She still had no idea where she was going. She didn’t want to check her map, didn’t want to slow down until she found Marcus or knew she was in a safe place. There was always a chance that the boy she’d been running from, the boy who had reacted so violently to Marcus’ appearance, was chasing after her right at this moment. She had a head start, and she wasn’t the weakest person around, but the boy had been clearly stronger than her, so she couldn’t afford to waste any time. So Lucia kept on running until she saw what looked like shelter, and started running towards that.

The locations of the danger zones, however, had all but entirely gone from Lucia’s memory. She could remember one, maybe two at best, but aside from that she was running blind. She wished now that she had written them down, but hindsight, as her father said, was 20/20. Several times she would be running towards potential safety only to hear the piercing beeping of her collar over the sound of her heavy footsteps.

Several times, she had been tempted to carry on running and fuck it all.

But after only a few more footsteps, her composure would leave her, and the animalistic instinct to live and the fear of the unknown kicked into overdrive, sending her back the opposite way until her collar was silent.

Finally, Lucia was almost at the front door of a building without the telltale beeping noise to stop her. She wasn’t running anymore; she could barely even walk. Every breath was a herculean effort, and her bag felt like it was filled with iron bars. The front entrance of the building, whatever it was, felt similarly heavy, but Lucia somehow managed to push it open. The adrenaline of running for Marcus and running from the other boy was draining away, and now she just felt woozy and sick. She had hardly eaten anything in the past few days, but she had still been running for an unwise length of time in completely unsuitable clothing. She was exhausted.

There were stairs, but Lucia felt like she would collapse halfway up if she attempted the ascent. Instead, she crossed the lobby and pushed open the first door she could find.

Inside the doorway was a bedroom. It was rather tackily decorated in order to fit the rest of the ‘tropical’ setting that the resort was going for, and clashed horribly with the frost on the balcony and the steel grey sky, but Lucia hardly cared about that. There was a bed directly in front of her. She shuffled across the carpet towards it before flopping down onto the bed. It wasn’t exactly a bed made for a queen, but it was still by far the most comfortable Lucia had been for a good few days.

Yet despite her exhaustion, and despite the relative warmth and comfort, Lucia knew there was no chance she would be able to relax. Not when she knew that she had abandoned her one true ally and when she knew he was out there alone. Not with the weight of two murders still on her mind and the thought that there might still be people out for vengeance.

Not when she could still feel her pistol pressing against her in her pocket.

[Pippi]

She couldn't do it.

She couldn't rest here. God how she wanted to. God how she wanted some respite from the pain and suffering that had followed her for days on end.

But comfort and warmth for the body did not bring the same for the mind. Every time Lucia turned in her vain attempts at sleep, she could feel the weight of the pistol shifting in her pocket. And every time she did that, the weight of everything she'd done on the resort shifted in her mind.

Lucia knew that next time she heard the announcements, there was a good chance Marcus would be on there in some way or another. She wasn't sure whether she'd prefer it to be as murderer or victim. Both would be awful. Both would make Lucia feel like it was her fault this had all happened.

She wondered whether people remembered she had killed two people. For the first time, she wondered what the people watching on their TVs thought of her. When there were people like Jewel to watch, why would anyone tune in to the crying girl lying on a bed?

Lucia wondered when she'd get any decent rest. Maybe if she ever got back home.

Most likely she wouldn't rest easy until she was dead.

Lucia opened her eyes and slowly, slowly, eased herself off the bed. She felt a little better now. Felt a little less exhausted. Still in no shape to run, but in shape to walk, and that was enough. Walking was enough to survive. She wasn't prepared to die. She wasn't going to today, or tomorrow, or until she left this hellhole.

Maybe by some miracle Marcus was still alive, she thought, as she slowly walked out of the room, looking left, right, left again, right again, scanning for signs of life.

If he wasn't, then there was still no time for resting. Laziness got you killed.

Lucia had to survive.

((Lucia del Pirlo continued in Going Forward))