Night by Night

[Namira]

((Shauna continued from You Never Said Goodbye))

Shauna couldn't sleep.

Maybe it was the smell of blood. Maybe it was the dread pressing down upon her. Maybe it was the heavy weight of metal across her lap.

So, so many people had already died, enough that trying to think about each of them made Shauna's head spin, which in turn made her feel guilty. She'd spent years of her life with most of the others on this island, and she couldn't even manage to spare a thought for each of them. She—Shauna bopped her forehead with the heel of her palm. When that didn't clear the thoughts out, she did it a couple more times. Yeah. That was bad. Awful. She was like half an inch away from a breakdown at any given moment, but if she let herself trip across that ledge, all that lay below was a long, long, long fall. Mourning was a luxury right now, and time spent on the lost was time she wasn't focusing on the living.

And like, she counted in that. She was alive still. Shauna could remember the dead all she wanted, but who'd remember her, when she was gone?

Hurt, thinking of it that way. Twisted and snarled up inside of her in a hopelessly tangled knot she could never hope to unfurl, and maybe she shouldn't. Maybe that wasn't the type of thing that you should just think your way past and get over without issues. Feeling like she had to prioritise her own life over everyone had died ahead of her—that was a natural way to feel, a correct way to feel. If she stopped, that was when Shauna should get worried.

At the end of the day though, it was her and Angie, and now Matthew, and it was the—did it count as a promise?—The agreement they'd made with one another. The crazy, crazy agreement. Shauna was no superhero. Even when she was writing a fictional Shauna, she was only a badass some of the time. Often, T'Challa or Cap or Miles were the ones encouraging her, showing her the right way, teaching her to stand up for herself. But here she was and here they weren't, and any goal that she set was one that she had to achieve all but alone. When push came to shove, Angie and Matt weren't going to pull the trigger for her.

Shauna couldn't sleep.

((Shauna continued in I Heard Yxu Were Lxxking Fxr Me))