Zugzwang

[Un-Persona†]

((Marcus Leung: B047 - V5 - Continued From J'adoube))

Marcus couldn't say why he had carried Rachael's body this far. He had realized that he hadn't needed to carry her much further then the kiosks, could have laid her down by the entrance, by the street outside, anywhere else they had come across. It's not that none of those places were "wrong" or "right", or that Marcus hadn't considered stopping there or here, but he simply kept going with her body in his hands.

As to why he had stopped, it was because he could feel Rachael's body finally going into rigor mortis. Her arms weren't swinging as naturally with each step he took, wasn't so easy when he had to adjust while his shoulders took turns getting sore, and he began to understand all those who had spoken of the coldness of death. Cautiously, Marcus tried to sit down and let her go gently, but his arms and legs finally felt the pain of ease, stumbling, nearly dropping her. He just barely regained his footing against the rocks of the lagoon. Marcus rolled Rachael's corpse off his lap, and to the side. He lied down onto his back, closing his eyes and stretching out on the ground.

Resting had never been so tiresome. Marcus looked over at Rachael, a small gleam coming from her direction. One hand covering his eyes and one hand reaching for the gleam. Fingers touched steel, and Marcus saw a knife. Must have been Rachael's, probably fell out when he rolled her over. He raised it up, angling it so there was no sun from the shine, what little there was.

Blood. Dried and chipped. She hadn't killed anyone. Or had she? Did he forget or did he just choose to not remember her name on the announcements? No...no...she was like him. She wouldn't kill anybody. He thinks, remembering that he had killed her. Maybe he was just mistaken. He wasn't able to think of it was an exception. The knife was laid down on the ground and he thought of the blood on his clothes. Rachael's blood. On all of his clothes. He had just thrown the sword into his bag, focusing on getting out and moving. Rachael had been clean. She obviously wasn't now, but she had been. Her bag didn't seem like it had soaked up a kill either, not like his. He'd take what he saw and knew, and he'd stop here.

Wasn't right to pry into her business so much...after he had found out so much about her, things he hadn't really needed to know. Confessions of love on the wrong ears and the depths of her laid out for him to solve, that was enough for him, more then he was not prepared and unworthy for. He rolled around, knowing that this was all a distraction for what he had done figured into what he would do now. He still wanted to help people. People like him, people who had killed, people who wanted and needed to die.

A place of killing where the winner ends up alive through either dumb luck, effort, or both. What he had realized that those who would wind up winning due to "luck" did not truly wish to "win" or go home, not the way it was meant to happen, not the way it would happen. Those who had been putting in the effort, the names that had popped up on so many announcements, those who had made it that, more then anything, they wanted to go home. The word "deserved" was itching the back of his throat, as if he should shout it. Marcus instead mouthed it out as he stared at Rachael. Marcus sat up on his knees, and began rolling Rachael's rigid corpse into the body into the lagoon's water, just another stone in crystal blue, a line of maroon slowly falling and growing with that stone.

Marcus then stood up and adjusted his cap to wipe the sweat from his brow, tussling his hair and breathing all at once. It was now, that he had to move, when everything was the best it could be and would be, to change for the worse so that it could all be over. He picked up the knife and put it in his own pocket, kicking Rachael's bag into the lagoon as he picked up his own.

Time was afoot, and so was he.

((Marcus Leung: B047 - V5 - Continued In Lucena Position))