Highway to the Danger Zone

[Tagabasa†]

((Casey Malkovich continued from Wish I Had a Chance Here)

It was raining right now, the kind of weather Casey's father had always loved. He said it was calming, that listening to the sound of the rain hitting their roof helped lull him to sleep. When Casey was very young, she had been plagued by an irrational fear that her house would catch fire in the middle of the night, a thought that kept her awake for hours. But when it rained, like it did so often in Seattle, her dad had told her that God was making sure they'd be safe. It was kind of weird, actually. Casey's dad was agnostic, like herself, never went to church. But he always had such a goofy, dorky smile on his face when he said that.

She would never see it again. She was dying.

When the terrorists had faked them out, when Casey thought she only had a split-second of life left, she had felt some kind of peace. That peace wasn't there anymore. Instead, she was filled with pretty much the entire list of emotions that Yoda said led to the Dark Side. Fear of the inevitable death that was barreling toward her. Anger at herself, at the stupid, stupid gut reaction that had brought her to this end. And hate. Burning hatred directed right to every terrorist that had even a small part in manufacturing this sick game.

Casey acted out that hatred in the obvious way. "Fuck," she spit out. "Fuck you. Fuck you all! Fuck this game and FUCK ANYONE THAT HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT."

Cliché. Pointless. Were those going to be her last words, then?  Just a string of curses that everyone on this island must have felt at some point? She wanted something better than that. She wanted to say the kind of thing that her favorite fictional characters would say as they faced their own ends. Casey knew it was a stupid, childish desire, but there was nothing she could do right now to stop thinking like that.  

At least she wasn't vomiting anymore. That had more to do with that fact that there was nothing left inside Casey to vomit out than with her actually not feeling the need to do so, but still.

The funny thing was that Casey had actually managed to get her foot out of the goddamn floorboard. It didn't make any difference, though. She had taken so long to free herself that there wasn't enough time to any get out of the general area before her collar would go off. Besides that, she couldn't walk without inflicting immense pain on herself. Casey was no doctor; she didn't know what could possibly be wrong with her foot or how to fit it. All she knew was that her inability to move was just another nail in her coffin. What a pathetic way to go out.

Casey could move enough to place her hat on the floor, away from her. For some reason the girl didn't fully comprehend, she didn't want it to be damaged. It was a good hat, probably one of the best articles of clothing she had made. And she had made it. Less than a week ago, Casey Malkovich had been the kind of person who made things. Why had she been embarrassed about that? God, she was so stupid.

She tried to listen to the rain, to let it calm her the way it calmed her dad, but that didn't work. The infernal sound of the beeping collar drowned out everything else. The noises were so close together now, such a blatant reminder of her future. Casey tried to hold her little knife closer for comfort, until she realized that she didn't have it anymore. That was alright, though. She didn't need any security blanket; she was a tough kid.

Liar.

Not that it was surprising. Tons of people probably lied to themselves right before they died. For one, Casey was now pretty sure that anyone, real or fictional, who claimed that they were dying without regrets was a fucking liar. She had so many regrets, from the actually important ones to the almost ridiculously mundane.

She regretted not being able to tell her parents she loved them, to thank them for the support they had given her, for the nights that they had been kept awake worrying for their messed-up child. She regretted never finishing Mass Effect. She regretted never getting to meet her friends from Stewards of Anagear in real life, she regretted never finishing the stupid story of Felix Fenderholme, adventurer geologist. And, hell, she might as well admit it: she regretted not kissing Carlos Lazaro.

There was something the Casey of a week ago would never have been able to predict. But he had been kind, surprisingly so. Carlos had a good smile, a thought she didn't know why she kept hanging onto. Casey thought that, given more time, she might have loved him. This island was not the kind of place for something like that. Still, she couldn't lie to herself and say she didn't regret the fact that she would never get the chance to find out.

If there was one time she could live w-no wait, scratch that. If there was one thing she could die with, it was that she hadn't yelled at Carlos and Alice, hadn't begged them to stay, hadn't added any bitterness to that situation. She hadn't been heroic, but she hadn't been cruel. It wasn't a victory, but it wasn't a failure. Still, she hoped those two stayed sane. She hoped those two lived forever.

"So... does that mean we'll be sticking together then?"

And they had, hadn't they? Anti-social Alice Gilman, Carlos Lazaro the outcast, and, well...her. One of them should have snapped within five days. They should have given the terrorists quite a show, betraying each other, letting their paranoia overtake them. Casey knew that she should have definitely snapped, that someone like her should have had a complete breakdown by now. Instead, she had been boring.

That thought stopped Casey for half a second, before she sprung back to life. She was laughing now, maniac, hyena-like. It was loud in her ears, even louder than the death-throes of her collar.

"I was, wasn't I? I was boring!"

There it was. There was a victory Casey Malkovich could claim.

The collar wasn't beeping anymore.

G037 – Casey Malkovich – DECEASED