Violet took Kyle's words and melded them into a smile. He was taking things in stride, all of a sudden, which meant that he must have come to a similar realization as she. Things could just be as simple as looking around for food. They didn't need to have any secondary meaning of hostility, or any air of danger. There were marshmallows, so there would be other food, and it was all logical, and it all made sense, and finally Violet felt like she was getting some solid footing, here.
"That's, um, not a bad idea!" Violet exclaimed, "Something tastier than what we were given sounds really nice right now, that bread, um, was pretty bland."
She looked over towards the entrance of the Temple.
"I'll take this half, okay?"
Violet turned away from Kyle and started to search.
The Praise and Glory
Day 2, beginning of the rain. Private.
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MethodicalSlacker
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- "All right!" Kyle exclaimed with a bounce in his step. "We'll probably only find things like chips or crackers, or maybe candy, but it'll be a step up either way, right?"
He headed to his designated side of the temple and started looking around, under benches and in cabinets. Generally, anywhere that looked like food could be hidden, he was searching. But everywhere he looked, he didn't find much more than dirt and dust. On one occasion he saw some ants milling about in the corner, giving him the idea that there may have been some food there at some point, but the ants had already taken it.
After putting a good few minutes into it, Kyle's own search was not yielding much, if any fruit, so he thought that checking in with Violet might be helpful. Maybe she had found something by then, and if not, at least they could talk. Talking with her always managed to help his mood.
He stood up straight and called out to her. "How's it going, Violet?"
CRACK
The old, creaking temple had lost its grip on one damaged part of its infrastructure. Kyle hadn't been paying attention to where he was walking, and was standing right under a partially broken support that had just snapped. There was enough time for Violet to look over before the support came crashing down, striking Kyle in the head and taking him to the ground with it.
He headed to his designated side of the temple and started looking around, under benches and in cabinets. Generally, anywhere that looked like food could be hidden, he was searching. But everywhere he looked, he didn't find much more than dirt and dust. On one occasion he saw some ants milling about in the corner, giving him the idea that there may have been some food there at some point, but the ants had already taken it.
After putting a good few minutes into it, Kyle's own search was not yielding much, if any fruit, so he thought that checking in with Violet might be helpful. Maybe she had found something by then, and if not, at least they could talk. Talking with her always managed to help his mood.
He stood up straight and called out to her. "How's it going, Violet?"
CRACK
The old, creaking temple had lost its grip on one damaged part of its infrastructure. Kyle hadn't been paying attention to where he was walking, and was standing right under a partially broken support that had just snapped. There was enough time for Violet to look over before the support came crashing down, striking Kyle in the head and taking him to the ground with it.
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MethodicalSlacker
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"Yeah," Violet said, "sweets are good!"
Over by the entrance, there weren't many places that Violet could think of that would have anything to eat. Mostly, she was looking at the floor, under stray cushions, in crevices and nooks and crannies. She spared a moment to peer outside and check on the rain. It had really started to pour now; looks like they'd be spending the night in here.
Kyle called back to check on her. Maybe he had been a little luckier with his search than she had. She raised her head and turned to look at him.
"I-"
And not a moment later did Violet realize that she had been wrong. Wrong about the lack of energy in this temple, to be precise. It wasn't that there was no spiritual presence here, or that it had been cast out by hatred and murder and years of neglect, no. It was just that all of the energy in the temple had been concentrated on keeping one support beam, one damaged, splintery support beam, from falling down and crashing to the ground, and now that energy had just ran out. For a moment, all that Violet could do was stand by the entrance way, paralyzed, watching as Kyle crumpled to the ground under the weight of the beam. The wind blew in her direction, and stray droplets of rain found their way to her back.
"Kuh,"
She took one uneasy step forward. Then, another. Violet couldn't believe what she was seeing.
And then, she broke out into a run.
"KYLE!"
Violet made it to him in seconds. She bent over and reached to lift the beam off of Kyle, pulling with all of her strength to shift the wooden support from crushing him. It was much heavier than it looked, or Violet was much weaker than she believed; once she managed to raise it and fling it to the side, she nearly fell over. One look at Kyle made it clear that this was not good, not good at all, and it was all Violet could do to stop herself from breaking down immediately to kneel down next to his head.
"What happened, Kyle?" she sputtered uselessly, "Are, are you okay?"
Over by the entrance, there weren't many places that Violet could think of that would have anything to eat. Mostly, she was looking at the floor, under stray cushions, in crevices and nooks and crannies. She spared a moment to peer outside and check on the rain. It had really started to pour now; looks like they'd be spending the night in here.
Kyle called back to check on her. Maybe he had been a little luckier with his search than she had. She raised her head and turned to look at him.
"I-"
And not a moment later did Violet realize that she had been wrong. Wrong about the lack of energy in this temple, to be precise. It wasn't that there was no spiritual presence here, or that it had been cast out by hatred and murder and years of neglect, no. It was just that all of the energy in the temple had been concentrated on keeping one support beam, one damaged, splintery support beam, from falling down and crashing to the ground, and now that energy had just ran out. For a moment, all that Violet could do was stand by the entrance way, paralyzed, watching as Kyle crumpled to the ground under the weight of the beam. The wind blew in her direction, and stray droplets of rain found their way to her back.
"Kuh,"
She took one uneasy step forward. Then, another. Violet couldn't believe what she was seeing.
And then, she broke out into a run.
"KYLE!"
Violet made it to him in seconds. She bent over and reached to lift the beam off of Kyle, pulling with all of her strength to shift the wooden support from crushing him. It was much heavier than it looked, or Violet was much weaker than she believed; once she managed to raise it and fling it to the side, she nearly fell over. One look at Kyle made it clear that this was not good, not good at all, and it was all Violet could do to stop herself from breaking down immediately to kneel down next to his head.
"What happened, Kyle?" she sputtered uselessly, "Are, are you okay?"
When the beam was lifted, Kyle's condition was revealed. His glasses had been smashed, the frame bent into an unusable shape, and the lenses shattered. He was half-blinded by blood pouring from a wound in his head where the corner of the beam had hit him, which combined with his already poor eyesight and the severe head trauma he had just suffered, made it nearly impossible for him to see anything. Even things directly in front of him were nigh-indistinguishable.
Kyle had the worst headache he had ever experienced in his life, and most of his body was either in similar pain, or couldn't be felt at all. He groaned, unable to do much else as his head lulled slightly to the side.
Then he heard his name. He looked over as best he could as a blurry figure came next to him. From the vague shape he could see, as well as their voice, he could make out that they were female, but not much else. He stared at her for a long time, almost a full minute without answering, with his visible breathing and squinting face indicating that he was sill alive. But in his pained state combined with the way the world appeared to be fading out, he only had one guess as to what was happening.
His voice was small, sad, pained, and scared. "Are you... an angel?"
Kyle had the worst headache he had ever experienced in his life, and most of his body was either in similar pain, or couldn't be felt at all. He groaned, unable to do much else as his head lulled slightly to the side.
Then he heard his name. He looked over as best he could as a blurry figure came next to him. From the vague shape he could see, as well as their voice, he could make out that they were female, but not much else. He stared at her for a long time, almost a full minute without answering, with his visible breathing and squinting face indicating that he was sill alive. But in his pained state combined with the way the world appeared to be fading out, he only had one guess as to what was happening.
His voice was small, sad, pained, and scared. "Are you... an angel?"
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MethodicalSlacker
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What?
Was Kyle trying to flirt with her? Now really, um, wasn't the time for that? He was very plainly really badly injured. Blood seeped from his face, and his glasses were smashed, and there was probably glass everywhere and maybe it was just hard to see it or maybe it was embedded in his skin but either way it looked like, whatever was going on, he was in lots and lots of pain. Violet didn't know what she could do. The beam had fallen on him very hard. It was likely that he had at least a concussion and at worst really bad brain damage.
But at least his sense of humor was intact...
right?
No. Something made her feel like that wasn't the case. It wasn't like Kyle to joke like that. What was he seeing? His eyes were almost wholly closed—could he see anything at all? Could he see her? Just how badly was he hurt?
"Um... I..."
Her hands were shaking.
"Kyle, please..."
Was Kyle trying to flirt with her? Now really, um, wasn't the time for that? He was very plainly really badly injured. Blood seeped from his face, and his glasses were smashed, and there was probably glass everywhere and maybe it was just hard to see it or maybe it was embedded in his skin but either way it looked like, whatever was going on, he was in lots and lots of pain. Violet didn't know what she could do. The beam had fallen on him very hard. It was likely that he had at least a concussion and at worst really bad brain damage.
But at least his sense of humor was intact...
right?
No. Something made her feel like that wasn't the case. It wasn't like Kyle to joke like that. What was he seeing? His eyes were almost wholly closed—could he see anything at all? Could he see her? Just how badly was he hurt?
"Um... I..."
Her hands were shaking.
"Kyle, please..."
She didn't answer his question, and that only made Kyle's panic worse. Everything was hurting so much, and he had a hard time focusing on anything aside from what was in front of him. His face became more strained with worry as he continued to look at her. It took him a while to find his voice again, but he managed to speak again.
"... Are you?" He repeated with a groan, feeling a sharp pain in his chest for a moment that subsided as quickly as it came. "Am I... am I really...?" He sounded as though he was about to cry.
"... Are you?" He repeated with a groan, feeling a sharp pain in his chest for a moment that subsided as quickly as it came. "Am I... am I really...?" He sounded as though he was about to cry.
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MethodicalSlacker
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He sounded as though he was about to die.
This was really it, then. Kyle, in immense pain, lying on the ground. Violet, unable to do anything as she watched him slowly fade away, painfully passing into the beyond. She felt a cry catch in her throat. It was too much to watch, too much to bear sitting around and just waiting through. For how long would he be stuck here, in agony? Minutes? Hours? A day of suffering through this, this painful feedback loop, stuck to the ground, perceptions increasingly distorted? Violet couldn't fathom letting someone suffer for that long.
She turned around, and saw her bag, and saw what was sticking out of it.
The world seemed to stop. Its heart skipped a beat.
For a moment, Violet left Kyle's field of vision.
When she returned, she was holding something.
"Yes," she said, fighting back tears.
"I'm here to bring you to heaven."
This was really it, then. Kyle, in immense pain, lying on the ground. Violet, unable to do anything as she watched him slowly fade away, painfully passing into the beyond. She felt a cry catch in her throat. It was too much to watch, too much to bear sitting around and just waiting through. For how long would he be stuck here, in agony? Minutes? Hours? A day of suffering through this, this painful feedback loop, stuck to the ground, perceptions increasingly distorted? Violet couldn't fathom letting someone suffer for that long.
She turned around, and saw her bag, and saw what was sticking out of it.
The world seemed to stop. Its heart skipped a beat.
For a moment, Violet left Kyle's field of vision.
When she returned, she was holding something.
"Yes," she said, fighting back tears.
"I'm here to bring you to heaven."
She disappeared, and Kyle became worried. Was she leaving? Why would she leave? There must have been a reason why she was here. Why would she leave without explaining what it was? Fortunately, that was not the case, as her blurry shape returned to him just a few seconds later. He felt that something may have been slightly different, but hearing the same voice coming from her assured him that they were the same.
And... she confirmed what he thought. She really was an angel, and he... well, he would be leaving now. It was time for her to take him away, to a place he thought he wouldn't see for a long, long time.
But he couldn't leave yet. There was still something else that he needed.
'W-Wait.." Kyle pleaded with the angel. Before we leave, can I just..." Another pause came as he tried to form his words. "Can I ask you one more thing?"
And... she confirmed what he thought. She really was an angel, and he... well, he would be leaving now. It was time for her to take him away, to a place he thought he wouldn't see for a long, long time.
But he couldn't leave yet. There was still something else that he needed.
'W-Wait.." Kyle pleaded with the angel. Before we leave, can I just..." Another pause came as he tried to form his words. "Can I ask you one more thing?"
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MethodicalSlacker
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Chk-chk.
"Sure."
"Sure."
Kyle kept his sight on the angel, not that he could really move his head that much anyway, and looked into what he was pretty sure was her eyes.
"I have a friend here... Violet. Violet Schmidt." He spoke weakly as his body continued to fail him, but his words were clear. "I think she's still here in the temple. I need you to, um..." He fought internally to continue speaking. "Please watch over her. She... she's still trapped on the island. I don't want her to... I don't want anything bad to happen to her. Please..." He was tearing up again. "She's my best friend. Please protect her."
Kyle had said his piece, and now he looked up at the angel, hopeful and silently pleading for her help.
"I have a friend here... Violet. Violet Schmidt." He spoke weakly as his body continued to fail him, but his words were clear. "I think she's still here in the temple. I need you to, um..." He fought internally to continue speaking. "Please watch over her. She... she's still trapped on the island. I don't want her to... I don't want anything bad to happen to her. Please..." He was tearing up again. "She's my best friend. Please protect her."
Kyle had said his piece, and now he looked up at the angel, hopeful and silently pleading for her help.
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MethodicalSlacker
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"D-"
Her voice faltered for a few moments.
"Violet will, um, be watched over. She will be looked after. Taken care of.
"Now, we must go.
"Try to relax.
"Close your eyes.
"In a moment, we will be there."
She took a deep breath.
Then, she pulled the trigger.
Her voice faltered for a few moments.
"Violet will, um, be watched over. She will be looked after. Taken care of.
"Now, we must go.
"Try to relax.
"Close your eyes.
"In a moment, we will be there."
She took a deep breath.
Then, she pulled the trigger.
Kyle did as the angel said and closed his eyes. In the moments following, a calm smile slowly formed on his face. He was going to be okay. Violet was going to be okay.
It was going to be okay.
It was going to be okay.
B057- Kyle Harrison: Deceased
142 Students Remain
142 Students Remain
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MethodicalSlacker
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She jerked back with the shot, the force rocking her body.
For a moment, she stared blankly into the space she had just made. The space where Kyle's head had been.
Then, Violet lowered the gun, took a few uneasy steps back away from the body, and crumpled to her knees.
The tears came almost instantly. She tried to wipe at them with her hands, but she was still holding the gun. Violet tried to loosen her grip. Couldn't. She lifted her arms and lowered her face into her the space where her sleeves would be, if she hadn't left the flannel behind. Instead, her tears met her bare arm, sliding from skin to skin. When she pulled away she smelled the faint odor of blood, and realized that she had smeared some blood splashback that had landed onto her bicep onto her face. Underneath her bandage, her wound tingled with pain. She looked at Kyle's corpse again. There was no peaceful face to look into. There were no relieved eyes to gaze into. She saw instead deep red viscera and fragments of his skull, the scattered remains of an eyeball, singed strands of hair clumped in where his scalp would be separated from the rest of the mess, the swilly remains of a human life. The rain started to lighten a little, leaving Violet with more silence to fill with her anguished screams. Snot ran from her nose down over her lip. Her eyes wrinkled closed and her mouth hung open wide. Sobs wracked her body, sending tremors through her bones. Her skin felt like it was on fire, fire burning bright, illuminating the room with oh God why did it have to be him why did it need to be Kyle why why why why why—
She gave up on trying to raise her head against gravity. The gun fell from her hands and slid down her legs onto the floor. Violet sat like she was begging someone for something. Crooked, she pointed her face at the floor. Tears splattered onto the ground, some soaking into the wood of the gun. Her hands found her knees and grabbed onto them tightly, her nails digging into the denim of her jeans. The body was beginning to smell. She cried harder, louder, drowning out the sound of the rain. Something caught in her throat, and her sobs turned to whooping coughs. She threw her head back, unwashed hair falling around her face and sticking to the still wet tears and splattered blood. Violet opened her mouth to breathe and felt vomit threaten to come out. Her throat contracted, choking it down, the effort jarring her back to reality somewhat. Hands raised, she wiped at her face, clearing the hair and tears and snot and blood away from her eyes and mouth and letting herself open, but they wouldn't stop flowing, they wouldn't stop steaming down her face, and her mouth spewed out why Kyle it wasn't his time yet why him why Me why any of us it's my fault my fault my—
Her eyes wandered back to Kyle's remains, and her voice filled the room with terror once more. Her fingers, looking for something to grab onto, dug into her face, her nails lightly piercing the surface of her skin. Reality split at the seams. She dragged them slowly downwards, pulling at her cheeks, wailing into the deluge of oncoming night. The scratches began to draw blood. Violet pulled harder. It wasn't enough. The buzzing of flies began to fill her ears, but if there were any insects around she could not see them. Not through the liquid sorrow gathering at the corners of her sight. Each second she spent wailing made her vocal cords ache more as the pain started to become more prevalent than the need to scream. She raised her voice louder, higher and higher until it stopped not of her own accord. The cords should snap. She deserved that much. Her cries turned silent, her sobs soundless, her whimpers still. Why. The shallow cuts on her face stopped bleeding almost as suddenly as they started, the blood coagulating and sealing itself off.
Eventually, the tears stopped coming. Violet wanted to keep going, to continue being in pain. It prevented her from having to decide what to do next. From having to reflect on what happened now. From moving on with her life. From confronting what she had done. As she realized her body was giving up on her grief, her eyes started to dart around the room. Frenetic, witless, primal, they searched for anything rigid and real. There were cameras, pointed straight at her, located in every other corner of the room. Don't touch that dial. She swallowed back some spittle, the lump in her throat struggling against the collar around her neck. Violet struggled against herself to raise her shaking hands and tug at it so that she could gulp it down, but found herself needing to cough up phlegm instead. Imagined herself inverting, turning inside out, feeling the pain on the inside, outside. The girl leaned towards the ground and coughed it up. What came out and spilled onto the floor was slightly red in color. What should have come out was her heart.
It was there, hunched over her own spilled humours, gasping for air, that Violet finally began to process the weight and reality of what she had just done.
That's it.
She tried to stand up, but found that her legs were shaking too badly to fully support herself. Stumbling away from the body, she found purchase against the wall and used it to bring herself back up onto her feet. It was striking just how thin she felt, like some of her own life had left her. Her face was starting to pulsate with pain, her hands felt barely pulled together by strips of skin, her stomach felt like a mess of garbage and grime, and her soul teased at the idea of pulling away from her body altogether. It took effort not to faint from the physical and emotional strain of keeping herself from fainting, a feedback loop of internal struggle that placed her squarely here, against the wall, staring back out onto the open Temple space from a distance and surveying the full extent of her actions.
I've done it.
Wood chips from the fallen beam mingled with bone splinters and globs of body fluids and blood on the floor. Kyle's arms splayed out in different directions. The exposed remains of the bottom of his face and throat looked almost like a waning crescent moon. His clothes were drenched with his own viscera. Violet's ears rang like church bells. She couldn't tell if it was from the sound of the gunshot or the sound of her own screams, or both. The rain was falling gently outside, pittering against the walls of the temple like the static of a dusty vinyl record.
I've crossed the point of no return.
She lost her footing against the wall and almost collapsed to the floor.
It was one thing to have shot and accidentally wounded someone. It was another to have fired at someone with the intent to kill and then miss, and then to attack someone physically and knock them down. It was an entirely different degree of horrific to have taken another person's life. To have refused to help them in their hour of need—no, to have been unable to do what was necessary. She failed Kyle. It was obvious that he had been in pain, but it wasn't obvious that he would have necessarily died. It was not mercy, but murder. She murdered him. Violet murdered Kyle. Violet murdered one of her best friends.
Fate frowned upon her. She could feel it gazing down and gnashing its teeth, seething with hunger for the chance that it could punish her for what she did. It took all she could muster to keep the feeling from ripping her spirit from her, from tearing her in two. All the beings of all the higher planes of existence saw what she did. All the beings on this plane of existence could see what she had done if they desired. Everyone knew what Violet did, and everyone knew what Violet deserved for it, but it was the beings on the higher planes that made Violet feel irredeemable. Karma was already turned together, and now she could never get it to turn back. In this life, it was certain that things would continue to get worse. There was no other way for them to go, now. Every person she met, every obstacle she faced from here on out—all of it set into motion in order to kill her. In the next life, she was sure to spend several eternities suffering. Burning. Screaming. Violet wondered if Kyle had believed or paid much mind to the idea of Hell.
If she died, she was going to go to hell. The universe was conspiring now to kill her. Everything they threw at her, every trial, every dilemma— it would be worthless and pointless to waste her time and energy on trying to solve it with compassion. She would not be able to muster enough to overturn her karmic debt in positive ways, so, realistically, the only way to move forward now was to sin. To draw on the energies of the places she was condemned to eternities in if she died. It was without humanity. It was necessary for her survival, to prolong her life as much as possible so that she could avoid endless agony in the next life. But that meant that the longer she lived, the more trials she overcame, the more sins she committed in order to survive, the lower she would descend upon death. Violet could not, therefore, afford to at any moment slip up and become vulnerable, physically, mentally, or emotionally, or even spiritually. This was the cycle. Sin, add to karmic debt, be tormented, be confronted with struggle, sin to overcome the struggle, keep going, forever and ever and ever and ever until she fucked up and she died.
Fate had spun its web. Violet had been caught in it.
Finally steadying herself again, she felt able to walk. As large as the room felt, as empty and cavernous the span between herself and the corpse felt like it was, she found it only took a few paces to bring herself back to the body. The gun was at her feet, now. She forced herself to stare at what was left of Kyle. This would not be the first person she killed. It could not be. And it wouldn't be the first friend she would kill. It could not be. And this would not be the first time she'd be faced with these emotions. If she had any hope of redeeming herself afterwards—and it made her feel filthy to already be considering herself with that, the after, the light at the end of the tunnel—then she would have to continue feeling remorse. If she had any hope of making it to a point where she could redeem herself, she'd have to become numb to it.
And all of this because Violet, for all her belief in other worlds and dimensions beyond the material after death, for all her time spent thinking about and feeling the influence of beings above and below this Earthly plane, for all of days spent casting spells and tuning in to higher frequencies of existence, was still, childishly, dearly afraid of death. Not just now, after sealing her own fate, condemning herself to burn and suffer, but before that, too. As small a chance as it was, there was always the possibility that she was wrong. That everything, like her sister said, had a more rational explanatio—
Oh.
Oh, God.
Dana was watching.
It wasn't a question. Dana would be watching. That was an absolute fact. If Violet knew her sister at all, she knew that she would have tuned in at the beginning. She was watching her, a month from now, at this moment, skewered through time, standing over a corpse and barely moving, barely even swaying back and forth with the weight of the world and the scorching pain of her sins on her shoulders, moved very little, showing very little, all spent, all numb. There was once a person here. Dana was watching her. Dana had watched her. Dana was looking over her shoulder, and down her shirt, and into her eyes.
Violet bent down, bringing her face closer to the mess. It was more like a puddle, now.
She reached her hands downward, toward Kyle's arms. She didn't know if her body would even let her do this. Kyle was a gross corpse now, about to be crawling with bugs, crawling with disease and riddled with negative energies, a swirling cursed miasma of death, and here she was, unable to even brush the shoulder sometimes of a normal person without being sent into shock, trying to fold his arms across his chest—to make it clear that he died peacefully, even if that didn't show, not at all, in the splatter that remained. She braced for shudders to crash through her arms, make her lift her own fingers away and take her far, far away from here, careening through the woods yet again, stumbling and falling and slicing herself open, this time with nobody who wanted to help her. Violet braced for the pain. Anticipated it. She wrapped her hands around his wrists.
Nothing.
For a moment, Violet stood there, holding Kyle's hands.
Just
breathing.
Kyle was dead. He couldn't touch her.
She was in control.
There was nothing to fear. No intentions to doubt.
But she folded his arms across his chest like she promised herself, and then backed away. Picked her gun up off of the ground, and put it back in her bag. Then, she opened her secondary bag, with the robe inside. Violet never had to explain it to Kyle. It never came up in conversation. He never saw it. She wrapped herself in it, hoping it'd keep her dry as she set out in the rain. The gun came back out of the bag. It only needed to have been put away while she was looking for her robe, anyway. She figured from now on she'd need to have it out at all times. If she had a karmic debt to repay, she needed it. Things would only get worse. The damage would only get worse. The bodies would only pile up higher, now. That was just the way that things needed to be. It was a necessity. It was a necessity. It was a necessity.
She kept telling herself that as she set off into the rain.
[Violet Schmidt continued in "...we must try until it kills us.".]
For a moment, she stared blankly into the space she had just made. The space where Kyle's head had been.
Then, Violet lowered the gun, took a few uneasy steps back away from the body, and crumpled to her knees.
The tears came almost instantly. She tried to wipe at them with her hands, but she was still holding the gun. Violet tried to loosen her grip. Couldn't. She lifted her arms and lowered her face into her the space where her sleeves would be, if she hadn't left the flannel behind. Instead, her tears met her bare arm, sliding from skin to skin. When she pulled away she smelled the faint odor of blood, and realized that she had smeared some blood splashback that had landed onto her bicep onto her face. Underneath her bandage, her wound tingled with pain. She looked at Kyle's corpse again. There was no peaceful face to look into. There were no relieved eyes to gaze into. She saw instead deep red viscera and fragments of his skull, the scattered remains of an eyeball, singed strands of hair clumped in where his scalp would be separated from the rest of the mess, the swilly remains of a human life. The rain started to lighten a little, leaving Violet with more silence to fill with her anguished screams. Snot ran from her nose down over her lip. Her eyes wrinkled closed and her mouth hung open wide. Sobs wracked her body, sending tremors through her bones. Her skin felt like it was on fire, fire burning bright, illuminating the room with oh God why did it have to be him why did it need to be Kyle why why why why why—
She gave up on trying to raise her head against gravity. The gun fell from her hands and slid down her legs onto the floor. Violet sat like she was begging someone for something. Crooked, she pointed her face at the floor. Tears splattered onto the ground, some soaking into the wood of the gun. Her hands found her knees and grabbed onto them tightly, her nails digging into the denim of her jeans. The body was beginning to smell. She cried harder, louder, drowning out the sound of the rain. Something caught in her throat, and her sobs turned to whooping coughs. She threw her head back, unwashed hair falling around her face and sticking to the still wet tears and splattered blood. Violet opened her mouth to breathe and felt vomit threaten to come out. Her throat contracted, choking it down, the effort jarring her back to reality somewhat. Hands raised, she wiped at her face, clearing the hair and tears and snot and blood away from her eyes and mouth and letting herself open, but they wouldn't stop flowing, they wouldn't stop steaming down her face, and her mouth spewed out why Kyle it wasn't his time yet why him why Me why any of us it's my fault my fault my—
Her eyes wandered back to Kyle's remains, and her voice filled the room with terror once more. Her fingers, looking for something to grab onto, dug into her face, her nails lightly piercing the surface of her skin. Reality split at the seams. She dragged them slowly downwards, pulling at her cheeks, wailing into the deluge of oncoming night. The scratches began to draw blood. Violet pulled harder. It wasn't enough. The buzzing of flies began to fill her ears, but if there were any insects around she could not see them. Not through the liquid sorrow gathering at the corners of her sight. Each second she spent wailing made her vocal cords ache more as the pain started to become more prevalent than the need to scream. She raised her voice louder, higher and higher until it stopped not of her own accord. The cords should snap. She deserved that much. Her cries turned silent, her sobs soundless, her whimpers still. Why. The shallow cuts on her face stopped bleeding almost as suddenly as they started, the blood coagulating and sealing itself off.
Eventually, the tears stopped coming. Violet wanted to keep going, to continue being in pain. It prevented her from having to decide what to do next. From having to reflect on what happened now. From moving on with her life. From confronting what she had done. As she realized her body was giving up on her grief, her eyes started to dart around the room. Frenetic, witless, primal, they searched for anything rigid and real. There were cameras, pointed straight at her, located in every other corner of the room. Don't touch that dial. She swallowed back some spittle, the lump in her throat struggling against the collar around her neck. Violet struggled against herself to raise her shaking hands and tug at it so that she could gulp it down, but found herself needing to cough up phlegm instead. Imagined herself inverting, turning inside out, feeling the pain on the inside, outside. The girl leaned towards the ground and coughed it up. What came out and spilled onto the floor was slightly red in color. What should have come out was her heart.
It was there, hunched over her own spilled humours, gasping for air, that Violet finally began to process the weight and reality of what she had just done.
That's it.
She tried to stand up, but found that her legs were shaking too badly to fully support herself. Stumbling away from the body, she found purchase against the wall and used it to bring herself back up onto her feet. It was striking just how thin she felt, like some of her own life had left her. Her face was starting to pulsate with pain, her hands felt barely pulled together by strips of skin, her stomach felt like a mess of garbage and grime, and her soul teased at the idea of pulling away from her body altogether. It took effort not to faint from the physical and emotional strain of keeping herself from fainting, a feedback loop of internal struggle that placed her squarely here, against the wall, staring back out onto the open Temple space from a distance and surveying the full extent of her actions.
I've done it.
Wood chips from the fallen beam mingled with bone splinters and globs of body fluids and blood on the floor. Kyle's arms splayed out in different directions. The exposed remains of the bottom of his face and throat looked almost like a waning crescent moon. His clothes were drenched with his own viscera. Violet's ears rang like church bells. She couldn't tell if it was from the sound of the gunshot or the sound of her own screams, or both. The rain was falling gently outside, pittering against the walls of the temple like the static of a dusty vinyl record.
I've crossed the point of no return.
She lost her footing against the wall and almost collapsed to the floor.
It was one thing to have shot and accidentally wounded someone. It was another to have fired at someone with the intent to kill and then miss, and then to attack someone physically and knock them down. It was an entirely different degree of horrific to have taken another person's life. To have refused to help them in their hour of need—no, to have been unable to do what was necessary. She failed Kyle. It was obvious that he had been in pain, but it wasn't obvious that he would have necessarily died. It was not mercy, but murder. She murdered him. Violet murdered Kyle. Violet murdered one of her best friends.
Fate frowned upon her. She could feel it gazing down and gnashing its teeth, seething with hunger for the chance that it could punish her for what she did. It took all she could muster to keep the feeling from ripping her spirit from her, from tearing her in two. All the beings of all the higher planes of existence saw what she did. All the beings on this plane of existence could see what she had done if they desired. Everyone knew what Violet did, and everyone knew what Violet deserved for it, but it was the beings on the higher planes that made Violet feel irredeemable. Karma was already turned together, and now she could never get it to turn back. In this life, it was certain that things would continue to get worse. There was no other way for them to go, now. Every person she met, every obstacle she faced from here on out—all of it set into motion in order to kill her. In the next life, she was sure to spend several eternities suffering. Burning. Screaming. Violet wondered if Kyle had believed or paid much mind to the idea of Hell.
If she died, she was going to go to hell. The universe was conspiring now to kill her. Everything they threw at her, every trial, every dilemma— it would be worthless and pointless to waste her time and energy on trying to solve it with compassion. She would not be able to muster enough to overturn her karmic debt in positive ways, so, realistically, the only way to move forward now was to sin. To draw on the energies of the places she was condemned to eternities in if she died. It was without humanity. It was necessary for her survival, to prolong her life as much as possible so that she could avoid endless agony in the next life. But that meant that the longer she lived, the more trials she overcame, the more sins she committed in order to survive, the lower she would descend upon death. Violet could not, therefore, afford to at any moment slip up and become vulnerable, physically, mentally, or emotionally, or even spiritually. This was the cycle. Sin, add to karmic debt, be tormented, be confronted with struggle, sin to overcome the struggle, keep going, forever and ever and ever and ever until she fucked up and she died.
Fate had spun its web. Violet had been caught in it.
Finally steadying herself again, she felt able to walk. As large as the room felt, as empty and cavernous the span between herself and the corpse felt like it was, she found it only took a few paces to bring herself back to the body. The gun was at her feet, now. She forced herself to stare at what was left of Kyle. This would not be the first person she killed. It could not be. And it wouldn't be the first friend she would kill. It could not be. And this would not be the first time she'd be faced with these emotions. If she had any hope of redeeming herself afterwards—and it made her feel filthy to already be considering herself with that, the after, the light at the end of the tunnel—then she would have to continue feeling remorse. If she had any hope of making it to a point where she could redeem herself, she'd have to become numb to it.
And all of this because Violet, for all her belief in other worlds and dimensions beyond the material after death, for all her time spent thinking about and feeling the influence of beings above and below this Earthly plane, for all of days spent casting spells and tuning in to higher frequencies of existence, was still, childishly, dearly afraid of death. Not just now, after sealing her own fate, condemning herself to burn and suffer, but before that, too. As small a chance as it was, there was always the possibility that she was wrong. That everything, like her sister said, had a more rational explanatio—
Oh.
Oh, God.
Dana was watching.
It wasn't a question. Dana would be watching. That was an absolute fact. If Violet knew her sister at all, she knew that she would have tuned in at the beginning. She was watching her, a month from now, at this moment, skewered through time, standing over a corpse and barely moving, barely even swaying back and forth with the weight of the world and the scorching pain of her sins on her shoulders, moved very little, showing very little, all spent, all numb. There was once a person here. Dana was watching her. Dana had watched her. Dana was looking over her shoulder, and down her shirt, and into her eyes.
Violet bent down, bringing her face closer to the mess. It was more like a puddle, now.
She reached her hands downward, toward Kyle's arms. She didn't know if her body would even let her do this. Kyle was a gross corpse now, about to be crawling with bugs, crawling with disease and riddled with negative energies, a swirling cursed miasma of death, and here she was, unable to even brush the shoulder sometimes of a normal person without being sent into shock, trying to fold his arms across his chest—to make it clear that he died peacefully, even if that didn't show, not at all, in the splatter that remained. She braced for shudders to crash through her arms, make her lift her own fingers away and take her far, far away from here, careening through the woods yet again, stumbling and falling and slicing herself open, this time with nobody who wanted to help her. Violet braced for the pain. Anticipated it. She wrapped her hands around his wrists.
Nothing.
For a moment, Violet stood there, holding Kyle's hands.
Just
breathing.
Kyle was dead. He couldn't touch her.
She was in control.
There was nothing to fear. No intentions to doubt.
But she folded his arms across his chest like she promised herself, and then backed away. Picked her gun up off of the ground, and put it back in her bag. Then, she opened her secondary bag, with the robe inside. Violet never had to explain it to Kyle. It never came up in conversation. He never saw it. She wrapped herself in it, hoping it'd keep her dry as she set out in the rain. The gun came back out of the bag. It only needed to have been put away while she was looking for her robe, anyway. She figured from now on she'd need to have it out at all times. If she had a karmic debt to repay, she needed it. Things would only get worse. The damage would only get worse. The bodies would only pile up higher, now. That was just the way that things needed to be. It was a necessity. It was a necessity. It was a necessity.
She kept telling herself that as she set off into the rain.
[Violet Schmidt continued in "...we must try until it kills us.".]