Description:
Fanfiction based on: "Saw", "The Hunger Games". (I actually came up with it before the Hunger Games, but it's a good reference for you to imagine what has happened before. I can give credit to the Hunger Games for the name Rue.) This relates to the background of this story. What is happening right know in the story is my own idea. (- The "Afterlife")
The title of this story is inspired by the song "Anything for You" by the amazing band EVANESCENCE.
The cover pic of this story (which is also my avatar :3 ) shows Rue. The writing on it says "Society gives me shit". I leave this to your own interpretation but it basically has to do with society's way of dealing with "out of normal". Sorry guys, took me all that effort to make the pic and then FF wouldn't upload it in its entire size - only a downsized version of it where some letters were cut off.
Keywords: Darkness, suicidal, emo, gay romance
THIS STORY IS NOT FUNNY! Although I wish you fun reading it, please consider not reading it if you get saddened or depressed easily. BUT, there's one thing for sure, as hopeless as things can sometimes be... Every cloud has a silver lining. I know 'cause I've been there, too
What happened previously:
During an internship in a multinational company, the young student Rue falls in love with her boss Federica. Unluckily for Rue, Federica is years older, happily married and not interested in girls. Misunderstood by her parents and unhappy from her unreturned feelings, she anonymously starts blogging about her situation in a dubious online community. Shortly after, she is kidnapped and forced to join a competition called "Anything for You" that is broadcast online all over the world. The goal is to be the last person alive and win the competition. If she fails, Federica has to die.
Rue masters the competition and saves Federica. However, she is unable to save two of her friends, who die. Her forced participation in the "Anything for You" show physically and emotionally destroys her. To make it through the show, she has to sacrifice parts of her humanity and empathy. Although she survives, her life after the show is anything but nice. Two years later, Rue gives a speech at the annual "Survivor's Conference" in Rome, Italy, where she makes an unexpected encounter...
"
Ladies and Gentlemen... let me tell you something. First things first – I really don't wanna be here tonight. Speaking in front of a large audience that expects me to come up with some sort of a hero story, which I am, unfortunately, incapable of. I know that, surprisingly, a have a few supporters among you. Otherwise I wouldn't have been invited to speak tonight, right? But there's also a bunch of haters around, I guess… I totally understand you guys. The truth is, I count myself to the haters.
But let's get back to business, 'cause this is all tonight is about for me. I assume that you are aware of those ridiculously detailed insights I've been sharing on my countless social media accounts and throughout my print publications. They are insights into a life I long to forget more than anything else. Thinking about my past hurts me, each and every single day. It feels like suffocation. It takes my breath away and makes me wanna sleep and never wake up again. I've become so tired of it all, really. You know, of everything. This life, after all. Thinking about the mistakes I've made and that I keep making, over and over again. To be honest, all I do this for tonight is the money. I'm telling you this and I have been telling you this frankly and sincerely all the time. I have to earn my living, or else I would just die. A thought that is not as unpleasant as it should probably be, but I don't wanna ruin all my therapist's work. He gets well-paid by my manager to keep me alive. No, seriously, I've got my reasons.
Why doesn't she just do something else, you might wonder? I can tell you, I've tried everything. Really. But think twice. Who in this fucking brutal world would give the AFY survivor a job?
There's not much fun in listening to my story. I'd love to get it over with quickly, so we can all go home or listen to some more nice and cosy stories like the one of the girl who risked her life and got her arm burned when rescuing her little brother from a fire. No offense, I'm impressed and you've got all my due respect. I wish I could be that great of a person!
Let me introduce you to my manager Ron. No matter what you might have heard or will hear in the next few minutes from me, he's a good guy. He's honest, never plays games. Of course he uses me as his cash cow. Apparently, I'm a reasonably good revenue source. I don't blame him. In fact, the opposite applies. Ron never lies to me. I know that the majority of my earnings flow into his pockets, and he's very open about it. I am aware that he'll turn his back on me as soon as I lose my unexplainable popularity. He made that very clear to me. It's a mad and manipulative world but he's one of the few reliable constants in my life. Cheers to Ron!
I brought Ron into play because he urgently asked me to prepare a speech of at least thirty minutes, so I could satisfy your never-ending hunger for dramatic fates and unhappy endings. To be perfectly honest, I don't feel like looking back at all that crap but the money is alright. Survivor's Conference is fucking posh, I guess. Sorry for swearing all the time, by the way. As you guys are as fucking posh as I just said, I should probably mind my language. I guess y'all are scared as hell by the way I've changed during these two years since my infamous rise to a global celebrity. Fall is probably the more suitable word to describe it, though. Ever since I first appeared on the realest and scariest show in the history of video broadcasting, I have constantly fallen. This very moment, I'm falling. There's voices in my head telling me to die.
When I woke up at a hospital somewhere in South East Asia, with a huge scar all over my waist and a fingertip less, I felt as lonely as I had never felt in my life. I had a scary feeling of there being no going back. And it should turn out that I was right.
When getting back to my parents, to the house I used to call home, everything had changed. I couldn't even look my parents in the eye. All of a sudden, they would start crying. My little sister wouldn't speak a single word to me. Instead, she started cutting her wrist, imitating what she had seen me do on the show. There was dead silence all over the place. It destroyed me. All the weight laying on my shoulders seemed to drag me down into a black hole that was so deep I couldn't even guess where, or if, it had a bottom. I sure as hell wanted to crash on that bottom. At some point, I just couldn't take it anymore? As I started confronting my parents, they wouldn't fight back. I realised that they just didn't love me anymore. I was no longer their daughter.
I have done things that are so cruel that they are not worth being talked about. All for a woman who wouldn't even show up once in these two years to give me any sign of acknowledgement for saving her life over and over again. I don't care that much about my personal sacrifices. Losing my fingertip and my mental sanity is not worth a mention. However, two of my friends and many other innocent people died. Every day I keep thinking that I could have saved two lives worthier of being saved than my own. It's kinda sad that she doesn't seem to see this. Maybe she puts all the blame for how it all turned out on me, which she's perfectly entitled to. But if it hadn't been to save her, they could still be alive.
It might seem cruel, after all I've been through just for her, but I decided to get over her. She's not my all anymore. She's just another bad decision in my life, and after her, there were many more to come. Let me tell you a little more about them because my manager obviously expects me to. It wasn't my choice, you know. Well, it was, in some way, I guess. I hired him, and he's done a good job at capitalising on my life so far. Sorry, talking too much. Beating about the bush. I should just get it over with.
Uhm… it's very hard, you know. After waking up that day in the hospital, silently screaming to God why He hadn't just let me die, and after days and days of slowly getting better, and after these things that all turned wrong between me and my parents, I was a wreck. I moved out from my parents' house. The first months were like hell. I had a whole lot of interviews, press appointments, stuff like that. Making you remember the things you want to forget so badly all day long. Making you speak of them. Now that I'm speaking here, I find it hard and mostly sad to believe that I haven't moved from that point in those two years. Anyway, I had no place to stay, and interest in my story declined soon when I announced that I could no longer bear to talk about it. I needed a new job.
Of course, no one would employ me. I basically made a fool out of myself, knocking on every company's door and pitching myself with my oh-so brilliant degree. I didn't get a single invitation for a job interview. After weeks and weeks of setbacks, I started doing drugs. Not the harmless ones. Not alcohol, weed… I was soon done with overdoing the booze. It just didn't make me numb enough. So I went for the really nasty shit. Believe me, you don't wanna hear that part. And if you still don't feel like listening to my advice, get your hands on a copy of my latest book. Don't say I didn't warn you – it comes with a price that goes beyond money. You probably won't be able to sleep well at night anymore.
I needed to fund my drug abuse, so I started… let's call it, connecting with the right people who would support me without asking questions. Not the usual guys. They would give you 100 bucks and you gotta do some pretty nasty things, too. It's all gross. It was the excentric upper class that I managed to attract to my services. Some tried to buy my mind, too, but I always drew clear lines. Once, one of these millionaires tried to pretend he had feelings for me. I told him off. I said, we both know what this is about, and it's about anything but love. He admitted I was right. That's my philosophy: No lies. Be real or get the hell away from me. You can tell me anything, no matter if it hurts me. Nothing hurts as badly as being comforted with hypocrisy and lies. It's a matter of respect when people actually find the courage to look me in the eye and tell me what they really think. Don't try to spare me – I can take it.
After all of these things happening, all of a sudden I moved into the focus of the press again. They would stay on my trail all night long just to get that one really shocking photo of me totally stoned under that sixty year-old CEO in his car, while his oh-so conservative wife was videotaping. I'm not making this up, guys. This world is ugly. I think I've said enough. I don't wanna speak about this again. I feel dirty and broken. Even the thought of my first year after "Anything for You" makes me wanna vomit my guts out.
At some point, my parents intervened. It seems as if they did still care about me, after all. I was put into the closed psychiatry. They paid for my therapist sessions and stuff. I should be grateful, but all I feel is emptiness inside me. During all these months, they didn't come to see me once. I could have used some love. Or at least someone who still liked me a little bit. I've been through a fuckload of crap no one should ever even have to watch, and I still have miles to go before I can begin to think about what "normality" could mean for someone like me, and how I could ever possibly reach out for it. I keep wondering why my life has turned out this way. Was it destiny? Was I predestined to become the person I am, with all my social issues, that never-ending need for love that will eventually kill me?
After I got out, I met Ron. I met him by chance in a café in London. After finally being released, I decided that I urgently needed to leave the country. There was nothing left for me there but pain and bad memories. So I moved to the UK and settled down in London. I had no idea what to do and where to go. I needed a home and a job to pay back all the money my parents had wasted on me. It's just like, I don't wanna owe them. We've gone our separate ways now, and that's alright. I guess it's much easier for them without me. Wherever I go, I keep turning into a burden for everyone around sooner or later.
I've been thinking that perhaps, my time has just come. But then I keep getting back to the point where I tell myself, if I go now, others have died for nothing. They could have lived, but they died so I could live. So I have no choice but to keep going with this life. A life that will never be filled with love. I could never open up to love after all I've done. My shrink and Ron keep telling me that all these deaths were not my fault. That I should start forgiving myself and accepting that I did the right thing given the circumstances. But how could this ever have been the right thing to do?
In that very moment that I decided to die for Federica,…"
I suddenly stocked when that name left my lips. There was something in the air, and a bad feeling was creeping up insight me. I couldn't help but scan the audience for a face I knew better than it was good for me. The thought of having seen something – or someone – filled me with anxiety, and as I moved my view across the room, I suddenly knew very clearly that I was doomed.
There she was. Sitting there, pretty as never before, watching me speak with a petrified expression on her beautiful face. Surely, my speech was a lot for her to take tonight. In that moment, I got struck by the feeling that all my progress during the last months, or even years, had vanished in an instant. Overwhelmed by this realisation, I was no longer to breathe. I was as drawn to and dependent on Federica as on the very first day. Silence settled in the large hall. My audience fixated me with intrigued looks in their eyes.
TBC... What will happen after Rue sees Federica? Will she fall for her again? Or will she stay strong and adhere to her decision to get over Federica?