I suppose it's not the furthest future but it's been a while- here's a second chapter. Hopefully there'll be another in a month or so but it depends how much time I have and how long everything else I have to do takes.


The ceiling is dull, colour taken by the years of ruin and harsh weather and all the tiles missing.

Beneath it Fai shifts, brow furrowing as her breath stutters and she wakes up.

She shoots upright, eyes wide as she slumps forwards, forearms over her knees. Her spine curves and straightens with every breath as her eyes narrow in shock at the sudden intake of light.

"Fuck!" She gasps, hands going to her eyelids as she rubs them in confusion.

There's a few moments as she just holds her palms against her face.

"Fuck." She whispers, voice quivering as she sits on the utilitarian bed as still as the desert's bedrock.

Fai lets her arms slip around herself, hugging herself together, cataloguing the strange new sensations and trying to piece together what has happened through a veil of intense pain and shouting and so much red.

Like blood and anger.

Like his eyes.

The woman stays there for as long as she can, silent sobs held in by her hands.

Fai chokes on her tears, trying to swallow the anger and the betrayal and the remorse. Remorse and failure and hate and how could he-

No one visits. She's glad for this at least.

Eventually she manages to uncurl from her ball. Small crescents have etched themselves into her skin by the time she's removed her nails.

There's something calming in the sharp sting of the new wounds. She is distantly aware that the scratches are oozing blood but can't seem to find a reason to care.

It's what she deserves for everything she's done. If she had just died she could have atoned. If they had just let her die-

The woman sits, staring dully ahead. Her legs stretch out before her, limp between the blood soaked sheets, and her hands rest limply in her lap. The turtleneck top is pulled tight, stiff with dried blood- mostly hers- constricting her chest.

She can't bring herself to care about that either.

Somehow she seems paler than before, face washed out by trauma and the contrast with the red around her eyes, swollen from her crying. The tracks still linger on her cheeks which shine with guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt.

There's a buzzing in her head as she avoids looking at herself which only increases in pitch.

Guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt.

The wall opposite is dull, unmoved, stone.

Guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt.

It is still opposite him. It sees nothing and hears nothing.

Guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt.

The stone is uncaring, flat, dead.

Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.

Fai looks down and sobs openly, clenching her teeth.

The irrefutable proof is there. In sight and sensation but not in spirit- never in spirit.

The new woman bites down on her tongue hard, feeling the imprint of every tooth as it digs into the muscle.

She deserves as much.