NOTE: This isn't about Christian content (yet), but it'll be bad for Rika-lovers.
Chapter 5: Peak and Rising
Joe shook his head. "It's the best I can do, Blackwargreymon. It'll scar, but you'll survive."
"It will have to suffice. And I would actually enjoy a few battle scars."
"But without proper nourishment, you'll never recover, and nourishment is a problem."
"I understand that much. Energy for energy, there is more to be gained from hunting for deer than there is to be lost."
"I hope so. Under normal circumstances, I'd tell you not to go out again, but we may need you to, and you may need you to so that you can go hunting and get enough meat to recover."
"One bad arm doesn't stop me from hunting," Blackwargreymon answered. "It only makes it difficult for me to carry back what I find."
"That's not good. Sounds like our best option is to actually give you leave. That way, you'll stay in the woods and get enough meat to live until you recover from your wounds."
"That would, indeed, be the most helpful to me. But wouldn't that put you at a loss?"
Joe shook his head. "If you don't recover from that wound, we'll lose you forever. If you recover this way, then we'll lose you temporarily."
"Put that way, I can see your gain. And I need to recover my weapons…one of my gauntlets and my shield are gone form previous fights with the Human Traitor."
"Just watch your back while you're out there," Joe cautioned.
******
"We have unsettling news, sir."
"What have you to report?"
"It is that the sample we took was damaged and does not grant us all that we expected to gain: we cannot copy it. We lack the resources necessary. But all is not lost."
"Go on."
"We will yet be able to learn how to achieve our goal from the data we collected. And we have another option: should we find a similar creature, we will be able to reproduce the necessary elements. Or if this one lives, we will succeed. There is still the hurdle of overcoming the ultimate barrier, but that shouldn't prove a problem for long."
The sub-major had a pensive look on his face.
"I am at your disposal, sir."
"I see more to be gained from your continued life than to be gained from your termination from this failure. Continue the project, and begin another project to find a substitute."
******
Renamon bandaged Rika's wounds up without knowing what to say to her…so she didn't say anything. Rika didn't say anything, either, but she had a spiteful, pensive look on her face the entire time: the look of someone who was planning a murder. Renamon didn't want to guess what was going through Rika's head, so she didn't.
Renamon took Rika back to the room where they had been staying, and, by now, it was time for them to go to sleep. Renamon wrapped Rika in whatever blankets they could get their hands on, and rested her head on a few balled-up jackets as a pillow. Renamon hoped Rika would be over it by morning.
Rika wasn't so optimistic: she didn't expect to need to put up with the cold or poor-quality bedding for long. As soon as she knew that Renamon was asleep she silently and slowly got up, and walked to the janitor's closet. She'd heard time and time again that it was the worst cleaning no-no to mix bleach and ammonia, because that would create some sort of poison fume that was unbelievably deadly. She hoped it was true, and she hoped that she'd be able to find something with ammonia in it in the closet.
A chill ran up her spine as the janitor's closet door made a noise as she opened it. She looked around. Nobody seemed to be looking back at her; she hadn't awoken anybody. She fumbled around for bottles full of liquid, and she finally found a bottle of window cleaner and a bottle of bleach. That was enough.
Rika took both bottles and walked slowly into the bathroom. She kept her eyes on the two bottles the entire time. She knelt on the tile floor, holding the two bottles, and looked more introspective than Prince Hamlet during a soliloquy. She was breathing heavily, and beads of ice cold sweat trickled down her face. This was it, and Rika was having second thoughts. The idea of her own death felt strange…as if some unseen force was holding her back. She definitely felt fear, but she felt something else---she'd never felt this kind of fear before. There were two forces in her brain: one telling her to end her misery and her beatings, and another telling her to endure those beatings. Both sides were tearing at her: how does her present suffering compare with what was on the other side of death? Was there a hell over there which would be even worse than this, where Tina would annoy her for all eternity, or where she'd constantly be beaten with a whip? Or was it just inexistence…?
Either possibility was terrifying: what was inexistence like? She didn't remember before she was born, and before that was supposedly inexistence. So inexistence was where she came from; why was she so terrified of going back? She couldn't remember anything before her birth, or even anything before her second birthday. If before her second birthday was what inexistence was like, then death wasn't hell at all. But then again…
Rika sat there, wondering whether or not she should go the whole nine yards and kill herself. She felt unbelievably torn, and tears soon mixed with the cold sweat that covered her face. Her hands shook, her teeth chattered, and her breathing was so loud she wondered if she wouldn't wake up the others with it.
Finally, Rika told herself, Enough of this! If I don't go through with this, I won't be able to live with myself! What's the alternative to pouring the bleach and ammonia together? It's to put this stuff back and sit down with Renamon again. Put this stuff back, when I've come this far?? Never! I can't do that! So, with a shaking hand, she poured the ammonia out on the bathroom floor. She didn't leave a drop in the bottle; she wanted there to be enough fumes to make the death work.
Now, it was time for the other bottle. Rika could've wet her pants with all the fear that suddenly gripped her. She thought she heard a voice say, "Don't, child," in her head. She was terrified, and the bottle of bleach shook in her hands. But she uncapped the bottle, and began to tilt it towards the puddle of ammonia…