Susie wanted to die a little less every day. That might have been comforting, if she didn't suspect that the part of her begging for an out was the only thing that was still Susie.
It was hardest when she was her. Her her, her body, though if she had to stand in front of a podium and declare it to be hers within the full extent of the law, she didn't think she could anymore. That sanctity had been crossed, double crossed, and pissed on more times than she could count.
You're even starting to sound like me, SuzWhen she was Her, it was an invasion, a handful of whispers swarming her mind while she was reluctantly straddling the pilot's seat. At least when someone else was hunting, she was just another part, a passenger, some distant impression of a once-person who was now…something else.
She pressed her knee to the back of the female survivor—Braids, that's what Joe sometimes called her when he tried to get Susie back on track—and breathed through a clenched jaw. Braids gasped into the dirty snow, but froze, waiting for whatever the monster wanted.
You have a gift from the Entity. Might as well use it. C'mon, I've been itching to try this baby out.She tried to reason. To say she should save it, that she hadn't even managed to catch anyone else. But the protests fell pathetically, sounding lame even to her.
No hon, that's just us.In the midst of the foggy hesitation, a knee slipped in the mud, and Braids was up and running. Susie swiped, missed, but something in her told her the leg the leg the leg-
A punch to the knee and Braids was down again, Susie clambering on top, the knife's movement so natural she might have been doing this her whole life. Braids blocked, but Susie tossed it easily aside, her second swing coming straight down into the girl's chest.
Pf. "Girl." She's barely older than us.Braids stopped fighting. Susie got to her feet, one knee at a time, and stalked away.
She used to be on the debate team. Funny, right? But Julie had gotten into cheerleading, and Susie didn't have any one else to hang around with sophomore year, and she was hopeless, desperate, for any friends. Something about the way that any thought could be articulated, that every body of work had supporting evidence, appealed to her, and she found that maybe she had a calling here amongst the most tight-ass of the high school hierarchy. In debate, you prepared an argument for both sides, no biases, only cold hard facts and it wasn't until the day of that your side was assigned for you.
A purpose that required no belief, no conviction. It was something she could get behind.
Things didn't pan out, obviously. Not because she finally lifted her head above the water and saw that the rationalism they always toted was a farce, but for the sheer fact that she sucked at debate.
She never was good at making herself heard.
Absently, she wiped the knife on her sleeve, her mind buzzing with a dozen different instructions.
Three more, still no hooks. Have we checked near the lodge lately? Somebody always tries it. God! This shit's in my boots! We better go somewhere without snow next time, otherwise I'm going on strike.She huffed, breath hanging in the air, and wished she could be as loud as everyone else. Or at least, wished her ears would just be quiet.
