LV: The Capitol - Rose Point Estate.
Icarus Devereux, 17
Applicant #10
He should've known with how today had gone.
He said he didn't have nightmares. Maybe his brain wasn't wired that way.
And maybe he's wrong, too. He doesn't know anymore.
The worst part is he knows where he is when his eyes are open, and it's not where he fell asleep. He's on his feet, now, and the air is cold, cold like it was back in November. He's not wearing a coat this time like he was back then. None of it seems very sensible.
He hadn't meant to fall asleep, he doesn't think. His intention had been to get Soran to sleep and then help the others, to figure this out. Had he laid back to rest just a second too long, enough to go under? It seems that way. And now he's dreaming, lost in an unusual space except it's familiar. This was the time of year that One got properly scary - the only time, really. Everything was gray and bleak and the trees stretched up into the sky like skeletons. The wind would get so cold before the snow started falling that it could freeze you where you were standing.
What he told Soran wasn't a lie - none of his nightmares were really that. They were just memories. Twisted, awful versions of them.
Except this isn't twisted. It's normal. It's how everything looked in the long, cold days after she died.
The cemetery looks the same. Stark and empty, splashes of artificial flowers dotted in the middle. All the way down the row where he knows she is there's no headstone; there wasn't, not until a few weeks after. Apparently things like that took a while to get made. He hadn't had a single clue until then.
The worst part is the dirt, still overturned and in a heap where it was disturbed. It doesn't look like that now. It's evened out. The grass has grown over it.
It's harder to look at like this.
There's really no one here. Usually there's at least one; if not another visitor, than a groundskeeper somewhere off in the distance. No matter how far he looks there's nothing. Even One on the fringes looks like it's barely there, a few distinct shades of gray and nothing more.
He looks back and she's there, somehow. Estella in all her glory.
Not really, though. She looks even fainter than the skyline did, shimmering in places. See through. She's looking right at him, expressionless, but she looks good for lack of a better term, even half-there. She looks like she did before all of this happened - healthy and every-day normal, no shadows plaguing her face. It was an image he was forgetting quicker than he would have liked.
There was never anything to fear, and she's not really there. He knows it even as he gets closer closer, until he's standing at the opposite side of the mound from her. It doesn't even look like she's really standing.
Because she's not.
"This isn't real," he tells her. It feels like a point he has to prove.
"Did you think it was?"
Her voice is jarring, and he finds himself flinching, but keeps his feet planted where they are. She smiles, just the littlest thing. Okay, maybe it is twisted, then.
"No."
"You always were a hard one to fool."
"That's me," he says weakly. He feels paper thin right about now, like someone could put a hole straight though him. He knows she's not, but she looks so real. She's standing on top of her own grave but she looks real.
He's standing on it too, he realizes. He looks down and kicks at some of it, trying to put himself back on even ground.
"You're going to end up in one of these in a few days," she says, so calmly that he doesn't even have the nerve to look up at her. "How do you feel about that?"
"How do you feel about that?"
"About myself, or you?"
"Both."
She laughs. It's finally something that sounds artificial. It never did before. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Why are you talking to me then if you're not going to tell me?"
"Oh, this isn't me talking to you, babe. This is all your own head."
Well, that's a lovely thing to have confirmed. He was already aware that he was sleeping, thank you very much. Trust his stupid fucking brain to make all of this up and put her here too when he was working on letting go of her. When he was making progress.
"I know you don't think you wanna die, but are you sure?"
"I don't."
"Then why are you here?"
"I didn't ask to be here."
"Then why are you here?" she repeats. "I'm the one that's already dead; you're the one standing over a grave right now."
Fuck, he is, isn't he? He doesn't know why.
"You were sure you didn't want to die?"
"I was."
"But not anymore?" she guesses.
"It's not like it fucking matters, does it?" he spits. "It's like you said, I'm gonna be dead in a few days anyway."
"But you could do it right now, too," she tells him. "Just go to sleep and never wake up. That's what I did. It didn't hurt any. It was just going to sleep."
He didn't want to go to sleep in the first place - he didn't. He wanted nothing to do with that. He had things to do, things to figure out, and now he's here and he doesn't fucking want to be. Or maybe he does. His brain certainly wants to be. He doesn't know anymore, and that's the worst part. Everything is too fast and too confusing. And she's not telling the truth, either, because it's not painless. It fucking hurts.
She holds out a hand. It looks completely solid, but he's not sure he could grab onto it.
Not without repercussions.
He should step away, too, but he doesn't. He knows why.
"You could come with me, you know," she offers. That's exactly what her hand is - an offer.
"I can't."
"You can, though. Like I said, it's easy. The easiest way to go."
And it would take one second, too. All he'd have to do is grab onto her hand and hold on for dear life and then life itself would be over. He could go down easy, where nothing ever happened, where it was finally quiet.
Where everything was painless, just the way he wanted.
"I can't," he says again. "I— I can't."
Can he?
Her face darkens, and she vanishes. He's left standing there on the mound alone as the temperature drops again, several degrees all at once. He's left shaking there in the dirt with no one there. It still doesn't feel like anything's real.
Something lashes around his ankle, whipcord tight, something sharp digging into his skin.
And then the air's gone.
He's getting dragged underground.
It's moments that don't even feel that long. Waist, shoulders, head, and then the last grip his left hand has on the top of the mound disappears as he's dragged below it into the earth underneath. Everything plunges into darkness, every inch of him left exposed to the dirt swallowing him whole. That grip is still there, too, pulling him ever so further down.
There's dirt in his mouth and filling his throat. He can't breathe. Even if it would let go, even if he had time to get back up, he can't breathe. He's choking to death underground surrounded by the earth and he's got no way out.
He didn't even know if he wanted to die. He had no idea.
And he is, and it hurts like hell, and then he wakes up.
There's light, suddenly. The room's not all the way dark; he wasn't meant to fall asleep. He knows that now. In his quest to free himself from the bed he hits the nightstand and then the floor in one spectacularly graceless roll, on his hands and knees. That's where he stays when he finds out, quite suddenly, that none of his limbs are working. He's fucking broken.
And he's still drowning, too. There's dirt all the way down his throat, into his lungs. He can't breathe through it.
He retches once, and once he starts he can't stop. He even goes so far as to stick a hand into the corners of his mouth to scoop some of it away, but nothing comes out. All he gets for it trouble is a choking fit that doesn't stop when he almost jams his whole hand down his throat and nearly vomits onto the carpet.
A hand touches his back, or at least something does, and he chokes again and flinches all in the same beat. He almost starts dragging himself in the opposite direction but his arms can't cooperate to do so.
"You know it's me, right?" Soran says, and he nearly starts crying at the sound of his voice. There's been a lot of that going around for him tonight.
"No," he chokes. "No, I didn't, I—"
He doesn't know. He doesn't know anything. When has he?
He chances a glance over. His eyes are so blurry with unshed tears that he can barely see Soran crouched to his right hand, one hand outstretched. The one that touched him in the first place. It looks like her hand did before she rescinded it, before she tried to drag him under too.
And Soran's not going to do that, is he?
He hopes not.
There are tears down his face, now. He doesn't know if he's really crying or if his eyes just couldn't hold anymore after the choking. The taste of dirt is still heavy in the back of his throat, clinging there stubbornly. It wasn't ever there because none of it was ever real, and he knew that.
Nothing like that should seem so real.
"I'm sorry," he manages eventually, though he still can't move. Baby steps.
"For what?"
"I don't know. I don't know if I want to live, either."
"What changed in the past eight hours for you to get to that point?"
"I don't know," he repeats. "I don't know. I'm sorry."
His hand is still there, hovering inches away. Is he ever going to drop it? Icarus doesn't know what either of them are hoping for, at this point. Soran's not going to hurt him because that's not a thing anymore, never was in the worst sense. He's definitely no longer in the department of actively trying to kill him. So what's he afraid of, then? The unblurred line between tears coming out because there was no place for them to be held and outright crying? He's pretty sure he's crying now. All of it hurts too bad for him to not be crying.
He can't even begin to grasp at how he felt earlier. The anger is gone, the determination. He's exhausted.
Icarus resists the overwhelming urge to collapse to the ground and shuffles over a few inches, still on his hands and knees. He senses the moment Soran's hand leaves open air and hovers over his back against instead. It's still not dropping.
He waits there until it does, though, where it settles gently between his shoulders and stays there. There's no pressure whatsoever, just the softest, somehow most reassuring weight and his thumb stroking slowly back and forth where it lands.
Okay, everything's fine. His skin is crawling, coming alive with everything that was there underground with him for a minute, but he's fine.
He looks over again. Soran hasn't moved an inch beyond that and is just staring at him, looking confused and slightly concerned, maybe. The confusion he gets; he's still there himself. The concern, though, that's new. Soran's concerned and it's directed at him. That's weird.
He might cry a little bit harder at the thought of that, but Soran doesn't comment. He's probably just getting used to Icarus crying on the floor.
"I don't think you wanna die," Soran says eventually.
"I'm glad one of us thinks that."
His voice is hoarse like he was screaming, like he hadn't used it for days. No, he was just dying, choking and dying and suffering all over again.
"You really don't think that?" he continues. He probably sounds desperate.
"I don't, no."
"Okay," he settles on. He still sounds like he's dying. If Soran thinks that then maybe that's enough for now. It sort of has to be.
"You're okay," Soran says.
"You believe that?"
"You told me that, once, and it turned out to be true. So yeah, I do."
Are they just going to keep reversing positions until one of them dies? One of them huddled up on the floor, the other one dealing with it? At least Soran hasn't burst into tears on him yet; he might not survive that. Either of them, honestly.
He nods. The truth works in mysterious ways, but at least it works at all.
Soran's okay now, so maybe he might be soon. He might die before he gets there, just like Estella so helpfully reminded him.
Even if he's not, at least he didn't give in now. At least he lived while he had the chance to.
That might mean more than he thinks, when the end comes.
Soran Faerber, 19
Applicant #8
They sit that way for the better part of a half hour.
He doesn't allow himself to move even though it feels like he should be doing something else. Icarus actively tried to get away from him the first time he tried like the touch had burned him, like it was worse than what Soran knew it was. That was clearly the case.
So he just... sits there, really, and lets Icarus come to him. And he does, in little increments. First he slides over some more, until Soran's arm is draped all the way across his back. He keeps his hand where it is. Eventually, and in a painfully slow manner, he leans over and drops his chin onto the back of Icarus' shoulder. He's still deliriously tired, and his neck has started to hurt for whatever possible reason it could be fucking hurting now. Icarus leans in again and nudges him at the action, but not away.
He stays where he is.
It ends with Icarus practically half in his lap, but not really clinging onto him. He's holding onto himself more than anything.
Soran knows the feeling of trying to keep yourself together all too well.
He's still unfamiliar with the navigation of all of this. It feels like he should ask - he wouldn't want anyone asking him, but people are different. Maybe Icarus wants him to. On the other hand it appears as if he's gone mute, which is a rarity. Soran doesn't know if he would get anywhere right now even if he did ask. The best course might be to continue as he's doing and just let Icarus do or say whatever he wants on his own terms.
He shifts a bit, and Soran's chin knocks into his shoulder again. He's back to rubbing anxiously at his throat, nails scraping against skin. There's ugly blotches of red spread from the top of his neck to the bottom.
He's not going to ask.
"Do you want me to get you something?" he asks instead. It's a safer route, one that he knows.
He knows all about leaving, but at least this time he'd come back.
"Like what?"
"I don't know, a drink or something? Food? You sound like you've been hacking up your lungs for a week."
That he has experience with. It was totally different, and he's all too aware of that. After all he wasn't the one practically sticking his whole arm down his throat like he was trying to make the entire contents of his stomach come back up. Soran still feels his whole body heave occasionally like he's about to throw up before he calms himself back down.
Icarus sits up a bit, though he's still sitting on him and now his bony ass knees are jabbing into Soran's ribs.
They're trading off looking like they've been through the ringer. He's not sure what would happen if they both went down the tubes at the same time. It feels like a social experiment waiting to happen.
"You should be asleep," Icarus settles on, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He looks like he should be asleep, and Soran was, to be fair. He was until Icarus kicked him and nearly sent him flying out the other side of the bed in his quest to get out of it and onto the floor, no further progress to be had.
"So I should," he agrees. "But I'm not, so."
"Just to the kitchen?"
"I'll come right back."
He feels like a broken record having to keep making that promise. He knows what it feels like to be on the opposite end of it. Icarus had said he'd come back for him in the library and he tried, but he didn't. Not before other people intervened and got in-between them. He still remembers the sounds of the officers walking in and how faraway the noise had seemed until he had looked up and saw them. Until he had seen that it wasn't Icarus.
It was overwhelming dread. A lot of it. It had almost consumed him.
He waits, digging deep for the ever-growing pool of patience he knows is somewhere inside him. Icarus stares and stares, and it goes on for at least a minute before he gives up and eases off of Soran back onto the floor. It's as close to permission as he knows he's going to get.
"I'll be right back," he promises, getting to his feet. Icarus nods but he's already focused back on the floor again, knees curled up to his chest and arms held tight around the entire package of him.
He doesn't have all the time in the world, though he wishes he did.
At least the kitchen isn't a far journey. Just a few hallways and downstairs, into the next wing over. You know, before all of this he wouldn't even think the energy it took to walk that far for food would even be worth it. If you had to burn more than you were getting how could it be? Now it's just routine, him walking six miles to get a snack or anything otherwise.
There's someone else on the stairs - he hears them coming from a ways off. It has to be one of the others at this point who may or may not be in possession of his dumb list. Very few people at this point have the energy to stay awake otherwise.
It's not any of them, though. For a moment he doesn't recognize her at all.
It takes him longer than it should. She's coming up towards him and when he hits the top stair she actually falters, not even half a second long before she puts her raised foot back on solid ground. He saw it, though.
They've both stopped moving. If he was sensible he'd walk right past her and continue to the kitchen.
He's not sensible.
"Should I say nice to finally meet you, or?" he asks slowly. That's it, poke the beast that Evander's apparently spent so long trying to keep away from him. She doesn't look like much of a beast; aging and thinning out, fair-skinned and fair-haired. She looks nothing like her kids which is perhaps why he's never thought he really fit with them perfectly either.
It explains it, honestly.
"Only if you'll forgive me for not saying it back," Kerensa answers. Oh, so that's how they're doing this? And to think he was going to be cordial.
She continues on what appears to be her merry way, cresting the top of the stairs so that she's only two or three feet away, watching him like a hawk. She has the beady little eyes for what.
"Trying to sneak off again, are we?"
He smiles. "Twenty-four-seven security lockdown - don't think I'm going to chance it."
"Wouldn't want to risk anything else happening to you, I suppose," she remarks. "What did happen to your face?"
"What can I say, I'm clumsy."
"My son wouldn't give me a straight answer either. Is it for the best that I don't know what's going on under my own roof?"
"Oh, definitely."
When he expects her to sour at that she doesn't; quite the opposite, in fact. She almost looks, dare he say it, satisfied? Maybe she enjoys his face looking like a piece of fruit that got kicked around on a market floor.
"You look like you put up a fight."
"Always."
"You're better at that than your father was."
First Carnelia, now her. Do people just enjoy dragging this man's name through the mud like he really did anything wrong, including his own wife? Objectively Soran has a lot of room to hate him, a lot of good reasons for it, but that still doesn't mean he was a beyond awful, fucked up person. The one he's looking at now is probably worse than he ever was.
The worst type of people were the one's who's deaths got drawn out, because they deserved it. If he was really, truly bad, Carnelia wouldn't have ended his life in a split second.
"Well, you'll be rid of me too, in a few days." He shrugs. "Turns out you can't fight off a lethal injection any more than you can a bullet to the head."
Unless you're Ferrox Mervaine, apparently, but whatever. He doesn't fucking count in this scenario. And considering he's already saved Soran's life once he probably doesn't have any room to rag on the guy.
"You don't seem like the type of person to accept that so easily," she observes. It's a good thing she doesn't really know him, or he wouldn't like the look she was giving him one bit. It can't scare him if he doesn't let her close enough, and he doesn't plan on it.
"It's not about accepting it. Everyone's gotta bite it sooner or later. Even Carnelia Trevall. There's no running from it."
"There is," she says. She sounds like every bit the politician herself, manipulative and convincing. "I'd say she had more of a hand in her own death than you did. The coroner's office finalized the autopsy report a few days ago - cancer. She was full of it. They think it started in her kidney and had been metastasizing out for quite some time. It was in her liver, her bones. She had months to live, if that. And instead of dying weak and sickly in her sleep she went out the way she wanted."
"You think she wanted to die by us?"
"I think she wanted to die any other way than what she had been told. She ran, but she ran towards her own path. To her that was almost guaranteed a victory. She won."
It makes more sense now why she went to all of this trouble. Why she so willingly got in the middle of it towards the end even after all the others were dead. Them, all five of them, they've been fighting so hard to avoid death since the day they got out, and Carnelia Trevall was looking for it the whole time.
He knows what death feels like, the impending doom of it. There's select few people in the world he'd wish on it, and Carnelia was one of them.
He's never going to feel bad about that.
And he knows it somewhere she doesn't that Carnelia didn't win.
"If you'll excuse me," she says. "I have some last minute details to go over for Thursday's charity gala."
He nearly snorts. "Is charity gala code for a celebration of our deaths?"
"Even I'm not that cruel."
He seriously doubts that if Evander's put this much effort forth into keeping them apart. It's not for no reason. She's got something as awful in her as he does in him and they probably look almost exactly the same.
"Contrary to popular belief, the world is not spinning in orbit around the five of you," she tells him. "Your rapidly ending presence here does not have the power to disturb things that have already been in motion for months."
It's crystal clear, really. She's up there in terms of who wants him dead the most; not at the top, but trying to get there. She won't before he ends up dead. There's a chance, too, that she doesn't even hate him. He's just an obstacle that she never wanted to waste any time on. He was sent away so long ago she had probably forgot he had even existed.
And he won't, soon, so she's getting her wish.
"Soran."
Speaking of Evander.
He turns. Kerensa makes it a few steps and is forced to stop again as Evander turns the corner behind them with Icarus close on his heels. He doesn't look like he'd be walking at all right now if Evander wasn't there to tell him that rolling around on the floor right now wasn't appropriate. Icarus' eyes flick between them, a shot of nerves poured into both. Evander's go cold as steel.
"Mother," he says firmly. She leans forward to pat him on the arm.
"Sweetheart," she says. "Good to see you - it appears that the whole house is awake! For no reason, I'm sure."
"I told you—"
"I know what you told me, dear, but maybe that should have been communicated more clearly to him. If it had been I don't think he would have started conversing with me."
Evander looks at him. He feels a lot like a new puppy that just ripped a hole in someone's shoe.
"Apologies," he says, and skirts around the both of them. Icarus at that point had been steadily inching towards him but clearly unsure of how to get there with the two ticking time bombs smack dab in the middle of the room. He loops an arm around his waist and pulls him back a few paces. Evander really does look like he's going to explode, speaking in hushed tones that aren't hushed enough to be civil. He doesn't want to be close when one of them goes off.
"Didn't make it to the kitchen," he says, when they've finally stopped. "Sorry."
"I can see that. What was that all about?"
"Nothing that's going to help us any," he mutters. "What are you doing? Why didn't you stay put?"
"Evander came to wake us up, and then we had to come find you, obviously."
"Why?"
"They know who did it."
"What?"
"Who organized all of this," Icarus says under his breath. "They figured it out. It was Eriska Maclain. They found pages of her from like, forty years ago in the Sentinel files. And she had connections to Eleine and Andere."
"What the fuck," he says flatly. "Jesus."
"That's what I said."
"So what are we going to do?"
"I don't... I don't know if there's anything we can do. Not about her. She's in with all of the right people. We don't have enough time."
They have enough time, alright. Soran will make sure they do. Clearly not tonight, because Icarus has finally moved in at a pace that's not entirely painful and is wedged up against his side, head resting on his shoulder. Evander probably found him still sitting on the floor, face red and eyes watering enough to prove that he had just been bawling his eyes out on the floor not long ago. He can't begin to imagine how that went.
There's always time. Icarus would realize that too they way he did earlier if he wasn't in such a terrible state right now.
Thursday... the day before they're supposed to be gone. That's cutting it close.
But what if it's the only chance they have?
"Question," he murmurs, and Icarus looks up at him. "Would you happen to have any issues with killing a sixty year old woman?"
Slowly, and he waits for it, Icarus' mouth rises up into a smile. That's all he wanted. All he needed.
He finds himself grinning, too. "That's the spirit."
They both still look like that when both Evander and Kerensa finish. They're wearing identical smiles, being watched by two people who have no idea how or why they could still be smiling after all of this.
Even Soran doesn't even really know, but it doesn't matter.
You can't run from death, but it's like Kerensa said. He's not running from it. He's running towards it.
See how they try and stop him, then.
Tarquin Vierra, 16
Applicant #4
When you're like this, you learn to redefine what a proper amount of sleep means.
Look, the fact that he's getting a few hours undisturbed is practically a miracle, and he's okay with that. He's tired during the day, so what. Everyone's tired.
He doesn't know what time he's up until, what with everyone eventually ending up in the library all at once at every range of alarmed and confused that there possibly could be. When he finally crawls to bed he's out within seconds; either the pills are working and he's acclimating to them, or he's just that tired. Maybe he's getting better, too.
Not that that matters now.
He's still up at the crack of dawn, but six hours is better than no hours. It's better than the nightmares. He's not foolish enough to think that anyone else is even close to up yet, so he doesn't bother looking. Even the kitchens are stunningly empty; apparently Tycho isn't much of an early riser, either.
It's almost nice with no one around though, at least for once. There are a few things scattered around the kitchen still in warmers, a selection of others tucked away in the fridge. He can take his time this morning.
It just sort of feels like he has to, now.
He's got today, tomorrow, and then nothing, if he's supposed to die Friday morning. Nothing at all. He needs to make every second pass as slowly as possible.
Him and death feel like they have a complicated relationship. He wanted it, before. He's the one who talked into the mines with no intention of getting back out. With the fire blazing and the ceiling collapsing around him, the walls closing in, he thought there was no chance.
He doesn't know how he feels about it, now, but it feels like he should figure it out before it happens.
The only one waiting for him outside the kitchens when he finally finishes up is Nyx, who chirps up at him from the floor and trots off down the hall towards the sitting room before he can even move.
It's a good thing he took a bit too much bacon to be appropriate.
There's someone else in the sitting room when he gets there, though, and he only recognizes it as Shoah from behind simply because there's no one else to pin it on. He hasn't actually spoken to her since that first time, since he met her in the first place.
Don't get him wrong, he's considered it. He knows that it would be good for him. Every time though he would find himself chickening out, or something else would come up.
With two days left, now, he didn't think there was a point.
She takes a swig of coffee and must be able to feel eyes on her, because she turns around to find him standing there, his breakfast getting colder by the second. Really he had wondering if it was worth it to try and leave before she noticed him there, but that's not so much an option anymore.
"Good morning," she says, with a cheery little smile. "You can sit, you know."
Oh, he knows. That's not the issue here. It's about if he should.
He doesn't know her. People aren't really supposed to know their therapists, and that's part of why it supposedly works, but he's not sure what he can tell to a stranger. How can a stranger listen to the worst parts and even begin to understand?
It would be more awkward than not though at this point to turn and run with his tail between his legs. It's been too long.
She smiles again when he sits down at the opposite end of the couch from her. Nyx jumps up on the armrest next to him and nearly gets his head into Tarquin's place before he catches him.
"You've got a friend, there," she notices. He breaks off the crispier end of his bacon and offers his hand out to let Nyx take a softer piece from between his fingers. He nearly loses the tip of one for his extended kindness.
"Yeah. He sort of follows me everywhere."
"I wonder why."
He chances a glance again, and Nyx is staring at him with his eyes even bigger than normal, first piece of bacon gone and expectantly waiting for the second.
He rips off another one, but this time throws it past the coffee table and halfway across the room. Nyx takes off without blinking.
At least that should buy him some time.
Or at least it might. Shoah is staring at him, not obviously, but he knows she is. Stares were easier before. Familiar. And nobody was staring at him for any sort of bad reason, unless his dye job had turned out a tad brighter than he anticipated or he was wearing a particularly weird costume that day. People don't stare at him for any sort of good reason now. They're concerned, or nervous, or scared. They're all of the above, sometimes.
It's nice to know that people care, but sometimes he wishes they wouldn't bother. Maybe he could get over this quicker instead of never at all.
It's hard to do that when everyone keeps reminding him.
At least Shoah doesn't look scared. Instead she looks like she's at an auction and just found him tucked away in the corner where no one else has bothered wandering just yet. It's an appraisal - is he in good enough condition to be purchased? Is he worth trying to figure out when she's only got two days to do so?
"How are you doing?" she asks finally. Nyx is already toddling his way back over after retrieving his bacon, so apparently he didn't earn as much time as he thought.
He hurriedly shoves a bite into his own mouth, both to keep it out of reach from the cat and to give himself some extra time to mull over the question.
He swallows after spending too much time chewing in the first place. "Is that a trick question?"
"Just a general one."
"I guess when you've only got two days left to live it sort of seems like one."
"And I'm sorry if anything I see seems... insensitive," she says. "I'm not in your situation. While I can't possibly begin to feel what you're feeling right now I'd at least like to try and understand it."
"So it can help you in the future?"
"It's not about the future. It's about you right now."
Because he doesn't have a future - right? Oh, God, it's not great to think of it that way, but he literally doesn't. All those things he wanted to do, the places he wanted to see. That drama school out in Bainbridge that had taken an interest in him, too. None of it matters.
"Is bad a good enough word, then?" he asks.
"If you think it is."
"I could think of a lot worse ones."
"Well, don't hold your tongue on my account. I'm sure I've heard a lot worse."
"But you've never dealt with a murderer, right?"
She looks thoughtful. "Well, if I did, they certainly didn't tell me. In Four, though, I'm sure I did. They're everywhere. My sister and I, we trained when we were younger. Nothing serious, really, at least for me. But she killed someone, once, during the trials. She was seventeen and was told to prove herself against that year's chosen volunteer and she just... reacted."
"And killed her?"
"Didn't intend to. Intention or not, though, I saw what it did to her. It was one person but it nearly destroyed her."
"What do you think thirteen will do, then?"
"Well that's up to you to decide, isn't it?" she asks. "I'm not sure there's very many examples set in that regard."
Directly? It's laughable. With that number the only people he's comparable to are serial killers or Sentinels and he didn't think that he had the capability of either of them.
It seemed so easy; it was just one blast. One match. One explosion.
And thirteen lives, just like that.
Nyx reappears on the couch and bumps up insistently against his hand. "Easy," he says, prodding him back, but only gets a meow in response.
"At least you have a friend."
"I don't think he would be if I didn't feed him."
"That's friendship for you. Give and take. You give him food, he keeps you company."
It's not such a bad trade-off. Although Tycho said Nyx tended to be a bit of a grump, and he sometimes was, that didn't lessen his company any. It was nice to have someone follow after him like they actually cared, even if it was just for the food in his hand.
"Have you spoken to any of your friends?" Shoah asks.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"They're not letting us? I think the landlines are down, or maybe they're just down for us. I don't know. But it's not like I can just go and do that. And I can't leave now, either. I'm not even sure they'd want to talk to me, not after what—"
"After what?"
"You know what I did," he reminds her.
"And it was public knowledge when they helped find you after the trial, remember? They knew then."
"Not wanting me dead and actually wanting to interact with me are totally different things."
"You're correct. But what if they want both?"
He can't do anything about it - is there something about that Shoah doesn't understand? He can't just walk out the front gate and go to Calix's after school, or go to the theater with Velia, or grab lunch with Arden. Shit doesn't work that way anymore and it's not going to ever again. And even if it did, how could he act that way? There's no going back to normalcy after this.
"You know their numbers, presumably?" she wonders, pulling her phone from her pocket. "Could I have one of them?"
"Why?" he asks, but rattles off Calix's number regardless. He feels like he's known that number longer than he's known his own. He doesn't know what it would take for him to forget it. Maybe there's nothing that would.
Shoah presents the screen to him, face up. Calix's number is lit up across the screen but she hasn't pressed call just yet.
He doesn't know if he has the nerve to.
"I don't think you're allowed to do that," he says quietly.
"Do what? Let you call someone?"
"The landlines—"
"I know," she says. "But what harm could it do? I know what you're thinking. If this all comes to fruition you've got two days left, and if that's it then I think you should be able to do what you need to do, whatever that may be. Calling a friend is the least offensive thing you could do."
"He's never awake this early."
"Then leave him a message. Hold onto the phone until tomorrow night - it's my work contact anyway, and this is currently my work, so no one else should be ringing."
"And what if he doesn't call back?"
She shrugs. "Then he doesn't. You can't change that. But at least you can say you tried."
He's going to cry again, whether Calix answers or not. He can feel it coming in the burning of his eyes, the rapidly forming lump in his throat. It might be the closest thing he's come to a good cry in a very long of time no matter the outcome. Because like Shoah said - at least he'll have tried.
He can do no more.
He presses call and puts the phone to his ear, forcing himself to take a few deep breaths. He drops his plate on the coffee table and Nyx crawls into his lap, instead, as if offering some silent form of comfort. The phone rings, and rings, and rings. Just like he predicted. Calix was never the early riser of the bunch. If you could get him out of bed before noon on a weekend it was considered a victory.
The voicemail chimes. Some of the terror in his veins seeps away, but not all of it. What is he supposed to say? Is there anything that's good?
Not really. And he has nothing to lose anyway.
It's silent, he realizes. He has to say something. Anything.
"Calix," he says, voice shaking. "Hey."
Another random three POV because it was getting so long already and so close to the end I was just determined to finish. Sue me.
Until next time.