DAY THREE
-continued-
03:48:57 UTC
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"All I could think of when I got a look at the place from the outside was what fun it would be to stand out there and watch it burn down."
―Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
-ooo-
There were no smiles to capture, but she still carried the camera with her anyway.
She'd had it for so long that to lose that familiar weight from around her neck now would have felt like discarding a piece of her soul.
And, more than that, leaving it behind would have felt like giving in.
Like an admission it was all… real.
Would be like giving up any hope of ever seeing them again- ever seeing anyone again- and she just… couldn't bear the thought of living in a world without smiles.
Was this her punishment?
For everything she had done?
Everything she hadn't?
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Click.
There was so much pink and red and the floor was just a truly unfortunate wash of browns and gray, bland and boring and just the worst possible backdrop for these shots.
This wouldn't do.
It was wrong.
It was all wrong.
"I can't work like this," she muttered, kneeling down to take another shot of the dismembered hand lying pale and bloody beside an empty soda can and a half-eaten donut.
There was so little of her left.
Hardly anything that made her look anything like herself, even her head….
She glanced back at the ragged knot of singed blond hair lying atop a pile of wadded up toilet paper and used tampons.
She'd already taken a dozen shots of it though she wasn't completely happy with any of them.
It was all wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
She needed something to humanize her, to make her live again, even if it was just for a moment.
"Hey… we the first ones here?"
Souda Kazuichi.
It wasn't as if she hadn't expected him to come, she knew they'd all be there eventually, but she'd never expected him to be among the first to arrive.
He stank of stale liquor and unwashed skin as he sauntered in and planted himself beside her.
It made her fingers twitch, her skin itch.
She'd never liked him.
He'd always reminded her too much of her father.
Of coming home to find him sprawled out on their couch, snoring, surrounded by a sea of empty beer cans.
Of the stench of burnt food and cheap perfume and failure.
Just another useless man.
"Oh geez, look what they did to her," he murmured, mouth hanging open as he stared around the room like a lost tourist. "She's just everywhere, isn't she?"
He burped loudly, grimacing and covering his mouth with the back of his hand, mumbling some half-assed apology.
"Are you drunk?" She demanded, fingers aching where they gripped the camera in her hands.
He snorted, dragging a hand back through limp scraggly pink hair, "Not nearly drunk enough for this shit. This is just… can you believe she did this?"
Had he known her at all?
She remembered seeing them together a few times, but when she'd asked about it, asked if they were dating, if they were friends, Junko had just laughed and laughed.
"I'll tell you a secret," she'd murmured, leaning in close, lips brushing against her cheek, breath cool and minty fresh. "Boys like that… boys like that are easy. They're weak and they know they're weak, they're all just looking for a crutch even if they don't know it. Give them something to lean on and they totally forget they could ever walk on their own. And then they're yours, whenever you want them, because they've given you the keys to the kingdom and you can just reach inside them and pull everything out, everything that ever meant anything to them and make them tear it to pieces. Because they want you to do it. To take away all the things that can hurt them, hollow them out until there's nothing left."
She'd leaned away, laughing as she flopped back on the floor beside her, arms folded behind her head, hair spread out all around her. "Of course, it kind of takes the fun out of it, don't you think? I mean, who wants to play with a broken toy, right? But if you just leave them one thing, one last good thing, they'll build their whole existence around that one thing and that… that's when things get really interesting."
"…I mean how did her leg even get up there?" He exclaimed, the grating volume of his voice calling her back to the unpleasant quandary of the present.
He continued rattling on, apparently content to listen to himself speak.
Idiot.
She cast another glance around the room, gaze settling on the largest part her to survive the execution, most of her torso and thighs.
On its own it was just an anonymous chunk of flesh and blood and tattered clothing, nothing to write home about on its own, but….
"Would you like another drink?" She offered, interrupting whatever it was he'd been saying.
It'd probably just been some bullshit about how much he'd miss her or maybe he was just trying to figure out what he'd do without her there to point him in the right direction.
Click.
The way his eyes lit up at the mere suggestion.
Pathetic.
"Huh? Seriously?"
"Sure, I have a whole bottle of vodka squirreled away for a rainy day. You can have it if you want."
"What's the catch?" he asked, eyes narrowing with suspicion like it mattered, like he wouldn't do what she asked, anything she asked, to have it.
She knew that look.
That desperation.
That deep black pit in the very heart of you that couldn't ever be filled, couldn't be covered or patched over or disguised.
He'd do what she asked, whatever she asked.
She just had to find the right leverage.
"I want you to have sex with Junko one last time."
"Huh? But she's… oh… oh! What? What do you…. No! N-no fucking way!"
Click.
"Oh, you're going to do it," she murmured, looking down at the picture she'd taken of his face, that shocked look, that pathetic protest. "It'll be easy. It's just posing. It's not like I'd actually ask you to do something like that if you didn't want to. You're a man, aren't you? I'm sure she's still decently warm and that part of her is still in pretty good shape, all things considered."
"Screw you, I'm not that freaking drunk, okay?"
"Look, I need a model and you're the only one here. You don't even have to undress if you don't want to. Actually, it's probably better if you don't. Just pull your dick out and stick it in. I'm sure it'll only take a second."
"I don't-"
What a waste of time.
Best to cut the bullshit.
"I know it was your fault."
Click.
"What? What the fuck are you talking about?"
Click.
Confusion.
He hasn't quite realized yet, hasn't quite put it all together. Maybe it's the drink, maybe he's just that slow, either way he needs a push in the right direction, a shove, right over the edge.
"Those hamsters. I know it was your fault."
Click.
And there it was. Understanding. Realization. Horror. Pain.
Click.
He looks pale, sick.
He's trying to be angry, but he can't quite manage to pull rage out of that tangle of emotion.
Click.
He's terrified and it's beautiful.
"They weren't… I didn't… just… just sh-shut the hell up, you don't know anythingabout it. You don't… you just… it wasn't my fault. I didn't… shut up, just shut up."
Click.
Pleading.
Desperate.
So weak.
"I knew it. I knew you weren't man enough to tell him what you did. You're disgusting. Did you think about what you'd taken from him every time you guys started screwing around? You did, didn't you? Men. You're all the same, all of you, cowards. Nothing more than sniveling, whining, pathetic cowards."
Click.
Devastation.
Click.
"Y-You don't know anything about it. About us. So, just… you just shut up."
Bravado now, such a weak show of anger.
He's probably been trying to drown the guilt for years, but guilt never goes away, it never shuts up and now it's probably the loudest it's ever been, a scream in his head that just won't stop, an agony that won't ever fade.
Click.
Because that's what love does to you.
Click.
Love makes everything beautiful until it goes wrong, until you do something that can never be forgiven and then it begins to rot, to eat you away from the inside until it consumes everything that was good inside you.
Until it becomes that hole at the very center of your being, that terrible empty space that nothing can ever fill.
The strong cut away the bad tissue, sever what was so that whatever's left can survive, can learn to thrive, can become something new.
But he wasn't strong.
He was just a man.
And men were weak.
Click.
"Would it break his heart to know, do you think?" She inquired, conversationally, flipping back through the last few photos with a smile before raising her lens again.
Click.
He looked like he's going to throw up.
Click.
"Shut up. Please, just… just shut up," he whispers the last and it feels like victory.
Click.
Fingers tangled in ratty pink hair, knuckles white, eyes wide with panic.
Click.
So much pain.
Click.
Such exquisite despair.
It could make even someone like him seem beautiful.
"You'll never have to know if you do this favor for me," she lied, smiling easily as she focused in on his eyes, his mouth. "It's not like I'm asking for much. Plus, I'll even throw in the booze to make it an easier pill to swallow."
Click.
Cry.
Click.
Please cry.
Click.
Magnificent.
"Fine," he murmured, gaze turned to the side, arms wrapped around his stomach. "Fine, whatever, I'll…yeah, I'll do it just… don't."
Men were all the same.
Weak.
Willing to do anything to avoid facing the consequences of their actions.
They were all such cowards.
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Her head ached, a constant throbbing pain right behind her eyes that made it difficult to focus, to remember what she was doing from one moment to the next.
It was worse when the sun was up so she'd spent that first day cowering in her cabin waiting out the heat of the day until she could use the cover of night to go to the supermarket and find a pair of sunglasses.
They helped, but her head still hurt.
It hurt so much.
Sometimes the world spun and spun and she had to hold onto to something, anything, but it never slowed down, never stopped, and sometimes she would throw up all over the floor.
Would pass out and wake up to find the floor clean, pristine, as if nothing had ever happened.
Except her head still ached.
Her head ached and ached and ached.
But at least with the sunglasses it had been tolerable enough that she'd been able to go out and start looking for them.
Even though, in the end, there'd been no one to be found.
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The pale of his body made a far better backdrop than those dingy, crusty garbage floors, but it still wasn't enough.
It still wasn't quite right.
The lighting was just all wrong… there just wasn't enough contrast.
Click.
Focus in on the sticky tufts of dark hair and pale flesh, streaks of red.
Better.
But it still wasn't quite right.
Wasn't quite the shot she was looking for, not really, but it was closer.
She was getting closer, she could feel it.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Maybe she should have brought the 35mm rather than the 50mm lens after all.
The lighting in the room was just so poor, but if she had taken the time to light it properly she wouldn't have been able to capture these moments, capture them all streaming in, a motley collection of mourners to attend her gruesome wake. Her body was already breaking down, the stench of rot heavy even though it had only been a few hours.
The room was stiflingly hot.
Click.
His hands searching for a decent grip, splayed against the floor so he could touch her cooling flesh as little as possible.
Weak.
They were already running out of time.
Those knobs from the Future Foundation could show up any time now that the game was over and their precious children had been released back into the wild.
Click.
Fingers clenched into a fist, banging against the floor like the pain might keep him focused, keep him from passing out or throwing up.
Click.
Click.
Mikan was already packing bits of her away in ice, what little could be salvaged and preserved, those precious pieces of her that could be saved by making them a part of themselves.
But that would be different.
That wouldn't be her.
It wasn't enough just to preserve a few odds and ends.
She had been important.
She'd changed the world.
Every moment needed to be documented, to be preserved.
Click.
Yes, allowing pieces of her to live on through them was nice and all, but she needed more than that.
She deserved more than that.
Because that wouldn't be a true reflection of who she had been.
That's why it was so important, vital, necessary to document these last moments, to record every last scrap of her.
Click.
How would people ever understand her otherwise?
They might remember her, sure, after all she'd left quite an impression on every life she'd touched, but that wasn't the same.
It wasn't good enough.
Click.
"Are you done yet? Can we go? This is so gross."
Click.
She was beautiful, lifting her precious kimono so it wouldn't drag through the mess, the pristine white of her socks glowing against the darkness of the floor beneath them.
She hadn't seen her in weeks. She'd been touring with Ibuki while she'd been busy documenting the Future Foundation's ridiculous attempts to win their way past Junko's defenses into the school.
Idiots.
She offered her a brief smile before turning her attention back to her subject, "You can wait outside if you want, I'm almost done. I just need to get a few more shots. Just a couple of close-ups."
Just a few more.
Just one more.
The perfect shot.
She just needed to find it.
She was getting close.
Memories faded.
Photographs… photographs were moments of truth frozen in time, unchangeable.
They didn't lie.
Click.
They couldn't.
Click.
Junko had understood that.
Photographs were necessary to document all that had happened properly, to spread the truth to all those who saw them.
In this way they could preserve even those parts of her that they couldn't take with them, those broken bits of her that were no longer truly recognizable, that were already beginning to stink and rot around them.
It's why she'd asked him, why she'd bribed and cajoled him until he agreed, because she needed this, they needed this.
So that they would be able to remember her properly.
Remember the truth of her.
Capture it in one indelible, perfect image that represented everything she was and ever she might have been.
Because Junko would have loved this, all of it.
Loved the despair her death inspired in them.
The lengths they were willing to go to be with her.
To keep her with them.
Click.
Would have loved these last revolting, depraved, beautiful, imperfect images of what remained of her.
Would have laughed at the retching noises he made as he slid against what was left of her.
How pathetic he looked.
Click.
How small he seemed, how insignificant.
Even like this she was untouchable, unattainable.
Click.
Flaccid.
Click.
Pathetic.
Click.
Men truly were worthless, weren't they?
So weak.
He couldn't even do this one last thing for her.
This one last thing to honor her memory.
Even with all that incentive.
He couldn't even get it up.
What a failure he was.
Though Junko would have loved that too.
She tapped a finger beneath his chin so that he would raise his face into the light.
He grimaced, his face sickly pale in the uneven lighting, sweat heavy and glistening across his brow, greasy hair flopping against his cheeks in time with every uneven, laborious thrust.
He looked so miserable with his eyes squeezed shut and that filthy jumpsuit shoved down around his knees, so desperate.
He kept muttering beneath his breath, urging his body to a completion it would never reach.
He would fail and even if he didn't… it would end the same way: with her confessing all his secrets and letting the chips fall where they may.
But he already knew that.
She'd seen it in his eyes when he'd agreed to her terms.
He knew how this was going to end.
Even if he couldn't admit it to himself, sh knew he wanted it to end like that.
They were all alike in that way.
They all longed for the same misery, the same despair, they all shared similar appetites for destruction.
They'd all spend whatever remained of their lives chasing after the things that hurt them the most, seeking similar ends.
It was what had drawn them to her.
Drawn them to each other.
Such despair.
It took her breath away.
Junko would have loved it.
"Don't forget to smile! That's the most important part," she reminded him, "And, look, you've really got to get in there. I'm not paying you to fuck around, you know."
And she could almost hear her laughing in the back of her head.
Pu.
Pu.
Pu.
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On the fourth day, she held the camera out and took pictures of her own face, but the smiles all came out wrong.
Lopsided and crooked and strange.
She'd always hated selfies.
There was blood matted in her hair and she kept forgetting about it and it made her stomach dip and her sight blur every time she accidentally reached up and brushed her fingers against it, over it.
Someone had hit her?
No, that didn't seem right.
Sato.
Someone had hit Sato.
Sato was dead.
He'd killed her.
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No, she'd killed her.
It hadn't been his fault, it had been hers.
Hers for not stopping her, for not seeing, not understanding.
Not saying the right there.
Not saying anything.
It was all her fault.
It had always been her fault.
Sweet Sato who had always spoken up for her, who had always looked out for her, who had always...
She was the one to blame.
She'd always been the one to blame.
Always.
Al-al-al-al-al-al-
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The principal closed her portfolio with a heavy sigh and her heart sank into her shoes, dread coiling tight and heavy in her stomach like a snake hiding beneath a rock.
She knew she needed to focus, that this review was important, but she just… she couldn't get that image out of her head.
Couldn't shake free of the way Sato had looked when she'd confronted her about it.
The look in her eyes that morning… so hard, so different then the girl she'd known.
Thought she'd known.
It had been like staring into the eyes of a stranger.
Someone she'd never met and didn't want to know.
She hadn't slept at all since they'd found Kazuryuu's body, had been plagued by images of the scene whenever she tried.
It was her hands.
She wasn't sure why exactly, but that was what stuck with her the most.
What she kept seeing every time she closed her eyes.
Her longer delicate fingers.
If she'd thought about it might have been because she'd expected them to lay flat, like being dead should have smoothed out all those gentle curves, all the ways the body sought to protect itself, to express itself.
But they hadn't been.
They'd been curled, just ever so slightly, as if they were just waiting for someone to come and brush their fingers across them.
As if she were only sleeping and a simple touch might wake her up.
Might make it so it was all nothing more than a dream.
She kept seeing them there.
Limp and pale and splattered with water and tiny glass fragments where they'd lain across the tile of that classroom floor.
Click.
How she'd been able to see every bead of water, the way the light had reflected off the sharp edges of the each piece of glass as she'd focused in to take each shot.
Click.
Click.
Kept remembering the way those hands had looked holding a camera, the way light had glinted off her rings, her well-manicured nails.
Kept remembering the few photos she had taken of her during their middle school years, those brief flickers of joy on a face that had clearly known so little, a face that had so often been pinched and bitter.
She'd always loved those pictures.
Those pictures had always reminded her why she loved photographing the smiles of others.
Reminded her why she did it even when others questioned her work, compared it to her mother's again and again.
Those pictures reminded her that there was light to be found in even the darkest spaces.
She hadn't liked her.
Sometimes she'd even been a little afraid of her, had maybe even hated her a little, but she'd… she'd never wanted that.
Never wanted her gone.
Not like that.
Never like that.
Never, never, never.
The principal sighed heavily, drawing her attention back to him, back to the present.
Her camera felt like a millstone around her neck and she had to press her hands together to stop them from shaking.
"I'm afraid this is simply unacceptable, Miss Kozumi. This subject matter is amateurish at best and while each photo is, of course, quite skillfully taken, it simply isn't up to the level which we've come to expect from the exceptionally talented students of Hope's Peak. As you know, we only accept a fraction of those who are scouted or apply for our program and while it is uncommon for one who has been chosen to attend to be asked to resign, it certainly is not unheard of. If you do not show marked improvement in the few remaining months of this term, I'm afraid I won't be able to ask you to return. You will, of course, be eligible to attend the reserve program, if you so choose, but I believe that would be difficult for you considering your family situation. As such, I would highly suggest you choose a more appropriate subject matter for your final project so that you might keep your place."
"Sir," she whispered, fingers clenching around the leather of the portfolio he pressed into her hands by way of dismissal.
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She didn't remember leaving the office, only the ache in her chest and holding her eyes wide so the tears blurring her vision wouldn't fall.
Didn't remember leaving the building or going to the reserve class dormitories.
Her feet had just seemed to find their way to her door all on their own.
"Mahiru? Are you okay?"
She remembered her portfolio being carefully removed from her arms, remembered a soft chest and the warmth of arms coiling around her when the first sob finally broke free.
Everything was falling apart.
"Oh, Mahiru," she murmured, fingers stroking over her hair, nails scrapping across her scalp. "Everything's going to be okay."
"I don't want to change," she'd whispered, fingers shaking, digging in against Sato's back.
This was Sato.
Her Sato.
Nothing had changed.
With her arms around her, it felt like the last week had just been some terrible dream.
"Then don't," she'd replied, as if it were obvious, as if it were that simple. "I'll support you, I'll always support you no matter what. You don't have to change at all if you don't want to. If they can't see how... how wonderful you are then… then the hell with them. You won't be any less brilliant just because you don't go to this stupid school."
She laughed despite herself, choking on her sobs, "But isn't that ungrateful? My mom…."
"Your mom is your mom and you're you. I think you're perfect just the way you are, I mean I… I love you. Just as you are."
She said the last quickly, softly, whispered it fast like a secret even though there was no one else around to hear them, fingers clutching tight and bloodless against her own.
It wasn't as if she hadn't been expecting the confession, if it was even a confession at all.
Not really.
She'd always known that Sato loved her.
When she'd thought about it later, turned it over and over and over in her mind, it had seemed like she'd been waiting to hear those words almost her whole life with the quiet assurance that eventually they would come.
It had never been a question of if, only of when.
She'd known Sato loved her ever since they'd been nothing more than babies playing in the sand together at the park, her first camera hanging around her neck and Sato had punched a boy who'd been making fun of them for sitting close together, for holding hands.
She'd known ever since Sato had leaned over and planted a sloppy wet kiss on her cheek afterwards, had apologized over and over again, patting her hair and wiping away her tears like it had been her fault that boys were mean even though it wasn't.
Sato's gap-toothed grin had been the first smile she'd ever captured, too dark and grainy and more than a little blurry.
She still had the Polaroid taped up in her room, faded by the years and pockmarked by pinpricks from where it had been pinned or taped to the headboard of every bed she'd ever slept in.
A memory and a good luck charm all rolled into one.
She'd always known Sato loved her.
Whether it was as a friend or a sister or something more… she'd always known.
Sometimes, afterwards, she'd thought that it had been that love that helped her find herself again whenever she lost confidence, that certainty that shored her up and kept her from crumbling beneath the pressure of living in her mother's shadow.
And maybe it was and maybe it wasn't, but in the moment… in that moment when Sato had looked to her for help, looked to her for assurance….
In that moment, she hadn't been able to say anything at all.
Any answer she might have given had stuck in her throat, turned to ice by the sudden memory of those pictures she'd taken, those pictures she'd printed out as if in making them larger, making them real, she could prove they weren't true, that none of it was true.
That Kuzuryuu was alive and the broken vase meant nothing and everything would be fine and nothing, nothing had changed.
She'd stood over her body for long minutes snapping photo after photo, mind blissfully blank as she zoomed in on Kuzuryuu's face, on her hands, on the broken glass around her as the room grew dark around her.
Click.
Click.
Click.
She'd taken picture after picture before fleeing the room, her steps echoing through the empty halls.
All those pictures just to prove to herself that the world hadn't changed.
Only it had.
Everything had changed.
The bedrock on which she had built her life had shifted and the world had fallen into ruin and nothing would ever, could ever be the same.
She'd erased them all, burned the fragments of the prints Sato had torn to shreds, but that terrible memory of Sato insisting she didn't have anything to worry about and what it had really meant remained, lingering inside her like a curse.
And every time she'd lifted her camera since, it was that broken flower vase, those limp hands she saw.
People still smiled, but that warm feeling she used to get whenever she managed to capture those moments of ordinary happiness was gone as if it had never been there at all.
Smiles were just smiles.
People just people.
It had only been a few days, maybe things would get better with time, but….
Someone would never smile again because of her.
Wouldn't it be easier if she never took another picture?
Wouldn't it have been better if she'd never come to Hope's Peak in the first place?
Ultimate photographer?
What she wouldn't give to have never heard those words, never been given that stupid, stupid title, never even heard of Hope's Peak at all.
What had it ever given her but regret?
What had it ever made her feel but not good enough?
What had it ever done but drain the joy from the things she loved most in the world?
Made every picture she took seem too dark and unfocused?
Ordinary.
Plain.
Lame.
They said she was the best, so she had to be the best, but she no idea what that meant.
No idea what they wanted.
Only that it wasn't her.
It might be her mother.
It might have even been Kuzuryuu.
But whoever it was, deep down, even before they'd found Kuzuryuu in that classroom… she'd already known it wasn't her.
That it couldn't ever be her.
That what they wanted wasn't anything she had to give.
"I-I do you know," Sato continued, nails digging in against her knuckles. "I really do love you."
Her eyes were so wide, so fervent, so desperate, willing her to answer, to understand.
And she'd just...
She'd drawn back, drawn away.
Found herself staring blankly into Sato's expectant face as she tried to summon a response, any response at all, but there was nothing there.
Nothing inside her but an empty chamber, hollowed out by all that had happened, by all those expectations, by Kuzuryuu's limps hands, and the sound of that confession just continued to echo inside her.
Down.
Down.
Down.
She had nothing to offer.
Maybe she never had.
But Sato loved her.
Had killed for her.
She owed her something.
She owed her an answer.
Something.
"Mahiru?"
Tentatively she offered her a smile, felt her lips trembling beneath the effort of holding it up.
It didn't feel real.
But then nothing did.
She thought about that blurry smile pinned to her headboard and she wondered vaguely if she'd ever be able to see it the same way again.
The moment hung suspended between them in silence.
And then Sato's smile widened as if it might crack the whole of her face with the effort she was putting into keeping it there.
She couldn't look away from it, couldn't even blink as it wavered, blurred into a swamp of colors by the film of tears she couldn't allow herself to shed.
"Okay, Mahiru. I-I understand. It's okay," Sato's voice had said, quiet and serious with a smile as empty as she felt. "It's okay. It's… it's okay. You don't have anything to worry about. I'm just going to… you can stay her for… for as long as you need. I'll just… It'll be okay. You'll be okay."
And then she was gone, door left handing open behind her.
Just a blur of fading color and motion.
Though it seemed like she could hear her neat black dress shoes sounding her retreat to the deserted hall for a long, long time.
She'd never seen her again after that.
She'd just been gone.
Gone, gone, gone.
…Until she wasn't.
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She'd taken pictures of that too.
Of her.
Of what remained.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Poured over them in the days and weeks and months and years that followed, fingers wearing through the paper again and again.
Reprinted the images over and over again.
Pining them to her wall.
Slept with them scattered all around her.
They were all she had left of her, after all.
She'd stare at the blood, at her limp hands, at the matted mess all those blows had made of her hair and the longer she looked, the more it had seemed like there was some deeper meaning to it all.
As if Sato were still trying to speak to her, to make her understand, to whisper 'I love you' through the the spray of blood across the floor, the way it coated the bat lying discarded beside her.
Through her hands lying limp against the tile.
"It'll be okay," she'd said. "You'll be okay."
And, eventually, she was.
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She still took pictures of smiles.
Smiles were important, after all.
She'd just started taking pictures of other things as well.
The principal had smiled the next time she'd shown him her portfolio.
"Much better," he'd murmured, straightening his glasses. "I believe you're finally on the right track."
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"These are really something," Enoshima had murmured as she leaned over her shoulder to examine the photographs as she laid them out across the table to allow the ink time to dry.
"Do you think so?" She'd asked, distracted, mesmerized by the way her red-tipped nails looked splayed across those images, the way her fingers smeared the ink, the way they framed the pink and pale mash of scattered entrails beneath.
Click.
She snapped another picture and another.
Click.
Click.
"You know," she began, a smile in her voice. "I've been working on something. Nothing major, just a little experiment, but I've been looking for someone to help me document it, you know, preserve it for posterity. I was planning to video tape it too, but there's just something special about pictures, isn't there? Something more immediate and real about being able to look at a single image and really study every last detail, don't you think? It really lets you have the time to process the truth of a scene, don't you think?'
"Yes," she answered, only half listening.
Click.
Click.
"So, do you have plans Friday night?"
"No," she whispered, because she didn't ever have plans.
Not anymore.
"Oh good, because if you did I was going to make you cancel them. You have to come. It's gonna be a blast and you'd just kill yourself if you missed out," Enoshima grinned and for the first time in months she found herself lifting her camera to capture a smile because she wanted to rather than out of some long-engrained habit.
Click.
Her lips were very red.
Click.
Red as cherries.
Click.
Red as blood.
Click.
Her teeth were very white.
Click.
And there was such unparalleled joy in her smile that it made her heart beat faster just to see it.
Click.
It wasn't quite like anything else she'd ever seen.
Click.
It was beautiful.
Click.
She was beautiful.
Click.
"Promise you'll come," she murmured, leaning forward so that her mouth filled the whole frame, so close that image blurred and darkened. "It won't be nearly as much fun if you're not there."
Click.
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The pictures were everywhere.
Pictures of their time on the island.
So many smiling faces.
She ran her fingers over them again and again as if to memorize their features through osmosis.
Who were they?
They seemed so familiar.
So terribly familiar.
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"Daddy? Daddy, please wake up? Daddy, I think there's something wrong with the oven. There's so much smoke, Daddy, I don't know what to do. Help me, Daddy. Wake up! Please, wake up!"
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Friends?
Had they been friends or just people she'd known for a while?
Images of them splashing in the ocean.
Lying on the beach.
Dancing.
Singing.
Killing.
Her friends.
The ink bled across her hands, staining her skin black and red.
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She gathered the pictures, tore them to shreds and ate them a piece at a time.
They tasted like despair felt.
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No, that wasn't right.
That hadn't happened.
None of that had happened.
She wasn't...
She wasn't like that.
She was... she was just confused.
Her head hurt.
It hurt so badly all the time.
She was just confused.
Sometimes she forgot what she was doing.
Where she'd been.
Her head was throbbing and her vision was full of dark spots.
They hadn't done anything wrong.
They wouldn't.
She wouldn't.
She'd never wanted that.
Never.
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"But Mom, look at them. Aren't they beautiful?"
"Mahiru... what... what is all this?"
"I decided I wanted to be like you, Mom. To record the world as it is. Well, I mean, not just like you, I am myself after all, and I could never be as good as you are, but I think I finally found my true passion, my true calling. Aren't they beautiful? Aren't you proud of me?"
"Are... are these people...? Sweetie, I don't... I don't understand what I'm looking at."
"I know, but you will. Don't forget to smile, Mom. The smile is the most important part."
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No.
No.
That wasn't...
Wasn't...
She wasn't like that.
She hadn't done that.
She hadn't.
She...
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Her head still hurt, but she'd gotten better about remembering not to touch it so she was learning to live with it… more or less.
When she woke up, there'd been seven marks on the wall.
She'd made an eighth even though she wasn't sure that's what they meant.
She put on the sunglasses lying beside her and left her cabin to find photographs scattered everywhere.
Photographs of her… friends.
Yes, friends.
Even if they hadn't known each other for very long.
They were still her friends.
Some maybe more than others, but she was sure that would have changed if they'd just had more time.
Even if the boys had all seemed pretty useless.
She gathered them all, all those photographs, one after the other, pouring over the details of each in turn.
She found them littered across the beach and the paths between.
Found they'd been left lying three layers thick across the pasture at the farm and the floor of the supermarket.
There were even a whole batch of them laid out to travel round and round on the luggage carousel at the airport.
Some were nice.
Just them lounging on the beach, playing in the sand, the water.
Halcyon days she couldn't clearly recall.
There was one of Ibuki and Hiyoko fiddling around with a bunch of coconuts.
Another of Tanaka's hamsters peeking up from behind a platter of fruit and one of that greasy mechanic stretching out his fingers to the particularly fat one.
There was a picture of Sonia and Tanaka discussing something passionately while Akane shoved bread in her face in the background.
Another of Akane and the big jock running across the beach, while some of the others lay under the palm trees in the background.
There was a particularly cute one of Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama sleeping side by side in a pair of lounge chairs at the hotel which she decided was one of her favorites and she kept in a pile separate from the rest.
There was one of Nanami with her hood pulled up playing another one of her games.
She felt like she'd never really gotten a chance to know her at all.
There were several of Hinata and Komaeda sitting by the pool, their pants rolled up and their feet dangling in the water.
They looked so comfortable together.
It was weird and a little sad to remember how they'd looked at each other during the trial.
To remember what Komaeda had really been like.
She found a picture shoved under a rock on the beach that featured Hiyoko drawing lewd pictures on Mikan's face with a black marker while she slept in one of the lobby chairs.
It made her feel kind of bad just for looking at it.
There'd been half a dozen pictures pinned to a palm tree of poor Togami and Hanamura talking about something, gesturing wildly, plates of food in hand.
It would have been such an ordinary image, completely unremarkable and hardly worth keeping at all if it wasn't for what had happened later.
The whole world was full of photos like that.
Photos that became meaningful long after they were taken.
Not that she remembered taking any of these photos.
But they seemed familiar all the same.
If only that was all there was.
But it wasn't.
There were other pictures.
Terrible pictures.
Faces twisted in horror and pain, blood and viscera strewn across dark pavement and shining tile.
Pictures of her friends…
Her friends doing awful things, unspeakable things.
And they were all smiling.
All of them.
Smiling.
Those weren't the kind of smiles she'd wanted to capture.
What had happened to them?
What had happened to her?
She gathered them all as the day passed, poured over each new image as if it might hold the secret as to what went wrong, to what she had done to fail them, to fail herself.
How she'd become the sort of person who would have just stood by, stood witness to all that depravity, documented it for all the world to see and remember.
And she wondered if that was all she'd done.
And deep down she knew it wasn't.
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When the rain began to fall, all she could do was watch.
Watch as the ink ran from all those pages like water, staining her skin, soaking into her clothes, casting a dark stain across the sand beneath her.
Watch as the sand turned to mud as the wind picked up and all those blank pages - those black pages that had once been images of a life she still couldn't understand and could only barely remember - were hurled away, scattered out across the dark waves, vanishing as they were carried out to sea.
And, for the first time since she'd woken, head aching and alone….
Maybe for the first time in years….
She wept.
Wept for all she had lost and all she had found and lost again.
For all the things she didn't understand.
For all the things she didn't remember.
And all the things she did.
For all the mistakes she'd made.
For Sato.
For Kuzuryuu.
And, perhaps most of all, for herself.
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