Looked for Hope but there was None. Should have known, that was real dumb.

A little something different. I need to capture this rage before I come to terms with it.


-----------------------------

You know it feels different.

I've condemned a lot of people to death to save my own skin. At first, it was just this... need, to survive. And when I became a proxy, it became my job. But that was the same game when you really got down to it. I was pretending to be a runner, and I would lead real runners off to their deaths so I could remain a proxy and continue to enjoy my safe miserable existence.

But We-... she... I. I tried to connect with her. She was so angry. So alone. So desperate to find companionship with someone who wasn't a complete fucking shithead. Somehow, apparently, that was me.

I guess I wasn't the one who tried to connect with her. I didn't even realize she thought better of me than others... I found out when she pulled me to safety after Maggot stabbed me in the back.

She was crying. She was desperate and panicked. I could barely understand it. So much fuss over me. A man she had met once. A man would have just as easily have lead her into a volcano a day prior to that if it had been asked of me. A man who would not have stuck his neck out like that in a million year for someone else.

And as I traveled with her, I just... I kept asking why. I kept prodding her for answers to try to understand why she would do that for me of all people.

"Because you don't baby me, or think less of me. You're respectful. You're about the only person I know anymore whose anything like that... like him... like they were."

They. Those fuckers. The weak souls that had come before me. Those pitiful souls that kept dying on her.

And I understood that that was what she needed. Was someone. Not romantically. Really not even friend. Just a person who wasn't a shit head who she could have. Who would live.

And I knew I could do that. As Fracture likes to tell me, I'm a fucking cockroach. So I knew I could give her that. And if you can, and it costs you nothing, shouldn't you? You would think so wouldn't you?

But she was still so obsessed with 'they'. Them. Those fuckers.

To avenge one of them, she constantly insisted that David had to die. She was fucking obsessed. And she wouldn't fucking listen. She wanted to make sure she was the one to do it because someone else or time got him. David wasn't a young man after all. Time, as she saw it, was against her.

And even with my help, we both knew we couldn't do it. That we'd die trying.

And I just... when it came to that moment to march in with her and face death with her... I couldn't.

I just... fucking... couldn't.

I abandoned her and shes fucking gone. I should have been there...

And I felt, for the first time in a life time surrounded by death, loss.

I told myself, "Whats the point of surviving... if no one else is gonna make it to the end with you?"

And it just... It hurt. I felt like my stomach was trying to eat itself. My brain was on fire. I curled up into a ball on the floor and just... I cried. Dug my fingers into my stomach... prayed to god that it would just stop hurting... just... "No more."

And that was my week after that. I laid on the floor of my room, curled up into a ball, and marveled at myself that I had done to her what I always do to everyone. I left her to die.

And I just couldn't take it. I never wanted to feel this again. I held my gun up to the side of my head... I closed my eyes... prayed I was holding it right so it would actually be quick.

And then I curled back up on the floor and put the gun away, because I'm a weak piece of shit. Because of that, where she went... I can not follow.

If I didn't have the common decency to die, I might as well get back to work. So I got up and got to my desk... went about the forms and budgeting... those endless forms.

And as always, Fire Culties and Masks kept approaching me. They always had questions. Always needed help. Fucking teenagers. So young. Every little thing is a new disaster for them.

Such a waste of fucking time to help them. Bunch of revenge driven rage cunts ready to charge head long at their deaths if it would give them some semblance of the mindless vengeance they crave. Like her. And like her, they don't listen. They don't take the real advice they need. They won't let go. They'll change right off to that death every time and leave everything they know.

And it occurred to me I had come to the wrong conclusion before.

The question isn't:
"Whats the point of surviving... if no one else is gonna make it to the end with you."

It's:
"Whats the point of them... if they're always gonna die."

Fuck them. Fuck her. I should have bothered. I never shouldn't have bothered. I shouldn't be bothering now.

She was always gonna die. They are always gonna die. And then, it'll just be me. Over and over and over again.

And I knew this before. Its something I've always known. But I was touch by her. By their plight. By Fracture's constant fucking talk of hope. And I ignored what I knew to be true, on blind hope that things could be better like they all said.

But I was fucking right. There is no hope. There's no point is trying. They will always die. You, you all will die. You're all fucked.

And I'm done believing otherwise.

I'm gonna go back to doing the only thing I can do. Working. Surviving.

Watching everyone else die, slowly.

Its... its all I can do...

I won't forget that again.