heart game - Kantera

[wroughtandtempered]

I’m sorry. I tried— I tried, but I can’t keep going—

I don’t think I can do this alone, so— Please. Please—

I need help.

Comments

wait i lied. 2/3

[wroughtandtempered]

And then you bump the clump of burrs, and remember—

A memory, dulled by time and distance, of a day spent with your brother (not your brother) gone bad. Explosions. Screaming. Fire and blood. You (not you) wanting to help, stepping up— and dying for it, pinned and impaled on shrapnel and rebar.

…it’s not yours, but it lingers. Touches on a similar recollection (screaming, ice, an awkwardly gentle boy turned into something horrific— the facility coming down around your ears while you claw desperately through rubble to escape)—

But you hadn’t stayed. You hadn’t helped; you’d just ran. And it’s because of that you’re alive, you know, but shame still fills you over it. The people you’d come to know, the people most like you— you’d left them to die horribly just to save your own skin.

More than that, though… you’re not just a coward. You’re the worst kind of selfish, too. She gave up everything to help people, and— here you are, making her dying over it about you.

What does that say about you?