hadriel | VIDEO | Backdated to the 10th

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VIDEO | Backdated to the 10th

[ The video comes to life but there's no face on the other end, just a handwritten note along with a sloppy signature. Some may recognize the last name, others may not, but she honestly doesn't care. She has questions. She wants answers (despite the fact they likely don't have them all). And she desperately wants to find her friends.

The handwritten note is just precaution. She remembers the Null, even if her memory is fuzzy. Just as she doesn't sign it with her full name or tag it with her name. ]

Run down, please. We were underground and not cooking in the sun last I remember.

I could also use some help acquiring some sunscreen SPF... I don't know, whatever the fuck will keep me from turning into a tomato, and a pair of sunglasses.

DA SILVA

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Can't disagree with that. [She snorts.] A lotta people don't change 'til they got death lookin' in their eyes. But since death can be cheap here, it's not much of a motivation anymore.

Even if I could hear it, I really don't think it would change my mind. Anyone willing to lie down in the face of something horrid, in the face of things inhumane, deserve to be trampled like the things they placate themselves to.

If I ever catch a whiff of people going cultist, I'm burning them to the ground until they either learn their lesson or Hope stops bringing them back. [ because cults are an honestly terrifying thing. like brainwashing. it's like it turns good people, people that could be good and kind, into ravenous beasts for things they don't really understand. ]

Death isn't cheap here; the price of it is your eventual sanity. I don't think people have realized that yet, though. [ because remembering, that somehow ends up worse than actually dying. ] I know it doesn't seem that way but Hope can't heal our hearts and minds and we can only handle so much.

( Not a problem, though Kate needs an intake of breath before she starts. )

Delight - ( her voice is painfully neutral there, jaw tight with the effort to hold back emotion ) - let the Null into the city. Fought 'em off for an age. Hope were badly injured. Sorrow killed. ( This is kind of the recap part, but still. ) Fear ended up havin' to move us around and the only place he could find that were uncompromised were this. ( Although she is, admittedly, fuzzier on that part. She was a mess of exhaustion after the Null were done with. )

S'posed to be their original home.

( That comment aside - ) Hope and Fear're weak and Sorrow's out. Delight got imprisoned. Just been trying to rebuild since we got here.

How long were you back in your world?

[ Sharon is silent a good long moment. Sorrow died. Right. She vaguely remembers that. It had all been such a mess. She can remember being by Mello's side, fighting alongside Cecily, and then it's... It's like that movie, Groundhog Day. Again, she woke up here.

Albeit, a brighter version of here. She swallows a lump she didn't realize had formed in her throat. ]

M'sorry I wasn't here.

They can't help being scared.

...I don't think I went back. I don't... I don't know where I was. I just... there was the Null and now I'm just here again. [ It's been a bit of a hump to climb over. ]

No, but they can stand up despite that. They choose not to. I get that you're all gung-ho Mister Optimism, Cole, but I can't defend people like that.

You understand, right? I know you'd probably defend them no matter what argument I placed.

Can't control when The Door drags you out.

( Kate shrugs. It isn't Sharon's fault, just like leaving after the party wasn't Kate's decision or fault either. The only thing worth blaming is The Door and how it works. How unpredictable and unfair it is. )

I know that. [ It just feels like... she failed something important. She never had friends and then when she finally got some, she failed them by being pulled away.

She thought she was stronger than that, that she could tell the Door to fuck itself, just like she does so often with the gods, but the world doesn't work that way. No matter how hard she may wish. ]

I know that, I just... I didn't want to leave you guys. Not again. [ No, she isn't tearing up. She just blinks this much usually, god. ]

Fear freezes. People try, but they can't.

A deer caught in the headlights is going to get hit by the car. I don't care what fear does to people, I care about the fact that they're brainless.

What if it was you?

It never has been. [ LIAR ] I was the one that suffered because of cowards like that.

Would you want them to forget you?

What do you mean? I won't let anyone whose hurt me forget me or what they've done.

( Strangely, that makes Kate snort, a sound somewhere between amusement and exasperation. It's- )

Stupid, innit? Can't get out of here without losin' everything we've found.

( And she wants to go home, still. Back to the familiar and convenient, to the kind of things she should be doing as a job. Back to her power being meaningful and her decade long friends who are more like family. But all this time in Hadriel has built so much for her - new friends, a clinic which has managed to hold itself together in a way that Kate could never quite expect, and the kind of romantic butterflies she had thought were never meant for her. Those are all things she doesn't want to lose either. )

The fucking stupidest. [ Her voice is thick with emotion. She left and she lost a lot during that time. She looks away from Kate, shaking her head. It really is the stupidest thing.

She wants to go back home if only in part to forget everything she gained and lost within her time in Hadriel, but she doesn't want to miss the chance to be with her friends, however long they have together. Going back home will return her to a lonely existence. ]

I don't want to be here but I don't want to... I don't want to be anywhere else without you guys. I don't want to go back to being friendless and alone. I don't want to not remember Mello and you and... I just.

This all... This all fucking hurts too much. [ She's feels as if she's drowning in tidal waves of emotion, remembering precious moments in a cave, and horrifying ones. Of lost friends. Of lost love. And it all just... hurts. ]

Tell me there's still booze here.

But you want to forget them. They're people too.

They're not people; they're monsters.

Monsters are monsters. Most people try not to be monsters.

'Bout the one thing that kept going. ( Let's be honest here, Sharon, if the Speakeasy died, you'd know. Remember when Shadow blew up the bar?

Kate glances down a piece of paper with names and rough schedules before shrugging. )

C'mon. S'pose I can leave early.

( It's not like she's doing much of anything that nobody else can doright now. )

Under the skin, most people turn out to be monsters.

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VIDEO | Backdated to the 10th

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