Welcome to Gaia! ::

He'd said the word 'wee' again, and this time she couldn't stop the corners of her lips from curling a bit in amusement, his complaining altogether fairly entertaining when it wasn't directed at her. Overly dramatic complaining, at that. Petra didn't know what a midgie was, but combined with the words wee and b*****d and this entire conversation, however one-sided, was pretty funny.

"Rucksack."

She made a vague motion towards the backpack with the tip of the roasting spit, inspecting the hot dogs and the marshmallows to make sure there would be no casualties as the treats heated up. When she was satisfied that they wouldn't fall off, the death trainee slid the stick deep into the middle of the flames, watching the outsides began to char a nice, crispy black. The marshmallows, of course, would be finished first, and quickly; she didn't know how Rep liked his marshmallows, or if he wanted a smore or not, but she assumed he wouldn't really know either, so these first would be dedicated to eating. Frankly, it would be a miracle if they had any room for hotdogs.

Pulling the stick out of the flames after an acceptable period of time, she waited a few seconds before they had cooled to offer him the end, where the three marshmallows had begun to ooze, threatening to fall off into the dirt.

"You took residence in a bunker?"

The word rucksack got a blank look from him, not entirely sure what to make of the comment. He tended to need things spelled out to him rather clearly and instead it was like his brain skipped a track and he simply acted aloof and pretended he hadn't heard.

Instead he stared intently at the cooking food, suddenly very very hungry. It looked delicious.

He outright yelped as the marshmallows threatened to ooze, caring not for his fingers as he nabbed them off the end of the spike to rescue them and carefully taste one. Having never tried toasted marshmallows before, it was like there was a party in his mouth.

The result was a lot of very delighted and approving borderline lewd sounds.

"'Mmmm ees are 'o 'ood" he murmured with grin and a mostly full mouth.

--
By the time Killzone spoke up, Rep was in a much better mood thanks to the large quantities of sugar he'd managed to eat, and was no longer half as irritable as he'd been on the way through the jungle. He hadn't seen any more snakes either, which was also helpful. His good mood meant story time was more than welcome and he had no objections to the listened intently to what the large man had to say. He was however sceptical at first at the very idea of the speaking stick, it sounded like new age nonsense. His reservations didn't last however, melting away piece by piece in the wake of the Killzone's story. It felt so close to home that it went from a pleasant story to deeply uncomfortable for him to listen to. Every word took him painfully back to places he avoided revisiting almost every day of his life. And the fact that the other man had clearly lived far beyond the place he was at, that he had gone from division to division looking for a solution to his feelings and shared that with them too was humbling. Finally he understood why the man had stuck his neck out for him, why at the moment when he'd looked not worth saving at all, he had been spared. He was a hunter who had decided to wage his own private war on the monster that killed people from the inside. People whose worst enemies didn't have claws and fangs, people whose worst enemies were themselves.

Like him.

His goofy and frivolous expression had melted in the wake of the unflinching honesty Killzone had displayed, the degree to which he had opened up to them all frankly staggering to Rep. It was a level of bravery he didn't think he'd be capable of.

However, his capabilities were very soon tested as he was handed the brightly coloured stick before any of the others. He looked down at it distantly, as if looking through it rather than at it. His expression seemed to flicker as if he was waging some inner war on himself, it didn't last long. Doubt seemed to win out and a genuine frown tugged at his features .

Had he been asked to go first without anything to go by, he would have said no, would have dug in his heels and refused. He might have simply lied, made up a nonsensical story about a wondrous and ideal past. The past he often tried to convince himself was the real one. But Killzone had set a precedent, set the bar high - and he didn't have the heart in him to be the one to somehow lessen the impact of his words by following them with lies.

It wouldn't be easy, but he had to follow honesty with honesty.

He cleared his throat, looking at the fire rather than anyone round it, staring until he could feel the warmth from it on his face.

"Right well. You are all going to have to bear with me on this one. This s**t isn't.." he cleared his throat nervously. "This s**t isn't stuff I've ever told anyone before. Not even the ******** therapists, not even people close to me. Not all of it. It's probably boring, it's probably stupid, but I have the ******** stick thing, so I guess you all have to listen."

He took a slow breath, closing his eyes before he went on. "Well. Starting at the beginning I guess. My mum. Well. There's no ******** nice or fancy way to say it, but she was a hooker. She sold herself to get the drugs she needed to get by. Heroin. I was a bartering chip, a kid she let happen so she could claim money for my upkeep - and spend that s**t on drugs too. I didn't have a dad. I had many "dads", whatever ******** "dad" she was letting ******** her and pay her way that week. Most of them hated me, and they weren't afraid to show it." He rolled his shoulders in a shrug, it didn't bother him. " It made me tough. When I went to school I was way ******** behind, they tell me I couldn't even talk for ages, that I was neglected or whatever. Whenever they tried to take me away into care, we'd move house and pretend to be someone new, she said I was important those times. I was never at schools very long but when I was I learned to be ******** tough. I learned to look out for myself because no one else ever ******** would, because mum was too ******** out of it on whatever she was on to know if I was dead or not and because being a ginger is shite. I learned to fight, I learned that other kids were scared of me even when I didn't ******** try to be scary. I met people like me. Well, near enough. We looked out for each other enough to get by." He felt self conscious saying any of this, feeling all the while like he was complaining, being a p***y little whiner. He was grateful he could pass off the reddening of embarrassment as simply skin warmed by the fire.
"We got by stealing s**t, fighting, doing anything we wanted because no one could ******** touch us or stop us. When I got nabbed by the police and took home? They'd take my mum's ******** drugs away and arrest both of us. They'd take away her sugar. It was ******** hilarious. The s**t she used to scream at me in those cells." He opened his eyes with a smirk. "She SAW me. When I did the really awful s**t, she saw me. She had no ******** option. So of course, I got worse, it was easy. Too ******** easy, we were invincible. I was able to fight back against the pricks that beat her up. I felt like I was ******** winning." He waved his hand vaguely.

"Just before I quit school for good. She died. Overdosed. I came in one night to see her, she was laying there staring at the ceiling, at a sky she couldn't see. No one home." His voice almost cracked as he went on. "She ******** left me. Just because she was weak, just because she couldn't ******** handle it, she left me alone. Typical ******** woman."

He fell silent for a moment.

"And you know like, I couldn't even cry about it. I didn't even feel anything. I just walked away, walked away to have a snack with her lying there cold, ugly and naked on the bed next door, and called in the death when I was ready. I spent a long ******** time waiting for the tears people expected from me but they never showed up. Not even when they put her in the box and shoved her under the ground - I couldn't afford a gravestone for her - did I feel anything. After that it just turned into a blur for me. Out of school the fights got more violent, the parties got wilder, the gangs got better. I got a "job" burning DVDs and s**t for one of the local outfits, I drank, I ******** prostitutes and I took drugs. And I could feel the monsters gaining on me, I could feel my sanity slipping. I started hearing things, seeing things out of the corner of my eye, I thought it was the drugs, and then I thought it was my mind. I got offered heroin and I worried I was going to end up turning to the same sugar that killed her. Worried that I was going to ******** drown in booze and sex and self loathing. Even with the people I ran with, I never fit in. I never knew when to stop. I got locked up for stabbing a guy when I was nineteen. I guess maybe on some ******** level I thought if I was enough of a p***k, one day she'd come back. Retarded, right?."

He sighed. "But I'm ******** rambling. Basically then I got the call to Deus. My world was going towards a ******** brick wall. I wanted off. I wanted somewhere where I could mean something. Be more than just someone else's ******** bartering chip. I wanted to like, fight s**t with direction. So yeah. Sun. I ******** love Sun. I do. I feel like it's this..direction I never had. But the people here are like. It's different. It's so ******** different and I really ******** want to change. I don't want to ******** up again. But it's like that same slope, I can see the brick wall again and I'm starting to think maybe I was just never meant to fit in ********. And I say I'm sorry but then I do it again, and I can't stop. I can't ******** stop. And I wonder if that was what she felt like with the drugs, if when she told me she'd stop it's like when I say I'll stop. And I get scared and I wonder if it's a ******** cycle and I was always doomed."

He clenched the stick hard in his hand and his voice was almost a whisper as he eyed the crackling fire.

"I don't want to ******** be weak. I don't want to leave people behind."

The world seemed to recede around him as he was caught up again in the world he tried to forget, feeling hollow and stupid and embarrassed. He cleared his throat.

"B.. but yeah. Whatever man. I know whine some more Rep, that's all you ever ******** do. I just figured if we..If we were gonna say, I might aswell."

He held out the stick in case anyone else wanted to take it.

"I'll stop wasting time."

Jerry had finally relinquished the guitar, setting it down beside him and Jason on the ground as Killzone had begun speaking. He and the strange large man had been rooming together for some time before the Pheonix incident. He had, of course, known why. But in all that time, with all Jerry's late-night questions, the man hadn't really answered any. He knew nothing about his eccentric 'babysitter'. Until now.

It was Rep's turn, and he couldn't help but be slightly fascinated. It sounded like the man had been through hell but.... that still didn't make any excuses.

He was reminded of those meetings... the first step is to admit you have a problem. At least Rep seemed to have passed that step. The question was, was he man enough to do something about it, to grow beyond where his seeds had been planted. He kept his lips pursed, eyes on the fire between them all until it was Petra's voice softly speaking up.

It was the most he had ever heard her say in one go. That alone had him looking up, imagining the fields and forests. It sounded nice, all in all. The slow and steady decline hinting through her broken sentences had him searching her face, his brows knit with concern.

As the stick was offered to him in a trembling hand, he let his fingers stay on her's for a few moments, his mouth twitching up into a weak smile before finally taking the garish thing to set on his own lap.

It was his turn.

Deep breaths.

"I um." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "I was born and raised in Philadelphia. A city boy. We um. Weren't poor or wanting, but we weren't rich either, just... just kept up business as usual. I never knew my parents. I've learned a lot of people here didn't know their parents, though. I was raised by my grandparents since I was a baby." He smiled weakly, fidgeting with the speaking stick's charms and decorations, "I was um. A nervous kid if you'd believe it, ahahaha. Sh-shy and um. I had a stammer but... I went through this musical therapy program and... and had a knack for it all. It raised my confidence and... and Grandpa was always supportive. He taught me the Ukulele and Piano and they got me guitar lessons and... and anything I wanted.

"The um. They thought i was a bit trouble because of... of my nychtophobia. But... but when I could keep my mind off of the shadows, it wasn't so much of a problem, right?" He smiled weakly, glancing around the circle. If he had learned anything at Deus it was that he wasn't alone. "I could... could ignore my um. P-problems with... with dark spaces. I was pretty good at music. I wanted to become a teacher, help other kids who... you know. had issues like I did.

"Then my Grandad got sick." He shifted uncomfortably. "I was freshly Barmitzfah'ed. A man just in time for him to... for me to... become the man of the house." He drew in a deep breath. "I took care of him until he... until he passed. Didn't... have much of a social life. Didn't matter, I didn't have many friends anyway, my grandparents WERE my friends and... and then he died. It... it was hard on my grandmother. She had a stroke a few years later. It... it effected a lot of things. Um. There were these machines and... I kept her at home, she wanted to stay at home. I... I could stay with her that way, make sure she was properly cared for, you know? I mean... she... she took care of me, it was the least I could do. I was... was getting older, and she was getting worse, but it was okay because we... we had each other more or less and... " He cleared his throat, pushing his glasses up his nose, "She'd often call me by my grandfather's name, ahaha.... 'Oscar, did you let the cat out?'," He laughed again, a bit too nervously. "But... but when I played for her, it was like... she'd come back to me." He spared them the gritty details. It didn't matter.

He drew in a deep breath, "And then she died too. I was seventeen. I... I didn't really... have a life of my own. I had... a bit of a break down. They um. I thought... at the time I thought I had hallucinated the shadows that had come for her body but... I suppose now I know. They weren't after her. They were after me, and my terror. It... it turned out I had an estranged uncle. Never met him before. Don't know why my grandparents never spoke of their son to this day. I... I have my suspicions though. The nurses um. Wanted him to look after me. At least until I turned eighteen. He was just after my inheritance... but... ahahaha... there was no money, really. Just my college fund and the house.

"I um. Started drinking when I was younger, um. Not... not heavily, just sometimes. Gran would give me a little bit of bourbon vodka before bed help me sleep sometimes... I still do get night terrors but," He cleared his throat. "After grandpa died, I um. Drank more, but Gram needed me, I couldn't over do it, you know? But... but after she died... and... and putting up with that man I just... I don't know. It helped things seem alright. It helped me feel better. It made songs sweeter, made me more confident, made me love the world, you know? So um I took Grandad's old car. I let my uncle take the house. I left to um. Start my own life. For myself. N-nearly... um. Flunked out of college. I know, you all probably think I'm a huge nerd but I'm not really that smart. It was just too much, you know? I don't know. But when my grades were... really dangerous they sent me in. I guess it was the whole showing up to class drunk thing and um." He fidgeted, embarrassed. "I went to meetings and um. Admitted I had a problem and... and stopped. For the most part. Concentrated on building a life for myself. My grades picked up. My Music-Psychotherapy professor pulled some strings. I got my first job. I was going to do it. To become a teacher like my Gran had encouraged me to do. I was going to make them proud... but um. Things... things got in the way.

"I was in a bad place when they brought me to Deus. A real bad place. Their recruiting me probably um. Probably saved my life.

"I suppose even during trials, I knew this was a fresh start. Do things right. Make friends. Have... have a life of my own," He glanced up to Petra with a weak smile before his eyes dipped down again, "M-maybe meet a girl who.. who was as crazy as me ahahaha and um. Didn't judge. But... I've always um. Always been sensitive. And... and it was all so much. I was tired of being bullied. Being the loser, and things just kept..." He shook his head. He had loved Petra the moment she had encouraged him along the way back when they were nothing but gas-masks and code names. But they had woken and she had flung herself into the arms of a gorilla. But it was alright... "I um. I met this girl." Most of them knew who he was talking about, but he wasn't about to name names, "And I thought I loved her. I was um. Still naive. A trainee with a weapon too big for him. But if I had her to help keep me grounded I thought I would be okay. But it turned out I couldn't give her what she needed. When I found out she had been..." He shifted uncomfortably, "Ch-cheating on me I just... I don't know. I broke. Things just... I started drinking again. Heavily. I mean, I had already broken my sobriety record before then, with all the pressure and everything but I was making dumb decisions and... and it just got worse. I was... was on the verge of a breakdown I think. I just want to... to feel good. About myself, about what I do, I want to help other people feel good and do good things and it just was all... pointless. I was.... seriously considering um." He fidgeted, his face reddening in the firelight. "But... but I worked through it. At least until the Insanity hit and... and it all came back again. Sometimes I still..." He scratched at the back of his head before glancing up at Sasha, words itching to pour off his tongue but he kept them back.

"I don't care if people take me seriously or not but... but I want respect. I want to feel respected and... and sometimes I don't think anyone does. Just the nerd with the bazooka and the guitar. But I want to help. I want to be there for the people I care about. I want to not... not get so hung up over my own problems. Here? They don't matter. And.. and so what if... if I had been thinking about... about just killing myself to save other people the effort, it wouldn't... wouldn't do anything but upset people and um. I don't know. I'm better now. I'm better now enough that Simon had me out in the desert on our own and I was pretty sure I was going to get a bullet between my eyes but he didn't. He trusted me to get the job done. To not ch-chicken out because of... of stupid childhood phobias. I'm better now. Nothing matters but... but what we do here. What we accomplish. Killzone is right, there are two wars and I just don't think I can handle fighting two wars at once. And um. I don't know what else to say, I think I've babbled on enough, um, here."

And the stick was passed off to Jason without looking him in the eye.

He wanted a drink. But wanting a drink wasn't the same as needing a drink.

Sasha didn't want to take the stick. She knew, more than anything, that she did not want to take that stick. If she took it, she would be obligated to talk - and she really didn't want to talk. She didn't want to open herself up the way that everyone else had up to this point.

Weak. Weak, weak, weak. Opening herself up and letting all the rage and hate and hurt spew forward just didn't seem like a good idea. She waited for someone else to take the stick.

A glance was directed at Rin. One at Ami. Harrison.

Finally, with a loud groan, Sasha snatched the stick out of Jason's hand. That was the easy part.

She was quiet for a long, long time as she decided the best place to start. The beginning? The end? The middle? Ridiculous. Her life story was not spectacular.

"Yes, so. I'm .. I was raised by my papa. We lived on a farm deep in the French countryside. Just me and him. We didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have much of anything, actually. We kept a few chickens. A goat. Sold fruits and vegetables and whatever else we could to scrape by. Somehow he scraped up enough to buy me my flute," a harsh look was directed at Rep before she continued, "and that instrument became my best friend."

She cleared her throat and picked at the myriad of flair on the stick.

"I was a source of constant disappointment, for one reason or another. If I messed up, my papa would hit me or pull my hair - my ear, whatever, and I'd try to do better. It was my fault. I deserved the punishment, I messed up. Sometimes I felt like I'm the reason that he drank."

Sasha lifted her gaze and stared straight at Jerry, her face expressionless.

"And when he drank, he was mean. I could never do anything right when he drank. Just looking at him the wrong way would send him into bouts of this... intense, hot anger that I didn't understand. I was afraid to understand. All I wanted to do was take care of him, and all he wanted to do was drink ever single cent we had."

A pause.

"It really upset him when I started talking about the shadows. The voices." Her jaw clenched. "He would hit me. I'd apologize. At one point I just stopped talking to him about it because it distressed him in ways I couldn't comprehend. It would make him drink more. Nothing I did made him smile, nothing I did made him happy."

Sasha cleared her throat again and she finally broke eye-contact with Jerry.

"I was in the park painting stupid portraits for money - ridiculous, yeah, but by that point it was the only income we had - and when I got home that evening he was dead. Cold. Laying in a puddle of his own vomit and reeking of urine. I don't know how long he'd been there, but they took him away in a bag and... that was that. A few days later I was approached by Deus, and so I came to the island. I didn't have anything keeping me there at the house. Haunting reminders, a urine stain on the wood floor, and lots of painful memories and confusion. This - Deus - would be... a fresh start. An opportunity for change, right? I fell into the same routine. Trying to make people happy. Trying to help. Doing my best to never disappoint. Always eager for a pat on the head or a 'job well done.'"

Her mouth twisted into a half-smile.

"Anyway. I met Jerry. I felt like he could really understand me, like we had a lot of things in common. He was safe. I mean... we're all here for a reason, right? We've all got our own damn issues, but when I was with Jerry, we... I don't know. It was the first time I'd ever met anyone who could understand the passion I felt for music. And he is just.. Jerry, you're just the nicest man I've ever met, and sometimes I'm mean to you, and I'm sorry. I just wanted to get that off of my chest. I would do anything for you. I love you. I just."

Another pause. She did not complete that train of thought.

"I have lived my whole life thinking that I had nobody else in the world. No family. Nothing. I recently found out that I am a ... that I have family out there because.. I am. I am part of a bloodline of hunters. I don't know who, and I don't know where, and I'll never meet them because it would endanger them, but.. that kind of. I don't know. It made me feel important. Like I really do have a reason for being here. Like I belong here."

Sasha sighed.

"I was given permission recently to visit my old home. While I was there I realized how much I had given up, living in that house and taking care of my papa. He'd given nothing in return. Never a kind word or a show of kindness or a hug - nothing." Sasha pulled a piece of lint from her pants before lifting her gaze to stare into the fire. "He didn't love me enough to take care of himself, to stay, to fight. He gave up, and he drank himself to death. I'll never stop believing that I was the cause. I just don't know why."

She shrugged.

"So. I guess I wouldn't be here in the jungle of death if life was still happy flower fun time. It isn't. There was a situation recently," Sasha leveled her gaze on Rep, unblinking and cool, "And I lashed out in anger and rage and hate and every negative emotion that you could imagine. For a moment I had something - someone - to focus all of that negativity on. I'm not saying it wasn't well deserved. To this moment?" Sasha lifted her eyebrows; it was obvious she was talking directly to Rep, "I still feel like it needed to happen. Maybe for both of us, or maybe just for me. But those emotions - all of them - disgusting and putrid and... when everything was said and done, when the dust had settled, I had a thought. It was scary at first, but the more I thought about it, the more comfortable it made me feel."

Sasha pursed her lips, the stickers on the stick suddenly quite fascinating.

"What if this angry, furious, rage-filled person is really who I am? What if I'm not really the meek and mousy person I thought I was? What if I'd just been forced into that mold, and now that.. now that it's broken, this is what is left behind? Is it even worth fixing? I don't know. I don't know what to do."

She fell silent for a moment before she thrust the stick in Ami's direction.

Rin attempted to construct herself a massive s'more using a full chocolate bar, a full gram cracker for each side and about three roasted marshmallows sandwiched in there somewhere. She was about to take a huge bite of it when Killzone hauled out the stick covered in dollar-store vomit.

She knew there was a catch, there was always a catch. She lowered the ridiculously sugared snack that would have had Leon up in arms. The catch though... she didn't entirely object with once the ball started rolling.

As Killzone's story ended she couldn't help but wonder what else there was about this man; she'd only just met him but... in a strange way she felt thoroughly educated about life and the people around her - all in a soothing flurry of ********. He understood people on a level she couldn't yet even begin to scratch.

That s'more found itself cast aside in her lap, unheeded and unimportant.

Her gaze watched keenly as person after person took the stick and told their tales. She could feel her stomach clench. There was just so much she never knew about these people, those she considered her nearest and dearest friends. Quite a few questions even found themselves answered; why Jerry was so threatened by her feelings even though she herself found them quite... unimportant and meaningless in the grand scheme of things. So many horrible and sad tales and hers just...

The stick was passed to Ami and promptly passed to her. She stared at the stick and then Ami. But... that... She wilted. The trust that was building and building with each shared tale... with each shared experience and horrific fact... it had all come to a dead end. How could she say now? How? This stranger. This person who threatened to leave her in a pit of snakes... They took it all in without contributing anything. Nothing. It was no longer safe... it was a threat and her walls shot up immediately.


No.

No, leave me alone! She's a threat!


Rin straightened out again and turned slightly. Eyeing the woman trapped by her side up and down slowly. Sizing her up.

I think you're right.

Well, love is a strong word...

I care about them, yeah.
he paused a moment as his thoughts drifted a bit

She smiled a bit to herself, by this point there was a very long pause of her fondling a bit of ribbon looking as though she might still pass too... but. Byr was right. She wasn't weak. She could do this and make anyone planning to use it against her wish they hadn't.

She sighed and began, "Well, I... didn't have it nearly so bad," her gaze peering from hunter to hunter ignoring her 'partner' entirely, "I had a pretty good life even if my mother wasn't in it. She died shortly after giving birth to me. Complications or some s**t. I don't know. I just know like. I knew her at some point."

She shrugged and gave Ami's hand a tight squeeze before continuing, "Anyway, my dad raised me alone but he was kind to me. Never was cruel or mean... didn't even blame me for her death. He even gave me a ratty old nightshirt of hers because it smelled like her and helped me sleep as a baby or something."

There was another shrug before her gaze wandered downward and a flash of honesty seemed to soothe her disjointed words, "He was a great man. I wanted more than anything to make his life easier. It's hard raising a kid alone, you know? He sacrificed so much just to be able to spend time with me... sold the house moved into a cheap little cramped apartment with a weedy overgrown patch of dirt. I didn't care though because it meant I got to know him," she smiled, "We turned that crappy patch of dirt into a garden that was the envy of the neighborhood. Together."

"But it was still a struggle," she frowned, "I tried so hard to make him proud with the best kid he could have ever asked for. Never arguing with him and all the best grades - but you can't pay the bills with that. He couldn't afford basic necessities half the time and I could tell it was killing him. Like he had let mom down. He tried to hide it from me but I just..."

Ami's hand got an even tighter squeeze as Rin's head rolled back struggling with a pain she had never actually faced or let herself feel, "... I wasn't stupid dad, I knew. You can't hide it from me. You can never hide it from me."

The squeeze relaxed again as she seemed to get past the wave of emotion - barely squeaking by without tears, "As soon as I was old enough anyone would hire me I got a job at the nearby morgue. Nothing major, just... janitorial work really even though I had hoped for more. So much more. I wanted to be a doctor one day... but you had to be rich for that so it was just a stupid meaningless dream that had no realistic way of happening. At least I was getting food on the table and dads stress... he was smiling again."

She looked blissful for a moment before she seemed to crash right back down into another pit of despair, "But the shadows came back. I always saw them... I just... the one time I ever mentioned them to him. It scared him. He was talking like... he had to do something with me. Like I was broken," she lifted her gaze on Sasha, "like I had to be taken away to be fixed."

That gaze quickly dropped, "So I lied. I told him it was just a joke and I coped with them whenever I saw them. They were startling but tolerable... until that night," she bit her bottom lip fleetingly, "That night it went well beyond just passing shadows; I heard voices, calling to me in hushed whispers. Asking me to join them. I stupidly followed them to where the bodies were stored. Then there was a knocking... and a louder plea... I ******** ran! Things I could swear chasing after me."

She lifted her head again this time a bit more relaxed, "After that... it wasn't the same. I was afraid I was going to hurt my dad so I told him everything and checked into an asylum thinking he was right, that I needed fixed. You can't just fix that though. I could still hear and see things... and other patients - they seemed to sense them too. It wasn't just me. It never was."

"I'd spent years in that facility. Drugged into a stupor and given various treatments in hopes of if not curing me - at least placating me so I was not a danger to 'normal' society. It should come as no surprise why I attached to the idea that my suspicions all along were correct - I wasn't just seeing things. That s**t was really there and I could do something about it. Fight for my ******** sanity," Ami's hand was being crushed now but for an entirely different reason.

"So I came to Deus. I'll admit it wasn't... quite what I was expecting. I thought I'd just. Find my place and get right to work. Fit right in as a cog to the grand machine. But... it wasn't so easy. I had lost everything. Given up everything. My dad was still back there, needing me, but I could do nothing for him anymore. Nothing but get out of his way. I gave up everything and I was nothing for it. I didn't... it was a hard thing to realize and I was letting it consume me. All I wanted to do was eat and sleep and then I just realized... why? What was the point? I only shifted my burden from my dad to deus. I was worthless and useless and I was..," she turned her gaze on Jerry, "I was in a very dark place. I just wanted it all to end. I didn't feel like trying anymore. I didn't feel like fighting."

She was smiling now even as tears rolled down her cheeks, her gaze falling on Rep this time, "Then my a*****e neighbor moved in... he might not have known it at the time - but that conflict was exactly what I needed. I didn't want it, but I sure as hell needed it. To survive," she drew a slow shaky breath, "I never thanked him for that or the very distracting things that resulted from that. The realization that now I could do all the things I always wanted. Dad was no longer there to be hurt by it. Only me and sometimes the risks..." she was looking between Sasha and Jerry now, "...they outweighed anything else."

She looked as though a lot of weight had been lifted somewhere along the way, "I just. If I'm too much sometimes. If I'm too overbearing. I'm just afraid. Afraid of losing the people who really ultimately saved me. Of doing the wrong things," she smiled, "friends are just one of these new risks that are worth it, okay?" with that she finally passed the stick on to Harrison, "Here Harri, your turn," she knew he hated that - but that same sort of conflict is what kept her alive all this time.