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 Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 7:13 am
By the time she reached the roof her whole body was aching. At least the wounds hadn't reopened, not that that would matter in a few minutes. Reine felt the smallest pang of guilt, as if by sneaking up here, she was betraying someone-- herself?
Or someone who cared about her?
She'd only realised how tired she was of all this last night, staring up at her ceiling, in her own bed, unable to sleep. Each time she closed her eyes she'd seen the horseman, holding that insect to Eva's cheek. The people who died, because of the errors in judgement she'd made. The whole roof of the church collapsing in, the swarming monsters, all the blood and gore she could barely stomach in horror movies, let alone right in front of her.
Above all, she'd let everyone down, even herself. Maybe she'd been lying to herself all this while, telling herself she could get better, if she tried, if she kept learning. Months of working hard as a trainee had gotten her a promotion, and yet all that pride, that sense of achievement, had been torn to shreds in that one moment she realised all that work amounted to nothing, essentially, because she still did not have the ability to lead a team through a mission.
To her, that pretty much meant she didn't have the ability to do anything, and at this point, she wasn't sure if being a hunter was what she wanted to do the rest of her life, after all.
Stepping forwards, Reine brought an arm up to shield her face; up here, the wind was stronger than she was used to. One step, two steps, three steps to the edge of the roof. For a while all she did was look downwards. Just the thought of death was enough to make her stomach turn.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:35 am
It was foggy, like usual, but here on the rooftops you could almost feel the sun. Between recovering from a hangover, the training fields, the duty roster, and Killer, Harrison had kept himself pretty busy. When he had downtime he usually headed to the library to plug B0nez in and play some FPS.
Today he'd taken his lunch out to the roof.
Gave him time to think.
He thought about kamikazing. Dying for humanity or his friends here or whatever. Every time he thought about it, the answer was no thanks. Policing had been dangerous too, sure, and yeah you put your life on the line. But nobody ever asked you to go out knowing you wouldn't come back.
He signed up because he thought the MiB was a better career option than drug dealer. Longer life expectancy. Better pay. He had his own place that wasn't his mom's motor home. He was neck-deep in weird s**t and gore, but he could handle it. He fought with swords, had a unicorn, and got to travel.
B0nez used to be a ghost before he was a sword, and dying never seemed to bother him too bad. Harrison still wasn't keen on the idea. He took a sip of soda.
Somebody else came out to the roof, but they didn't see him. They just wandered closer and closer to the edge, and stood there looking down. Harrison wondered if he should say anything.
In the end, he decided he probably better. "Hey, lady, careful," he called, "The wind's real bad up here!"
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 10:59 am
The voice startled Reine, promptly derailing her train of thought as she flailed a little, almost embarrassed at being caught all the way up here. She would have liked it to be a little more private- though come to think of it, if she'd really jumped from here, they would probably have found her body, all splattered over the courtyard not long afterwards. Not that it would matter to her by then; everything would have ended.
Now, though, she felt incredibly awkward.
"I'll be fine," she called back, a blatant lie, as she squinted at the other figure. She'd seen him before, and they'd worked together on one mission, though she couldn't quite recall his name. Harrison? Despite his warning she didn't move backwards, to where it would have been safe; part of her was thinking that maybe she could pull it off as some kind of an accident, after all he was right about the wind, plus then there would be an eyewitness to say she'd simply fallen off, instead of jumping.
She thought of watching all those people die, during the mission, thought of the man who'd exploded right in front of their eyes, and took a small, reluctant step backwards. Maybe some other time. She couldn't do this to him, couldn't inflict death on some other innocent person, not after what she'd already done to her team. At the very least she'd wait until he left.
With a sigh she settled on the edge of the roof, sitting down and swinging her legs.
"Awful long way to the bottom, huh?" Not the best conversation to make, for sure, but looking down was making her feel dizzy, and she couldn't think of anything else. 'Have you ever thought of dying' didn't exactly sound, well, appropriate.
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 12:57 pm
"Yeah," Harrison agreed uneasily, putting down his soda on his chip bag before getting up.
Not a bad spot for platforming, B0nez said.
She's not doing whatever that is, Harrison thought back.
"I bring my lunch up here sometimes. They oughta have rails or something up here." Still, she didn't take her eyes off the ground below, and there was something...glum about her. Familiar too, maybe, more than from missions. He couldn't remember. The voice nagged at him.
"You feeling okay?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 9:37 pm
The thought of lunch didn't make her hungry, even though she'd barely eaten for days; most of what she'd been given in the infirmary she'd ended up feeding to Justin. All she needed to imagine was that everything tasted like cardboard, and that was enough to make her feel sick all over again. Nothing looked appetising, nothing interested her, essentially, if not for the one person who regularly kept her company, Reine would have made her way up here before now, possibly at a time when no one was around to stop her..
It was the one simple question, though, that cracked her, tears starting to well up in her eyes. No, she was most certainly not okay, not with the recurring nightmares, the neverending feelings of guilt, the sense of responsibility still weighing down on her. She'd figured that as long as she kept trying her best, everything would end up fine, just the way it had been in school. Spend hours studying, ace tests, make dean's list, it all seemed that easy. It made sense.
But being a hunter just didn't work that way, and after ten or so years of simply cramming, studying, doing practice papers, she was only just starting to realise that nothing was ever enough, and that missions brought you far nearer to death than exams ever did.
"They could have died.." Why she was telling him, she hadn't the slightest idea, but the moment she started speaking it was hard to stop herself. Everything about the mission- the two children, the deaths in the church, the creatures that attacked them, the parasites. By the end it was difficult to make out what she was saying, her words punctuated by sobs.
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