survivors guilt - finney blake

survivors guilt

     Finney Blake had just survived the most traumatic and horrifying event of his life. He had also just killed the man who caused it. For someone who survived something like that, he should be happy right? He should be happy he didn't die down there. He should be happy he ended this.

    He walked down the school hallway. Everyone is looking at him. Why wouldn't they? He had just killed the man who's been causing all the missing kid posters on the walls for weeks. Everyone's either looking at him like he's crazy or like he's some sort of superhero.

    Finney doesn't feel heroic. Sometimes he wishes Moose would look at him like he's pathetic again. He wishes the regular bullies would make their irritating comments at him again. Sometimes when Finney walks up to school and sees a huge crowd yelling he hopes to see Robin in the middle of the circle beating someone up for messing with him. But he doesn't.

    Robin. If it were Robin who survived maybe things would be different. It should've been Finney who died down there, not Robin. Everyday Finney wishes it were him instead of Robin. Everyday when Finney sees someone with long hair wearing a bandana he does a double take. He wants Robin back more than anything. He wants to hear him talk about the last fight he was in, why he had to draw blood this time, how stupid the guy he was fighting was.

    Sometimes Finney hears him. He feels like he's going insane. The phone rings and Finney jumps, scared he's back down there again. Scared he's going to pick up the phone and hear Vance Hopper's voice yelling at him to get out of there because the others couldn't. But there are times Finney wishes he was back down there again. Finney wishes he could answer the phone and hear Robin's voice. "You're a fighter Finney, you always have been. That's why we're friends."  Finney wishes he stuck by his word when he said "I'll be with you soon, Robin."

Whenever Finney sees his dads belt, he feels like he's seeing the grabber again. Sitting in his chair just waiting for Finney to go upstairs so he can beat him. He thinks about how Billy- no- paperboy described it. Thinks about how all the other kids had to go through it but he didn't. He should've. He should've gone through it just like the others did.

Finney thinks about Vance Hopper. "When the grabber saw what I had done that was it. And he took his time with me too." Finney thinks about how much pain he must've gone through. Nobody deserves that. Nobody deserves any of the sick stuff the grabber does. Why did Finney make it and not Vance? Vance was a fighter, everyone knew that about him. He took on three guys at once and still won. Finney never even stood up for himself until the grabber. He'd just stand there and take it. So why did he have to live? Why couldn't it have been Vance? Finney doesn't care how scary Vance was, he doesn't care that he beat kids up over stupid pinball. Sometimes now he even wishes he'd walk into the grab n go just to walk in on Vance yelling at some poor kid for bumping into his pinball machine again.

Finney just wants things to be normal. Sometimes he feels like it's his fault. Why did Finney hear the phone and the other kids didn't? Finney wasn't supposed to be special. He wasn't supposed to be the kid that killed the grabber. He was supposed to be just some loser who's addicted to rocket ships and space. It shouldn't have been him who lived. It shouldn't have. It should've been anyone else. Finney should've been the dead kid on the other end of the line telling whoever was stuck down there how to get out. He shouldn't have been the one talking to the dead kids, he should've been one of them.