until the very end

part 23

“I’m sorry about what happened to Carl,” Aria said.

We were both sitting cross-legged on the grass in front of Coates, letting the fake sun warm our faces and arms. The sun may be fake in the FAYZ, but still managed to give off the desired effect: the warmth was nice and relaxing. I had never been a fan of the summer: without the protection of the FAYZ-wall, my pale skin usually got sunburnt after only half an hour in the sun, but Aria had convinced me. Her exact words: “Some Vitamin D should be good for us”.
Vitamin D. More like Vitamin Delusional.

Aria glanced over at me when I didn’t respond. “Are you okay?”
I shrugged. “He probably wouldn’t have survived in a place like this for long anyways.”
Aria sighed. “Gwen, your friend was killed in front of you. It’s normal to feel sad, or angry. You don’t always have to hide your emotions.”
“Why? Crying is not going to bring him back, so there’s no point.” I bit my lip as I absentmindedly took a sip of my iced cappuchino. One thing not many people knew was that the coffee machines at Coates were somehow still working. “I’m only worried about his sister. He told me to look after her, so I went to their house after it happened, to invite her to come to Coates with me. She knows Brend because they have spent some time picking melons together, and I feel like the both of them could use a friend. But she wasn’t there, and I have no idea where she is.”
Aria closed her eyes for a moment, mumbling something about pushing away emotions as a way to cope with trauma. I decided not to respond, but to change the topic instead.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her.
“Don’t know.” She shrugged, absently plucking the fabric of the large blanket she had wrapped around her skinny body. One of her many nervous tics. “I mean, it’s nice having my mind back to myself, you know? But at the same time… I don’t know. There’s this emptiness. Like I somehow forgot how to control my own thoughts, how to listen to my inituition, how to interpret my emotions.” She let out a sigh. “I think it will take a while for everything to feel normal again.”
I nodded slowly, studying her through my dark sunglasses as she took a sip of her chocolate milk. Her hair looked like she had not brushed or washed it in days and there were big bags under her eyes. But yet, she seemed to be getting better. Over the past few days, the nightmares had decreased. I didn’t have to wake her up in the middle of the night anymore, tangled between sweat-stained sheets, screaming out in horror to a dark presence neither of us could see or hear.

“But what’s worse is the fact that I somehow feel like she’s still present, somewhere, in the far corners of my mind.” She shuddered. “Like she could still take over my mind if she wanted to.”
I started to chew on the inside of my mouth. I didn’t know what to say to her. I already knew what she was just now starting to realise. Once the Gaiaphage had touched your mind, she didn’t go away, not really. And the emptiness Aria described was pretty terrifying. To her, Gaia’s interferance with her mind had been a horrible experience and yet, now that she had finally left her alone, she felt like something was missing.

For whatever reason, the mysterious spiritual connection I felt with the Gaiaphage was comforting to me. I couldn’t even make the slightest of an assumption as to how I would feel if she would ever decide to stop messing with me for whatever reason.

“I talked to Lana,” Aria continued, pulling me back into reality. “I went to Clifftop to talk to her about… well, she has had the same experience.” She looked down. “She once tried to kill the Gaiaphage, before she even had a human body. When she was still a bunch of mutated radiation in the mineshaft. Lana went to the mineshaft, all on her own, shoved a bunch of explosives into the shaft and tried to lit the fire.” Aria sighed. “Her story was also kind of what inspired me to do the same. I thought it would be easier now that she’s basically just human, physically. But we both failed… Horribly. The Gaiaphage… she tortured poor Lana, manipulated her, turned her into her personal slave. Just like she did to me. And just like me, Lana said she can’t push her out of her mind anymore. No matter how hard she tries to block her out, to keep her thoughts to herself.”
Aria sighed, taking a big sip of her chocolate milk. I couldn’t understand how people could drink hot chocolate when the weather was already equal to the depths of hell. But then again, I didn’t understand why people liked warmth anyways.