Eden

47

Perhaps she isn't scared to die again, I think. Again, because she already must have died once, in order to get here in the first place, the same as me and everyone else. So perhaps she isn't afraid of death any more, not now she's done it once.

Or perhaps death isn't permanent here, I suddenly think.

I stop and consider that, slightly surprised, wondering why I'd think such a thing. It's an odd thought, and something which has only occurred to me to wonder about right then. Now that I have, though, I don't know why I haven't thought about this before. Perhaps death isn't permanent. Perhaps, if you die here, you just reappear again. Perhaps you appear in that same room where I woke up a few hours ago, and you start over, like restarting in a game. Perhaps that's why she isn't scared, because she knows she'll be back. Perhaps.

I think about that. I'm actually not sure I like that idea, if it's true. In a lot of ways, it seems like quite a horrible life, being trapped here forever, dying and being resurrected and dying again. I actually almost hope that isn't how this place works. I don't think I'd like never being able to get away.

I wonder, and think, and then decide that maybe that isn't how it works here, after all. Because if everyone knew that death meant nothing, then surely there'd be far more chaos and murder going on all around me. People wouldn't be paying for water, not when they could just murder us and take it and drink as much as they wished. And murder itself wouldn't be the big deal that this whole ceremonial trial and punishment says it is.

So perhaps not. Perhaps death counts here, after all, and is final, like it is anywhere else. And so perhaps the tied-up prisoner is just brave, and has done what she did for some good reason, and now simply doesn't care what the crowd do to her as a consequence. Or perhaps she's just stubborn, and doesn't want the crowd to see she's scared, and isn't going to give them the satisfaction of knowing she is.

Perhaps it's one of those things, or perhaps it's something else completely. I don't know which, or why she doesn't seem more scared, but whichever it is, I'm actually quite worried for her. No-one deserves to have the things done which they're talking about doing to her.

I want to help, I just don't see any way I can.