Game On (An oc x DRV2 au)

Chapter Fifteen

I... I don't know what I just witnessed.

Tears roll down my cheeks as I struggle to look away from the large monitor displaying the image Ryn's unmoving body.  She may have been a killer, but she had been a much better younger sister.  I can't even begin to think about how much she must've loved and looked up to her older brother for her to be unable to live without him.  I remember the way she seemed to perk up when she told me about him, and how her voice softened.  I know that if someone ever loved me like that, I would consider myself the luckiest person alive.

"Boo-hoo!" Ace cackles. "Wipe your tears, kids, she's reunited with that nerdy brother of hers again!  Honestly, I'm not sure which sibling I enjoyed watching suffer in my killing game more.  They were both strong until they weren't, but at least Ryn had the balls to kill.  Her brother was, despite the fact that he both looked like and very well could kill, a pacifist until the end."

"Why are you telling us this?  To make us feel even worse for her?  If you want us to stop crying, then shut the hell up!" Furfur yells, her eyes brimming with angry tears.

"Careful now, you wouldn't want to anger your headmaster," Ace warns.  Furfur glares at them but says nothing.

"You've had your fun!  Stop this madness!" Mononity demands.  In response, Ace begins to spin him around and around.

"You kiddos should leave so I can give Mononity here a good ol' talking to," the headmaster says as they continue spinning the teacher.

It's clear that by this point, nobody wants to even risk going against any rules, so we all quietly file out and return to the elevator.

"And then there were twelve," Stolas mumbles. "It reminds me of an old mystery novel I read once."

"Shut up," Furfur snaps bitterly.

"Hey, we can't turn on each other now," Zeben tells her. "That's what Monokumace wants, right?  We have to avoid tension as much as we can."

"Maybe that's it.  Maybe we can just live peacefully together now.  Yeah, yeah, that's right," Will insists.  Everyone knows that he's mainly trying to convince himself, judging by the way his gaze drops to the floor and how obviously fake his smile is.

"Well, it's not quite noon yet.  Perhaps the best idea is to just relax and try to compose ourselves?" Evangeline suggests. 

"Easier said than done," Iris reminds her. "I don't think recovering from trauma is that easy."

He makes a really strong point.  No matter how much I've enjoyed spending time with these people, the deaths of four of our friends weighs heavy on my mind.  You can't just move on from something like that.  It's not how it works, even if we try to convince ourselves that it is.

I honestly don't remember most of the walk back to the first island, or when I ended up getting back to my cottage.  All I know is that I'm now finding myself staring up at my ceiling blankly.  I'm thinking about Tristan when he dropped dead from the poison.  I'm thinking about Rori when he fell from the tree of needles and barely survived only for the cliff to collapse.  I'm thinking about En when we found them with blood dripping from their head in the Pharmacy.  And I'm thinking about Ryn when she realized that the person she'd killed to find again, the person she kept going for, was already dead.  Because no matter how much I want to leave it all behind me, it will just keep coming back again and again and again.  It will always be etched in our heads.  No amount of time or distractions can change that.

...I need some tea.

Before this island, I've never really been a tea kind of girl.  It turns out that there's a reason why people recommend tea for relaxation.  In a sense, it may not help me recover, but it can help my body calm down for a short while.  ...Is this what drugs do?  If so, f*ck drugs.  Drink tea, people!