𝙰𝚝 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙴𝚍𝚐𝚎 𝙾𝚏 𝙼𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚢 | 𝚃. 𝙾𝚝𝚝𝚘 𐂃

- Cristine -

Cristine took a few deep breaths. Her cabin was completely silent. Completely dead. Her vision blurred from unshed tears as she chanted to herself. The cool steel of her Bowie knife gripped in both hands shaky. She sat on the floor with her back pressed into the bed.

A trip down memory lane, the horror show she experienced in real life. Getting out just in time. Escaping the very first community that should have kept her and the citizens safe. Escape a paranoid group who planned on chopping her and innocents into tiny pieces.

"You did the right thing." Easier said than believed at this point. But she lately she had to believe it even more. It was her call in a sense, after all. She remembered the dingy and warm air of that basement. Remembered the trolley that was pushed inside.

What she got to see, taking in the blood and gore with her own two eyes. The sight stung the back of her throat and tickled her lungs. The faceless person stacking all the bodies up in a pile at the back of the room. She remembered the white collar around his neck as it stood out from his black uniform. Familiar faces. Haggard faces. Weak faces. Plump face. Crying faces.

She'd definitely made the right call. She had to... or they'd be dead. She'd be dead.

There was a rabid gleam to her eyes and Cristine clenched the cold steel tighter until her skin and bones were pulled so tight it began to hurt. She felt sick to her stomach as her mind raced, then the images of red twisted and turned until clenching her eyes shut. She struggled against her memories, trying to claw herself back up as they suffocated her.

"Don't think about it. They're dead now. I wasn't wrong... you protected the group... the group wasn't safe and you made that call. Don't regret it. There is no room for regret and sorry anymore."

Cristine bowed her head and keeled into herself.

The only focus, the only thing able to calm her and wash these foul thoughts away was the face of her father and sister. Thinking of them, flooded her consciousness with an unexpected calmness. "They are the only ones in this world I can trust." Despite not having them physically near her, Cristine's lucidity slowly resurfaced from the dark crevices of her mind.

She'd been having these small panic attacks more frequently. When she was still out, the terror of living and clearing dead more important than anything else. Now she was behind walls, slept more often and much safer than outside. It was far from perfect and ideal for her, but this was the best thing Cristine had in ages.

Now, her mind and body were playing tricks on her and Cristine wondered if she'd ever get a break. A light scoff, "as if." Her eyes remained glued on the front door.

Everything in life was about angles. Use and abuse to get what you want. Whoever got hurt in the process, but a minor detail. And on the Ranch, she was a minor and inconvenient detail. Now, she had enough time to recuperate, her leg completely healed and her body back to its full strength. She kept herself under the radar, endured, and now that menace was gone for a few days.

Her shoulders visibly drooped and this moment in her room, after rearranging her muddy mind, was the only part of the world that mattered, that existed. Unclenching her reddened palms from the knife's hilt, Cristine rubbed her puffed out hair: she was ready to prove her true worth to this place now.