Blame

Departure

Gravel crunched beneath Elizabeth's incredibly worn sneakers as she walked. The wood-covered bridge that stood before her appeared to be incredibly neglected, meaning that it fit right in with everything else in town.

Around sixty percent of its surface was covered with rough carvings and a bit of spray paint.

For the second time since she had arrived, Elizabeth located her contribution to all of the vandalism.

She kneeled down in front of it before reaching into her coat and pulling out one of her throwing knives, tugging it out of its sheath.

As disgusting as she felt to hold a sharp object of any kind after everything that happened with Ennard, Elizabeth would probably end up carrying one on her person for the rest of her life. Just in case the demon ever clawed its way back out of hell with a vengeance.

After sparing a glance at her bloodshot, tired eyes in the reflection of the blade for a moment, she altered her old carvings.

'E.B.J'

'Oct. 1973 -  ̶1̶9̶8̶6̶  1994'

And once she was done, she passed through the rest of the bridge and walked until she located the bench with the wolf head graffiti and practically collapsed onto it. The paint had become rather faded over time, but the wolf was still clear enough and you could tell where Jesse's knife had struck all those years ago.

Sitting on this particular bench felt like a weird form of personal torture. She didn't really care.

Just across the street, Elizabeth could see the exact spot where she had first met Jesse and said goodbye to her hometown. She had stood there awkwardly, incredibly bruised, slightly concussed, and trying to find a way to not focus on anything. She had started doing it frequently in an effort to be at peace for just a moment, but it hardly ever worked.

She was sick and tired of never being able to do anything right and feeling completely unwanted.

She was sick and tired of everything, actually.

So when Jesse had taken her to Mister Afton and he, after tasking her with trying to strike about twenty different targets with a throwing knife, asked her if she would join his circus, she immediately said yes.

Elizabeth was never particularly fast to respond to anything that was said to her. She'd usually take a moment to say her response in her head before saying it aloud in the hopes that she wouldn't stutter as badly. But she said yes to that man before he had actually managed to completely get out the tail end of his sentence.

Thankfully, despite being only fourteen, there were no questions asked about her parents. At least, not by Mister Afton. Elizabeth could distinctly remember Laura and a few other troupe members bringing it up, but she just sort of awkwardly avoided properly answering them.

And before she knew it, the train was setting off for the next stop. She could still remember standing in the narrow hall outside of her new room, watching through one of the windows as her hometown grew smaller and smaller in the distance until she couldn't see it anymore. And, in that moment, as far as Elizabeth was concerned, it didn't even exist anymore.

She thought that maybe she would actually be able to make something out of herself.

Maybe she could actually be happy.

"Hey again. How're you doing?"

After inhaling a little too sharply and somehow making herself choke, Elizabeth turned to find Charlie, who was leaning on the backrest of the bench.