Playlist for the Apocalypse (Sweet Pea/Betty)

Track 21: If The World Was Ending

Track is 'If The World was Ending' by JP Saxe

Sorry for the delay. Just seemed a bit...too close to home to write this story of late XD

Also, I've been warning you all about some really dark shit that's occurred/will occur in the next few chapters, but specifically, I do want to put a trigger warning here for attempted rape. It's not in detail and skirts around it, but it's alluded to within this chapter.

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March 12th, 2019

Betty's friends appear in her cell.

Unlike the times by the tree, she has not summoned them here. She has not brought them forth. They cling to the edges, like shadows, whispering to her. Begging her.

She thinks that it's her mind, the ruthless part that she inherited from her father, that is doing everything it can to keep her alive. It's trying to keep her sane.

Or, on the other end, she truly has gone crazy.

After she killed the guard, after the Predators all but kicked her stomach in, after she hit her head she just felt fuzzy. The world felt out of focus, like someone adjusting a lens, and she can't quite think right.

This is how the entire timeline feels. She cannot differentiate between days or nights or this or that. She moves mechanically, and after she sips water or finds remains of food on the ground, she won't remember it. Her brain feels jolted around like someone took her skull and shook as hard as they could.

So, she cannot tell anyone how long it was after her blood dripped and dried beneath her that Archie appeared. He came first.

He paced the edges of the space, just out of her vision, fingers seeming to touch over the walls. He'd been here too, she recalls, in a prison cell. He was here the night the world ended.

He talks to her about football and fighting. He talks and tells stories and tries to keep her interested, asking her on occasion to nod or to murmur, to make sure she's still there. She knows it's dangerous to sleep, so she hasn't caught much at all, worried she'll slip under and never wake up.

Archie sometimes tells her, face pinched, to drink some water. Perhaps it's only her subconscious, knowing she's a stubborn ass. Her mind might know that if it's not her friend's encouragement, she might not have the strength to pick herself up. But when Archie asks, his eyes solemn and serious, she cannot do much but try to abide.

Veronica pulls her lip back in disgust at the conditions of the room. She swipes a finger over the metal bed, runs the pads of her thumbs across the thin sheet Betty has pulled and curled herself in, takes stock of the conditions.

Veronica tells Betty she has to be strong. She reminds Betty of all that the two of them have accomplished, keeps telling Betty she is a woman to be feared. She tells Betty that this cannot be her end, not here in this dingy room. She is a person who deserves a better place to die.

Veronica insists this will not be it.

She is the part of Betty that reminds herself she needs to see this through.

Jughead is always frantic and never inside her cell with her. She thinks it's her mind messing up Jug and Jellybean. They look similar enough. Sometimes, she'll hear Jughead and when she moves her head, she'll see him in the place Jellybean should be.

Sometimes, it's just Jellybean, with her tear-streaked face and fingers outstretched, as though she might be able to reach Betty's cell if she stretched far enough.

The other girls, while impressed Betty managed to take down a guard with just her hands, have all but written her off. Each day they seem to wait, expecting her death at any moment.