turnsheet_bureau:eternity:goodbye [Contagion]

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======Goodbye======
[CW: Suicide for reasons other than emotional distress]

She turns to look at her executioners. One stands with a foot faltering forwards, a hesitant half-step towards the person she killed, stopped by the other, who stands ill-at-ease with a rifle badly in want of maintenance. Raindrop looks her executioners dead in the eye, and she smiles. The mesh gate closes, separating her from the pair by a corroded web of metal, and Raindrop ties the latch, the fingers of her off-hand resting in the chicken-wire, curling round back inside the Bastion. There’s a brush against her fingers, Raindrop looks up to see Nio’s hand clutching hers through the inter-locking strands.

“Nio, you know I have to leave.”

“I’ll miss you.” Nio's words tumble out in an urgent staccato.

“I’ll miss you too,” Raindrop turns to look at Strangeness, a sister to her, clutching the rifle to her chest, “and you, you’re not allowed to miss me.”

A silence settles between the trio, broken by the clanking of the fence as Raindrop withdraws her hand.

“Goodbye.”

And with that, she turns, and she takes a step.
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She doesn’t turn back, not now. She owes it to the Bastion not to. The walls are its first line of defence from the infection, if they’re breached it would run amok. Leaving is the only way to be sure. To leave and //don’t come back//. Excise the sickness from the community, it’s the only way to keep them safe. She’s seen it before, the sickness spreads, infection takes its course and eventually you fall. To remove it, to //destroy// the sickness is the only way.

She takes another step.
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It’s more than that. The contagion is more than a sickness of the body or the mind, it’s a sickness of the soul. A walking corpse, a body sick with its own autonomous desecration. A body with a hamstringed mind and a doomed soul, fated to walk as a messenger of shapeless death who will never truly die.

Her mother’s stories still ring through her, loath to believe them as Raindrop is; the stranger on many legs, the cobbler, the stories told sat about standing tones, they all shaped her, and formed her into the person she is.

Raindrop reaches to her throat, feeling for her Chierk which is just around her-- it’s no longer there. Her steps falter. Her heart catches in her throat at the memento mori’s loss, where did it go? Panic sets in; where did she leave her mother’s-- oh.
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Alvydas put it in the capsule. That was it. Alvydas. Poor, stupid Alvydas, what was zie thinking? To stand that close to one of //them//, to preach peace and co-existence with a blight on zir very spirit…

No, she can’t think like that, not anymore. Raindrop is dead, it’s not up to her anymore. Perhaps Alvydas will fare better. Perhaps. In any case, zie will keep on living, though… not unchanged. Perhaps zie shall find peace.

And she steps forwards once more.
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Raindrop does not turn back, not breaking stride, not faltering once. She cannot turn back. She owes it not just to the Bastion, but to everyone she would not allow to turn back themselves. To Lottie, to Shansa’s father, to Devo’s wife, to every pair of haunted, bloodshot eyes begging for just a day’s more life before they succumbed, as everyone did.

And now, it is Raindrop’s turn, and she will hold herself to the same standard. She will not be desecrated, and she will //not// doom others to that fate.

She will walk to the tree-line, with her head held high.
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Each step feels like a thousand as she places a line of footprints trailing south. Raindrops from the North she was named, after the pluming black clouds cascading from the north of Eirsace on the day she was born. It was only later her parents would learn they were ash clouds, from the volcanoes heralding the first signs of the end. What would they think of her now?

A vision of their thrashing corpses emerges, unbidden. Would they be proud?

Raindrop takes another step, and then another step, and then ano-
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A sharp crack pierces the air as the rifle’s report sounds, breaking the pace of Raindrop’s steps. She falls, gasping out blood, trying to lift herself back up.

Her arms fail, and she collapses. Facedown, her body spills its life into the blood-soaked grassland.

Raindrops settle, and she is at peace.((this section by Harry S))
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Those who still live in or near the old Bastion mark their paths by landmarks. The abandoned substation; the caravan in the copse; the grave by the cottage.

Some have come to leave markers of their own - maybe in hope of becoming a landmark themselves; maybe in hope of honouring these reminders of what used to be. The grave by the cottage is soon laden with these gifts. Smooth, colourful stones; crumbling handfuls of flowers; empty bullet casings. The headstone, small and makeshift as it is, is buried under the pile. The epitaph, a simple name and short prayer, has not been read in years.

Sometimes, travellers wonder aloud to one another about the body under the mound of soil. 'Whoever lived here, surely.' \\ \\ 'But then, who buried them? No, it must have been a friend.' \\ \\ 'Maybe it was a stranger.' \\ \\ 'Who cares? We didn't know them.'

When the grave was first dug, it was beautiful. Careful, respectful, following the desires of the chierk and of the chierk's owner. When the grave is visited now, it is beautiful. Careful, respectful, following the instincts of passers-by. A resting place piled high with love from those who never knew the person they grieve. And, if they did know that person - they'd leave greater gifts still.

{[]}{{tag>writeupeternity gm_yona complete}}