[OPEN] I fight the fever alone

[bemist]

WHO: Gebura and you!
WHAT: June catch-all! Maybe longer! It's a mystery!
WHERE: All around
WHEN: June 2024
WARNINGS: Graphic descriptions of violence, dismemberment, murder, gore and death. Also spoilers for Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina!



[ If you'd like a starter, just let me know! ]

Comments

[bemist]

[ Even Kali would have had a hard time dealing with a Gabriel that had just suddenly appeared, after he'd already been lost to them. Following Elijah's path in a way no one would have expected from someone normally so taciturn and with his emotions tightly under wraps.

Or so they'd thought.

The body beneath Yesod's fingers remains that--a body. Lifeless, unresponsive.

But the voice comes from behind him, Gebura standing there with a gaze that's both present and distant. ]

You can let her go.

[ Rather, she's already gone. ]

[penaltypoints]

[ Yesod straightens up, turning his head to look back over his shoulder, at Gebura. Yes, Kali is gone. She was already gone. His fingers curl into his palms; the corpse felt solid beneath his hands, still warm. Uselessly sentimental gestures crossed his mind, the wish to wipe the blood from Kali's face, to commit the truth of all of these deaths to memory.

The desperation and the despair of the past permeates the scenes that he has witnessed. ]

...Gebura.

[ He says nothing else just yet. What is there to say? There's no use lingering on it now, he reminds himself. ]

[bemist]

[ There's truly no use in it, and Gebura looks him over, before sighing and glancing at... well, anything else. Garion's barely-breathing body, pinned by her blade. The bodies of those who could not flee. The dormant forms of the Abnormalities.

This hadn't really ever been something she'd wanted to remember. ]

You shouldn't be here.

[penaltypoints]

I realize that.

[ But he is here, an intruder stumbling upon Gebura's memories of Kali's final moments, the aftermath of the events that ended in this bloodshed. His gaze follows Gebura's. Gabriel was spared all of it — just as Yesod has no recollection of Giovanni volunteering as a test subject, nothing that he remembers of his past life includes the massacre that killed nearly everyone left.

The bodies and the Abnormalities are all too reminiscent of Lobotomy Corporation. ]

...How did it come to this?

[ A raid, in the Outskirts? ]

[bemist]

We were sold out. Someone leaked information to the Head and they decided to come down here and crush us where we stood.

[ Gebura breathes out, slowly. ]

One of the employees told me that the Abnormalities had all breached and were killing everyone in their path and that there was a strong likelihood of there being no survivors. Running into two Claws who had taken advantage of that wasn't all that surprising. And the Arbiter, too.

[ She looks over at Garion, shaking her head. ]

It was true, though. I only managed to save two people. Out of this many.

[penaltypoints]

[ Gebura's answer pulls Yesod's attention back to her, sharply. He can't help but frown all the more, though it's meaningless to wonder who betrayed them and why, and whether the person in question was aware of the consequences of that decision. It changes nothing now, either.

Instead, setting the thought aside, he focuses on the rest of it. ]

...Then that employee was mistaken. There were two survivors, and that outcome was thanks to you.

[ Meanwhile, Kali lost her life in the process of fighting to the very end of it, for the sake of protecting the people here. All of her actions in this place were carried out for that purpose. ]

[bemist]

I'm glad I could keep my promise, at the very least, even if even now, I have regrets.

[ About not having made it in time to save more of them. She can still hear their screams. Even now. Maybe especially now. ]

Well, I can't say Kali didn't give it everything she had at the time. I know that much.

[penaltypoints]

[ Regrets... He doesn't doubt that Gebura has them — that Kali's regrets had accumulated over time until she drew her last breath. After all, it must have been difficult not to dwell on the possibility that there were ways to prevent each tragedy that befell this laboratory.

Yesod looks at Gebura. ]

She always did. You watched over all of us.

[bemist]

That was the job, after all. Carmen asked me to protect everyone.

[ And that hadn't... quite happened, as planned. Gebura's gaze flickers, briefly. ]

Just because we are where we are now doesn't mean that's concluded.

[penaltypoints]

[ Yesod is quiet. Despite Gebura's admission of lingering regrets and a promise to keep, she describes it as a job, work that Kali took seriously because Carmen had tasked her with it, but it's clear that it goes beyond that.

It continues, here and in their world, though he thinks of Malkuth's until they aren't, the hope that all of their lives won't cease to remain intertwined in the near future. ]

...Gabriel didn't want to be in need of it, but it is a relief that you're with us, Gebura.

[bemist]

[ Worry not, Yesod, Gebura knows How This Ends.

Which is fine, she's not going to say anything about it, even as she huffs out a sigh. ]

I don't think I could change what I do now, even if I wanted to.

[ it's become too deep, too much engrained. ]

[penaltypoints]

[ Thank you, Gebura... He will have to bring this up sooner or later. For now, he only regards her thoughtfully. ]

Preferably, we're no longer the handful that some of us must have been back then.

[ Then again, her steadfast resolve to protect her colleagues aside, no matter where and when, they probably have kept her busy here as well, albeit in relatively harmless ways. Looking at future Yesod and the ocean, too. ]

[bemist]

For the most part.

[ Chesed still makes her want to throw him down several Floors. ]

... But I think it's time to move on for now.