hit me as hard as you can {kenji/patricia}
Jun 8, 2020 16:58:46 GMT -5
Post by rook on Jun 8, 2020 16:58:46 GMT -5
patricia valfierno
Lysander is a lost cause. I'm not wasting time attempting to train up someone who clearly either has a death wish or is oblivious to what they've signed up for. She could have kept her mouth shut, and she'd be dandy. Then again, maybe it's better that she volunteered in place of that other girl - I'm struggling to imagine what good Lys would do with her life other than drink herself to an early grave.
I slip into some gym shorts and pull on a pair of fresh white socks. My chest tugs me towards the carton of cigarettes sitting on by bedside cabinet, but I wave away the cravings with an annoyed sigh. Pacing across the room, I find my sneakers - old but functional. I stand with my hands on my hips, staring at the nylon jacket spread out across my bed. Black with a red stripe down the arms, and the characters D5 printed on the shoulders on the left breast, and "MENTOR" printed across the back.
I'm getting too old for this shit.
Looking like an underpaid gym teacher with my worn tracksuit and tatty bleached hair tied back in a scrunchie, I make my way down to the Training Centre. I retrace the steps I took all those years ago, back then with fear in my gut and hesitation behind every step down the carbon-fibre staircase, now with hurried impatience.
I look around the expanse of the training centre, to all the stations where I once learned how to camouflage, or where I first picked up a spear. So many ghosts run the obstacle course, so many dead fingers have wrapped around the hilts of these blades. Now twenty-four new faces do the same stations, learn the same skills.
I didn't have Lethe to help me, like Kenji and Lysander do now. I didn't have someone to show me what to do, where to go, to give me invaluable advice on what to do in life-or-death situations. For many years, I refused to forgive her. A stubborn little girl like me was never going to understand that different people process grief in different ways, but I guess I do now.
I just don't want these kids to be alone.
I spot Cyro, the boy from Eleven who Katelyn was telling me about. The habitual lobe of my brain nags me to forget his name, to label him as D11M, because that's easier to process when he's dead. Katelyn polluting me with the details of him having a son, of what he has to lose - it's grief I don't need.
But if it helps Kate process it, I guess I'm content to help share that burden.
I sigh, looking around for Kenji. Where is that kid? I look like a stressed soccer mom having a mid-life crisis.