(Network) awake from blood-thick dreams

[hooliganstatus]

I'm seeing a lot of people apologizing for what they did while we were in the city.

What if what you suddenly feel guilty about is older than that? If no one is here to apologize to?

Comments

[hooliganstatus]

[she chuckles, but it fades as she realizes:]

Maybe at least one. He didn't die, but ... he chose to erase his entire memory. So it may as well count.

[poor Roardi. she hopes that whatever life he found after taking the Nargal stone, he was content.]

When we were all in that illusion ... there was a cloud of something, some kind of gas. I didn't see the cause, but ... it made me hear and see things. From my real life. Everyone I'd killed, either on purpose or by accident... they were ambushing me. Accusing me of what I'd done. And I couldn't run: there were vines that wrapped around me and held me there. I didn't know why at the time, but - they were the plants that make the world outside my city uninhabitable... I had to listen to all of their stories. I hadn't even realized what so many of them were.

[in_extremis]

Oof. That is a nuclear level breakup. Is it weird that I'm a little turned on? It's weird.

What, were you under the impression that they weren't sentient? Why did you have to kill them then?

[hooliganstatus]

Trust me, I've been turned on by weirder. [she winks]

And no, I didn't kill them then - they were all people I'd killed in the past. As part of my job. I was a mercenary. At least, in that life I was. In this one, at home, I was a rebel, and there was a war ...

[that wink is replaced by a wince] Eventually between the vines and the panic, I couldn't breathe. I passed out. When I came to, the street was empty, the fog was gone... it was just me. Alone.

[in_extremis]

War limits your options. Is that what you meant, the starving?

I've known a lot of soldiers who came back and didn't know how to cope with what they had done. A lot of them still didn't feel like they had options, and turned all of that guilt outward until they finally got the help they needed when they were put in prison.

At least, I hope it helps. There's a lot of relapsing.

[hooliganstatus]

Something like that, yes. The metaphor got away from me a little.

What happens to them in prison? In Bregna, prisoners are tortured for information and then just left there until they die. Your prisons sound much more ... accomodating.

[in_extremis]

I can't say none of the prisons where I'm from are like that. I've experienced some myself.

But I was lucky enough to be in a position where I could provide the resources and a few good reasons why some of my nearest and dearest institutions should try to actually solve the problem. Figure out why they're there, what caused the issue, maybe stop it from happening to someone else.

I haven't met a lot of people that I thought were irredeemable or didn't deserve that chance. Most of them were starving.

[hooliganstatus]

Some of us were starving. Most of us were just tired of being controlled and lied to. The Chairman and his people revise history to read however they think would be 'best' for us.