New Developments and Old Wounds, Part Three

Melody again. back to the conversation from earlier:

~

He stared at me for a while, probably trying to figure out if I was lying. Finally, he spoke again.

"I'm sorry to be the one that tells you, Melody, but I'm not joking. See for yourself, if you don't believe me."

I moved over to the laptop, skimmed through his blog. Sure enough, the last date was labelled 2014. I... didn't really know what to say. What the hell warrants locking someone in here for two years? I just sat there, staring at the screen, when Shadow spoke again:

"I can't claim to know what this is like for you. I haven't been in here nearly as long. But we need to get out of here, you said you knew of something?" When I didn't answer, he placed his hand on my shoulder. "Melody?"

I shook my head and looked at him. "It's fine... Yeah, there's something other than the field. There's a drop off, think it might be a cliff edge, not sure how far down it goes. I was walking along it when you first showed up here."

"A cliff? Well, it's the only significant thing around here. Which way did we come from?"

"I think we came from over there."

"Alright. Let's start heading for the cliff, we can make our next move from there." He stood and offered me his hand.

I looked at him, cautious, and stood on my own. "You sure you want to be working with a proxy?"

He picked up his laptop as he spoke. "I couldn't care less if you're a proxy. Right now, we're both prisoners, and getting out of here is what matters."

I couldn't help rolling my eyes. "All for one and one for all, huh? Great."

So we started walking in the direction we think the cliff is. I pulled out my flashlight, and he closed the laptop. We were walking for a little while before he spoke again. "When you were following me, what was that song you were humming?"

"Hmm? Oh, it's called Poltergeist, by Zatox and Nikita. There's a version of it called The Darkness, by Hardstyle." I looked over at him, and I swear I saw that hint of pain in his eyes again. "You know it?"

"Yes, I know it. There was a Runner named Lisa, she'd named her blog after it."

I couldn't help but ask "Was?"

"She... She isn't human anymore. She's part of IT now."

"Seriously?" I wasn't sure if I could believe that, but the look he had was a fairly convincing testimony. "Wow. Things sure got fucked up after I was tossed here, huh?"

"Indeed... Now that I think about it, all of the bloggers I first encountered are all gone now."

I got the feeling he'd thought about this before. "All of them?"

He nodded. "First, there was BlackRose. He tried to stay home instead of run. Him and those around him were all killed. His blog was taken down not long after. Then there was LunaSimon, she just stopped posting one day. Ember... is hard to explain, and hasn't posted in a long time either. I told you what happened to Lisa. Keiken's been silent too, so I don't know about him. Same goes for Maze."

"That's rough."

"Yes... yes it is."

I got the feeling he wasn't telling everything. "What aren't you telling me?"

He sighed. "I'm able to open portals, as well as heal people's injuries. At any point, I could have gone to help them."

"But you didn't."

He nodded again, that pained look he had was obvious now. "At the time, all I cared about was my problems, so I just sat there and offered advise. If I'd just intervened... BlackRose might still be alive, Lisa might still be human..."

I'm not one for seeing people wallow, so I stopped, and flicked him in the forehead to get his attention. "Hey."

He looked at me, confused.

"You can't sit there living in the past, Shadow. You could have helped them, but you didn't. You made mistakes, we all do. Don't feel guilty for events you didn't cause. You just have to make up for your mistakes, and the best way to do that is to keep going. They aren't around to tell their stories, so you tell them in their place. Don't let yourself forget, and avenge them. Take it out of Slendy in blood. Well, his equivalent."

~

He's been quiet since than. We're still looking for the cliff, so I guess there'll be an update when we find it.

♪Melody