Chapter 40 – A dark day

Chapter 40 – A dark day

“There is that old saying, don’t fuck with Samurai. It exists for a pretty damn good reason. You could have the greenest of rookies, freshly minted and without any reputation, but if you fuck with that Samurai it will be hell on earth. The worst though are those that don’t react immediately, that go through a right shitshow of a day and have a complete mental break. Then they vanish for a day or two, only to show up mad as a motherfucker and with the single goal of making sure that whoever has hurt them, their friends, or god forbid their pets, regrets ever being born. Don’t know if you heard tale of the Blood Widow, but that girl is right fucked in the head. Nobody knows what exactly happened, but when she showed up in the next town over her gaze alone could flay you alive. The one fuckwit tryna mess with her got blown up so hard they’re still finding bits and pieces of his remains scattered across the country side.

People are afraid of the antithesis. The worst they do is eat you, because they don’t know any better. It’s a matter of survival with them, but it’s simple. No personal involvement, no skewed opinion on anything. Just good old fashioned survival.

No, the real threat is a Samurai who has had a complete mental break. If you see it happen, run. You might still be able to make your way to get-the-fuck-away-land. If you’re responsible for their outbreak? Well, may god help you, because that’s exactly the kind of help you would need. Mark my words.”

- Post on the Samurai Forums, in a discussion about the dangers of Samurai

Cheryl led me to another room nearby, similarly filled with people although without the obvious narcotics changing hands everywhere. There was some beer and some other alcohol, but that was about the extent of it.

Sarah was nowhere to be found, which was a bit surprising considering that she usually towered over everyone. Cheryl asked one of the people in the room and they directed us to a door further in the room.

With a nod she indicated that she would wait here, while I would talk to Sarah. To not scare anyone off, Myriad went invisible, following me with the rest of the Queen’s Guard.

The door led to a small hallway with smaller rooms on each side. Finding Sarah wasn’t hard, considering that hers was the only room that was closed.

I knocked twice. “Hey Sarah? It’s me, Seraphine. Mind if I come in?”

There was no response.

I repeated my question, a little louder this time, but still no reply came. Eventually I decided to enter anyway, leaving my drones outside. The room I found myself in was small and dimly lit by some monitor on the wall playing some random anime on mute.

Sarah was laying on a small bed, a collection of beer cans on the ground next to it. She was staring into space, absently kneading a small pillow with her hands.

She looked... horrible. Unkempt, unwashed, clothes in utter disarray. She looked weak, weaker than I’ve ever seen her before. I had seen her during some pretty dark times, but this was a new low, even for her.

The dim light didn’t help, just offset the ruined make-up and the dirty state of her clothes. They were street clothes, not her working outfit, which was a little surprising. Not too much though. She hated her working outfit.

“Hey,” I said quietly as I entered, closing the door behind me.

She didn’t react for a moment, before finally her gaze moved over to me, eyes glassy and unfocused. She watched me as I walked closer, taking in the room. It was in disarray, just as much as she was, but it wasn’t as bad as our apartment either.

“How are you?” I asked quietly, taking a seat on the edge of the bed, giving her a small smile.

She didn’t reply, simply watching me with that empty gaze. It was like... looking into the eyes of someone who knew they were already dead. That complete loss and hopelessness. It hurt to see.

“I heard what happened,” I said quietly, dropping the smile, “I’m so sorry Sarah.”

She snorted, the first reaction I got. It was... not a good sign, but at least it was some kind of reaction.

“Nothing would have changed,” she said, voice unclear and drunk, “Even if he didn’t die, nothing would have fucking changed...”

“You don’t know that,” I replied, trying for a smile, but dropped it when I realised that I couldn’t bring myself to show even a half-way sincere one. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t here for you.”

“You couldn’t have changed anything anyways,” she said bitterly, “Honestly, I’m coming to think that neither could he. He should have left me there.”

I put a hand on her arm, simply making contact. It was... cold. Almost unhealthy. The kind of feeling of someone who was freezing to death. She didn’t react at all, just gazing at me with those empty, unfocused eyes that could look quite pretty, but didn’t. Not in her state.

We spent a moment in silence. I wasn’t sure what to say. In my time as a joytoy I’ve seen my fair share of desperation. But not like this.

“We all see some dark and cruel times,” I started, searching for words I wasn’t sure I had, “But for each low there is a high. I don’t think Patrick would want to see you sour like this.”

Sarah laughed, a bitter, humourless sound, so completely devoid of joy that it hurt to hear, “He didn’t give a fuck about me. I was just some whore he rescued from behind some dumpster somewhere. I might be an idiot, Seraphine, but I’m not stupid. No, he didn’t care about me. He didn’t even ask me for my name. At first I thought, I really thought, that maybe he might actually care, that someone might actually think I was worth saving, worth paying even the slightest bit of attention to.”

She sighed, rubbing her face with one hand, “I was foolish. Naive. I’m a whore. A worthless whore. Just like the rest of us.”

Tears escaped from behind the hand on her face and she sobbed quietly.

I just sat there, unsure what to say. I wanted to help her, to tell her things would be fine, but I didn’t know how. Sarah seemed worse than I remembered, much worse. I always knew that she hated the job, but I’d never seen her this bad because of it.

“I don’t deserve anything,” she continued in a quiet tone, “Selling my own body, what a fucking disgrace. I should have fucking stayed behind that stupid dumpster and died.”

“Don’t say that, you deserve more in life,” I tried, unsure if it would even get through to her.

“No, I don’t! I’m a whore, Seraphine. I’m a disgrace to society. I don’t deserve anything. The moment I spread my legs for a handful of credits my life was over,” she hissed, voice weak but full of hatred and disgust, directed at herself and, to my shock, at me, “But you would never get it. You are so enamoured with the idea of bending over for any sorry sot who asks you to. You’re just as bad as Sharon. Worthless sluts with no dignity left in them. Do everyone a favour and fucking die, the lot of you.”

Her comment threw me. I didn’t know what to feel. The veracity and earnestness with which she delivered it hurt deeper than anything had hurt before.

Emotions bubbled up inside me, anger, fear, anxiety. I tried hard to keep them bottled up, to try to stay calm. She was in a very bad way, I reminded myself. But it wasn’t easy.

“Even joytoys can have dignity, Sarah,” I said, trying to keep my voice level, “And if you really think that, why did you never take any of the chances to switch jobs?”

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong with her? Kaysa!” Our voice was quivering.

When no answer came and the first feedback from the healer filtered into the chorus, our stomach dropped and we nearly vomited. Tears were freely flowing down our face. We tried to wipe them away to see what was happening, to see what we could do to help.

“Kaysa, please! Do something!”

Our healer was injecting something into Sarah, multiple arms administering medicine, checking for pulse, doing a million different things we didn’t know how to do.

We knew it wasn’t enough.

I’m sorry, Seraphine. I can’t find any lifesigns. She’s dead.

The world broke apart as a giant chasm of despair opened beneath us and swallowed us whole.

Someone pulled us out of the room, but we didn’t pay attention. Words played vaguely at the edge of our awareness, but none of them were important. Nothing mattered anymore. We had failed. Failed to save Sarah. Not only from her job, we had failed to save her life.

Guilt gnawed at us, burrowing deeper and deeper into us, permeating the song that made us whole until it was nothing more than broken notes. If only we had seen how bad she had been, maybe we could have done something else. Maybe if we had known the kind of road she was sliding down then maybe we could have done better.

We had tried so hard. Done whatever we could. It wasn’t enough. None of what we did was enough.

Our last conversation replayed in our mind over and over, showing us over and over again what we had done wrong. We had exploded on her, angry at her, a woman that we could only now see was so lost that she didn’t have anywhere to turn to. It should have been our job to help her, to remain calm, and make sure she would get through this.

But we didn’t. Instead we got angry, angry because she was trapped somewhere we couldn’t understand. Angry because of what she accused us of. Angry because she had given up entirely, probably a long time ago already. We’d been helpless and in our helplessness we resorted to angrily lashing out at the one person we were responsible for.

In a way we had killed Sarah. We had killed our friend. Not only because we failed to help her before, but because we hadn’t been there when she most needed someone to lean on.

We had foisted that responsibility off to Patrick, not even realising how alone she must have been. We were so lost in our own grandeur, in enjoying our time with Chloe and Jenna, killing xenos and saving people, that we hadn’t even stopped to think about her. We could have at least given her a fucking call.

And now we had failed at the last moment that might have been able to change the outcome.

Eventually we came to in another room, sitting in a corner with our arms wrapped around our legs. Tears had long dried up on our face when we didn’t have any left to cry. Jenna was sitting next to us, caressing our face gently. We didn’t even have the energy to look at her.

“I’m sorry, Seraphine,” she muttered.

We didn’t respond. There was nothing left to say, nor did we have the energy to even make the attempt.

“Kaysa told me what happened,” she continued quietly, “It wasn’t your fault.”

We laughed at that, a weak, bitter expression filled with self-deprecation and despair. Not our fault, yeah sure.

“It was,” we pressed out between clenched teeth, “It was our responsibility to help. But we messed it up. We didn’t even see how bad she was doing. And then... And then we made it so much worse because we couldn’t fucking keep a clear mind to maybe, maybe change something.”

We could see in her expression that she noticed our disarray, the way we spoke. We tried to clamp down on it, for her sake.

“You couldn’t have known,” Jenna continued, her gentle voice prickling in our ears but we ignored it.

“Yes, Jenna, we-... I could have. I spent every day with her. But I hadn’t even realised how badly she needed help. This doesn’t just happen over the course of a day, Jenna,” we looked at her, face contorted in hatred directed to nobody but ourselves, “I should have seen the signs, but I was too blind. And she was the one to pay the price.”

She didn’t reply, simply moved closer and wrapped an arm around us.

We sat in silence, as we replayed the last couple of months in our mind, trying to find where we had gone wrong.

The realities of our line of work.

The thought came out of nowhere, and we hated how accurate it was. Sarah wasn’t the first we’d seen die, unhappy to the point of self destruction.

Over time we had seen a number of bodies, OD’d, sliced wrists, sliced throats, bullet to the head, hanged, jumped out a window. The list was endless.

But never before had we been the one responsible. Never before had it been on us to prevent that outcome. Never before had we messed up this badly.

We didn’t know how long we sat there, until Jenna pulled us to our feet and led us out of the shelter. We vaguely recalled sitting in the Najav on our way back. The trip across the empty fields outside of town. There probably had been a forest around here at some point a long time ago.

Sarah probably would have liked that.

We arrived and Jenna led us to the bedroom. We didn’t pay attention when she helped us undress, nor did we speak a word to her or Chloe.

The only thing we could think about was Sarah and how badly we had fucked up.

For a long time we lay there, staring at the ceiling, mind churning and guilt keeping us awake. Eventually though, exhaustion overcame us.

That night the chorus was plagued by endless terrible nightmares.

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