Chapter Text
...
You - Let it happen.
Reaction Speed - You merely blink. Then, something inside your pelvis explodes. Your entire lower body is on fire and your legs can's support you... You fall down like a rag doll.
Pain Threshold [challenging:faliure] - The pain is too immense to scream. It pushes the air out of your lungs. Everything goes dark, a distant blur as you recede into it...
You - Listen... *through* the darkness and the pain.
Reaction Speed - The Hardie boys are screaming, fighting, dying. Someone jumps over you -- nearby gunfire shatters glass.
Garte, the cafeteria manager - "STOP!"
Titus Hardie - "The cop! Protect the cop, he's down..."
You - Touch your lower body...
Pain Threshold - Feels slick and warm with blood. The pain is too strong to know what has happened there. Even clutching to your consciousness takes everything you've got.
You - What parts of me are... missing?
Reaction Speed - Most of what's down there.
You - I don't care. Fuck me.
Reaction Speed - You can also feel bone where the bullet went in. Something very sharp, like broken teeth under your fingers.
You - (Try to open your eyes.) What do I see?
Perception (sight) [medium:success] - Nothing. A persisting darkness. Dancing lights of pain. Distant lights cast by them, like a hellish play...
Kim Kitsuragi - "You're bleeding out!" Out of it -- a silhouette appears, crouching over you. You hear a familiar urge filled with urgency and fear.
1. "No one wants to *do* anything with me... no one wants to party with me."
2. "Gunned down in the line of duty... It's okay."
3. "The wolf is at the door, Kim. He will eat the sun."
4. "Kim, I lied. About not remembering who I am. I made it up... I remember everything."
5. "There's a white shadow that smells of apricots, it's... Always there."
6. Oh. There he is.
You - Oh. There he is.
Kim Kitsuragi - "Hey. Hey! Stay awake. Look at me." He leans over you and puts his full weight on your wounds. It already hurts so much you can hardly feel the difference.
Half Light [medium:success] - It's terrifying. Your heart is racing, pumping all the blood out of your body. You can't stop it. There's nothing you can do to save yourself... But...
You - "Kim... Hi. It's you..."
Kim Kitsuragi - "Yes! Keep talking. Just hold on."
Empathy [easy:success] - He doesn't *care* what you're saying as long as you keep talking.
1. "It always you. It's always fucking... Whenever I'm about to die it's..."
2. "That's good... That's an okay way to die..."
You - "It always you. It's always fucking... Whenever I'm about to die it's..."
Kim Kitsuragi - "Stay with me!"
Empathy - His voice almost breaks. He's only just holding it together, but everything is so fast and it's so hard to think...
He's so scared.
Of what?
Half Light - Of you. The blood between his fingers, his own racing thoughts, and *you.*
That's it.
Empathy - He is as frightened of you as you are of him.
What does that mean? The thought is already slipping from you... It's so hard to think. It's so hard to hold on...
Kim Kitsuragi - "Harry. Stay awake!" His voice is strained, falling. "You hear me? Come on, look at me..!"
Empathy - What does it *mean?*
Half Light - What can you tell him? What can you tell him that explains how you fear him, how you can't understand him, how you feel bad because your blood is staining the palms of his gloves, and how you never want him to leave. There's nothing! He will die without knowing. *We* will die without knowing.
Kim Kitsuragi - "Harry."
Empathy - But you can hardly hear him anymore. Your eyelids grow heavy and the sounds ever more distant. And a cold comes over you. The lieutenant, too, is somewhere far away. Almost gone... when suddenly! You sense something behind him....
De Paule - A slender white shadow, towering. Someone stands there -- raising her pistol at him. The lieutenant does not see it. He's pushing down on your wound with both hands...
Reaction Speed - Scream IMMEDIATELY. He's gonna die.
1. Just let the darkness take you.
2. Authority [medium 11] - No!!! Kim...
Authority [medium:success] -"NO," you say, and hand out your firearm to him. Your hand trembles and your eyes are full of fear.
Kim Kitsuragi - That's all it takes. There is no room for hesitation. The lieutenant moves, like a spring unloaded. He grabs the gun from your bloody hand and fires behind him.
De Paule - You hear a faint scream -- a woman's. Then the sound disappears, like someone pressed STOP on the tape. The woman is gone. So is Kim. Then the whole world...
1. Fall into total darkness.