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"Do you think we would have gotten along?" Meg wonders aloud, staring up into the sky- or at least the Entity's approximation of it. It's a muddled, warm brown. Indistinguishable. Neither quite day nor night.
"You mean... out there?" Claudette shuffles a bit from her position on top of Meg, turning onto her stomach and resting her head on her crossed arms to look at her. The two of them lay on a discarded trailer out in the forest, somewhere past the campfire. They had found the spot together shortly after being pulled in, and would go there whenever they needed a reprieve from the others. Meg figures it must be near the Hillbilly's realm given the color of the sky nearby. Neither of them feel like venturing any further to find out.
"Mhm. The real world." She confirms, arm still loosely draped around Claudette.
"... I wouldn't have hated you."
Something about the bluntness of the answer is hilarious to her. The ends of her mouth turn upwards, into a smile, into a laugh- and God it feels good to laugh for once. "Well, thank you for that glowing endorsement Ms. Morel."
"Okay! Okay!" Claudette raises a hand defensively, cracking a smile herself. "I didn't mean it like that. You know that. It's just... I don't think we would have talked at all if I knew you."
"Why's that?"
"Your hotheadedness might've turned me away... and I was pretty shy back then. I don't think I would have taken the time to get to know you."
"Fair enough." Meg agrees, closing her eyes and humming a bit. She's not even sure why she asked the question to begin with, but it's what her mind does when she's not occupied. It wanders, thinks about every possibility and what if. Especially now that she has all the time in the world to do so. She thinks about the real world a lot. Thinks about her mother. Wonder if she believes that she's dead. Hopes that her mother believes she is dead, because it certainly beats her believing that her daughter abandoned her when she needed her most.
She thinks her mother would have liked Claudette, had she known her back then. Befriended her. Dated her. Taken her home. Claudette is exactly the type of person that her mother would have wanted her to end up with- smart, level-headed, kind, responsible. She definitely would have approved.
"What are you thinking about?"
"That if we ever get out of here, I would want you to meet my mother."
"Oh.." Claudette's face drops for a moment, brows furrowed in worry. "What if she doesn't like me?"
Meg stares at her for a moment before realizing that she's entirely serious. She can't keep herself from laughing again, harder this time.
"What?" Claudette asks entirely too earnestly, staring back at her in confusion.
"We're trapped inside this nightmareish hellscape where we're fuckin... murdered, time and time again, with no apparent escape in sight..." She has to take a moment to compose herself, wiping tears from her eyes as she tries to stop laughing. "And you're worried about what my mother will think of you in this hypothetical scenario where we find a way out and you get to meet her?"
"Yeah..." She looks down, chuckles to herself. "I guess I am."
There's a moment of silence between the two before they're both a mess of laughter again. The sound echoes in the forest, and for a split second Meg wonders if they should be quieter- if any of the Entity's killers can hear them. But she drops the thought quickly, holds onto the moment for as long as she possibly can. She knows at any moment they could materialize into a trial. She heard a rumor from another survivor once that the Entity discarded survivors who had been there too long and lost all of their hope. So it must feed on that, too, certainly.
She reaches her hand out to stroke Claudette's jaw with her thumb. Pulls her in. Kisses her long and deep and thinks about what'd she would tell the Entity if it were watching.
Eat this, Bitch. We're thriving.