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There’s something quietly gnawing at his soul, like an infection, not one of the mind, like those corrupted by the egg but one that seems to be degrading his very flesh. Some days, it was almost as if Sam could actually see it, the way the guilt was breaking him down. He’d seen wounds heal and wounds fail to heal correctly, he knew what it was like to watch layers of skin peel away from each other in a manner that can only be described as putrid, alien. Burn wounds where always the worst, infection and slow healing looked to similar, especially for those who didn’t know how to care for them correctly and just let the dead skin sit there and rot.
He’d seen wounds heal on scars, scars on scars on scars. Everyone had them, he had them, he’d inflicted them. He’d actively hurt people, for reasons even he didn’t really understand, only knowing that, at the time, he’d always thought he’d had to. When he was the way Tommy flinched under anyone’s touch, avoided situations that others could normally cope with just fine, standard levels of danger where like punching a bruise to him, a wound never healing. Sam had let that happen. He had been trying to protect the prison, to protect people, and he’d failed.
He’d heard his pleads. He would never forget the sound of his voice and the sickening knowledge of what it had meant when it stopped. Ghostly echoes kept him awake in the night, but it’s what he deserved. Still, it did nothing to help the weight, the lead like stiffness in his bones, the way that waking up in the morning felt like a transgression, that going to sleep felt like both a punishment and an undeserved reward.
He had clearly gone against whatever Gods decided he would be in the position, warden to Pandora’s vault, housing the server’s evil, at least some of it. It was his responsibility, it was all his responsibility, he was Atlas, with the weight of the world squarely on his shoulders, and he’d fucked it all up.
It was easy to let Quakity into the prison, to “speak” to Dream, he could tell himself, it was deserved, it was okay, it helped him feel like he could do something to cope with the knowledge that there was someone alive, that evil, that powerful and he was supposed to be responsible for.
There comes a point when one stops trying, when the weight of the problems of the world becomes like a dull drilling in your head, its always there, it never stops, sometimes, for a brief moment, he forgets about it, like the breath taking calm that washed over him when he saw the way the red light of the banquet hall illuminated Ponk. That is, until he noticed… his arm. Or, lack thereof. His responsibility.
Unchecked, alone, every day, he stood in the prison, waiting to be put to work once more. When had he let himself fall so low?
In the name of protection, what had he done?
Awesamdude, Sam or
The Warden.
The warden was tired.