Chapter Text
Having been the only one to survive the ordeal, Lindsay felt strongly that surely, she must have done something very right - or perhaps very wrong - to have earned that precarious, implausible, yet mocking honor. A strange honor, one that she could not stomach. Not without Jenny, who should have been there to help her, comfort her, and buy her four bottles of bubblegum-flavored mouthwash on a whim (after ensuring the absence of any dog imagery on the packaging), and yet wasn't. All because Lindsay, it seemed to her, hadn't been fast enough, strong enough, smart enough, loud enough, enough enough at all.
Jenny, who she owed everything to. Whose praises she'd be expected to sing. The family had been advised not to be on the internet for a few weeks out of a desire to spare them the details. Lindsay would have preferred they not be told anything at all, but she had to offer up an answer, and so a compromise was struck. At the behest of the Steinbei Polizeieinsatz, Jenny's parents were informed that their daughter had been the unfortunate victim of a horrific crime involving group abduction, torture, and mutilation, and that Lindsay was the sole survivor. She couldn't stomach the idea of devising a fake story, driven by a fear that the lie would obscure the truth in her mind and the true circumstances would be shamefully forgotten, but they didn't press for an elaboration.
And Katsuro... what was there to be said about him? Or, more accurately, what did she have to say about him? She'd only gleaned any knowledge of the 'centipede''s front piece after she was nestled in a hospital gown, when the police had informed her that the man in the front was named Katsuro and that his family was making funeral arrangements and how she would handle it and did she want to speak to them and so much more that served only to evoke a fresh burst of wet eyes and voice cracks and throat dryness and nurses hurrying to replace the rapidly dwindling bedside supply of tissues. To her knowledge, his parents had been served the same knowledge as Jenny's, although she'd not been privy to their reactions, a fact she was grateful for.
Now that the time had come to frame everything within reality and walk out amongst the grieving family and display an impeccable facade, she was afraid. Afraid that she would tarnish Jenny's memory, afraid that she would tell the truth, afraid that they would all despise her in Jenny's name.
She silently expressed a desperate thanks towards the cosmic alignment that the police hadn't contacted her with any details about the scene left behind at the house beyond informing her that Dr. Heiter was no longer a threat after having fatally exchanged bullets with the two detectives, a statement that had given her immediate relief before causing unsettling dread, tinged with guilt and shame, to creep in.
Despite being immensely glad that Amy would be attending as well, she hesitated to think of sharing a friendship after the funeral, the fear of doing wrong by replacing Jenny nestled deep in her heart. Lindsay desperately hoped her absence at Kranz and Voller's funerals would not be held in contempt; the prospect of attending Jenny's and Katsuro's seemed daunting enough. This reflection weighed on her as she contemplated her empathetic misery: she was sorry for Katsuro, for what he'd been made to endure, for what Dr. Heiter might have forced on him without her notice, for the way he'd been driven to his nihilistic breaking point. Sorry for Jenny, for the fact that their shared memories meant nothing and always would, for her pain, for the misery Lindsay herself had unknowingly inflicted, for Jenny's personalized torment at the disgustingly eager hands of Dr. Heiter. Sorry for all the doubtlessly grief-stricken parents, those of Jenny and Katsuro and the detectives...
Unexpectedly, she found herself pitying Mr. and Mrs. Heiter, whoever they might be. They'd made no public appearances, confessions, or apologies, but she figured they were surely aware of what had transpired at the hands of their son, and surely aware that he had met his demise not as an altruistic doctor, but as an egomaniacal torturer and spree killer. For that, she was sorry too.
Suppressing the question of what degree of hatred felt appropriate to garnish his memory with, Lindsay considered whether he deserved any pity. After all, it felt foolish to neglect the possibility that some horribly psyche-wrecking fate had befallen him previously. She would ponder the hatred question later.
Lindsay did not think to pity herself.