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The doors are closing. Shrieks of anguish and terror ring out from all around her, ricocheting on the walls of the rapidly crumbling facility. Employees push and pull, cry out as they're stepped on, grab and twist the flailing limbs of their ex coworkers in a desperate attempt to come out on top, to be the first to reach that distant, blinding entrance before it rejects them all forever, before death swiftly mutates from a looming threat to a bitter, rotten certainty. People she once knew, people she could have called her friends, now morphed into nothing but a screaming mass that yanks and bites and scratches and sobs. The air is thick with wailing and blood, the incapacitated and trampled outnumber the still living, and everything hurts, and the right side of her face is a melting inferno of pins and needles, and crimson bathes her retinas and she can't see. Somewhere behind her, a girl calls out her name.
The doors are closing. She stumbles over a severed arm, tries to choke down rising bile, scans the chaos around her with her good eye, looking for a hand that should have been in hers, looking for its owner.
The doors are closing. Alex is so, so far away.
The doors are closing. Leave me behind, Yuri. Screams with no beginning, no end, one long, massive note of panic and hurt. Please leave me behind. Someone violently thrusts her forward. The exit is within arm's reach, and Alex is so very far away.
She's shoved past bodies in piles, past the threshold, and the air no longer smells of death. The doors are closed. Everything hurts. Alex is so, so very far away.
Why did you leave me, Yuri?
She wakes violently to the sound of screaming, eye bloodshot and head swimming, and it takes her an embarrassingly long time to figure out that the penetrating noise reverberating across the entire train is, in fact, coming from her. Yuri forces her mouth shut, presses a trembling hand over her lips, and holds her tongue tight between worn down molars, opting to focus on the scratchy feeling at the base of her throat instead of the familiarly frantic beating of her heart against her ribs, a throbbing, persistent rawness the only indication that a scream ever escaped her body at all. The night is black and impenetrable outside the glossy window, and Yuri curls her body inwards, pulling tired legs closer to her chest in a pathetic, childish attempt to ward off the numbing fear darkness brings, ward off a voice that seeks to haunt her in waking and in sleep, the guilt entangled with its last cries choking her like heavy fabric pressed against her airways. She traces careful fingers over the shallow cavern of a hollow socket where an eye ought to be, used to be, silver and bright, and tries to recall the sensation of seeing. She still hasn't adjusted to that odd, empty absence, despite all the time that's passed, all her rigorous training, and has been told that it would take her even longer to adjust still. She hates it. Hates being weak, hates having to rely on others, inconveniencing them all because she can't execute simple tasks anymore, hates that the desolate facility buried deep below foundations managed to carve something physical and important out of her, hates that she has to be reminded of the fact every time her gaze meets that of her apathetic reflection in the mirror. As if the nightmares weren't enough, as if she needed palpable proof of her incompetence, her cowardice, as if Alex…
A shout from the innards of the bus slices through the momentary stillness of the night, sending Yuri jolting upwards in her bed.
“Somebody shut that kid up, for the love of God, or I swear-”
Or so Yuri can hear. She's taken to sleeping, as of late, on a private compartment away from the rest of the crew, not because she specifically demanded it from Dante or somebody else, but rather because her tendency to wake up screaming at odd hours kept her coworkers from getting any meaningful rest as well. They'd been kind about it, for the most part, albeit a little impatient (Why can't you get over it already, she imagines them wanting to say, wants to tell them to just spit it out already and quit trying to pretend they don't mind her being such a nuisance.), but, after about a week of shrieks and unceremonious waking, running for some vague, imaginary exit in frantic, bleary hazes, enough had been enough, and they'd all decided it would be best to move Yuri elsewhere on the bus. No hard feelings, they had told her, and she tried her best to agree. Turns out, not even forced isolation is going to cut it, and she can only guess that Heathcliff’s irritated that kid is most likely in reference to her.
There's further commotion from her fellow passengers, but Yuri tries to tune it out as best she can. She doesn't want this any more than they do, isn't enjoying it any more than they are, and she desperately wishes she could just make herself shut up for good, forget about her eye, about L Corp, forget it all, finally stop hearing Alex's panicked cries every time she closes her eyes, and get rid of this festering guilt that threatens to corrode her from her very core. She wishes it could all be over. Something wet rolls down her cheeks, and she wipes at it furiously, refusing to acknowledge the slimy, nauseating sensation, feeling of tears too much like blood over her fingers, or the emotion behind it, the fact that she still finds herself weeping, stupidly, over bad dreams, over dead people, over things she can no longer have.
It didn't use to be like this. She didn't use to cry like this. She used to be competent, fight like her life depended on it, because more often than not it did, survive off of miniscule rations of food too stale to keep down properly and still despite that she lived, yet now all of that has vanished as if by magic, and she's been reduced to a kid shaking in the darkness of her room, using cheap blankets for protection against the world. The nightmares had always been there, oh, that they had, but they'd only started getting properly bad after her visit to the ruins of L Corp with Dante and their crew, after her close encounter with the Abnormality, after Alex. She wants to explain this to the rest of them, wants to say hey, I wasn't this useless before, please believe me, please give me assignments, please don't leave me alone again, but she can never find the right words to defend her fraying dignity, and she doubts they even care, anyway. To them, she’s the Grade Eight Fixer who almost died to an Abnormality because of her own carelessness, the child that wakes them up sobbing in the middle of the night, the girl who is only good for reading a map to a driver that doesn't even need it. Is this faint semblance of comfort the reason behind her newfound fragility? If she asks, What do I have to do to earn your respect and not your pity, what would the answer be, really? Would there be one at all? Does she want to find out?
There's a knock at her door, deafeningly loud in the silence that's fallen, and a familiar voice asks for permission to enter. Yuri pauses, wipes at her face harder with the sleeve of her shirt, reaches for her eyepatch (newly acquired, “Think of it as a welcome gift, kid.”, chitin shining in the half light of day as an arm stretched out in offering.) somewhere on the bed next to her before a sudden, overwhelming wave of exhaustion hits her with the force of a speeding train, and she decides, forget it, who cares now. She hugs the covers closer to her chest, before shouting at the vague direction of the door.
“It's open.” Obviously, these doors don't lock, stupid, but he asked for permission, so here, she's giving it.
The door slides open with a quiet squeal, and the long, gleaming claw that hinges around it precedes the man it belongs to, face and body following as he carefully sticks his head inside the compartment. The sight of him is morbidly amusing in the sickly light of the moon, dressed in nightwear that she didn't even know he owned, that felt oddly wrong on him, his hair unkempt and the edges of his expression dulled by sleep, and Yuri would have laughed if this were any different situation, if the context of his being here weren't the one it is now.
Gregor makes his way over to her in a few large, confident strides, and drops himself down on the edge of her bed, messing up the covers and proceeding to light a cigarette as he crosses one leg above the other and side eyes her with a half-smile. If he notices her right eye, or what used to be her eye, being exposed, he says nothing of it. Part of Yuri wants to apologize for the gruesome sight she's subjecting him to, but she guesses he's seen worse on the battlefield, stops herself and switches her focus to something else.
“Sorry. I thought you guys wouldn't be able to hear me from all the way down here.”, she looks away, at the blackness closing in on them from outside the bus's windows, and imagines it swallowing her whole, imagines merging with it in some type of twisted, malformed abomination. “You can go back to bed, I swear I won't wake you again.”
Gregor scratches at his stubble, as if pondering this. The cigarette in his mouth illuminates his face in a manner that makes all his features look off, alien, almost, in a way Yuri can't quite place. “Alright.” he shrugs. Yuri waits for him to get up and leave, but he never does, instead turning his gaze, too, at the large windows on the side of the bus and the blank emptiness passing them by.
“You really don't have to stay here.”
“Oh, I know. Just wanted to have a smoke somewhere quiet.”
But the entire bus is deserted, Yuri thinks in hopeless confusion that she never verbalizes, and she has the odd feeling that the silence which follows is only awkward for her.
“Didn't expect someone as small as you to be able to let out such piercing screams. Could've sworn you were getting murdered.” Gregor laughs at her, a gruff, throaty sound, gravel gritted between molars. “Honestly, I'm impressed.”
Yuri feels her face going red with embarrassment and winces, thankful, for the first time in a long time, for the darkness that surrounds her. “Sorry, I'm sorry. I'm not doing it on purpose.” It comes out significantly more trembling than she had intended, and she's never wanted to drop off the face of the earth so bad.
“Ah, I didn't mean it in a bad way.” Gregor backtracks, slightly surprised, in reaction to her near-teary voice, flicking cigarette ash off the bed and looking at her sideways. “What is it with you and Sinclair taking everything I say so seriously? I mean, I'm not that scary, am I?” He makes a dismissive gesture towards Yuri's general direction, shakes his head. “Guess I'm just getting too old to relate to the youth.”
Maybe you're just not funny, Yuri catches herself by surprise with this sudden urge to tease, to be friendly, wonders if she's even allowed that, decides she isn't. “Smoking's bad for you.”, is what she chooses to say, dumbly, instead.
“Yeah, it is, isn't it.”
“You should stop.” She doesn't know why she's still continuing with this, only that she has to, to distract herself from dreaming, from the noises she's managed to choke down, that are not words and are not quite laughter, that claw at her throat and beg to be released once more, from the fact that she wants to joke with someone again, stupid a desire as that may be.
“You know.”, Gregor smiles at a spot on the wall above her head, “That sounds exactly like something my sister would say. You sure you don't know her?”
The way his tone changes, subtly, to something reminiscent of affection, a feeling so distant to her, to all of them here, so unfit for this bus, gets Yuri's attention, despite herself. She wonders when the last time someone spoke about her like this was, with this faraway glint in their eyes and a faint smile tugging at the corners of their mouth, wonders whether someone might speak about her like this again, ever.
“You never said you have a sister.”
“Mhm. Had.”
Oh. “Oh. I'm sorry.”
“No need to be. It was a long time ago.”
“What, um. How? If- you don't mind me asking.”
“Wrong time, wrong place. You know how it goes.”
Yuri lowers her head. To say she knows would be a massive understatement. With a calculated absentmindedness, she traces her tongue over her teeth, empty cavities from battles, searching, perhaps, for something that isn't really there. She tries not to think about it.
She feels bad, having forced Gregor to recall the loss of someone so clearly dear to him, especially now, so soon after L Corp, but he himself doesn't seem particularly bothered, and she silently watches him stub out his cigarette on the hard linoleum and light another one with a neutral expression adorning his face. She finds herself weirdly jealous of a dead girl, of the way her brother smiles when he talks of her even so long after her passing, and she knows it's selfish to think like this, but the feeling persists nonetheless, a bottomless, merciless emptiness at the base of her stomach reminding her that she truly is, and forever will be, alone.
Thoughts of Alex invade her mind uninvited, dig their nails, bloody and torn, in the still tender hollow her absence has left behind, claw at the walls of her bleeding heart and carve out flesh and bone anew. Would she speak this way about Alex, if she ever did? If Yuri had been the one to die, would Alex have spoken about her like this? With a laugh? With love?
Alex would have, she's certain of it. Yuri never does, because Yuri has never tried to, too afraid of the pain to allow for Alex's memory to live on through her.
She should have been the one to die.
“It's going to eat you from the inside out if you don't stop thinking about it.”, Gregor looks to her, as if having read her thoughts, and Yuri startles for a brief moment. “There's no point holding onto things that can't be fixed. Trust a veteran, will you.”
“I'm not-” she starts, but any desire to argue leaves her body as soon as the words leave her mouth, “It's just not fair.”
“Life isn't fair. Not much you can do but try to roll with it.”
“No, you- It should have been me.”
Gregor sighs, heavy and tired, throws his cigarette to the floor and stubs it out once more, this, not even halfway smoked, and Yuri thinks Such a waste, and in her gut lies the looming certainty that this is not only in reference to the slowly withering flame of the cigarette, and she wants now nothing more than to go to sleep and never wake. “Listen, kid.” Gregor reaches out an arm, his good arm, and lets it fall on her shoulder, tentatively, almost, as if checking to see if she's going to shrink away from the touch. She doesn't.
“Listen,”, he continues, shaking her lightly to force her to look him in the eye, “this kind of self-hating mindset might have been enough for you to just scrape by out there, but in here, it won't work. If you simply stand back and convince yourself you're worth nothing, that you should have died long ago and are only an inconvenience to whoever you meet, you'll lose what little fervor you've managed to retain, to build, after all the time you've spent fighting and alone. I've seen it, countless times, with my own eyes, soldiers on the battlefield who believed themselves lowly, incompetent and weak running straight to their deaths the first chance they got, allowing for their blood to flow and their organs to spill because they didn't have it in them to resist, because they didn't think they had any right to do so. We're all sinners down here,” this, with a slight sadness in his tone, “but the trick to not losing your mind is to own it. Don't let yourself be defined by the sins of your past. Try to minimize those of your future. I won't lie, tell you it gets better, because it doesn't. But believe me, one day, you'll look back, and you'll realize that you've learned how to survive. And that's all that matters for people like us.”
Please leave me behind, Yuri.
The right side of her face is a melting inferno of pins and needles, and there's a bottomless emptiness gaping at the base of her stomach.
Gregor is still looking right at her, at her one remaining eye, bright and pale and beautiful, Alex had once said, and she opens her mouth to respond, show that yes, she's understood, she will be better, but all that comes out is a sob. There's blood running down her face once again. An empty eye socket still produces tears. In one swift movement, Yuri lurches forward, hides her crumbling face in Gregor’s chest, and she's definitely not allowed this, but it's been so long, so so long since someone, anyone offered her their arm, a word of advice, an expression of genuine worry towards her. Gregor says nothing as she stains his shirt with her tears, lets her scream and cry all she likes, and she thinks his hand may have moved to rest, protectively, over her back, but the feeling is distant, and the world is blurry and spinning and she just doesn't know.
“It's all my fault!” she wails, squeezes her hands over her eyes as if in futile attempt to prevent more tears from spilling, pulls at her clothes, tries to bury herself deeper into a half embrace, shrink away from the world and disappear forever. “I left her to die, I- everyone, they're all- and I hate it, and I hate myself, because- because I should have- been down there, with her, with- with all of them, but I'm glad I wasn't, I- I'm glad it was them and not me, am I selfish? Is it- is it bad that I didn't want to die?”
“It is selfish.” Gregor's voice sounds from somewhere above Yuri's head, “But so are we. So is everyone. You just learn to live with it, kid.”
“Sorry, I'm- I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I-” But the people her sobs are directed to aren't here to listen, will never be here again.
“Don't apologize to me. There's nothing I can do to make this better.”
And Yuri cries for a long time. Over friends and coworkers, over the rags of old uniforms, over pieces of herself, left half and broken in the rubble, over the present and the future, the mistakes she can't fix, the ones she still has time to prevent.
But soon, she will tire of wailing, and will fall, for the first time in a long time, into a dreamless sleep, watched over by the closest thing to a family she has had since childhood, the closest thing to a brother she will ever have, now and forever, until the day that she dies. She doesn't know it yet, but somebody will speak of her with fondness long after her passing.