Chapter Text
nobody asks why she’s alone. the journey home is silent, save for the whistling of wheels on railway tracks and her own unsteady breaths. her belongings remain where they previously were, but there’s no reason to touch them. so they sit there, untouched.
the belongings of the other students lay about too, scattered throughout the duration of the trip. it’s likely to remain that way - either left behind, or taken to wherever tozu sees fit. the gachapon, perhaps.
she doesn’t notice the train slowing until inertia drives her forward, forcing her back to attention. cold air floods the carriage when the doors open, welcoming her back into her normalcy of life. patiently she waits, anticipating the faint echoes of conversation and laughter from other students. but it never comes.
finally she steps off, and the first thing she acknowledges is the night sky. since the game first began, it’s the first time she sees it. constellations dazzle the sky where clouds do not form, wholly authentic to her observant eyes. and presiding over it all is the full moon, observing back with discerning eyes. two long weeks have passed, and she’s finally free.
the first thing she does is spin, pivoting in the centre of this empty station - the kind of spin you do when celebrating. she always imagined herself doing this, imagined it as a moment shared with friends who finally understand her. relate with her. no. even here, she’s still alone.
after a half-dozen spins, she stops herself, momentum faltering. she knows she doesn’t feel a thing inside. she barely even notices the hooks sinking into the tips of her fingers as she leaves the station. eva mistakes it for the frosty weather.
nobody asks if she’s okay. her legs carry her forwards, stumbling over stones unfamiliar to her. dim moonlight filters through trees that lurch above her, the wind howling an intimate tune. otherwise, the walk is silent. it should bring her peace, but it doesn’t.
she’ll be home soon. her parents will have worried, but they’ll accept her absence as one of her quirks. her teachers will have worried, but they’ll assume she was away competing in some international contest. her friends will have worried, but had she any to begin and end with?
she chuckles dryly under her breath. it’s no use dwelling on the past, because she’s alive. finally, she’s proven that her abilities surpass that hideous title. it was so easy to falter under the weight of other’s insults. now they could demean her talent all they want now. call her a joke. see her as their little operation. but she knows those words will no longer hurt her. they were wrong.
from the distance, a shadow follow her. just one, but she catches it in her periphery. it hides behind trees and bushes, blending perfectly into the background. she stops, watching it. unperturbed. she isn’t scared. she doesn’t feel a thing.
it stares back with two eyes that traces her movement, dreadfully familiar, but not quite.
strange. eva shakes her head, and it disappears from sight. silently, she wonders whether hallucinations were part of the consequences tozu mentioned.
nobody asks how she feels. fifteen missing students, and her name isn’t one of them. word travels exponentially, and finally she’s noticed for a reason unrelated to mathematics. classmates bombard her with questions about ultimates. teachers probe her about the academy. it’s the latest craze of the month, but she answers the same indifferent excuse, hovering above a whisper.
the train never arrived. they believe her, because why would she lie about something so trivial? then they dismiss her with a simple laugh, and suddenly she’s alone again. as it always had been.
their names and faces preside no matter where she turns. every conversation eventually returns to them in some artificial manner - her online feed is worse, swamped with outlandish theories about their whereabouts. she tries to avoid it, and she can’t: because without wenona, canteen refreshments has never been so costly. without kai, morning conversations were even duller than before. it’s a punishment to even walk across her town square without the crowds serving a reminder of where she had been. what she had done.
her fingers claw against the edge of the desk, struggling to keep them still despite the unopened books scattered in front of her. occasionally, they fall over the edge, bumped after the bustling of students, and she’s forced to crouch down and gather it.
a displaced chair stands next to her, and from the corner of her eye, she swears see sees a familiar silhouette occupying seat. leaning over her, and attaching invisible strings on her body each time she pick a book up.
but she turns her head, and nobody’s there. and her life persists onwards, feeling nothing.
it’s diana.
the spirit blinks, two magenta eyes that traces her every move. undoubtedly it’s her.
distinctly human. distinctly purple.
finally it notices the look of recognition on her face, and it beams a familiar smile.
nobody asks for her thoughts. they say facing death increases one’s appreciation of life. it had bared its teeth last week, and she’s never been more conscious of her miserable existence. her life was insultingly empty. wake up. school. hide in the bathroom. home. study. sleep. so laughably meaningless she wonders why it takes a death game to notice.
her online friends have drifted apart too, the game communities she once enjoyed growing quiet. she never had many to begin with, and when this happened before, she always found new circles to join. not this time. nothing gets through her head anymore. her mind is adrift with nostalgia and shadows.
shadows. she feels diana peering over her shoulder, as if mocking the world she lives in. the lifestyle she surrendered to. no doubt, a cosmetologists life is betrothed with constant motion - now diana stands in the corner of her room, smiling innocently at her. sometimes she could feel the eyes of the other students, torturing her body.
eva wonders if they could have been saved, given the time. eventually, they would've been found. everybody would've lived. and then... a girl like diana would've opened her world, unlocked possibilities, given her a greater purpose beyond this hollow routine. even if eva spent her entire life in that academy, at least those final moments could’ve nurtured new emotions. new people.
now she’s alive, and the loneliest she’s ever been.
she looks at diana, who meets her gaze with an unwavering calm. it hurts. eva always wallowed in the reality that she’ll never get what she deserved, and yet she betrayed the one person who was there for her.
she hates herself for that.
it gets harder to move. as if this pattern of life has taken over. her legs and arms move on its own accord, taking her to destination she makes every day.
diana watches her expectantly, as if waiting for her to do something different in her life. there’s no excuse, because diana dances in her field of vision. she circles around her room. eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. doing everything she doesn’t. all the while eva rots away, succumbing to this reality.
existence doesn’t catch up to eva, because has she ever truly existed? all she ever was is a reflection of what others wanted her to be. to teachers, she was an object of pride. students envied her. the ultimates could barely discern her motivations. ever since she received this title, she’s lived through other people. after all, when they reject anything she does outside this box, where else can she be accepted?
she’s even a shadow to diana, who joyfully skips in front of her, dragging her along.
it doesn’t disturb her, because she feels too empty to care. instead she lives through impossible scenarios. what if she waited a day? what if she was more friendly to damon? what if she had jumped into diana’s open arms?
she had thought surviving would mean freedom, and finally the words tozu say make sense - there is no victory. there never could’ve been. for as long as that title exists, eva's life will always be the same. her life outside the academy was no different to what was inside it, so there was no true reason to escape
the only difference… was that diana was there for her. and she wasted it.
how… petty she had been. brushing aside diana’s kindness. her faith with damon had undermined diana’s acts of trust. her hatred of wolfgang had eroded diana’s acts of care. her experiences with the others had destroyed diana’s acts of hope. now all of them were gone, and she misses what she could’ve had.
eva weeps, knowing the one chance for escape was gone, and that it will never return again. all she can do now is pray this was just some awful dream, and that the next time she wakes is back inside that killing game.
nobody asks why she cries. her hands tangle on invisible strings, searching for any means to pull. what little control she has disappears. now her body drifts like a marionette, lifting her across destinations. she doesn’t feel anymore.
she hovers there, watching the trains pass. it’s the same station as last, the same full moon governing the sky, casting its cold light over the world below. despite all the time passed, she feels no different.
tears fall down her cheeks, and she doesn’t know why. the strings dig into her skin. it’s painful to breathe.
“i could’ve been the friend you needed.”
and there diana was, gloating without an attempt to, caging her body as if she were always the one in control. she skips an effortless circle, twirling across shadows. her movements were fluid, almost weightless, as though gravity never had a claim on her. eva hangs limply, powerless in her own body.
slowly, diana approaches her, and brushes her fingers against eva’s cheek. she could almost feels diana’s existence, diffusing with hers. cold against her skin.
diana stops herself, watching with those magenta eyes that always seemed to know too much. “you wanted freedom, but you never knew what it meant. look at you now,” she says. her voice croaks a garbled mess, like radio static. “even in life, you pass away. little by little”
and even in death, diana lives.
a thought emerges, and for a moment, she imagines herself as diana, untethered by the strings that bound her, floating over nothingness. would this weight dissolve, or haunt her forever? the image should have frightened her, but it doesn’t.
because she has never lived. she has always been somebody’s shadow.
diana remains wordless, and there’s nothing left to say. the moon hangs overhead, trains whistling by. eva doesn’t move.
or maybe she does. it’s not like she has control anymore.
nobody asks where eva is the following morning.