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You lost.
Panic splits you apart, and you feel the delicate charade of your entire self start to slip away. You lost. You weren’t supposed to lose, you never lose- you always come out on top. You can’t be weak. This is humiliating. Your knees buckle under you and your vision tunnels as you hit the floor in a kneel, hands braced against your spinning head. You feel nauseous. You swear that you can hear your blood roaring in your ears. In a game of your own creation, played with your rules, you were bested. It was never supposed to happen. You can barely think.
The last time you had felt this kind of dread, it was the first time you ever stood up for yourself. That was when you learned exactly who you had to be. The only way to guarantee your own safety is to fight for it, to keep the walls of invulnerability high with a personality of wit, your barbed wire defenses. If you can’t have a shield, you make do with the knives you’re given.
And yet you lost. To a petulant child, at that.
Every moment of the fight replays in your head in a blurred roulette of memories, desperation taking hold of you. Your worth is held in your ability to win- you know this, it’s not an exaggeration, but God, you wish it was. There’s no fixing this. You can only hope that the consequences aren’t too severe, that your peers won’t scorn you worse than they already do.
You don’t notice the darkness that entangles your limbs, clings to you, until it’s too late.
Oh.
Fear sets in, cold adrenaline rushing through you. You feel yourself fading, and you scream.
You’re all alone. It’s just you and this child, who beat you like it was nothing, who cut you down and who feels no remorse for it. There’s no one to witness your death.
You know that no one will mourn, either.
The game is over. The last thing you will have ever done is lost. No one would have saved you. Tears stream down your face, and you collapse against the floor, slamming your fists down and wailing. Sobs wreck you- or, what’s left of you. You’re already nearly gone.
God, the reaper must hate you. You’ve died too many deaths.
Maybe he’ll forgive you for this one.
Castle Oblivion is the last place you ever wish to step foot in again.
As soon as you’re out of there, you’re back in your room, with the door locked tight. You press your back against it, sliding down onto the floor. Hold your cold, gloved hands to your face, palms on your closed eyes. One steady breath in, one shaking breath out. One steady breath in- you ignore the hitch. The act is up, your next breath out is a sob that you desperately try to hold back, the sound more akin to choking, a ragged and desperate gasp for air. Fuck. Fuck.
It was your fault.
No, you tell yourself. It was your job.
If you had failed, it would have been you on the chopping block, instead. She was a traitor. Repeating it like a mantra. She was a traitor. You did the right thing. It was a matter of time. She was a traitor. She was of no worth to the Organization. She was bitter. She was useless.
She was your friend. More than, even. And you left her to die. And you aren’t supposed to care. But, the only thing you can think of is the grief that digs its claws into your throat, despite the emptiness in your chest, you can feel the dread sitting heavy, where your heart should be.
You know that no one else will mourn her. Demyx had already insulted her, you heard him- called her a witch, among other things said that you refused to continue to listen to. You know that mourning isn’t even something you should be capable of doing, because you don’t have real emotions, because whatever you’re supposedly feeling right now is some approximation, some trick of your mind, that came from learning to fake them to blend with outsiders, maybe.
In spite of it all, another sob breaks through you.
You force yourself to get up, haphazardly throw yourself onto your bed, and curl up to sleep. You don’t bother pulling the blanket or sheet up over you. Your head is barely on your pillow.
Some part of you hopes that you don’t wake from this slumber.
A different part says that you don’t deserve such a mercy.
It’s been weeks. You go about your days the same as normal.
The emptiness only grows into a gaping wound inside of you, that bleeds with your despair. If you were a superstitious man, you’d wonder if you were being haunted. You know you’re not.
No, if anything, a haunting would be preferable.
Instead, you’re followed by the absence of her. Nothing but the quiet when you know she would have something to say, stillness when you know she’d normally be leaning against you. There’s no more playful banter, no flirting, no shared looks of disgust when someone says anything about romance. No shoulder to lean on, no gossip to share in hushed whispers.
You’ve noticed that Demyx feels it too. He’s been too quiet. Bites his tongue too often, holds back- visibly regrets saying things that he knows she would have responded to scathingly.
Neither of you mention it. Neither of you mention her. No one says her name.
You think you’d probably break if you heard it, anyway. You can barely think of her.
The guilt is eating you alive like a forest fire, and God, you beg it to just take it all from you.