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Damon couldn't sleep.
This was normal, Damon was plagued with nightmares. Sometimes it was Wolfgang, electrocuted with a face of terror permanently tainted on his face, sometimes it was Eva, burn scars and stab marks all along her body. often it was both.
It was his fault. He couldn't stop Eva from committing her murder plan, and when she did, he was the one who sent her to her death.
Damon logically knew there was no better option. If it hadn't been her being killed, it would have been him and everyone else.
Still, Logic has little meaning in a dream, so when Damon woke up, he was fatigued.
It had been about 11 months since the victims of Project Eden's Garden were freed. Local journalists had tracked down the train they were in at their kidnapping and from there, it wasn't much of a stretch to find where Tozu and Mara had entrapped them. On the night after Eva's execution, the "school" had been breached, Tozu and Mara were shot down, and all fourteen survivors were able to escape.
Some of the "students" stayed close, Cassidy, Jett, Diana and Kai were all in a group chat, which Grace and Mark also occasionally added their thoughts on, Desmond and Eloise were together, Wenona and Ulysses worked closely, and of course Ingrid adopted Toshiko.
But Damon kept his distance from most of them. Frankly, he just wanted to forget this entire thing happened. The only thing of any substance that happened in that god-damned school was meeting Kai, and much as he liked him, it wasn't worth the trauma of Wolfgang and Eva's deaths.
A quick glance at his phone saw he had a message from Kai.
"Are you okay?"
Damon stared at the message, dumbfounded, and responded "If I was, I wouldn't be up at 3AM. Are you alright?"
"Yeah." Even over a text, his lie was obvious. "To be honest, I've been thinking about what happened in Eden's Garden."
Damon wasn't exactly sure of what to say in response, he was still learning social skills, so a simple. "Me too." would suffice.
"If.... If we hadn't been rescued, do you think we would have died?"
Damon's thoughts had always been directed towards what could have happened, what if he managed to stop Eva for long enough that her and Wolfgang could have joined the rest of them in freedom. He hadn't really thought much about what could have happened if the game simply continued. He let logic take the wheel.
Damon texted. "I doubt anybody would have liked me enough to not try and kill me. But I'm smart enough to avoid such attempts."
It was a minute until Kai texted back. "And me?"
"Knowing you, probably. Even Toshiko could kill you with the right tools and opportunity."
"Hey!" Kai texted back. "I wouldn't die to Toshiko, give me some credit!"
"No." Damon responded.
"Rude. Well, while you're up, I had a question I wanted to ask you." Kai asked. "Cass wanted to get a bunch of us together on Discord for a 1-Year anniversary remembrance for Project: Eden's Garden. I know Jett, Diana and I are going, so I figured I'd ask you since, you kinda don't talk with anybody else."
The thought of a remembrance of what happened in that god-forsaken place made Damon want to puke, especially one with Cass as the leader. That being said, the more he thought about it, the more he figured it would be a better idea then just stewing in his misery alone.
"Maybe." He answered.
"Gonna be honest, that was better than I'd thought you'd say." Kai responded. "I'm gonna tell the others and get some sleep."
"Good night, Kai." Damon texted back.
"Night, Damon."
Damon looked at the profile picture of Kai before turning off his phone.
Yeah, if nothing else, he can say he did appreciate being in that hellhole for one reason.