R1 DEADLAND PT2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

[lockdownmods]

[it’s strange, for the people who were already dead, the shift in scenery is sudden and complete. For those who have just arrived? It’s like you’re back where you left?

How strange.

But if you ever need her, you can always reach out to the guardian of this place.]

LOCATIONS
Note: locations lag a week behind the living counterparts

Comments

[sendintheclown]

Well, congratulations! You knew it before I did it!

[There’s a desperate, cheery malice to his words.]

All of it was for nothing! All those bodies, that entire association, everything I worked for, everything I did...

[His breathing is ragged, shaking. It could be because he’s just been beaten up quite severely, but his eyes lead to a different story. It’s the look of a guilty man, who understands exactly what it is he’s done.]

It was all...

[A lie?

No, no...it couldn’t have been. Dostoevsky wouldn’t have lied to him. They were always on the same page, he always had his interests in his heart, he knew more than anyone else could, all the power of a god and a demon...he couldn’t have been wrong for following him.

Unable to finish his train of thought, he exhales, steadying himself.]

Well, this is how it ended. It can’t be helped.

[throwabookatit]

[ Now this, this is...strange. She hasn't seen him like this.

Close to showing something true. Close to--actually expressing something like...remorse.

...Her expression hardens. To something cold. ]

Far too late for you, to be developing something like this. Like self-awareness.

[sendintheclown]

[He exhales a laugh.]

You still don’t get it, do you?

[He had told her, before, but she had refused to accept it. He knew she wouldn’t- a more irrational answer is easier to accept in a situation like this.]

I’ve been aware, all this time. As I said, I am completely sane. I understand just how evil murder is.

[It’s freeing to speak it, finally. Rebecca would never be a victim of his, not anymore, so there was no need to lie for her sake.]

I feel a sense of guilt over it, as would anyone.

[throwabookatit]

What...?

[ Rebecca has to take a few moments, to process. ]

Then why... Why any of this?! If you feel any kind of guilt, why-- why laugh when people who've done nothing to you are suffering, why encourage everyone to hate you, why- why, if you're not a bloody sociopath do you act like this?!

[sendintheclown]

[Why? Why are you doing this?

How many times had he been asked that now? The scales tipped in favour of the wrong answer, but he’s disqualified himself from being able to give it already.]

Do you like birds? I do.

[The smile that graces him would be far brighter in any other scenario, but now to think of them hurt, a bitter reminder of what he can’t be.]

When they fly, they’re completely free. They’re not held back by anything.

[On reflection, no one had ever asked him about his apprentice title. He’d assumed no one would care, and would hardly understand anyway. Only Dostoyevsky would have ever understood, he thought.

Yet, there was those two...]

I want to have that. The freedom of birds. There is a prison, you see, that all of us are trapped in. It’s the skull. In it, we have society, and morality.

[Perhaps he could end it there, leave her to tie up the loose ends. But, for once, he’s tired of games.]

I’ve known I’ve been trapped my whole life. No one else saw it, or understood, until Dos-kun. For someone who cannot fit in, who is aware of the brainwashing of society - I cannot put up the facade of a good person. Every human life is sinful, and I am aware.

So I reject it. I reject morality, I reject the distinctions of “right” and “wrong”. I ally myself with evil because it is right. For freedom of my soul.

[throwabookatit]

[ To wish so fervently for escape, while knowing fully just what horrible acts he's committing. To commit those acts, because...

After a few moments, Rebecca scoffs and looks away, muttering: ] I should've expected, this sort of explanation, from someone who shares the name of that author.

[ Truthfully... She's never been a fan of his work. ]

You'd be a philosophy student's nightmare...or dream, I can't decide. Whatever it'd be, it doesn't matter.

[ She seems to want to leave it at that, being the one who doesn't explain something for once. However, Rebecca... She can't seem to hold her tongue. That's not the sort of person she is. ]

You... You're more selfish and pitiful than I could've ever imagined. Do you feel it now? Free? After throwing away morality, while understanding what you're doing, has this brought you any peace?

[sendintheclown]

[Gogol looks up at Rebecca. In his face, he carries the weight of all his sins. It pulls at the skin under his eyes, and they appear hollow, weary. All the suffering he’d caused, and displaced onto himself, and carried with him with the promise he’d be free of it soon, that his salvation would be granted through such a despicable plan - each moment of regret and guilt he’d pushed away has finally caught up to him.]

Do I look like it has?

oh thats the worst smalltext fail i've had in awhile

[throwabookatit]

[ And truly, in all of that pain...Rebecca can't muster up an ounce of sympathy for him. ]

You pissed away your chances...but you best sit with that. Sit with all the things you've done, all the people you've hurt.

[ Rebecca shakes her head again, arms crossed, and starts to walk away. ]

Goodbye, Nikolai.

[sendintheclown]

[Part of him wishes desperately to reach out to her, to stop her before she goes, to beg for her to show him to live like her - to think like her. To be the complete antithesis to what he is.
But a life in the light was not for him.
He knows this. He has always known this.
She’d just proved it.

He thinks he should sit here, watch her go, stew in all of this jealousy and guilt.

But what’s left to lose anymore?]

Wait -

[There’s a brief desperate urgency in his voice as he calls out.]

Do you believe people can be saved?

[throwabookatit]

[ Against every instinct she has about him, she does that, she stops. And...

And she glances to him. Not a full-on stare, but enough to look at him, his face.

For a moment, she thinks...of Monika. Face still teary, I remembered something I did recently... something unforgivable...

How could this man, this awful man have anything in common with the girl who wanted to make up for her past mistakes? ]

...Only if they work for it. [ Her voice is cold, still. Hard. ] Only if they really want it.

[sendintheclown]

[Suddenly, Gogol’s face looks brighter. In his eye, there’s something alive, genuine.

After all, there’s nothing he’s wanted more.

He’s just been going the wrong way to getting it.]

That’s enough for me.

[A ‘thank you’ goes unspoken, but it’s there in his weary smile.]

[throwabookatit]

If that's all...

[ She almost leaves with a heavy sigh, but lingers...a moment longer. ]

...You antagonize any of them, and I'll find out, you hear? I'll make whatever's left of our existence here hell for you. I promise this. Waver, Tess... Maya, or Hank or Connor--Viral even, any of the ones you haven't deemed...your own, or whatever.

[ It's only now that she turns back to face him. Before, she just took his word for it and look how that turned out? ]

Do you understand me?

[sendintheclown]

[He laughs lightly at the threat. There’s no doubt in his mind that Rebecca would deliver on it, especially as she’s seen him like this.]

Completely.

[throwabookatit]

[ She looks at him firm for another moment. ]

You won't get a third chance. Don't fuck up this second one.

[ And that's all there is to say. ]