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Amelia was never religious. Her students were shocked when they found out. She wasn't very surprised at all, stereotyping wasn't a rare occurrence so she didn't take their exclamations to heart. She even found it a little funny.
One of them had asked, once, after her shift, if there was a rhyme or reason why, words only the curiosity of a sheltered teenager could muster. Amelia had smiled and shrugged then, had spoken with a chuckle in her words, "I never found a reason to pray, I guess."
She never thought she would find a reason, but now, beneath that ever-burning, unchanging, cursed sun, she begged on her knees to a God that would never answer.
"I want to go home," she'd say, hands clasped together and the ugly, terrible thing that had found and dug its way into her heart accompanied it. "Please bring me home."
And when her vision inevitably blurred, when her eyes began burning and when she felt her throat close up the longer the air remained still and just as unchanging as the ground she stood upon, she asked herself, Why me?
She didn't know. Amelia always had all the answers, she was always the curious and studious type. But she wasn't Amelia, not anymore. The name felt like a muddled combination of symbols; a foreign, unfamiliar thing. She'd never tasted poison before, but Scenty had lived her whole life with it, grown with it, until the poison felt like the air she breathed.
"I miss being hungry," Scenty had said, laying flat on her back and gazing into the empty sky, once the days had begun blurring together and her hands had grown rugged and weathered with each tally she carved. She remembered feeling hungry, when time wasn't so easily lost on her and the fake grass was still strange and foreign. It was an uncomfortable feeling—an ache that only grew when her longing for substance prolonged itself. She didn't know when she stopped feeling it, but as awful as it was, she missed it.
"Me too," Backpack replied, and Scenty wished she hadn't brought it up at all. A new ache—not the one she wanted back—had wormed its way into her gut. There was no point lingering on the past, this was the future now, she knew already. The past only made this new, unwanted ache worse, and the blooming flowers from the seeds of guilt that had woven itself into her mind unravelled when she realised she'd surely made Backpack ache aswell.
"Sorry," she quickly apologised. A mistake like this could shatter the fragile, new lives everyone had already built. A mistake was costly.
"It's okay," Backpack said, lips curled upwards like a false imitation of what Scenty could almost believe was the reassurance she deserved. She smiled back anyway.
Each mark she left on the marred wood started becoming harder. The stick she'd been using had grown blunt. So she struck as hard as she could muster, until she couldn't anymore and had to find a different stick.
She didn't want to anymore, she realised, when the seat Backpack would usually occupy across her was cold and barren. What was the point, when she knew that she'd eventually be going home anyway?
Home.
Home was a strange thought. She wondered what it was. She began finding the concept of home inconsistent, the longer she stayed and the more her frustration devolved and degraded into quiet acceptance.
She wondered if home was the stale air she breathed, the fake grass beneath her feet, the intrusive light of the sky, or if it was the all-consuming water that had infested her mind with whispers of you didn't swim fast enough.
Or was home the faded memory of wafts of early morning coffees, the smiles sent her way after a shift well-done, the warmth of a mother's embrace and the absence of an ache that'd numbed itself away?
The question lingered in the air, and she found it harder and harder to ignore with each passing elimination. Sleep began evading her, even when she had long since grown accustomed to sleeping on the ground. She found herself having to think more about the past to even begin answering the question.
It hurt the more she dug. Faint feelings of a comfort she'd replaced with the illusion of happiness were a frequent form of hurt. She wondered if she could ever have that comfort back, or if she'd infect any notions of it with her delusions. She wondered if there would ever be notions to begin with. How long has she really been here for? Would there be anybody to give her that comfort, when she eventually had to go back? What if everybody had moved on already? Would there be anything to go back to?
Would it be any different from what she had now?
The days she'd previously found a blur slowed to a painful crawl, as if it was trying to prolong her frustrated confusion, dangling the answer out of reach, waving her powerlessness right in her face.
She'd always been powerless, she realised then. It just never felt more apparent, more obvious, than now. Everythuing she'd ever done was futile, because she was never in control, and oh, what she wouldn't give to have any semblance of it back.
When Soda Bottle came back, Scenty didn't know what to think. She was horrified, because now she knew elimination wasn't a guarantee of going home, and Soda Bottle had been an unfortunate demonstration of that. But the selfish part of her, the part she'd tried so hard to push down ever since Backpack drowned but had always managed to resurface, didn't feel so lonely anymore.
And she fully expected him to break down right then and there, to scream and cry just as she had, they had no control, but he didn't. He clenched his fists and grit his teeth and glared hard at the sun, and told everyone to follow him.
And Scenty watched as Soda Bottle rallied everybody, herself included, and told everyone to pull as hard as they could. She watched as he shouted commands and encouragements until his throat went raw and ragged and dry, but still defied even when he was just as, if not more, exhausted as they were.
She hadn't felt so alive, so hopeful, in such a long time, and she knew the others felt the same. When had she stopped feeling this way, Scenty wondered through exhausted breaths. When had she lost the same fire, same anger, Soda Bottle now had?
For once, they were in control. And as the plug finally disconnected, a sense of relief and hope flooded her every sense and she soaked in it like an animal deprived of food and water. They finally fought back, they had control, they weren't completely powerless—
The plug came crashing back down. Any thoughts of even having an ounce of control were dashed, leaving a gaping hole in her heart where her hope once was.
Of course, Scenty thought, because she was just so tired.
She felt so stupid. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. Of course Airy wouldn't care, he could just plug the damn cord back in. No wonder he didn't try to stop them, he had the control that they so desperately craved. She wondered if Airy just wanted to make them suffer, if this was entertaining to him. She was a fool to even think this would go their way, that anything would ever go their way.
Hours passed. Airy didn't come back like he usually did. Days passed. He didn't come back. Scenty felt a sense of familiarity at the scene. Was the cycle doomed to repeat?
The despair felt all-encompassing. She realised that it was the poison she'd been breathing all along.
For the first time since she arrived on this stupid, torturous, planet, she let it consume her.