Predator (DWT x OC)

24

TW// Descriptions of depression and mild anxiety

"You're running...with Quackity." I echo, standing motionless on the spot as shock crashes through me. George sighs, nervously fiddling with the fingers clasped together in front of him.

"As Vice President, yes." He admits, looking down at the ground. I don't move from my spot, and neither does Niki. Sapnap's eyes flick between us, tense in anticipation. I nod my head, so slightly you wouldn't be able to catch it, and then again and again and again, growing more frantic as the realisation starts to set it.

Then I turn on my heel and head back into the forest.

"Rosie! Rosie wait!" I hear Sapnap's voice call out from behind me, hear George murmuring in an upset tone. I don't respond, storming through the trees, back the way Niki and I came.

George is running with Quackity.

George is trying to be Vice President.

It doesn't even make sense, but I'm too angry, too hurt to even start to think through the logic of it all. The information hit me like a tidal wave, and the only thing I've been able to absorb is the anger that came with it.

I vaguely hear the shouts and footsteps in the distance, but they're so far away, too far away, and I don't care. I don't care about what George has to say, or whatever excuses Sapnap is going to make up because he can't stand us not all being friends, and I don't think I could look at Niki and listen to her kind, reasonable words, as true as they may be.

I just want to fucking scream.

I took the wrong path, I notice, as I march out of the edge of the forest, screwed up eyes blurred by the never ending flurry of tears that refuse to go away. My feet tangle in the long grass as I half storm-half stumble through a field, but I don't stop, because I think that if I stop moving I'm going to shatter into a million pieces like a glass figurine.

I don't realise I'm in the garden, until I look down at the trampled carrots that lay mangled at my feet. Then the fractured little statue that is Rosemary fucking bursts into tiny twinkling stars of powdered glass.

"FUCK THIS!" I screech, dropping to my knees in the upturned earth, the damp mildewy smell of fresh dirt invading my nostrils, bringing a fresh round of tears to my eyes.

"FUCK YOU! FUCK THIS AND FUCK YOU AND FUCK EVERYTHING!" I scream, and I don't even know who I'm screaming at, but the anger has bubbled up and spilled out and there's no stopping it now. I claw at the row of carrots, flinging damp soil and seedlings every where, choking on the words before they leave my mouth, gasping for air.

Then I can't breathe.

I can't fucking breathe.

---------

In the end no one managed to find me.

In the end, I lay in the ruined remains of the garden, curled into a tight ball, heaving in deep breaths as the panic released its grip on my lungs, and the buzz ebbed out of my veins, replaced with the thick weight of exhaustion.

In the end, I picked myself back up onto my feet, dragging my exhausted body back through the shadowy woods, heart beat thudding at it's normal pace in my temple. I look at my hands, dirt clinging the the creases in my palms, the valleys between my fingers, the thin whiplash cuts that flit up the underside of my hand, snagged on twigs and bark.

In the end, I limp into an empty L'manburg, limbs made of lead, the exhaustion from the day slumping my shoulders forward, and curling my head down. I don't bother washing the dirt from my hands, or my face, or my hair. I don't bother changing my filthy clothes. I simply slip off my shoes and curl into bed, tucking the scratchy blankets around my tightly, desperate to hold whatever's left of my together.