BatIM Steps of the Survivor

Chapter Twelve

Putting an end to all her ailments was definitely a good sounding idea on paper... but Jade had no idea how to put these thoughts of desperation into action. That thought had been consuming her from the inside out from the moment it was first conceived, a spark igniting a flame with the only fuel being a simple thought. An idea coming from the death of someone she never even knew the name of.

An impossible idea.

Going down to Trial Two and bawling her eyes out to Sammy and Inky didn't help change this. Nor did this go toward stopping that bothersome yet beautiful thought.

Now Jade paced back and forth in silence in the recording studio, tuning out what Inky and Sammy were talking about to each other.

The echo chamber that was her head grew slightly louder. She felt restless yet also exhausted. What was she going to do? She focused more intensely on the thoughts running through her head like a powerful river in heavy rain.

I have to escape. How can I get out? I can't live like this. I won't break. She thought to herself as she stepped to the rhythm that the lone survivor kept. Moderato, or moderate. Even. Do I have to fight him? He's stronger than me. I'll have to get stronger.

After a while of endless circles, Jade sighed in frustration and took a seat on the nearest chair. All she felt was an unsatisfying nothingness of spending so long on one subject just to run into a dead end.

"Everything alright, kid?" Inky inquired after a moment or so of silence from her.

"I feel... stuck." Jade murmured quietly in a defeated tone, though she knew Inky could still hear her. "I want out of this mess... I just... don't know how to get there."

Heavy, solemn silence hung after her words. She could feel the concerned gaze of Sammy resting upon her shoulders. She looked into his icy blue glowing eyes with her own brown ones, stricken with pain and grief.

Sammy got up and approached her, kneeling down next to her. "Would you be okay with it if I were to hug you?" The former music director asked in a gentle, calm tone.

Jade nodded. Sammy proceeded to hug her gently, soothingly patting her back. "We all want out of this mess." Sammy spoke softly. "We tried getting there once... and we failed. Long before you came." He added the last part to answer a question before it was even asked.

"Then can't we try again? All of us together?" Jade asked.

"No. We can't. He'll kill us if we try something like that again." Inky answered with a low snarl.

"Inky's right, and if that happens, he'll just find someone else or something else to take our places." Sammy added.

Jade gently pushed Sammy off her before getting up from her place on the chair. "Okay," she spoke softly in a melancholy tone before leaving the room to go see her father.

The walk there was lonely and almost sad without the wolf there with her. Silence definitely felt heavy now... like she was walking to her grave... She quickly shook her head to get rid of that thought. The memories didn't surface in the elevator as much as they had with Boris around, but there was still an unsettling chill in the atmosphere.

The elevator slowly descended to Level 14, the sound it made as it slowly sunk further into the abyss being the only thing preventing total silence from enveloping the area. Once it stopped and the gate opened, Jade contemplated for a moment.

If I got the answer I did from Inky and Sammy... I doubt I'd get a different one from Norman. I'm probably on my own... Jade thought to herself, thinking for a moment. During her thoughts, she took a moment to sense who else was around. She was isolated, say for Norman on this floor.