The Only Solution

Chapter 20 - North

This is another Academy fanfic: "Zombies...Academy Style" by Academy-Angel. It's a half-finished one, but it's the most recent fanfic that I read.

WARNING: Rape, Depression, Mention of self-harm, death

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North

I don't usually sleep well in places I'm not used to. Normally, at my brothers' houses, I don't have a problem, but we never came to Owen's. It's the fault of my father's upbringing of me. We always moved with no permanent home, well until Uncle tracked me down. 

That's why when I heard movement in the hallways at 4 A.M., I was awake and already moving to see who it was. It might Owen because I know none of my other brothers would ever be awake at this hour. Or it could be Sang because after all she was an unknown.

In the case that it is Sang, I make a little bit more noise than I would usually. After seeing what happened to Luke when he tried to scare her, I rather not taking any chances. It is in fact Sang who is walking around. If I hadn't been on edge with this new environment, I wouldn't have heard her move. She's dressed in Owen's shirt, showing exactly what she was doing with him before.

I feel a slight spark of jealousy and then interest which I press both down. Sang is Owen's girlfriend, I have no right to touch that relationship. It has done our leader so much good that if it ends it might do that much more harm. 

I look up to be met with her eyes. Her eyes could bring a grown man to tears. Her green eyes are clouded over and it's clear that she isn't here. She's lost in her mind and if the look in her eyes mean anything, it's nowhere good.

I know that Sang notices my presence, yet she doesn't stop in her journey nor tells me off as I follow her. In the short time I've known her, I have never seen her so open, so let down, so broken. Her walls are down and you can see every crack in her armor.

She is a beautiful piece of broken pottery, put back together by her own hands. A critical world that I have the misfortune of being a part of judges her cracks while missing the beauty of how she made herself whole again. 

If I felt bad about my quick judgment about her when we first met, I now feel like a complete and utter asshole. I misjudged the girl and it hurt. I always have the tendency to over-react, but I see the self-loathing within Sang and I know my words did more harm than she let on.

Sang continues her journey and only stops at the foot of a weeping willow. It paints a beautiful, yet horrible picture. She sits down and leans her back against the trunk. The weeping willow has its' leaves and branches bent over, keeping her away from my view, until I step through the natural curtain.

Sang isn't looking at me, but she begins to speak, "You know that I still hear the voices of every person that I killed. Their faces haunt me, the family left behind yell at me. I'm never truly over any assignment. That's why I didn't kill Raven and Corey. I hadn't properly killed someone outside of training before. I didn't want their voices and faces to haunt me as well."

There is a pause and I take the moment to speak, "It wasn't your fault,you had no choice."

She let out a bitter laugh that shouldn't come from someone so young, "Didn't I? I had the choice to die, to lay down my weapons and stop killing. I sacrificed a life for a life. For once, I saved women and men from being slaves, on the other side, I killed."

"But you saved people!" I hated the self-loathing note in her voice. It's one I recognize too well from Gabriel and one of his bad days that never end well."