#guilt

Well...I also seem like the kind of person who would do things I'm not supposed to. My morbid curiosity as a kid (the curiosity that traumatized me with horror content) probably stemmed from this too. When I'm aware thing are off limits (either due to my own nerves or due to something like the writer being a billionaire bigot) maybe that adds a level of the forbidden that becomes tempting? I don't know. I'm still half awake, and I'm just guessing.

I'm just trying to make myself feel better. Because I know some of my mutuals probably won't like that I do this, and I don't want to lose anyone. Some of my followers have seen me through a lot, and letting go would be hard for me. But I promise: I never read the books anymore! A fanfiction once in a blue moon, sure. But I can't do the books. I had some small issues with them before I knew about the bigotry, and now I can't look at them the same.

I'm legitimately almost passing out here. I'm tired, and my exhaustion is making me hyper remorseful. I'm scared people will hate me and judge me, so I'm working myself up as I nearly pass out.

I've got heartburn, I'm still constipated, my throat is dry, I'm scared of a thunderstorm later, I just...I don't feel great. I'm guilt tripping myself over something super minor. And probably all because I'm tired. My stomach hurts. My teeth feel uncomfortable (like they're teething). I'm feeling weird.

Story: The Fallen (original work) Prompt: #FFF [365] [Blood on your Hands] @flashfictionfridayofficial Word count: 418

The Fallen

"I should-" She gets up, paces the small room, eyes sliding unseeing over the mismatched chairs and 10 year old copies of Heat, Today and Cosmo.

Only her own voice bounces back off the chipped walls. Beyond there are the vague sounds of a busy hospital - footsteps and beeping and voices layered over each other in brisk, businesslike sentences.

And whatever she should do, there is nothing she can do.

Her index finger names it's way into her mouth and she goes to work on the already chipped nail varnish and the cuticles until they bleed, relishing the pain. No one tells her to stop. Jacqueline is somewhere on the other side of those doors.

They open abruptly and she jerks up, ripping another triangle of skin from her nailbed as her hand jerks down. But it isn't the doctor.

It's Constable Perkins, back with hald a paper cup of coffee, an insincere smile and more questions.

Can she remind him where? And when? And how? And who?

And over and over again why? why? why?

Why were there? Why at that time? Why didn't she call anyone earlier?

She doesn't have good answers. Or any answers, to be honest. Even if she could tell him everything, which she can't because they'd think she was lying or mad or both…Even then, she wouldn't have good answers.

She'd known better.

She'd known they shouldn't have carrying out their own investigation, known it was dangerous.

Jacqueline had said, had tried to stop her.

Had followed her anyway because she always did.

And it had always worked out.

Why were they on that roof at all? How did they get there? What were they doing?

No answers, and all she can see, pressed against her eyelids like the most terrifying movie she's ever seen is that tile cracking loose, and Jacqueline careening towards the parapet.

"It was my idea to go up there," she says softly, as close as she can come to a confession that doesn't endanger all of them. She can't compound her stupidity by giving into her need for absolution.

Constable Perkins doesn't even bother to write down her stuttered admission, instead keeping up chatter which might be indended comfort or might be interrogation.

He falls quiet when the doors swing open again and this time it is the doctor. She leaps to her feet, her own question springing forward again.

The doctor doesn't answer, merely shakes his head.

“This is the new, beautiful social housing in England, built to the ideal environmental recommendations called the ‘Passivhaus standard’ (yes, Passive House, but German, which makes it even worse). Local elected officials are proudly promoting them as a model of the new way. Why are the windows so tiny and sparse, you might ask. Well, it’s for the environment, silly! You see, windows let out warmth in the winter, and they let in sun in the summer, so they are bad news. We must make them super tiny and rare, according to Passivhaus, to save on energy costs. Truly, the best argument against white supremacists is to look at what white people are doing right now. Really look at those tiny windows. This is Late Anglo architectural style. This is the White Plan. Late Anglo is a return to a darkened hovel, eating grasshoppers probably. There is no ornamentation. There is only guilt. The people who design the hovel also live in the hovel, and hate themselves. There is a little patch of light, and soon even that will be bricked off for the inevitable Passivhaus Uberbetterhaus. I do a little dance and thank my ancestors for fleeing these places.”