Whumpuary Day 1: Sacrifice
Drive:\Users\Crown\Collected Aardvark Files\Rennae\Two Days Before\Musings_About_The_Test.txt
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I'm twenty-two and I'm dying, and just because it's necessary doesn't mean that it's fun. It's a slow death, because that's the point. I could stop dying at any time. I could sit up, pretend I have anywhere close to the regality that I used to, and say, "Stop." Or, "I changed my mind", or "We'll find another way", or-
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter because I won't be saying any of those things. My mantra for the pain, when it crests on me like a wave and I can no longer tell which way is up, is "I want this. I want this. I want this." I say it out loud, so no one can use my silence and my pain to claim that I want to be let out.
My friends are outside. They tried to argue about it—said if it was supposed to be a test that they are love-worthy it wouldn't work unless they could comfort me, because they were not worthy of love if they didn't. I said they were idiots. That love-worthy was marketing, that it wasn't a test of my love for them but of the willpower of those that surround them. That said willpower would be larger if I didn't have to worry about them. Then the guards came down on my side, with their spears pointed the other direction, and my friends subsided.
I hope they believed me, though. Most of what I said was even true. It's not a test of love, it can't be, because otherwise it doesn't make sense. Sending someone to a slow, painful death to save your own skins doesn't prove you deserve to be loved! And the response to the initial "no, no way" we gave- well. They almost killed Tenny. Fighting them isn't the answer, not without weapons and armor which they took away.
It's not a test of whether they're worthy of love, it's a test of my willpower and my pain tolerance and my endurance. (And my spite, and my love, and my sunk cost fallacy vulnerability.)
I'm twenty-two and I'm dying and it is worth it to save the world and it is worth it to save my friends. Who are going to get the help they need (because I will not fail in this) and who are going to save the world, and who are eventually going to forget about me and move on and be happy.
It is worth it. It is worth it.
I love you. I'm so sorry.










