at times it felt near impossible to look him in the eyes. at times it felt impossible to remain standing on her feet... both coming with vicious waves of emotion tabitha had a hard time knowing how to handle. it would have been so much easier to go back, to allow scream to fill up the space between them, because she couldn't stand the way he looked at her now — as if he had seen her for the first time & for a thousandth time over all at the same time. & all tabitha could do was to shut those door closed & pretend all that wanted to spill out on her was not real. it couldn't be real... she could not accept it was real.
❝ oh yeah? ❞ she gasped, her voice cracked beyond anything he'd just described, even though the sheer desperation to push it to its end had nudged at her just as instantly. ❝ it's as far as it got us... ❞ with jim's body shred to pieces. with her children's cries & screams still ringing in her ears. what else could she do than to push back? ❝ he was right... he was right i shouldn't have listened, i fucking shouldn't have felt encouraged by you... ❞
it was unfair to blame jade. she knew that deep down. but she couldn't help it ; throwing knifes at him as fiercely as she threw them at herself. because if it was true... countless deaths. this never-ending suffering. they'd caused it. & with every step they'd taken had only made it worse. she'd been so angry, so hurt for thinking jim might have thought of her as no more than delusional. but then, he was right there. & if only he'd stayed back, maybe he would still be alive. the guilt gnawed at her. it was jade she'd chosen to spent jim's last days with, drawn by the level of mutual understanding only he could provide. ❝ & the truth? the goddamn truth is, whatever we do, it's only going to make everyone suffer. ❞
˜”*°•. It was easy to lash out at everyone and everything. Easy to throw things at a wall , to drink, to scream, to care about no one and nothing. Their interactions had never been smooth, either - never anything remotely resembling peace. After all, weren’t they constantly arguing? Except, not in the end. There’d been a mutual understanding growing between them. The desire to solve the mystery, to dig deeper and deeper for answers. Sure, it’d led to tragic consequences, but they’d been getting somewhere. Knowledge comes with a cost. They had actually uncovered something, and the place had reacted. So, however safe she might have felt staying in place, doing nothing, idleness wasn’t a luxury they could afford.
Still, her words made something inside him ache. How many times had she called him selfish ? Arrogant ? A child ? How many times had they insulted each other ? Shouted ? It felt different now. The fact Jim had died because of something he had done… Tabitha had every right to hate him, to accuse him, maybe she was even right in some way. However, they couldn’t change the past. They couldn’t bring Jim back. But they could make his death count. ❝ And then what ? ❞ He asked quietly. ❝ We would run out of time, die, return, and then what ? ❞ This was a neverending circle, an eternal torture they would never evade unless they broke it.
For a brief moment, he considered moving closer. He wanted to reassure her, to tell her it was going to work this time, but could he really make this promise ? Sure, they finally had something, a direction, and maybe , just maybe, odds were in their favor, but was it something ? Was any plan enough to convince her that they might actually win ? ❝ We can’t give up now. Please. ❞

















