Chapter Thirty Eight – Traitors

Red Thorn looked at me with an expression I found hard to read. Pity? Remorse maybe? I couldn’t quite tell. The expression was so different from the girl who had hugged me before killing me because I was so… tasty or something. Now she looked… lost.

“She… didn’t want to see her own kind hurt anymore,” Red Thorn said, her voice somehow less. Not as terrifying as it should be.

She was also right.

“Hi… Gell,” She said softly, as she stared at me.

Something about the way she stood with the dark trees behind her, cast in thin beams of light from the sun that could only barely break through the high tree line above made her seem so much more than any of the other invaders. A fae quality.

Maybe she got it from looting my bodies. Her tone didn’t match her body though. Everything about her exuded a menace. A black aura darkened the grass around her like she stood perpetually in gloom. Yet she was… not angry. Not even threatening. It looked strange. Foreign. I got the feeling that she was not used to acting contrite and it showed.

“Red Thorn… holy shit, I’ve watched your videos…” Bellcandy said, awed.

“Uhm. Thanks. I’m… still not really used to people knowing me like that,” she said.

I did my best to school my shaking hands and glared, baring my teeth. Part of me wanted to attack her. How dare she show up here? How dare she have the nerve to look remorseful! How many times had she killed me? She was personally responsible for making me hate my own family. A face for the instinct itself, and everything I’d never been able to defy.

“Red Thorn? I… guess you got my message,” Iron said softly. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to actually show up here though. I suppose you do know her, then?”

Wait… wait what? I turned to look at Iron in shock, all anger and fear forgotten in an instant.

‘Th-they messaged her?’ I thought, a gaping pit forming in my middle.

“I’m familiar with Gell, though not in that form,” the rogue replied, her voice holding a solemnity as she looked back towards me.

The others reacted strangely to that, blinking with confusion. I barely noticed, staring hard at iron as my heart broke. My chest hurt. My eyes were wet. I felt a sinking sensation in my middle that I didn’t like at all.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Iron asked, now sounding annoyed.

Red Thorn turned to Iron. “I… don’t think Gell is human. You shouldn’t have to worry about that.”

“How rude! Young lady, Gell is no less human than any of us! You should apologize!” Amy said, her voice filled with disapproval.

The rogue grimaced at that. “That’s actually what I came here for. I didn’t mean any offence. It’s just… you’re an A.I., aren’t you Gell?”

Bellcandy and Dull Beauty both turned to me in fascination.

“An A.I…?” Bellcandy breathed. “No way…”

Iron and Amy didn’t look at me, and I barely registered their words, too hurt by the knowledge that my friends had called her.

“Where’s your proof of that?” Iron asked, skepticism dripping from his words as he folded his arms across his chest. “And even if she is an A.I., doesn’t that make her basically a person? In that case, why not treat her like–?”

“Why?” I finally asked. It was quiet but it silenced their conversation as surely as a knife would.

“Gell?” Iron asked and finally looked at me. He blanched at the expression on my face, his hard eyes going soft.

“Why call her? She hates me. She hurts me… kills me for my body over and over again! So… so why?” I asked, tears trailing down my cheeks.

I heard a strange gurgling noise from Red Thorn but couldn’t take my eyes off of Iron and Amy. How could they betray me like this?

“Oh Sweetie… we didn’t. We…” Amy said, biting her lip, and looking nervously between me and Iron.

“Gell… I… I’m not here to hurt you,” Thorn interrupted. “I just… was hoping–”

“Oh sure! Now you’re not here to hurt me! Now that I finally look like one of you humans! Fuck!” I hissed, glaring at the rogue who flinched away. That only made me more angry.

“And what’s so great about being human anyway!” I screamed at her. “Huh? Does being human mean you don’t deserve to die over and over again!? What makes you so special!”

“I’m sorry about that! I’m sorry, okay! I didn’t know you were… that you… could feel!” she exclaimed.

“And that makes it okay!? That makes it just fine to continue killing my family, but now that I can talk back you feel guilty!? I’m no different from them, but you’ll continue killing them! And you!” I said rounding on Dull Beauty. “Why? Why hurt them? We were the ones invading their home! So… so why kill them? Couldn’t you have just avoided hurting them?”

“I… um,” Dull Beauty responded, completely unsure what to make of all of this.

“It’s not her fault! Gell, the truth is you should never have been created. You’re a thing. A computer. Not a real person. She can’t be blamed for killing you. It is what you were made for! We didn’t know you had… a mind!” Red Thorn hissed in Dull Beauty’s defense.

I turned to glare back at her.

Iron blinked, stepping in front of me, between myself and Red Thorn. “Are you saying you’re the one who tortured her?”

Red Thorn grimaced. “I… yes. If you see Gell as a person then… farming her looks that way. She drops a Sovereign class crystal when she dies. She’s a mob, but until that list time I never knew she was a person as well. She didn’t look like she does now either. She was just another rare dungeon mob. Nothing to feel guilty over hurting. Then, at least, which is what makes this so damn hard. Gell. Please… I’m… sorry.”

I turned back to Amy and Thorn, and Amy looked sympathetic. Guilty. Regretful. I clenched my fist, before turning back to Thorn.

“F-fuck your apology! You don’t deserve my forgiveness. You should be… should be hurt just like me! You should have to watch your family die over and over again! That’s what you deserve!”

Amy’s eyes softened as she placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Gell… don’t you think you’re being unreasonable? This girl did come to apologi–!”

“Shut up!” I shouted, rounding on the woman I’d thought was my friend. “Y-You’re just like her. You called her!”

“Gell, neither of us knew Red Thorn was hurting you! And we won’t let her hurt you now.” she insisted, but I refused to hear it.

“I don’t want to hurt it–her. Gell, I just want to make amends. I-if you can’t forgive me then that’s fine, as long as you promise to leave me alone,” Red Thorn said, drawing my eyes back to her. There was a glint there. An anger where before there had only been that guilt. Sad eyes on a terrifying body.

I shuddered. Whimpered. My hands trembled with mixed fear and rage, but apparently my anger grabbed my tongue first because I spoke with a venom I didn’t know I’d ever felt.

“Leave you alone? Leave you alone!? Where was my relief! Where was my promise when I dreamed of never having to see you again. Never having to feel that dagger slice into me… No! You don’t deserve that!”

Amy took a horrified look at me before frowning. She turned back to the girl, her eyes narrowed with an expression I’d never seen there before. She looked like an invader too.

Red Thorn looked almost sad for a moment. Almost regretful. Then those cold eyes hardened again. There was the Red Thorn I knew.

I was almost glad. Enough with the fucking charade.

“Alright then, Gell. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

She disappeared. Red warning lights flashed at the sides of my vision as Red Thorn did what she did best.