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[wrackful]

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murphy

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[wrackful]

You'd try. Probably get yourself killed. Then you'll get brought back, and be exactly where you started.

That's if you're lucky. That making you crave to be used? The house does things like that too. Made us all think we'd lived totally different lives, one month.

[endow]

Not exactly where I started, Murphy. I'm lucky. If I die figuring something out I'll be one step closer to the better unknown. Someone is paying for what they've done.

[wrackful]

What, you're just going to keep running at a brick wall till you maybe one day finally make a dent? Sounds fun. Knock yourself out.

[Literally.]

[endow]

Make the assumptions you want, but you're implying I will try the same thing twice. If I find information, do you want to be included or left out?

Don't tell me you're happy here.

[wrackful]

You're wasting time playing the game, because you want to win. The game that's pretty obviously meant to get us all at each other's throats, us vs them against each other instead of what's actually screwing with us.

So, yeah. I'm making assumptions.

[endow]

Time said wasted is wasted time, and obvious is as obvious gets. I'm playing how I want to play before I get my hands on the Shepherd's throat.

[wrackful]

Like I said, have fun with your brick wall. Let me know sometime if you change your mind, maybe I'll let you help figure out how to climb over it.

[endow]

Finally! You want to help. Yes, give me tools or lift me up, either option works for me.

[wrackful]

[He makes a humming noise, then:]

Nope.

[endow]

Why offer to tell me no? Do you enjoy making people upset?

[wrackful]

You really going to make me repeat myself?

[endow]

[screaming internally– (yet she can appreciate the game)]

I don't think you've elaborated on why you take pleasure on getting under someone's skin. Are you like me?

[wrackful]

Honestly, can't say I always take pleasure in it. Sometimes it sucks.

[endow]

You don't? [pause. she's deflating– softening from the roller coaster they've been on.] This is what you've always done. Okay. How about now? Wrong answer only.

[wrackful]

[There's a long beat. Wrong answers only. Truth is he hadn't thought about it, not yet. This is what he's always done. The regrets tended to come later, after he'd hurt another person he cared about, or wrecked something that might've been a friendship.]

It's been a distraction.

[endow]

[his admittance – wrong or not – almost sounds like a vulnerability to her.]

From everything?

[wrackful]

They've got us playing a murder game where the murderers are brainwashed to do it, the dead are just going to come back anyway, and everyone jumped at the first chance they got to use my brother as a scapegoat. Yeah, guess you could call that 'everything'.

[endow]

Your brother? [a hiccuped laugh at herself (the situation, the place she's been forced to adapt inside of).] This world is strange to me, Murphy. I used your brother too, but I spoke to him afterwards.

[she admits something she is guilty of, but there's a lilt in her voice suggestive of emotion.]

Everyone is using everyone.

[wrackful]

Yeah, everyone using everyone is why he told you it was fine. That is what he said, right? He's had it happen so much he's used to it, won't even bother fighting it.

Me, on the other hand? I've had it happen so much that I'd rather burn everything down, with me in it, than let one more person get what they want that way.

[endow]

He said he would have done the same thing, yes.

Then you are a hypocrite, Murphy. I want to bring the Shepherd down even if it means I'm burning everything down. I can't let him get away with what he's done.

[wrackful]

Because taking him down is nothing. He's just another guy, thinking he's a user when he's the same as the rest of us, one rung up the same crappy ladder. Replaceable. You really want to take down what did this to you? Then you want what he's praying to. And he's the only one around that can tell you what that is or how to get at it.

But realising that would take thinking for five seconds, and you're too busy for that, right? Following along with their game like a good little sheep. Throwing my brother in a cage because they said jump, and you said how high.

I'm not the hypocrite, here.