Fyrn Vosshall

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she hasn’t been here in a while. she thinks it might have snowed last week, but time doesn’t really make sense anymore and whatever snow was there melted anyhow. the only sign is the odd patch of freeze, crunching underfoot. she’s marching, a little soldier girl, marching forward with head tucked down. her spine’s gonna kill her later, but she’s got to: the trees have eyes now. damn. it’s really been a long time. she’s not used to the cameras, little red lights blinking like beacons in the forest. she thinks they should be green instead, because it’s spring now and the trees are blooming. it’s almost like there was no war. it’s almost like everyone survived. she curses under her breath. little soldier girl doesn’t think about who she lost, just about the reasons she lost them. reasons to fight. patients five, thirty-four, ninety-eight. she realizes that she doesn’t remember their names. but she knows these people, still. number five. a kid, really, misguided and chasing love. funny how experimenting with yourself makes you an experiment. nothing’s funny these days. number thirty-four. this one’s blurrier, but certainly important. could’ve been someone she loved. could’ve been someone who loved her. little soldier girl walks faster, but the fetters of normal hold her tight. in these woods, you don’t want to stand out. in these woods you die. number ninety-eight. this one hurts, that strange pang in her chest like she’s losing parts of herself. she checks, just in case. arms. got ‘em. legs. one, two. she counts to five. then thirty-four, then ninety-eight. that one she doesn’t like to talk about. it’s really the worst of them all. they were gonna live through the war, the two of them. they were gonna make it. you don’t fight for your life unless you really think you’re going to live. and she did. little soldier girl, little mourner girl, little lover girl. she isn’t so little anymore. some cameras she can even look at with barely an incline of the head. but she doesn’t. she won’t. it’s so cold here. she’s shaking, and she doesn’t know if it’s more the chill or the grief. she’s such a cliché. such a damn final girl, fighting for her life, the last one left. doomed to hide from the remnants of her past, mask her voice, her face, cry in the concrete at night, little soldier girl who couldn’t fight hard enough to make it. that’s the point: she didn’t make it, she’s not here, it’s just the woods telling stories to her corpse. if only. god, she’s so fucked. the trees are lessening, now. the world’s coming back. some childish part of her wants to run, wants to scream into the streetlights that i’m here, please, i’m waiting, i’ve been waiting so long. but only the bad things would answer. she’s assumed for years that the bad things are something separate. something other than her, beginning of the end, little killer girl. patient zero.