Shaula starts to feel suffocated as she looks at Ajax's body. It's not healing itself now that it has been separated from his head. It clearly shows the extent of what Ajax has already suffered prior to his beheading. The body is covered in blood. His hips, torso, but particularly his arms and legs, look… mangled.
He was in the middle of regenerating himself when the enemy beheaded him. Motherfuck…
She looks back down at the head. His neck and jaw wound are both dripping blood onto her clothes. His blood…
She muffles a scream, holding her hand over her mouth. This sight is one of her worst nightmares. She wants to vomit.
"Why… Why did this… Why did you go this far? Why did you do all this? You shouldn't have put yourself at risk like this…"
More tears stream down her face as she sobs while holding his head. He's not healing. His head is not restoring itself at the speed that his injuries normally would. At this point, his jaw would have been restored completely, it would have at least stopped bleeding.
Shaula doesn't want to consider it but a worm of doubt burrows itself into her consciousness. Memories flash before her eyes, reminding her of her life on Earth prior to meeting Ajax, her dearest friend. It was a life of anger, hatred, envy, sadness.
Loneliness.
She could only feel a burning desire to erase everything and everyone that had made her life the way it was. Originally, she had thought it would be better to just kill herself after how badly things had turned out for her, but some sessions with a psychologist put things into another perspective. A more serene one that ironically became filled with intense thoughts of hatred and violence.
Then, she met Ajax. At first, she was not enthusiastic about him in the slightest, being forced to interact with him for a school project. He seemed so oblivious to the depths of this world's suffering. Seeing him so happy-go-lucky while also insecure about himself and his own life and future made her feel insulted.
It was like a mockery of the true uncertainty, anxiety and suffering that she had gone through and constantly reminded her of how, unlike him, she had no real future. She couldn't bring herself to like him. At first.
But, he was always around as fate had brought them into close proximity for extended periods of time. She had slowly started to see something else inside him. A kind of goodness that was not smug, cloying or vain. A childishness that was not pathetic for someone his age to have. Love. Friendship. Innocence.
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He cared about his family dearly. He cared about his friends, including her. He had been by her side and interested in her interests. They had become good friends before too long, though it still did take a while.
Then, Ajax had asked her one day to live with him and his family, having found out about her homelessness. He had wept before her very eyes because of how she was suffering, something that she didn't know how to respond to at the time. It felt alien to have someone care for her so deeply. She had never experienced that in her life prior to meeting him.
She had only ever thought of dying in an endless war against the world. She had called it sacrifice when it was nothing more than the journey towards a prolonged, vengeful self-destruction. She would have killed her mind in this journey long before her body died.
She was hoping that he would weep for her when she died as well, just like he had wept on that day when her life was changed forever.
But, now you're… Ajax, now… you’re…
What would his parents say? His sister? They must believe that he's disappeared if they don't simply think he died. What would they think if they learned that he died trying to prevent others, strangers even, from dying in flames, buried by rubble?
What would they think about this gruesome sacrifice he made?
What would they think about Shaula for not even being able to keep their son alive for more than a few weeks with all of the power bestowed to her? Would they hate her? She can only be glad that they will never know of the depths of his suffering.
A burning pit of anger, resentment and hatred burns within Shaula’s stomach directed toward herself. It was her fault that he had suffered in this manner. She had failed to protect him. He had died because she was too preoccupied with her own lust for violence and destruction.
While he was suffering here alone in the face of evil, she was destroying a statue while roasting a few pigs, both activities that she took a great deal of pleasure in.
Did she really even have to kill that guard captain the way that she did? What if she had killed him quickly without any of the fanfare? Without succumbing to her need for the man's torment? Was her need for vengeance so base, filled with such cruelty?
If she was a minute earlier, even a few seconds earlier, she might have been able to save Ajax.
She had even denied Ajax's valor. She could not forget that fact even if it was only for a moment. All the tears she shed now cannot erase that fact. She had originally thought that Ajax might even have run away from all the evil here and forced Dzan and Sigvor to fight for him. She can only hate herself even more for denying her friend's resolve.
She feels like she should die. She needs to die. She needs to die. Right now. She should kill herself for how she has failed him. Her friend.
Her first and truest friend.
If she dies right now, it would be far better than living in this hell without him. It would be far better than living with the weight of her failure. She is nothing but a beast with his blood on her heels, as if he were an afterthought. How is she any better than Cain? She should be marked by God for her sins.