I really have to get over myself

If I want to live.

You all saw what happened. Walter... fuck. Walter left.

And we all know what he is now.

But me, I couldn't leave it at that, oh no. Suze is smart. She fought back in words.

(Not that it did anything)

But me, for some reason I thought, I don't know. Was I even thinking?

So I followed him.

It doesn't get less genre-savvy than this, folks. But Walter had changed. In the moment that he had reached... some sort of realization, something turned into something else.

(I know I'm not making a lot of sense, sorrysorrysorry)

Either way. He knew. And not like my tripping and stumbling in the undergrowth made it any better.

"I assume you're not here to come with me."

He gave me a sad smile and his eyes positively shone in the moonlight and for some reason he didn't seem human anymore-

"Walter. Walter, you don't have to do this. You're being stupid."

I'm a genius, you know that? He took one step towards me, then two, and I instinctively stepped away.

Well fuck.

"I think the climax of the book will be the execution of poor old Edgar Derby. The irony is so great. A whole city gets burned down, and thousands of thousands of people are killed. And this one American solider is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot. And he's given a regular trial, and then he's shot by a firing squad..." He looks down at the ground, still smiling softly.

"Um."

"Don't you think, Lyle, that's really where the climax should come?"

Slaughter-House Five. One of Zach's favorites. I'd read it the day after he...

"You don't have to do this, Walter, this isn't your fault!"

He tilts his head at me, and for a second I panic because I seem to have a two phrase vocabulary.

"Just because it isn't my fault doesn't mean I can't do something. You're all afraid."

Guilty.

"And I'm not a madman because I accept my fear."

And I try and look up at him, accept what he is saying.(IwillrunfrommyfearIwilloutdistancemyfearthenIwillhidefrommyfearIwillwaitformyfearIwillletmyfearrunpastmethenIwillfollowmyfearIwilltrackmyfearuntilIcanapproachmyfearincompletesilencethenIwillstrikeatmyfearIwillchargemyfearIwillgrabholdofmyfearIwillsinkmyfingersintomyfearthenIwillbitemyfearIwilltearthethroatofmyfearIwillbreaktheneckofmyfearIwilldrinkthebloodofmyfearIwillgulpthefleshofmyfearIwillcrushthebonesofmyfearandIwillsavormyfearIwillswallowmyfearandthenIwilldigestmyfearuntilIcandonothingelsebutshitoutmyfearIn this way I will be made stronger.)

"You ARE a madman, Walter. What happened to saying that you weren't giving up? That you weren't going to let anyone else give up?" And he turned away from me and muttered

"I said I wasn't a madman. I never said I was a person."

And he left me standing there. Standing there until I was so cold and numb that it didn't hurt anymore to look at the blank space that he had been standing in. I came back to camp empty handed. Richard was busy staring into space, and when he saw me, he put his head into his hands.

Everyone else was asleep.

Everyone else was awake, waiting.

And I didn't say a thing.