Text;

[onerous]

What is it that keeps you living? Why? What makes it worth it to you?

[That’s, uh. That’s it. That’s the message. There’s no follow-up explanation or anything.

She’s just curious and doesn’t seem to see how alarming a question like that out of the blue might be]

Comments

[unhappy]

Not necessarily. It depends on what they did.
I'm not a psycho, I'm not going to kill someone for just anything.

[onerous]

That's fair, I suppose.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I've met a couple people here who've been fairly open about killing others.

[unhappy]

You probably shouldn't accept that as normal.

[ Like. Emerald's an actual killer and she's pretty sure hanging out with open-murderers is a bad idea. ]

[onerous]

It's less that I accept it as normal and more like... I understand people have their reasons for doing things. I don't have the whole picture, so I try not to judge based on the snapshots. If that makes sense?

[unhappy]

Some people don't.
Like seriously, a lot of killers do, but a lot don't. So unless it's self-defense, if someone's proudly talking about being a murderer lol

[onerous]

Well, that's true. If I was talking to someone who told me they kill, but just for fun or because they felt like it, I probably wouldn't hang around them anymore. I'm not THAT willing to turn a blind eye.

But I know that there are people ho killed because they didn't have a choice. Or, at least, the choices they had weren't good ones.

So I'm more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, especially in a place like this where they can make different choices.

[unhappy]

The people who really mean that usually don't talk about it openly until you get to know them. You can be as understanding as you want but if they're stupid enough to go around telling strangers they've got more problems than a little red in their ledger.

Then again it sounds like you do too.

[ Because she's 99% sure from experience that Yuri's a completely unrealistic exception to the rule here. Normal people are afraid if you tell them you killed someone, even if they know you well. ]

[onerous]

Oh. Do I?

You're probably right. Sorry. I guess I'm just not sure what the proper way to react to some of these things is. Is it bad...?

[unhappy]

Let's just say I'd probably put you on my top ten "most likely to get murdered" list.

[onerous]

That's fair.

[She's not even going to deny it... She knows what she's about, okay.]

Do you already have nine others on the list?

[unhappy]

If I do I'm not going to share them.
That'd be like asking crazy people to make a hit list out of it.

[ LISTEN SHE DEALS WITH A LOT OF THIRSTY MURDERERS. ]

[onerous]

I can't tell if this is realism or pessimism. Or if I should be concerned about what kind of place you've come from to be that cautious.

Are you one of the new arrivals?

[unhappy]

If I wanted to identify myself I wouldn't have gone anonymous.