2023-01-26: If in the End I Lose My Voice

• Log: 2023-01-26: If in the End I Lose My Voice
• Cast: Ennil El
• Where: Side 3 - Core 3 Ruins
• Date: U.C. 0097 01 26
• Summary: In the depths of Ruin, Ennil El begins taking steps towards her future.

---

<Hey I'm so sorry you guys (guy? just remove this whole part?) were great -

Delete.

<I really miss you -

Delete.

<I'm safe, (no I'm not that's bullshit but) I'll be back when -

Delete.

The emulated 'click' of a camera shutter. A sharp flash cuts through the air - she has to blink. She peers at the screen.

Ugh, she looks like shit. Her skin's too pale (the flash did it). Her red hair is hazy and washed out (why are the damn things so bright?). Her eyes are dull and orangish-red (is that even a thing with digital cameras?).

Besides, who's it even for.

(She flicks home without thinking. Fake snow. One deep breath. Four seconds.)

There's a groan, a sharp rattle ((hold it. four seconds)), the whirr of fans kicking to life - not everything here is properly sealed.

She paces the halls with only half-dead running lights to guide her.

(Back to VERTEX. Out. Four seconds.)

She'd know these hulls blind, anyway. But there's no sense running atmosphere through a broken vessel (one. two. three. four.) - if anything, it risks blowing something out. She needs to follow that sound.

Still, she's got a grip on that phone. (That last lifeline.)

12%. She flicks through her handful of VERTEX stickers. A bunch of MS faces. Tarabaman stuff. Cutesy pictures of Sheryl, and some friend of hers, with green hair. Which one says, "sorry, I never really got better?"

<you did enough. stop wasting your time. i know how to disappear just fine -

Delete.

Each kick is smooth, practiced, forceful - not elegant, and she occasionally bumps into something where it's not supposed to be and has to course correct - but floating like this, out in the void, is something she's practiced for eight years now. A hand goes up, finds a rail, yanks it into position - it's locked. She spits out a curse and dangles there, pressing down on the keypad again. Another half-formed thought retreats, character by character.

7%.

It's not worth hurting him.

She scrolls back up. Finds a different name. Her thumb hangs over the emulated keyboard.

<did you still want to -

Delete.

<rikka's pretty amazing, -

Delete.

<am i still going to be able to find you in -

Delete.

<sorry i bailed kaiju don't belong in tsutsujidai anymore i hope you're not mad>

Delete.

<left. i don't think kaiju really belong anywhere. i went home. ...something like that, anyway.>

The rail in her grip screeches, rolls loosely forward. There's a sharp popping sound as a screw gives, and she twists. The phone dangles at the tips of her fingers for a moment, and she has to squeeze down not to lose it -

2%. She reaches for the send button, hesitates, flicks back to delete, she hesitates... (message failed to send)

The screen goes black.

No one was going to look, anyway.