A Repentant Lament

[ASignalInTheNoise]

The following post is exceptionally miserable and depressing. Please, be kind to yourself.

The truth of this world is a cruel thesis.
Mitsuki found his Answer. I am happy for him.
At the same time, I cannot help but feel crippling misery.
Bartholomew. Ezra. Mitsuki. Lyco. Teaysee.
They ... are gone.

And I still live.

Why, Lady Azalea, do I still live?

Is it my sin? Is this my penance?

I have suffered so much. I thought I could endure it, and yet this world finds new ways to torture me.
I am a dying woman, who has outlived so many of my friends. Isn't the irony so...
Hilariously cruel?

I have not smiled in decades.

Despite a sickly, ailing body, I still dare to fight - and I am burned, broken, and beaten for it.

For nothing.

Why, Lady Azalea, do I still live?

Why do I suffer like this?

All I have wanted is to protect. And now, I am shackled...

... to a dying, broken husk. Unable to meaningful resist any conflict. I am accosted at all times,

for things I do not care for, for things I did not do, for seemingly no other reason-

Than for the sake of life's cruelty. To beat an already broken woman down a little more.

I cannot even meaningfully defend myself.

Unable ... to do more than be a pathetic wreck.

Mitsuki is gone. My counterbalance.

I ...

... I am alone.

He is gone.

And yet I still live.

My soul is hollow. My bones brittle.

I am the inheritor of naught but bitter ash and salt.

I beg and plead. I scream into the night, and...

You do not have an answer.

I am tired of suffering. I am so tired. I want to lay down, and sleep.

But when I close my eyes, I see them, and they ... won't let me sleep.

Why won't they let me go to them?

Please. Let me go. It is so dark and cold here. Every moment a knife twists in my side more and more.

Please.

...

It is useless to beg.

If this world will not let me go and end my suffering, then I will change it and make a new Truth.

I will not let this cruel world be so unjust anymore.

I can't let it. I can't let this be the only reward for my sacrifice and suffering.

There has to be something better. Please- to whatever god hears my begging,

let it be worth something.