oncoming_storms Prompt 30.2.A: Regret
Regret.
You're standing in the ruins of the city that has fallen, fallen because of you because of what you did and what you tried to do. Voices in your head ask you if this was the right thing, this sacrifice, this suffering and the thing you hate most is that you don't have an answer. You don't have an answer to explain this. You never do. You never have.
You never will. Not really.
But you walk away, because there is nothing more you can do, there's no more people you can kill and here are a couple more hundred screams you can add to your growing collection.
The screaming is something that won't stop until you die. Finally.
Sometimes you understand yourself, understand that you didn't have any other choice, sometimes the sacrifice doesn't seem so bad, but that's only sometimes. A very few sometimes.
You don't let your companions see, you pretend like killing thousands upon thousands is something you get used to, because after all the times you've done it, it must get a little worn.
You don't. It always hurts. You never get used to death, you just learn to cope.
You're standing now on a planet. Your planet, with the fate of the universe on your shoulders because of course it can't be anywhere else.
It sounds like the same story. It plays out like the same story.
It doesn't feel like the same story.
It's never really different. A planet, city, town, even, sacrificed for the world, the universe. Sacrificed so that more can live. Mathematically, logically, scientifically, it seems to make sense. One life equals one life. But you never believed that. One life was priceless. Life wasn't like money, life didn't have value.
People rank you as a coward and perhaps you are. You can't hold a gun up to a person's head and allow it to discharge because of all the people you've killed by now, why would you kill another one when you have the choice not to?
You hate it. You hate your impotence on making these decisions. Even with every chance to destroy the Daleks, those metal bodies of genocide that have ruined more worlds than you can possibly think of, you couldn't do it because you were too scared, and they were too innocent.
And now they're here destroying your planet, killing your people. Does that make you a Dalek by default? Their creator? The one who conceded their existence?
Does that make you the killer of Time Lords?
The fact that even your hearts can't say 'no' to that question is devastating.
You feel battered and worn by this war, and you think that it's almost strange. With centuries of your life now in the past, you have never experienced a war. You have seen it, you have tried to end it, you have never been in it.
It's much more terrifying.
And now you're at the end, the fate of the universe on your shoulders because of course it can't be anywhere else.
Allow the Daleks to live, the Time Lords to die and the universe free for Dalek rule or destroy the Daleks and the Time Lords and let the universe live for another day.
You let them go and now you have to kill your own people. Every single, last, tiny remainder.
Sacrifices. It's always the same.
And you're scared, so... very, very scared because what will happen next? What if the Daleks survive? What will the universe do then? Without even Time Lords to protect it, the Daleks could go free. Even after going over and over it again in your mind, it doesn't seem like it will turn out as planned because it never does.
And what of the silence? You know there will be silence, nothing but silence, nothing but loud, thundering, never ending silence and with only screaming to fill it up and let it overflow and perhaps you'll go mad, perhaps you'll finally throw yourself through your remaining regenerations because you have to make it stop, because you want it all to end, this screaming and dying and pain that rests all in you, so deeply ingrained in your soul that all you want to do is grab a knife and cut it all out, if it just means that it will stop. You can't do everything you're meant to, you're not that person, you're not that life and yet somehow...
It all comes to you in the end.
Haven't you gone mad yet? Sometimes you can't tell.
Coward or killer?
Well.
You've always been both, haven't you?
And you'll never change.
The Eighth Doctor
Doctor Who
746 words
You're standing in the ruins of the city that has fallen, fallen because of you because of what you did and what you tried to do. Voices in your head ask you if this was the right thing, this sacrifice, this suffering and the thing you hate most is that you don't have an answer. You don't have an answer to explain this. You never do. You never have.
You never will. Not really.
But you walk away, because there is nothing more you can do, there's no more people you can kill and here are a couple more hundred screams you can add to your growing collection.
The screaming is something that won't stop until you die. Finally.
Sometimes you understand yourself, understand that you didn't have any other choice, sometimes the sacrifice doesn't seem so bad, but that's only sometimes. A very few sometimes.
You don't let your companions see, you pretend like killing thousands upon thousands is something you get used to, because after all the times you've done it, it must get a little worn.
You don't. It always hurts. You never get used to death, you just learn to cope.
You're standing now on a planet. Your planet, with the fate of the universe on your shoulders because of course it can't be anywhere else.
It sounds like the same story. It plays out like the same story.
It doesn't feel like the same story.
It's never really different. A planet, city, town, even, sacrificed for the world, the universe. Sacrificed so that more can live. Mathematically, logically, scientifically, it seems to make sense. One life equals one life. But you never believed that. One life was priceless. Life wasn't like money, life didn't have value.
People rank you as a coward and perhaps you are. You can't hold a gun up to a person's head and allow it to discharge because of all the people you've killed by now, why would you kill another one when you have the choice not to?
You hate it. You hate your impotence on making these decisions. Even with every chance to destroy the Daleks, those metal bodies of genocide that have ruined more worlds than you can possibly think of, you couldn't do it because you were too scared, and they were too innocent.
And now they're here destroying your planet, killing your people. Does that make you a Dalek by default? Their creator? The one who conceded their existence?
Does that make you the killer of Time Lords?
The fact that even your hearts can't say 'no' to that question is devastating.
You feel battered and worn by this war, and you think that it's almost strange. With centuries of your life now in the past, you have never experienced a war. You have seen it, you have tried to end it, you have never been in it.
It's much more terrifying.
And now you're at the end, the fate of the universe on your shoulders because of course it can't be anywhere else.
Allow the Daleks to live, the Time Lords to die and the universe free for Dalek rule or destroy the Daleks and the Time Lords and let the universe live for another day.
You let them go and now you have to kill your own people. Every single, last, tiny remainder.
Sacrifices. It's always the same.
And you're scared, so... very, very scared because what will happen next? What if the Daleks survive? What will the universe do then? Without even Time Lords to protect it, the Daleks could go free. Even after going over and over it again in your mind, it doesn't seem like it will turn out as planned because it never does.
And what of the silence? You know there will be silence, nothing but silence, nothing but loud, thundering, never ending silence and with only screaming to fill it up and let it overflow and perhaps you'll go mad, perhaps you'll finally throw yourself through your remaining regenerations because you have to make it stop, because you want it all to end, this screaming and dying and pain that rests all in you, so deeply ingrained in your soul that all you want to do is grab a knife and cut it all out, if it just means that it will stop. You can't do everything you're meant to, you're not that person, you're not that life and yet somehow...
It all comes to you in the end.
Haven't you gone mad yet? Sometimes you can't tell.
Coward or killer?
Well.
You've always been both, haven't you?
And you'll never change.
The Eighth Doctor
Doctor Who
746 words