(no subject)
Man is very well defended against himself, against his own spying and sieges; usually he is able to make out no more of himself than his outer fortifications. The actual stronghold is inaccessible to him, even invisible, unless friends and enemies turn traitor and lead him there by a secret path. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Prologue
I am Santana Lopez.
Two years have passed since my first mission. That was shortly after my death back in the basement.
I‘ve killed 45 fiends, “aliens” as the people who are summoned here call them, although I don’t know where these creatures really come from. I’ve almost died 137 times and I was dead long before my actual death. I’ve gathered 91 points, which means I’m only nine points away from beating the game. Nine points and I’ll be done.
That’s what Gantz says anyway. I’m not sure what will actually happen once I reach a hundred points, but right now this is the only thing that keeps me going. I never had a life before I died.
The points are something I can work towards, something that’s worth fighting for. And yes, I kill for that. Besides my name the only thing that you should really know about me is that I’m not a very nice person.
I am Santana Lopez.
I keep saying this to myself as a reminder. I have to. I cling to this last bit of what’s left of my identity, try to hold onto it, chant it like a mantra each night before I got to sleep. It’s pathetic actually.
Everything else that defined who I am I’ve lost to Gantz.
But what is a name, really?
Mostly it’s a label. It’s something people can call you. It doesn’t describe who you are and it doesn’t really say anything about you. It’s basically something your parents come up with so they’d know what to yell when they’re mad at you. It’s something they can whisper soothingly when you’re hurting. It’s something to put on to IDs, tests, homework assignments, marriage certificates and tombstones.
But what is a name alone really?
What if someone passes your tombstone and reads your name and it doesn’t tell them anything? Does is still matter that you’ve lived?
Don’t all words lose their meaning if there aren’t at least two people using the same language? And what good is a name if everyone you’ve ever cared about is dead?
I’m the only one who still knows who I am and who I once was. I’m the only one left to call me by my name, so what else is there to do but to repeat this evidence that I’ve lived over and over again and again.
I’m so incredibly close to forgetting sometimes. Out there, fighting, identities don’t matter. I’m just the girl in the suit with the gun in her hand. I’m a killer. I don’t have a face or a heart or a soul. I don’t live, I survive. I don’t breathe and I don’t look, not really. Anything I’d see would scare me to death. I shut everything out, I don’t hear evil, don’t see evil, don’t speak evil. Out there, the girl in the suit only exists to return.
Return to face a greater evil: Reality.
I’ve died in so many ways since I died in that basement two years ago. I’ve died and sometimes when I’m confronted with the silence of my bedroom and my thoughts become too loud, when I cannot convince myself that this is a game I have to win anymore, panic will take over and I wish I still had a reason to believe in God so I could pray and lose myself in faith and hopes and expectations. But the only thing that’s left is my name and Gantz.
So this is what I intone instead: I am Santana Lopez. I’m eighteen years old (I don’t think you continue aging after you’ve died). Santana. I am someone, at least to myself. I can make it day by day, ignoring the future, ignoring that there are no plans for me to make. I can go on, step by step and for each inch I make it I repeat: “Santana”.
As I said: It’s pathetic.
Of course, the other people who cross my path, those lost souls that come here every now and then, they don’t know anything of all of this. Somehow this last piece of me has become sacred and I don’t want to share. They’ll leave again soon anyway; their company is always brief. So why should I give away something as precious as my identity? Why should I bother making friends or even allies when I know for certain that I’ll lose them soon? I’m always on my own.
Instead I use these opportunities to enjoy myself. I tell them I’m called Maria, Anita, Carmen, whatever. I tell them I’m only fifteen and new. I tell them I don’t know how to use the suit or how to fight. I use them as shields in the battle field and I laugh each time someone calls out my alias and frowns when I don’t react.
It’s hysterical what you can make people believe when you’re nobody to them. Each time Gantz sends a new team of losers I get the chance to start off fresh. I can be whatever I want to.
This one time I convinced a guy he was part of a reality show and he could win $200.000 cash if he fulfilled a simple assignment: Kill one of his teammates. He barely hesitated before shooting the person I pointed to. Of course that was against the rules so shortly after he had to die himself. Newcomers don’t know the rules so they don’t know about the bombs in our heads.
And why should I tell them? The rules are so simple it’s ridiculous: Kill the target before the countdown runs out, don’t leave the battle field, come back alive and get points. If the countdown reaches zero before the enemy is dead you lose all the points you’ve gathered before - a lesson I learned the hard way. If you kill anyone else or leave the battle field, or do anything else to upset Gantz, you die.
So when his head burst and shards of skull fell at my feet everyone stared at me in shock and disbelief as I chuckled quietly at the sight.
People are monsters and I’m a child born into this generation. It’s not like anyone helped me back then. It’s not like anyone raised a finger to help my dad. So don’t you dare blame me. Don’t you dare take away my fun. I’m allowed to enjoy myself.
I haven’t made the rules, I just obey them. I’m told what to do and I can’t act against my orders. I kill when I’m told to kill and when I’m home and Gantz decides to send me on a mission, I don’t have a choice.
Call me cruel, call me a monster. Call me sad and lost. It doesn’t matter, because you don’t dictate me my life.
I am Santana Lopez.
And this is Gantz.
-->>
Prologue
I am Santana Lopez.
Two years have passed since my first mission. That was shortly after my death back in the basement.
I‘ve killed 45 fiends, “aliens” as the people who are summoned here call them, although I don’t know where these creatures really come from. I’ve almost died 137 times and I was dead long before my actual death. I’ve gathered 91 points, which means I’m only nine points away from beating the game. Nine points and I’ll be done.
That’s what Gantz says anyway. I’m not sure what will actually happen once I reach a hundred points, but right now this is the only thing that keeps me going. I never had a life before I died.
The points are something I can work towards, something that’s worth fighting for. And yes, I kill for that. Besides my name the only thing that you should really know about me is that I’m not a very nice person.
I am Santana Lopez.
I keep saying this to myself as a reminder. I have to. I cling to this last bit of what’s left of my identity, try to hold onto it, chant it like a mantra each night before I got to sleep. It’s pathetic actually.
Everything else that defined who I am I’ve lost to Gantz.
But what is a name, really?
Mostly it’s a label. It’s something people can call you. It doesn’t describe who you are and it doesn’t really say anything about you. It’s basically something your parents come up with so they’d know what to yell when they’re mad at you. It’s something they can whisper soothingly when you’re hurting. It’s something to put on to IDs, tests, homework assignments, marriage certificates and tombstones.
But what is a name alone really?
What if someone passes your tombstone and reads your name and it doesn’t tell them anything? Does is still matter that you’ve lived?
Don’t all words lose their meaning if there aren’t at least two people using the same language? And what good is a name if everyone you’ve ever cared about is dead?
I’m the only one who still knows who I am and who I once was. I’m the only one left to call me by my name, so what else is there to do but to repeat this evidence that I’ve lived over and over again and again.
I’m so incredibly close to forgetting sometimes. Out there, fighting, identities don’t matter. I’m just the girl in the suit with the gun in her hand. I’m a killer. I don’t have a face or a heart or a soul. I don’t live, I survive. I don’t breathe and I don’t look, not really. Anything I’d see would scare me to death. I shut everything out, I don’t hear evil, don’t see evil, don’t speak evil. Out there, the girl in the suit only exists to return.
Return to face a greater evil: Reality.
I’ve died in so many ways since I died in that basement two years ago. I’ve died and sometimes when I’m confronted with the silence of my bedroom and my thoughts become too loud, when I cannot convince myself that this is a game I have to win anymore, panic will take over and I wish I still had a reason to believe in God so I could pray and lose myself in faith and hopes and expectations. But the only thing that’s left is my name and Gantz.
So this is what I intone instead: I am Santana Lopez. I’m eighteen years old (I don’t think you continue aging after you’ve died). Santana. I am someone, at least to myself. I can make it day by day, ignoring the future, ignoring that there are no plans for me to make. I can go on, step by step and for each inch I make it I repeat: “Santana”.
As I said: It’s pathetic.
Of course, the other people who cross my path, those lost souls that come here every now and then, they don’t know anything of all of this. Somehow this last piece of me has become sacred and I don’t want to share. They’ll leave again soon anyway; their company is always brief. So why should I give away something as precious as my identity? Why should I bother making friends or even allies when I know for certain that I’ll lose them soon? I’m always on my own.
Instead I use these opportunities to enjoy myself. I tell them I’m called Maria, Anita, Carmen, whatever. I tell them I’m only fifteen and new. I tell them I don’t know how to use the suit or how to fight. I use them as shields in the battle field and I laugh each time someone calls out my alias and frowns when I don’t react.
It’s hysterical what you can make people believe when you’re nobody to them. Each time Gantz sends a new team of losers I get the chance to start off fresh. I can be whatever I want to.
This one time I convinced a guy he was part of a reality show and he could win $200.000 cash if he fulfilled a simple assignment: Kill one of his teammates. He barely hesitated before shooting the person I pointed to. Of course that was against the rules so shortly after he had to die himself. Newcomers don’t know the rules so they don’t know about the bombs in our heads.
And why should I tell them? The rules are so simple it’s ridiculous: Kill the target before the countdown runs out, don’t leave the battle field, come back alive and get points. If the countdown reaches zero before the enemy is dead you lose all the points you’ve gathered before - a lesson I learned the hard way. If you kill anyone else or leave the battle field, or do anything else to upset Gantz, you die.
So when his head burst and shards of skull fell at my feet everyone stared at me in shock and disbelief as I chuckled quietly at the sight.
People are monsters and I’m a child born into this generation. It’s not like anyone helped me back then. It’s not like anyone raised a finger to help my dad. So don’t you dare blame me. Don’t you dare take away my fun. I’m allowed to enjoy myself.
I haven’t made the rules, I just obey them. I’m told what to do and I can’t act against my orders. I kill when I’m told to kill and when I’m home and Gantz decides to send me on a mission, I don’t have a choice.
Call me cruel, call me a monster. Call me sad and lost. It doesn’t matter, because you don’t dictate me my life.
I am Santana Lopez.
And this is Gantz.
-->>