There Must Be More Than Blood

Looking down at hir wrists, the entire world surrounding them a blur, A..... River was not happy. Or maybe ze was. The line for that was blurred, not just because of the everpresent terror of the Backrooms themselves, a place ze was endeared to for a lot of hir adult life, but the stress. And not the stress of hir job as Senior Archivist, no. That was easy, ze said. Ze loves hir job, and it was a matter of course for hir. Writing was fun. Writing was enjoyable. Writing was a chore with no benefit. It helped others. It didn’t help hir. Ze liked the praise, but it never felt like enough. Ze got praise from everyone around her, and it’s all ze wanted, but it didn’t motivate hir, as much as she said it did. Contradictory. Everything was contradictory. Ze felt fine, but ze wanted nothing more than to spill hir insides out, force everyone to see a part of hir they might not want to. In a sense, that’s what writing was for hir. There were writing standards, there were writing conventions, there were templates. But no matter what ze did, hir soul was on each page. Every wanderer using the global databank had no choice but to peruse River’s guts, digging their hands in and around to find what they needed, disregarding the source of the viscera to take organs from hir to keep themselves alive, just to discard the extra. It never mattered to them. It doesn’t matter who wrote it.

They’ll never know my name.
you don’t either.
I know my own name.
is it even yours? anymore, i mean.
Fuck off.

Hir wrists weren’t pristine. Even before hir extended “vacation” here, ze had a history. It’s not something ze was ashamed of. Not on a macro, “look at all of the pieces from a birds-eye view” level. It’s the culmination of external stressors and internal mental anguish breaking the dam and flooding all at once. No one person can be expected to handle it. River thought that maybe with support, ze’d be strong enough to handle it. Maybe if Eden and Kat... No. Everything’s fine. everything’s fine in heaven Everything’s just fucking fine here, too. Stop.

Maybe if Eden and Kat cared. Maybe they do. They do. I’m sure they do, I know they do. Why does it feel like they don’t? I know they worry, they reach out. Why don’t they care?
i care
I don’t. I want to help you. I want to help you. I want to help you. You aren’t helping me.

Hir vision blurred again. Why hir? Why does ze deserve any of this? What did ze do? Hir eyes focused, but just on hir wrist. They unfocused, and drifted over to hir desk drawer. Ze knew what was in there, nobody else did. Nobody else knew ze did it. People looked up to hir. Ze had a position of power. And as such, ze couldn’t show any more weakness than the scar tissue across hir body already did. It was in the past, ze lied. Going to unlock the drawer, hir key was rejected by the lock for just a second, and as a matter of course, ze twisted and pulled. Hir drawer flung open, just a bit, startling River. Ze saw what ze wanted. Not what ze needed.

Ze grabs the plastic holder of razors. Ze’s been reusing it. Things like this aren’t easy to find around here. Not the holder, nor the razors themselves. It almost feels like a waste. So much of what ze feels is a waste. Someone could be using these to shave, someone could be using these for arts and crafts. Getting some proper use out of them. Joy, mainly.

Joy was fleeting for hir. It’s not that ze didn’t feel happiness, that ze didn’t feel happy when Eden and Kat would hang out with hir, and they’d shoot the shit for hours, but it was a pervasive emptiness that colored every interaction. Before something fun, ze rotted. After something fun, ze rotted. During it, the feeling shifted back in hir head. Not gone, just not in the front. It sure as hell wasn’t gone. A monotone response that ze didn’t truly mean, but didn’t have it in hir to give much more than. The worst part, ze thought, wasn’t the feeling itself. You can learn to live with depression, although ze was convinced what ze felt wasn’t depression, of course, but something else. You get used to it, it becomes your normal, and then suddenly everything is okay. No, what ze hated was the constant drops. A. River was not unhappy. Ze was quite happy. Ze knew what ze wanted to do going forward, what would make hir life better, and eventually, ze would get to it. River continued, beginning to spiral in hir own head: It was just hard to believe that.

It’s hard to believe that I’m happy, even though I know it’s true, yknow?
are you talking to me
I guess so. You’re not going to stop talking to me, right?
no, i miss you.
I miss you too.
well
i think that happiness is fleeting. why do you think i yearn for the past over what the world is now?
I guess that makes sense. Yeah. Do you think that’s... right?
of course i do

Ze slides a razor out. Even when they’re scavenged from the levels, they come pre-packaged. Wrapped and brand new. It makes hir feel gross to dirty them with hir blood.

Ze slides it back in.

This has been a ritual for her, for as long as ze can remember. Ze can’t commit. River knows that nobody would judge her, truly. At least, ze feels like ze has to believe that to not feel worse about things, but in the end, River would disappoint hirself the most. Even if hir feelings revolve around others, sometimes hir own feelings supersede that.

Ze slides it back out.

Ze stares at it, twisting it around hir index and hir middle, playing with it, like there was no gravity to what ze was doing. It was a matter of course, it was, at worst, a bad habit. People smoke here. That’s a bad habit too. Is a scar on your body truly worse than the slow, insidious death that’ll come as a result of smoking the way others do? Don’t you have more control over this?
Maybe that’s a bad way of thinking. Ze knows it is. In the end, all bad habits are bad. They all hurt others around you. But with this, there was a voice in hir head, one that wasn’t Gaius for once, telling hir that ze truly opted for the least life threatening. It’s just the most visibly self-destructive.

Idly spinning the razor between hir slender fingers, ze thinks about how ze’s had scars for all of hir life, at varying levels of freshness each time you’d see hir. The worst you get is a stare in public. Although, for hir, it was hard to decide whether or not ze was getting that stare because of hir being visibly trans, or the million other things on hir person including parts of hir person that would lead to the average person refusing to take their eyes off you, as though they didn’t even view you as a person at all, just a gallery piece. In a sense, hir writing is an extension of that. It’s not hir, it’s just something to gawk at. But it helps. It helps others. Doesn’t it?

Ze begins to unwrap it, bracing the razor itself with hir middle finger, and using hir two thumbs to pull the flaps away, and rotating it 90 degrees to do it again, ze grabs it out of the wrapping, carefully from the sides. You’d be surprised just how careful ze is with these things, especially given what ze intends to do with them. It’s the intent, not the action. There’s no point in accidentally hurting yourself. Ze thinks the intentionality is why it helps. It feels like ze is in control for once. River doesn’t get to be in control very often. Or maybe ze does. It doesn’t register. These things aren’t internally consistent.

are you sure this is what you want to do
Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?
i just don’t think it’ll help
plus my vessel hurting itself isn’t productive
Your what?
nothing
don’t you think you should reach out to a friend first
I don’t want to pussy out of this.
is it pussying out or making the right choice
Fine.

Ze dropped the razor down on hir desk. Ze sent Eden a message.

hi
Hi? What’s up?
how are you
I’m doing fine, River. I’m a bit busy right now with a technical document I’m writing up for Kat, but otherwise fine. You?
yea im ok
whats the document for
It’s a procedure thing, mostly about how we handle the formatting for the data we hand to you. For the articles.
i see
why didnt i get told about this
I just figured you didn’t need to yet.
i guess so yeah

A few minutes pass. Eden doesn’t respond.

hey eden
Yes?
i miss you
I’m literally in the same building as you, just come say hi. You haven’t been doing that lately. It’s been nice to hear from you tonight.

A few more minutes pass, but this time River doesn’t respond. Ze doesn’t like it when others point out her flaws, as much as ze’ll ask for it. Ze wants to improve, but when someone points out how it’s like being stabbed in the chest. Understanding that there’s always a way to improve, but the fact that someone else wants you to means they might abandon you one day if you don’t. Already in a bad space, this unfortunately doesn’t help.

Ze picks the razor back up, and stares at it. Ze thinks about how easy these things are to snap in half as opposed to just how sharp they are. In a sense, it reminds River of hirself.

Ze lays it on hir wrist, index and thumb gripping onto the side of the blade firmly. Ze’s done this before. It’s a ritual to hir. Ze holds it there. It’s the last moment of hesitation ze gets. If ze does it, it’s not a big deal. A streak is something to break. A relapse is inevitable. It’s how these things are. Nobody expects more from hir. Everyone already knows ze’s broken, it’s expected.

There’s a bite, holding it against hir skin, but it’s not a sharp one. Your body can sense the impending pain, in a strange way. The razor isn’t breaking skin, but it feels like it is.

Ze swipes it across hir wrist. The stinging feels better, for a moment. People don’t do this because it feels good, but rather because the brain is incapable of discerning between physical and mental pain. If you’re in a crisis, the removal of the razor relieves the mental anguish. You’re lessening the pain, even if you caused it yourself.

Something flows out, first beginning to flood the laceration with its color, and then beading up above, sporadically on top of the wound.

It’s not what River is used to.

It’s not red.

Hir blood doesn’t even look like hir own anymore.

It looks like the world is censoring hir, as though what ze did was some sort of uniquely wrong act.

It takes hir out of it.

What the fuck am I doing?

what am i?