just reread nobody’s perfect and OUUUUU THE 141 HAVE ME MAD ALL OVER AGAIN 😭 which is why i love the alternative ending bc at least reader has a chance at some happiness 🥲 but the original ending is so dark and hopeless and it always makes my tummy hurt when i think about it for too long
The alternative ending is so interesting, because is Reader getting a happy ending? A kinda-sorta chance at happiness? I'm not sure, but at least everyone is dark and fucked up together😂
The ending is great, and realistic (in an non-realistic kind of world) but there is something to be said that, in a different life, Lamb would still choose to be with their fucked up family. That maybe this time it's not up to them, but they've never been able to escape before, either.
I think in the original story/ending, years into the future, Lamb would do anything to stay with the 141 in their cabin.
Maybe someone finally finds them. Years and years of isolation and depravity, of loneliness and guilt and shame and suffering. Of hearing Stacey squeal from the pigpen and whispers deep in the night, Lamb is finally found by a realtors drone and rescue comes.
The 141 are gone for a mission, and come back to a gutted home and police on their tale. News erupts about what horrors had been found in that cabin.
Bones. Pictures. Videos.
A living person underneath the floorboards.
And Lamb.
Lamb who is uncooperative. Fighting. Screaming. Begging for them to be released from the hospital.
Doctors say it's Stockholm Syndrome. Others say Lamb was just as involved.
Lamb has bitten a nurse and is now under lock and key, drugged and thrown in a padded cell until the courts can determine what to do with... It.
The thing that refuses to listen. To help. To find those bad men and bring them to justice.
Lamb finds their days the same as before. Perhaps even worse. No more lounging around the cabin, feeding the animals, their friend. Can't tend to the garden, or gather up smooth rocks from the forest and make something for their Shepherds return. No more kisses or touches or loves.
Nothing.
Hands bound back. Bite guard in. One hour a day outside, the rest inside between four white walls.
Waiting for punishment. Waiting for death.
The courts deem Lamb unfit to return to society, a wild animal who is doomed to live in a cage. Days are mixed. Months pass by, and the search continues on.
But not enough for someone to realize that the guards are changed out for a beautiful man with a scar on his cheek, and a man with a Scottish accent.
Nobody can see the dark van parked outside the gates, or the guards who are knocked unconscious in the yard.
There's a man who stands outside Lamb's cell, holding a pile of bloody keys and a smirk on his face.
Lamb is crying out for their Shepherd, their God. Please save them. Take them away. Kill them all. Bring them home. Save them.
When the key fits in place and the lock is turned—
