After only an hour or two, Nvidia found herself tucked away in the back corner. She was done with socializing, done with the continuous questions about her arena or her experience, how she was doing since. She honestly didn’t know what to say. That she felt fine? Fine, except the tightness in her calf that still caused a small limp. If Lysander’s disappointment at not scarring her for life was anything to go off of, she was worried about how other’s would act. Other’s who weren’t fine. But was she really fine? She didn’t think she should be fine. Shouldn’t she feel more? It’d been the question she had struggled with for the past three months. She should feel more remorseful, should feel some sort of grief for the lives lost so she could be here.
But she couldn’t. And she judged herself, looking from the outside in, she judged herself on the basis that she should feel something. That was natural. Her apathy was not. If she looked from the outside in, watching herself with a stranger’s gaze, she could judge herself, yes. But she could also pretend that she was not herself. That she was someone else. Someone that reacted to trauma normally. Someone that lacked the apathy that lurked in her mind.
And that’s where she was, in a corner, judging herself, frown painted across her face, when someone approached and spoke to her. She was forced to come back to herself then, forced to reinhabit her own apathetic self. She smiled, though it did not look genuine.
“I’m sorry, it’s awfully loud in here, what did you say?”



















