Tara 2.0
They're insane. Every fucking one of them, was the loop Tara's exhausted mind was stuck on as she finally arrived home to her blessedly mundane apartment.
"Oh my god, where have you BEEN?" came the concern of her blessedly mundane roommates, immediately as she walked in the door.
She closed and locked it behind her, then slumped back against it as an enormous sigh escaped her. "I, uh.... had a really bad day." Night? It was tomorrow, wasn't it? "Night. Bad night. That, too. I'm, uh, gonna go.... " She trailed off, pointing at her bedroom, and started hobbling towards it.
"Are you okay? What HAPPENED to you?"
Tara realized she looked a right mess, and also knew the mess she was on the outside was nothing compared to the mess on the inside. "Don'twannatalkaboutit," she mumbled, closing her bedroom door behind her and locking that, too, for good measure.
She listened to their worried, confused, intense chatter for a moment, the knob rustling, then a gentle knock when it wouldn't turn. "It's okay if you're not ready to talk about it; just know we're here for you when you are." And she put the pieces together: out all night, her dishevelled appearance, a naive little girl who just moved to the big city from Heartland, U.S.A. Great, they think I'm a statistic.
She sighed again and flopped down on her bed, furious and distraught but too completely drained to feel more than a modicum of any emotion, good or bad. Two days. She just found out about all this god shit two freaking days ago, and already two people had died right in front of her. Maybe she didn't know much, but one thing she felt pretty certain of was that that was BAD. Like, really effing bad. Two godly encounters, both fatal. If this was what happened when the gods got involved, then Tara wanted no part of it.
Good ol' Papa Legba was the one who sent them into that hellhole! And for what? Presumably so he could turn them all into more zombie pigeons or whatever, what the hell was she supposed to think? That monster probably only showed up at the hospital because he was there! Hell, he probably brought the thing, he was so fond of zombies. Good story, Dad, but I'm gonna have to call bullshit on all of this. A world full of gods that don't give a shit about paltry human lives, and god-kids who eventually also get any and all compassion burned out of them. Ellie and Rich just didn't *care* that Jake died in there. So what if it's not permanent, that doesn't mean it didn't happen or was nothing! Just trying to imagine what that must be like, having to go through that over and over again.... Shuddering, Tara hugged her pillow.
She didn't *want* to become desensitized like Ellie and Rich. Because people are people and our lives matter! She would have no part of this. Big ol' nope. Tara was done getting people killed.