Won't give up. Not now, not ever.

Gee, here's a great idea.  Disappear for an entire week and let all your friends and followers worry themselves to death about you.  Cause they've proven SO prone to staying calm about what you do, right?  Sheesh.  Well, I'm back, everyone.  Take a seat, cause this is gonna be a long one.

So, I don't need to post what happened that night, because Rise already gave us an account, brief as it was.  Right.  More on how I feel about her another time.  For now, thanks, I guess.  After I left her hideout, I just...wandered.  I didn't know what to do, where to go.  And to be honest, I didn't care.  All the fight had gone out of me with that one, futile stand.  The thought of him, staring at me, while it...I can't even talk about it.  I won't.  Rise called it its "true form", and while that may or may not be true, I'm not going to describe it.  There are some things you can't put into words.  Even if I could, I wouldn't.  It'd just scare the crap out of everyone.  Let's just say he didn't look anything near human.  God knows it scared the hell out of me.  Or, it should have.  But...it killed them.  I saw them.  Piled on top of each other.  Those marks.

No matter what form it took, the only thing I had in me that night was anger.  And it seemed like I had enough to slow him down.  Still, slowing him down's all I can do for now, it'd seem.  If that guy in the coat hadn't shown up, and if Rise hadn't dragged me off, I'd be dead.

Gah, jumped backwards somewhat.  Anyways.  I...would try to tell you how I felt this past week, but I can't really put my feelings into words here.  Just...my parents are dead, and it's because I failed to protect them.  Everything I had fought for seemed pointless.  And so I wandered from state to state, not running, not hiding.  I made no attempt to buy new, non-ragged clothes.  I wore the sword in plain sight, strapped to my back.  There were some days when I almost wished I'd be found by a proxy and killed.  I nearly killed myself once, only to strengthen at the last moment.  Even so, I'd given up.  I would let the Sages fight the fight, and just crawl into a hole and grieve for the rest of my life.

God.  What a dipshit I am.  So, what?  I was gonna just give up?  Roll over and die?  Eat all of my tough words?  What a friggin' disgrace I am.  Enough of that.  I'll tell you what changed my mind.  It was a person that I met yesterday, by pure chance, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I'd found myself there for no particular reason.  I got on trains, and I took them.  I didn't much care about the destination.  Didn't much care about anything.  However I had found myself there, I was standing at a crosswalk, when my eyes were drawn to a figure ahead of me.  A young girl in a green hoodie.  Now, the fact that she was wearing that in the summer was weird enough.  But as the light turned green, I saw something stitched into her shoulder- a circle and an X.  The Operator symbol.  The first sign of this business I had seen for a week.  I followed her.  Not sure why.  It became clear to me that this girl was no proxy.  She was clumsy and looked a bit lost and hopeless (no offense, if you read this).  My guess was that she was a Runner, and it turned out I was right.

I followed her into this place, the Village Inn Pizza Parlor or whatever, where, curiously, they seemed to have more pancakes than pizza.  After taking a seat near her (and feeling like a total creep- she looked a bit younger than me) I watched her scribbling into a notepad.  She saw me, and looked pissed.  Charming fellow that I am, I strode up to her table, sat down, and struck up a conversation.  We talked for a while, she relaxed a bit and treated me alright.  I ended up telling her my whole story.  Got it all off my chest.

Good thing I did too.  Cause it made me think.  I went through my whole story with her, letting me get a look at it too.  And I realized a few things.  Chief among them: I'm not made out to be a Runner.  No matter how much I want to run and never stop, I can't just leave the sages and my friends all alone against that thing.  I guess I'm just too stupid to give up, hehe.

When I told her about the fire, I didn't have that usual grief I had felt over this past week whenever I'd dwelt on it- which was often.  But now, I felt some of that anger return.  As it should.  And I came to this realization.

I will NEVER stop fighting him.  Ever.  The moment I give in is the moment I make the deaths of every last victim of his completely pointless.  I WILL have justice for what he's done to us.  All of us.  He won't break me.  Every atrocity he commits just gives me more reason to keep fighting.  I don't care if it takes my whole life, I'll break this freak into a million pieces or die trying.

The girl thought my attitude was suicidal, and it probably is.  Still, I get the feeling I impressed her a bit with how much sheer dumb willpower I have.  She's quite mysterious.  When she saw Zero's sword, she reacted oddly, demanding to know where I'd gotten it.  She said she'd known him, and didn't know he'd died.  In fact, she didn't know a lot of stuff.  She'd been out of the blogging scene for about a year.  I lent her my laptop in order for her to catch up.

Ultimately, we decided that there's safety in numbers, and we're going to be traveling with each other for a time.  The first thing we did was head to Forgemaster's location.  I dropped off the sword with him there and paid for it to be repaired.  That's done with.

While we were having dinner, the girl (who goes by "H") and I had another conversation.  This one had more to do with her, so I won't go into detail about it here.  She can tell you herself if she wants, she mentioned she was starting her blog back up soon.

With that over with, got a few things to say.

Elaine: I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you this past week.  You've gone through more than any person should be expected to and you're back on your feet.  Don't lose sight of hope, and stick to Amalga.  He's a bit of a jerk, but he's alright.  I guess.  Maybe a bit.  (he smells funny too)

Hylo: Sorry to you, too.  For shutting you out, when all you wanted to do was help me.  You're really important to me, you know?  All I can tell you is I'm back now, and I'm here for you if you need me.

Everyone else, sorry to have kept you waiting.  Let's get this show back on the road!