Era of Madness

I can crawl on the walls

John and Tyler had come out of the room, and started walking again, still aiming toward New Big Ben. Indeed, as they theorized, the mist was becoming more and more thick as they got closer, to the point they could barely see a few meters around them as they kept advancing.

"Heh, we can blame a lot of things on this damn mess but we can't deny it's a great help to locate ourselves, at least there's no way we get lost on our way to meet death" Tyler nervously joked.

"Yes, what a kind and lovely help" John ironised.

They remained silent for a bit.

"John, what did you do when Clark died?" Tyler asked.

"Well, obviously, I was even more depressed. But life continued, so I forced myself to move on"

"Just like this? Did you really manage to get out of depression so easily?"

"Well, I wouldn't say it was easy, but compared to you it sure was less hard"

Tyler frowned:

"Hey, I wasn't depressed, you bastard, I was just... a bit lost" he protested.

"Yes, sure... Anyway, I think everyone depress in a different way, slightly or much different. You, your thing was to act in a self-destructive way to hide your sorrow from other people and yourself" John said. "On my side, I think you could say I went through the five stages of grief"

"The five stages? What are they?"

"You don't know? First, denial. After losing everything once, I couldn't accept it a second time. From then, I started participating in on-field missions and operations. I couldn't help but think: if I had been here, the theft would've been a success. So by participating, I... I guess I thought... I don't know... that... maybe he was still with me?"

John tried to wipe a tear with his hand, but the hermetic suit prevented him from doing so.

"Oh, sorry, I shouldn't get emotionnal right now" he said.

"That's completely right, unfortunately my curiousity surpasses my cautiousness so continue your story" Tyler scoffed. "Come on, you've got five stages left"

"Heh, right. So after denial, anger: if Clark died, how dare these people, these Paradise Council's dogs could live comfortably? So, I started to choose in priority the missions including fight, or even murder. I'll let you guess what followed. To be short, most of those people were trash who had it coming, but... I'm pretty sure there were some good people in the lot. That's when I realized it, and I stopped my bullshit"

"That's... pretty scary to imagine you killing innocent people. I'm not gonna lie I'd probably need spare pants"

"That sounds fake coming from the guy who one versus one'ed a cyborg"

"That sounds even more fake from the guy with arms bigger than my legs. So, what's the next step?"

"Next step? Welp, that's the exact opposite of the previous one: bargaining. I stopped taking violent missions, priorizing rescue operations. I guess I wanted to obtain forgiveness for what I had done? Or maybe I thought heavens would reward me for my good deeds? If not giving me Clark back, at least I thought that perhaps some god or anything would help me to magically get back on my feet..."

John punched a nearby wall, leaving a visible crack on it. Tyler was surprised the glove of his suit didn't get ripped apart.

"Tssk, such a load of crap, there's no god to reward you for your efforts, there's only you, you and yourself" John said. "Which lead us to the fifth step: acceptance. I just got my ass up and got to work again. Then I met Erica, we had to team up for some time, ended up stuck on Glactia-62 for a time after being discovered, and you I guess know what happened next"