What is grief anyway? Why not madness?

I slump back on the sofa and process the revelations from today. Well I also think about the fact that Tommy probably knows I called to ask for his location. He probably knew I was conflicted too. That's just like him but hopefully he doesn't think less of me for it. I thought before pushing off the sofa and jumping up.

I'm not the type to take this sort of news lying down on the sofa. If I'm going to grieve then I'm going to do it while punching the living daylights out of anything in front of me. With that thought I head to the training dummy in my room.

Once there I start by half-heartedly starting up my stances again. This'll calm me down somewhat. I thought as I took different stances with all my different weapons. My fists, my sword, my knife and my laser. All the tools of the trade. Lotta good they did me.

With that thought I started punching the doll. I would throw hooks and jabs, put my hand against the wooden protrusions like I'm blocking them and then elbow the doll in the face. It hurts a lot more when it's wood but I really don't care at the moment.

"Honestly Sophie what were you thinking" I growl to myself with a palpable anger radiating off my entire form as I throw another good punch at the dolls face. A loud THWACK! Of fist hitting wood resounds throughout the room but I don't give it another thought as I keep punching, parrying and dodging attacks in my mind from the doll.

"Why didn't you tell me!" My growl becomes guttural, I could hear a deep bottomless chasm behind my voice. An echo of anger that resounded not just throughout the room but my entire body.

Another loud THWACK! Sounded as I hit the doll with my fist. Afterwards I send a kick to the doll's head resulting in another THWACK! And the doll falling onto the ground causing a rumbling creaking of wood as it hits the floor. I let out a breath and walk up to the doll before picking it up and resuming my stance.

"Couldn't you trust me that much? You wouldn't even let me help fight your battles? Did I mean that little to you!" MY growls become significantly more high pitched and there's a note behind them I can't quite identify as I continue my rant.

The enemy in front of me doesn't appear to appreciate my frustration so I knee it in the abdomen before getting behind it and squeezing it's neck. The creaking sounds sound out even louder than before as the wood beneath my grasp struggles to keep itself together.

"Why?!" I finally identify the note behind my words as it comes out like the screech of a dying animal. The note behind my words is sobbing. I feel liquid trickle down my face and it continues to do so as the wood begins to groan even louder under my grasp.

"WHY!!!???" I start to scream and my tears continue to flow in tandem with the creaking below me. The creaking increases in intensity and becomes an almost constant background noise as I continue to choke my enemy to death.

"WHY DID YOU HAVE TO…" My enraged shriek trails off at the end. I feel as though announcing it to the world like this would make it real. As though the world wasn't already solid enough. If I do not observe it then it does not exist. That is the theory I cling to as I stop myself from announcing to the entire world that my sister is dead.

Eventually though reality gives me a slap in the face and a wake up call as the groaning beneath me increases. IT keeps increasing becoming more and more loud, more and more frequent. GROAN! CREAK! CRACK! The sounds resound throughout the room like the wails of a dying man before finally reality gives me my slap and an even louder sound resounds throughout the room alongside my scream.

"WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DIE SOPHIE!" I scream finally realizing that no matter how much I ignore it reality doesn't care. As I do I hear an incredibly loud sound beneath me and many sharp pains suddenly appear on my arms and chest. "SNAP!" as though reality itself snapped at the sound. Or perhaps I snapped at the sound, it echoes off my walls in an unsettling melody with a background music of tears as I sink to the floor and bawl my eyes out.

The pieces of what was once my training doll lay scattered around me on the floor and are going to be a ridiculous pain to pick up later. It sends me into a fit of laughter. Laughter while still crying of course. So it comes out more as occasional high pitch squeaks and puffs of air escaping my mouth as I sit on the floor and feel the liquids and salt drain from my body in a flood.

My sad state continues for several hours as I just lay on the wooden floor covered in splinters from my broken training doll and covered in my own tears, snot, blood and sweat. I probably have to change again after this. That thought sends me once again into laughter while still crying.

Eventually though the strength drains from my limbs and mind as I slowly realize that I've dried up my tears and my body is at it's limits. So still collapsed on the floor in a puddle of blood, sweat and tears I fall into the darkness of sleep and leave my consciousness to drift as I hope that by the time I wake I'll see her again.

When I regain consciousness I suddenly feel the pain of both mind and body as I wake to the same world I was in before. The splinters are now deeply ingrained in my arms, chest and abdomen. The hole in my emotional state that resulted from Sophie's loss is still there but I have to ignore it now.

Feeling listless and utterly useless, I drag my heavy injured body up off the floor and notice the state I'm in. I might need another shower. I think to myself before part of me starts to argue. Can I be bothered to shower? The question makes me pause a moment.

I'm perfectly content to sit in this for a while. I deserve this. I don't need a shower. I don't need anything right now other than Sophie. I can't have her though. With a sigh I continue to drag my heavy body up and head for the closet.

I grab whatever look I can find first and trudge towards the shower trying to avoid getting my bodily fluids onto the clean piece of clothing I just found. Once in the bathroom again I carelessly discard my clothes on the floor before hopping into the shower putting the new clothes somewhere different but still not the right place to put them.

I then step into the shower and press my hand against the palm pad on the wall. Water immediately comes out of the shower spout. It feels cold on my skin at first and I shiver at the sensation before it becomes warmer almost immediately and the slight shiver leaves my body.

The loss of the cold reminds me of a different kind of loss and I would've struggled to hold in my tears if I had any left. I sigh when no liquids come out of my eyes. I suppose I need to replenish those too. Can't I just osmosis some liquids from the shower like a slime or something? I'm even starting to think like her…

With another sigh I get to half-heartedly washing my body. My hand and the soap I sprinkled on it at some point unconsciously travel around all the parts of my body I can reach easily. My abdomen, my chest, my face and my arms. All are slathered up with soap in a manner similar to an octopus. I move my arms around as though I have very little fine control over them at all.

They move more like tentacles than the precise instruments for creation and destruction that are human arms. Soph once told me that of all the humanoid species, humans have the most well rounded bodies. Their arms are precise yet they manage to also be middle of the pack strength wise. "They are the perfect implements for both creation and destruction, but all the other species put them down for being worse than such and such monstrous beastkin. IT'S A TRAGEDY! TRAGEDY I TELL YA!" What should've come out as a shout I copied from Sophie ends up more as a defeated grunt that's a bit louder than the sobbing noises I was making before it.

'Come on sis. PUT YOUR BACK INTO IT!' I could hear her encouragement in my head as though she was right there beside me. Fine just this once. You only call me sis when you want something… Ugh you're such a handful. With a little more effort I repeat myself.

"IT'S A TRAGEDY! TRAGEDY I TELL YA'" I shout incredibly loudly with a bit more vigor than I had before. What would my neighbours think if they could actually hear me? Would even Sophie think I'd gone nuts? Nah she'd probably say something like 'welcome to the crazy club.' and then cackle like a maniac.

I suppose she would think I've gone nuts then… She wouldn't care in the slightest though. "ha… hahaha… Yeah she wouldn't care if I went nuts. She'd welcome me with open arms anyway. Actually she'd be overjoyed." I mumble to myself. Maybe I am going nuts. Oh well, when I see you again next Soph. I'll be just as nuts as you are. So don't think bad of me ok?

I'm not particularly religious myself though I do consider myself part of a certain religion. That's mainly because of the authority figures in my life and how I was brought up though. I mean I was also taught that relying on God is as blasphemous as praying to a different god.

"They've gotta be a busy dude, gal, thing? Whatever, they gotta be a busy being don't bother them with your trivial problems. That's my motto. The closer we are to becoming deities ourselves the less work for the old man in the sky. I mean old thing? Hmm… do they have a gender?" I repeat to myself something Sophie said once when she was taught the same. I also seem to recall she kept mumbling to herself about God's gender the next few weeks.

I thought it was a nice way of looking at it and realistically better for your own mental health too. I wonder if she ever got an answer to that question. I'm sure she did. That or she decided she didn't need one. She's like that.

Enough reminiscing though. It's not like I can just sit here moping forever, with that thought I turn off the shower now that my skin was starting to have crinkles and got out of the watery box. Once I did, I caught sight of all the messy ways I stored my clothes and grimaced. 'Yeah I should fix that' I thought to myself before picking up my dirty clothes and putting them in the wash basket next to the shower.

Once done I put myself in my new clothes and decided first I needed to get rid of the splinters. They'd definitely get in the way of any work I tried to do and even if they didn't I had to stop myself from remembering they were there or they'd start to really hurt all of a sudden.

So I head out into the transition room and enter the other door I haven't been in today yet. Inside was a massive white room. At the far end of the room was what appeared to be a pod made of some sort of glass and metal structure. Next to it was a screen with a number of different interactive buttons showing on the screen.

There were other things in the room but I didn't mind them as I walked up to the pod and pressed a button on the screen before hopping in. I then started to drift off into sleep again. Once I awoke even if I focused on the areas that had splinters it didn't hurt. My wounds had been healed and the splinters removed.

Convenient little device and extremely necessary for a merc like me. So hopping out of the pod and back out into the transition room I'm just about to think about what I want to do for the rest of the day when I hear a buzzing from my tablet.

Confused I look at the tablet to see who could be calling me but I find an unfamiliar name there. Mainframe? I tilt my head puzzled as I watch the name blink on and off with a call icon next to the name on my tablet holo-screen.