She rolled her eyes, muttering slightly unintelligibly in broken sentences. "The volume. Voices, screaming so loud, shouting for attention, try to turn it off but even without power they scream as though running on batteries but the batteries are nonexistent. Try to turn it down but the dial is broken, set to 11, and there is no stopping it. A physical impossibility to be sure, the dial reaches only 10, a lack of understanding put into the building of these speakers, or perhaps they broke them long ago since they had no comprehension of the way things are supposed to be."
Her breathing was heavy and awkward for a few moments, and then she pushed up to her feet in a graceful movement and stood no further than a step away from the wall, but she could more easily move to block his path now if she wished to. She didn't yet. She didn't want to.
"If someone has to die," she called out. "If this is something that has to be done," she spoke mockingly, as though that would make a difference here, "then kill me." She was trying to prove a point. What point, exactly, she was trying to prove, she wasn't certain, but she was going to go with it for now. "Would at least be more honest that way," she added. "Would not protest. Will be the sacrifice needed." Her lips curled upwards in an ironic smirk. "Am dead either way," she pointed out.
She blinked once, as though that thought was just occurring to her. Her face started to fall as she repeated it. "Am... dead either way."
The simple acknowledgement of that, of the helplessness she felt in her situation, was like flipping a switch. All of a sudden, the pressing desire to keep texting was abating. She stared at her phone as though seeing it for the first time, then looked up at Spike as though trying to figure out what had just happened. Her grip on the phone slipped and it fell from her fingers, crashing to the floor.
"Not coming back," she murmured softly. "None of us. In due course, bears will be released for maximum research value. Only in their defeat will things progress. Will we live on. Game over, and I forgot to save when it was important, have now lost crucial party members that cannot be recovered." She licked her lips, her eyes wet with unshed tears. "Were there a save block, I would use it now, but one does not exist. Maybe it never did," the tears started to roll down her cheeks now. "The question becomes how the fight is expected to continue when the characters have no key to open the door to the final boss because they are too busy fighting amongst themselves?"
She shook her head, wondering if he was even listing to her anymore. She couldn't possibly be making any sense through her grief.
"Fight on the server where no blood is spilled," she murmured finally. "Regardless of current resolution, should you oppose me, you will fail. The only casualty today, or any day, will be myself, and only after the breath leaves my lungs will further death's reach extend."
Having said her piece, she leaned her head back against the wall, and closed her eyes, letting the tears fall freely down her cheeks. She pounded her head against the wall twice before she managed a small, bitter half chuckle. "It is not enough I have lost one of you already?" she asked. She didn't expect an answer.