SURVIVOR GUILT

Guilt is the source of sorrow, 'tis the fiend, Th' avenging fiend, that follows us behind, With whips and stings”
- Nicholas Rowe

Bobby asked me to write something. I didn't want to, but he said it would help.

I read a lot, and when the world gets darker I read more. I've been trying to find some answers in books, because events in the world are too hard to figure out without some context to give them meaning. Especially the events in my world, when over and over I have been responsible for deaths, one way or another. I killed eight people and caused endless suffering in a fire I started. Next, trapped underground by Jigsaw, I watched others die around me, others who should have survived until the end. Charles did not need to die. Luba did not need to die. And because they died, I lost my arm. This useless stump is a reminder of how ineffectual I am, how my weakness and my selfishness cause suffering again and again.

I have not taken drugs since I awoke, alive, in the hospital. Amazing, as I am haunted by guilt, by the faces of the dead. Bobby has insisted to me that I am not guilty of murder. I am guilty of weakness, and maybe, somehow, that weakness has been made into strength. I can't bring back the dead. I can't make up for what I've done. But maybe there's some way I can give back. Maybe I can take what I've learned and spread goodness. I am looking for a way to do this, now. One little bit at a time.

“The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.”
- Victor Hugo

-Mallick