She Sat There

Indeed, she did…

By Snarky LisaPublished 4 months ago • 3 min read

Top Story - June 2026

She sat there that night, knowing it could be her last. She wasn’t sure its finality was destined, and she knew there were slim to zero chances of her getting seriously injured or dying. But those thoughts were of little comfort when she knew far too well everything she once ruled over was far out of her reach now.

She didn’t reign over the veteran buildings for long. It was a last minute arrangement meant to fill a gap in their increasingly struggling leadership. While it wasn’t like she had zero leadership experience before, this was…different. A foothold to stabilize her wavering stronghold, she jumped at the opportunity given to her by its hands off head.

Needless to say, she regretted it pretty fast. Ruling even the quaintest of spaces took a lot more responsibility than the side projects she was used to.

She liked her underlings, she liked the founder who was generous enough to give her the role, but God….getting along with the rest of her team was a hassle. They didn’t like her, she didn’t like them, and neither side could engage in any talk unrelated to running the zone. Eventually, sick of it all, she quit. And now, she was paying the price for her departure.

Without that position of influence, no matter how tenuous, the only thing she really had to run herself was the power of her emotions. To put it bluntly, she had little idea how to wield those well. Her loose demeanour got her stuck here in the first place; her impulsive panic didn’t help her, either.

She was now awaiting her sentence in the next few hours…or a potential acquittal. Hopefully the latter, she thought. The room was languid, and so was her mood.

She wasn’t looking forward to the next thousand or so minutes.

…

She sat there that night, knowing her fate was sealed. It was sealed in the golden and platinum coats of some of the buildings’ wiring; it was sealed in the copper and upscale plastics used in the area’s piping system.

She wasn’t able to escape her guilty verdict — no matter how hard she tried. In fact, trying harder likely only made it worse. Thanks to her pleas, she wasn’t just guilty: she was a guilty person with an inability to accept her guilt. An archetypal Ophelia, perhaps, but without any of the latter’s redeeming or sympathetic qualities in the eyes of her former subjects and colleagues.

The room was bright and coloured with dollar store styled decorations in various shades. But her mood was not; except, perhaps, for the dollar store part.

For the next several months or so, life went on. But part of her continued to sit there, powerless.

…

She sat there that night, trying to — once again — rewrite her ending. She called out to the commune she was once a part of, attempting to reason with them.

Spoiler alert: it did not work. Few listened to her, as most were busy with other affairs both scandalous and tedious. The few who did hear her didn’t really care, anyways. Their efforts to help her were halfhearted and low on their priority lists. They also screwed over their own positions anyhow, thus locking the doors on any further aid they could have given.

The room lighting varied, and so did her mood.

…

She sat there that night, not entirely recovered. In fact, she wasn’t sure she could ever fully recover. This time, though, things were definitely different.

She had found comfort in stories: both of hers and of others. Unlike her previous attempts at escapism through her former colleagues’ own tales, these were far less dependent on them. Any connection that could have theoretically existed was in name only — and not even from her era.

The room aesthetics still varied, but they were at no point connected to her mood.

Mind you, she wasn’t fully healed.

However…she was finally free.

And maybe that’s the happiest ending she could have acquired.