Ever since before she knew how to walk, Ryn looked up to her older brother.  His craftiness.  His passion.  His intelligence.  And just who he was as a person.  At the age of five, Ryn had decided she'd wanted to be him when she grew up.  Well, it wasn't too far-fetched from reality, where she had indeed followed her brother down a scientific path.  The only real difference was that she found herself passionate about veterinary practices rather than the broad concept of science.  It was good enough for her inner five-year old, though, so it stuck.  

The one problem she had with being a veterinarian was loss.  She lost patients occasionally, mostly to old age.  The animal was too old and in too much pain to keep chugging along, so she had to comfort the distraught family, calm herself down, and then bring out the needle.  Afterwards, once she was off her shift, she'd check her schedule to see when her next therapy session was and then go home to make herself some hot cocoa.  Euthanization was a hard thing to do, and it was the reason Ryn often asked herself why she'd chosen this path.  Still, she kept going, because she wanted to put to use her scientific skills like her brother did.  

When her brother had told her he'd gotten invited to Hope's Peak Academy, she was ecstatic.  Her brother!  Her incredible, genius older brother!  

"Text me every day," she'd insisted.

"I will," he'd reassured her.

And he had.  Well, not exactly like she'd anticipated.  He'd text her daily, yes, but it would range anywhere from a single letter to a completely out-of-pocket fact about some random topic.  She'd understood quickly that that's what she deserved for not specifying.

The following year, Ryn had gotten invited to Hope's Peak Academy as well.  She'd get to see her brother more frequently!  They'd be in the same building and she wouldn't have to miss him as much.  He'd been excited to hear the news, too.  He'd told her that he couldn't wait.  But once she'd gotten there... she'd ended up here.  On Jabberwock Island.  In this killing game.  Ryn had decided early on that she would not be a killer.  Her job was to help life, not end it.  Which was why she'd dedicated every waking hour of the day to helping the orphaned calf until it was capable of surviving on its own.  Until...

Ryn had been feeding the calf through a bottle when Monokumace had popped up.  

"Whatever you're scheming won't work," she'd told them. "I have work to do, so leave."

They'd laughed and said, "You and your brother, so similar yet so different."

That had made her freeze in place. "...What did you just say?"

The headmaster had then given her one simple offer: Kill someone and they would tell her what had happened to her brother.

There was no context, no background information.  Nothing on where her brother was or what he was doing.  Just the implication that something was wrong.  That's when she'd known that her pacifist streak needed to be broken.  She needed to know what had happened to her brother.  

But who could she kill?  Everyone was so nice, and she would feel guilty about killing any one of them.

...except for one.

Ryn had known right off the bat that she didn't like En.  They were confident, intelligent, and composed, yes- but in all the off-putting ways.  They always seemed to be looking down on others, and find entertainment in the fear of everyone around them.  And then there was their stupid line- The house always wins.  That always pissed her off.  En wasn't "the house" in this killing game, they were just another player.  

So if they were going to be a selfish prick towards everyone, then Ryn was going to make sure they wouldn't be able to any longer.  She'd written a note to them to meet her in the Pharmacy.  She'd watched them leave their cottage.  She'd made sure she wasn't being followed herself before walking after the Ultimate Dealer.  She'd watched them go into the Pharmacy and start looking at bottles, for some reason.  She'd crept up to them.

She'd bashed their head against the shelf until the metal was the color of blood.  

She'd killed En.

Her fatal mistake, while in a moment of slight disorientation, was to grab medicine for the young calf on the way out, seeing as she was already there and might as well.

Stolas had picked up on it.  Of course he had; she didn't know why she would've thought otherwise.  But still, she had to fight back.  She had to fight.

Because Monokumace had still not told her what had happened to her brother.

She'd argued and argued and doubled down time and time again.  Still, she'd been caught, and now she was paying the price.  The last thing she'd heard before being dragged away from the rest of the class was Monokumace's voice, saying how they would finally tell her what happened.

She found herself in a dark school hallway, the ground beneath her feet shaking violently.  Careful to stay on her feet, Ryn made her way to the first closed door as fast as she could.  Her hand latched onto the handle, and she opened the door to see a nauseating sight.  The dim light from the hallway shone onto a motionless Chocolate Labrador, flies circling overhead.  She recognized this dog- it was one she'd had to euthanize just last year.  A thirteen year-old dog named Rusty.  Swallowing the bile building up in her throat, Ryn shut the door and turned away, trying to burn the sight out of her memory as she ran for another door.  This time, a flattened cat matted with blood was sprawled across the floor.  Jasper, a five year-old calico who'd gotten out and was run over by a car.  He was barely clinging onto life when he'd been brought to Ryn, and there had been nothing she could do.  The memory hurt, and so she shut the door on it.

But again and again, each door hid a horrible surprise behind it.  Georgie the two-year old pug and Charlie the four-year old Siamese cat, both of which had severe heart conditions.  Another calico, Millie, who'd gotten attacked by a fox.  It kept going.  It never stopped.  

Ryn knew what to expect when she made it to the final door.  It would be another beautiful creature she'd had to euthanize.  

She opened the door.

She didn't know what she was staring at at first.

It seemed to be some sort of lab, the left wall lined with cabinets of bottles.  One of the windows on the cabinets was shattered, the glass scattered across the floor.  On the right side of the room, there was a table with a spilled vial dripping its silvery contents onto the floor.  There was a large splatter of blood on the edge of the table, too.  It looked like the metal shelf on which Ryn bashed in En's head did.  On the floor next to the table was a pair of shattered glasses.  Black with cyan tips on the ends of the temples. 

Ryn knew those glasses.  The person who wore them had been against wearing glasses until he found that pair and decided that they looked cool enough.  

She looked up.  Hooked on the ceiling fan was a camera, the straps stained with blood.  It looked like a noose.

"Her brother was one of the smartest kids I'd ever had."

Monokumace had said that.  That meant they'd had her brother at some point.  That meant he'd been in this kind of situation too.  And so this-

Ryn took a step back in shock.  No.  No no no no no no no.

This... this couldn't be real.  This couldn't be real.

But she could see it all, clear as day, right in front of her.  This was the scene of the crime, and those were her brother's god damn glasses.  

...her brother wasn't okay.

He was dead.

As soon as the word dead echoed around her brain, Ryn realized tears were pouring down her cheeks.  Her brother was dead.  He'd died in this stupid killing game too.  

She couldn't take this.  She needed her brother.  She needed to see his face, his smile, hear him say everything was okay.  

She needed to see him again.

Ryn felt the cool surface of the syringe against her fingertips as she reached into her pocket.  It had somehow gotten in there when she wound up in this place, and she hadn't thought much of it.  But now...

Now it was freedom.

She didn't feel the prick of the needle against her skin.  Against her chest.  But she felt a wave of drowsiness, like something wasn't working in her body, and then... 

Then...

She saw someone.

***

(1474 words)

in which ace finds out the hard way that ryn killed en the same way that stratus may have died