"That's… pretty big." Katherine unconsciously uttered.
Mitch almost cracked a joke when he heard her say that, but he resisted. If before, him planning on ignoring her for a week was out of spite, this time he was genuinely hurt.
He thought he could trust Katherine, to confide in her. She had been there and tried calming him down when he was struggling with this new reality of his.
But what she had assumed his intentions were surprised him and hurt him more than he expected it to. She had become a pillar in his mind, someone that kept his sanity from collapsing.
The feeling of being deceived hurt more than the fact that Katherine didn't put it past him to do something so horrible to a kid.
"Let's just go. The faster I get this over with, the sooner I can do something else instead."
He looked down at the hole. Although he didn't want to, he had to agree with Katherine. The hole was almost three meters in diameter; it was enough for him to walk around in, but not enough for him to move freely were he to fight.
The weapons he used in the previous fight still remained, but so did the wounds. The ant had bitten his thigh, making a deep laceration from knee to hip. It still affected Mitch's mobility, but it had finally stopped bleeding.
'It seems like Legio have a pretty high regenerative ability. A wound like this would be fatal to a human, but I am barely inconvenienced by it. Maybe it's a combined result of that and Devouring?' Deep in thought, Mitch started descending into the hole.
The tunnels were quite well-made. The air felt fresh even underground, and Mitch never found any indications that the roof would collapse on his head.
Constantly on the lookout to not get ambushed by any ant, he slowly made his way forward.
The nest was constructed like a maze; there were constant branchings and multiple openings everywhere Mitch went. He even ended up at the surface several times, but he was unable to tell if it was the entrance he found or if it was somewhere else.
"Mitch, can we talk?" After what felt like ages of silence, Katherine decided to speak up.
"I don't know, Katherine, can we? You're not afraid that I will say something vile?" Mitch really wasn't in the mood to chat with Katherine. He would rather feel his sanity slip away from wandering the endless tunnels without seeing any progress.
"I get it, Mitch. You're mad at me, and I'm sorry for thinking that you would do something so horrible. But you have to admit, you've been acting pretty weird since you did some soul-searching."
"It was like you had turned off any and all negative emotions. You still acted sad and desperate at times, but I can tell that your emotional state has been pretty calm ever since." She kept trying to rationalize her behavior, further frustrating Mitch.
"You never thought that it was a coping mechanism? That I forced myself to be calm so I could keep going forward?! Every turn I take, there is always a catch!"
He would die if he did nothing. He would die if he did too much. He would also die if he took too long.
"The only way I don't die is to make the best possible choice in every situation. If I act emotional in any way, I will make a mistake. Tell me what I can do besides locking away my emotions."
Mitch finally broke down. In just the last few hours, he had been informed of his possible death multiple times.
Less than an hour ago, he had a life-and-death battle against a literal fucking ant! He had to act tough in front of Madeline, but down here in the ant tunnels there was no one to see the way he acted.
"I want to live, Katherine! I want to become stronger, strong enough to live my life without anyone threatening it, strong enough to meet Theodor again. Is that too much to ask?"
"You seem to not realize it yourself, Mitch. I was not talking about something like acting confident or seeming brave. I am connected to your mind. I can feel everything, every layer of it. It's like an onion, but with an extra layer in the center, hidden to everyone. Everyone beside me."
There were no words to describe what Mitch felt right now. His shoulders were shaking from anger, and his heart was beating like he had just run a marathon.
"Katherine, I might be ignorant, but I'm not stupid. If you think that you can shift the blame onto me, then you are sorely mistaken, especially if you make up some bullshit lie about my emotions actually being fake."
"Not fake, just not your true emotions. You don't need to believe me, but at least answer me this. Do you think it's realistic for someone that has never been in a real fight before to act like you did against the ants?"
Mitch relented a little but still didn't fully believe her words.
"I just fought like I always did in those VR games. Because of my addiction to those games, I became very good at them. That includes fighting and keeping a cool head."
However, he then realized something, making even him doubt that reasoning.
"You know something, don't you? It's fine. You don't need to tell me what it is. I just want you to promise that there will be a day where you hide nothing from me anymore. After all, I might be able to feel your emotions, but I can't read your memories."
"Thanks… I don't want to talk about it right now, but just know that Theodor… 'conditioned' me in those VR games. I think he knew more than we previously guessed he did." Being reminded about those sleepless nights and painful experiences made Mitch shudder.
With their relationship partially mended, but with both of them still wanting to repair it further, Mitch unfortunately found some changes in his surroundings.
"That's… pretty big."
"That's what she said!" At least Katherine was back to her mischievous ways.