Simurgh scream influence 2

They warn you that you’ll do things that seem callous or inhuman. That she’ll make you do those things as one of her one hundred ways of getting to you…

[...]

The preparation material said we’d fail, we’d be whittled down, and it would perpetually feel like we could do more, if only we were at our best, while she guaranteed that we wouldn’t be at our best…

[...]

Long seconds passed. The screaming in my head was thin, faint.

Sister.

My sister was at the bottom of the hole. Maybe. All I had to do was look.

Would I be more at peace if I could verify her as dead or if I could verify I wasn’t a killer?

It made it so tempting. But it also meant risking having to set eyes on her, which meant facing dark thoughts, which meant-

[...]

Something grabbed me, and my first thought was Panacea.  I grabbed it back, hard, with forcefield.

The moment I realized it was Sveta, I let go, guilt washing over me.

I followed the hand.

[...]

I scooped up Dinah, glanced at Sveta-

Saw Sveta’s hurt, as she held one arm to a bicep, where tendrils were especially active.

“Sorry,” I told her.

“It’s fine,” she said, in a tone that suggested it wasn’t, with a faint look of betrayal on her face.

The procedures for these missions suggest we’re supposed to avoid holding grudges, avoid blame, for ourselves and for others.  Mistakes happen when you’re pushed to your limit by a psychic scream.

But that felt like shallow justification.

- Last 20.6