“Trust is hard to earn, but easily lost when broken.”

“It’s a fragile cornerstone of every relationship. Break it, and all the time spent with that other person might as well have been for nothing.”

“But most importantly, it’s knowing that someone will catch you when you fall.”

“I had a few ‘friends’ that I thought I could trust to do that. When I was a teen, we had a team building exercise in Physical Education that required us to fall backwards off a ladder.”

“The idea is that, when we fell, the others would catch us before we hit the ground.”

“I went first. I climbed the ladder and fell backwards into what I hoped was the waiting arms of people I could trust.”

“Not a single person made an attempt to catch me. Instead, I hit the floor and watched those I once called ‘friends’ laugh at my pain.”

“My back ached. My head was sore. The mental anguish of listening to those I thought I placed my faith in mock me for believing in them was unbearable.”

“Although I vowed to never climb that ladder and perform a trust fall ever again, I find myself standing on its rungs once more. This time, two of my so called comrades in arms are telling me they’ll catch me.”

“Gemini and Mariachi, El Amore de la Muerte. Harold tells me that you two are as trustworthy as a knife to the back.”

“He told me about what you did during your time as Apokalypsis. He told me how you betrayed Drewitt, Grimskull, and John the Revelator, leaving them for dead.”

“He also told me about how you betrayed each other. Muerte sang a song that hid the truth about what Gemini did to them while you were members of the House of Sovereigns.”

“If you two couldn’t trust each other before the war, what makes you believe I can trust you both now? For all I know, you’ll be like those kids I once called ‘friends’ and let me fall on the ground.”

“You’re both serial backstabbers. You betrayed those you called friends and yourselves. No one with a brain would completely trust you, knowing what you’ve done.”

“So I’m going to do the smart thing this time around and climb down before I allow myself to get hurt. Is it cowardly? Maybe, but it’s better to do that than risk hitting my head on the floor again.”

“My back already aches from knowing that I’m potentially siding with people that’ll stab me in the back.”

“My head is still sore after what Narcissa told me at Pandemonium.”

“The mental anguish of you two possibly laughing at me as I fall into the abyss is too much to bear.”

“So I’m climbing down the ladder and pushing you two into the darkness first. I don’t trust either of you to catch me or Harold, even if we’re all Seekers.”

“When the Night descends on Warzone, you both will fall as the weight of your inevitable betrayal crushes you flat on the canvas.”