... I'm still here. [His voice is quiet, between labored breaths. Mello can't help thinking about how surreal this situation is - he'd halfway expected to keep living through sheer willpower alone, especially after the incident with the explosion at his hideout. He had to sacrifice so much then - his resources, his connections, half of his face - just to escape the NPA, but he'd done it, against the odds. He made it happen. And now ...
The other half of his expectation was that he would've died a little more suddenly, a little more elegantly - a heart attack, a bullet to the skull, a miscalculation on his too-fast motorcycle. No warning. Not languishing in agony after being crushed by damaged walls of his apartment. You stayed too long in one place. You got sloppy, you got lazy. You failed.
Offscreen, Mello doesn't move to kneel - the pain is almost paralyzing at this point, he can't move much at all. The best he can manage is transferring the communicator to the hand of his broken left arm, propped up by his knees, as he makes the sign of the cross with his remaining mobile hand.]
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been - [how long? too long] - it's been a really long time since my last confession. Couple years, I think. [He takes another labored breath.] I guess I'm not even really sure where to begin, Your Grace.
[voice - locked]
The other half of his expectation was that he would've died a little more suddenly, a little more elegantly - a heart attack, a bullet to the skull, a miscalculation on his too-fast motorcycle. No warning. Not languishing in agony after being crushed by damaged walls of his apartment. You stayed too long in one place. You got sloppy, you got lazy. You failed.
Offscreen, Mello doesn't move to kneel - the pain is almost paralyzing at this point, he can't move much at all. The best he can manage is transferring the communicator to the hand of his broken left arm, propped up by his knees, as he makes the sign of the cross with his remaining mobile hand.]
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been - [how long? too long] - it's been a really long time since my last confession. Couple years, I think. [He takes another labored breath.] I guess I'm not even really sure where to begin, Your Grace.