'"But Ender won't leave it alone. Like Pinual."

"Everybody looks like Pinual at one time or another. But he's the only one who killed himself..."'

-Chapter Six, Ender's Game

Marten didn't move when the lights were switched off. He was still staring at the blank screen of his desk, where, in his mind, he replayed his character dying again and again. He had choked this time. As if someone was squeezing his throat, as if a noose had been delicately slipped over his neck…

He blinked. Stupid Giant. The game was cheating.

He put his desk away and lay down on his bunk. His commander would be furious at him if he didn't get enough sleep tonight. Marten was always too tired to concentrate, he was no use in the battleroom, and he had no idea why he hadn't been iced yet.

Maybe it was because the teachers didn't want him to go back home. He had stupidly written about everything in the diary setting of the desk back when he was a Launchy. He deleted it a day later, but the damage had been done. The looks the teachers gave him…it was almost too much to bear.

He sighed inwardly and let his arm hang down so his wrist rubbed against the sharp metal posts that supported the beds. He pushed down a little harder, scraping the skin against the post. This was stupid, this whole school. All they were doing was pitting everyone against each other. Besides, what did he care if the Buggers came and destroyed everyone? Not like anyone would miss him.

He ripped his wrist away from the metal post, making a thin cut there. A drop of blood pooled there.

Marten held the bleeding wrist up to his mouth and sucked on the cut. By morning there would barely even be a scar.

He closed his eyes and lay in his bed, even though he knew he wouldn't be able to get to sleep. What did it matter, anyways? What did anything matter…

He picked up his desk again.

Signed on, started up the Fantasy Game.

He mechanically passed everything else, and went straight to the Giant's Drink.

"One is poison," hissed the Giant. "And one is not."

In one glass, there was clear liquid, like water. In the other, there was a dark sludge that gurgled and popped.

He took a drink of the dark sludge.

For a moment, his character was fine. But then he began to shake, and the sludge began pouring out of his character's eyes and mouth and nose…

He was dead.

Again.

Why did Marten torture himself like this? Watching himself die again and again…it was idiotic. He should put it down, now.

Instead, he died again.

There was a small sound from the bunk below him. He hid his desk under his pillow and closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep.

Silence.

He took out his desk again.

The next morning, after most of the boys had gone to the showers or to breakfast, he pulled out his desk and set it to the Diary setting.

This is a suicide note, he wrote.

He erased it.

Thank you for giving me a home.

He erased it.

I'm already dead, inside.

He sighed. Good enough.

He positioned his desk so it was facing outward, and made his letters very big, so that anyone passing by would see it. But they would stop anyway.

He took the thin cord he had stolen from his commander and tied it around the hook on the ceiling that was meant to hang his towel on. He tied the other end into a noose and slipped it around his neck.

He had measured earlier that week. The ceiling was just high enough so that he wouldn't hit the ground, as he hung from the cord.

He took a deep breath, readying himself.

This is the end, Marten.

The end.

Jump.

Jump, you -.

"Marten!"

He turned to look who it was, but it was already too late. The cable twisted him around, and, before Marten Pinual died of his own hand, he saw Bonzo, little Bonzo Madrid, the newest recruit of the army, staring at him in horror.

No-

Marten's heart stopped.

And, in shock, terror and revulsion, so did Bonzo's.

Okay.

To clarify: Bonzo's heart didn't really stop. Obviously. He's just that heartless now, and I thought if I made the connection...

Anyway. I love Bonzo. And I love Pinual, even though he was only ever mentioned once in the books. And I wrote most of this when I was so freakin' mad I had no idea what was going on, so tell me whether you like it or if I should just throw out my computer and go live in the streets as a hobo in shame.