Cling To Your Last Hope [Wallflowers vs Iain]

today's the crosses we carry
today's the strength that we need
today's the hand of an angel
you were not the kind to believe

For a moment, I think I missed. Iain is still standing, and my knife left no new traces on his flesh. Danny is readying to go for another blow when I see the flames lick across the boy's face. He inhales, coughing and choking on the flames for a moment. In that brief instant I think he is going to burn as Delta did: screaming. Frantic, Danny and I turn to each other, both of us wanting the other to end this. Neither of us move until the flames on Iain's face have faded away.

The relief I feel is terrible. It only gets worse as I hear that Iain's breathing has become ragged. He had already been so injured before I had thrown that knife. I feared that he might suffer for a long time, now. I didn't want that, but what could I do. Did I have any right to sink another knife into his flesh?

Danny raises her axe again, one last attempt to save this boy from the prolonged death he would clearly suffer. There's a trembling in her arms, though, and her whole body quivers. For a moment I'm worried she might collapse again but she stays standing. The pleading in her eyes is as painful as the wound on my forehead and I want to protect her from the uncertainty and guilt. "Please. I can’t - I won’t do this." I nod, wanting to hold out a hand to her but knowing that I'll need both free in order to do this right. Turning to the boy in front of us, there is only one way I can shield them both from this.

Iain stumbles, coughing and hacking, barely able to stand until he isn't. Falling I watch as he lands almost on top of his own weapon. For the briefest of moments I hope the dropped weapon might claim his life, but it doesn't. Instead, Danny and I watch as this young boy collapses before us, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and turns back into the little boy he had been even before his brother had been reaped.

I don't know what to do. I'm locked in place, watching the terrible, heartbreaking scene before me as Iain roughly pushes his weapon aside and begins to crawl. Once more he tries to flee, and once more he fails. The small thud of his body slumping to the ground mimics the sound of my plummeting heart. "Puh-please," he wheezes, barely able to form words from his burned throat, "I don't want to die-" coughing wracks him for a couple seconds and I know at least I had stopped breathing in that moment - "alone. Not alone."

Instantly I fold beside him, falling to my knees and pulling him into my lap. "Y-you won't. I'll be here. I'll stay here." I know my voice is full of panic, and my frantic hands are rough on his beaten body, but I smooth his hair and nestle his head on my leg. "I won't leave you alone." There is a bit of tension leaving his body, but he is still stiff with pain and fear. His eyes are wide and as scared as mine, so I try to hide my fear. There's not much you can hide from the dying, though, and even less you can hide from the dead.

"Tell me-" ragged breathing escapes his mouth, and with each word his voice gets more and more hoarse and cracked. It sounds like the fire is eating him alive from the inside out. "Tell me a bedtime story." He wheezes as I place a hand against his face. "I always sleep better after a-" coughing disrupts him again - "after a story."

For all my time reading books, I can't recall a single story right now.

It takes me a minute - an awkward minute of near-silence with only Iain's harsh breathing to break it - but I eventually find something to tell him. "I have a story for you, Iain." I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to figure out how to start. "Close your eyes and I'll tell you the story of a girl." I didn't check to see if he actually did close his eyes. My own were focused on the distance for a time before peeking over my shoulder at the figures behind me. This was the story of a girl I held dear.

"There was a girl. She was beautiful, strong, and fierce. While everyone else cowered, she entered hell bravely." My voice catches for a moment, but I press on. "Soon hell's flames had engulfed her, smoldering and roaring over her skin. She burned alive, but felt no pain. When all that was left was ashes, a swirl of flames burst from her remains to form a great bird." Somewhere, I hope Delta can hear me. I hope she knows I'm talking about her. "From death, rose life. The girl had gained her peace as a phoenix. Then on, she could no longer be hurt by fire or suffer any more pain. She was free." I squeeze Iain's shoulder, trying to comfort him.

"She was free."

My voice fades from around us. I'm unsure if that was the type of story he wanted to hear, but it was one I had to tell. Delta, I hope you're free wherever you are. Free from pain and suffering. In my lap, Iain moves. His breathing has been growing worse and for a couple seconds I wonder if he can take in any air at all. Somehow, he still has the energy to pull himself up and place his hands on his knees. Hearing his struggle is terrible for me. I had never wanted this to drag on, I had never wanted him to suffer. Why couldn't it have been quick and painless.

Memories of three dummies in the training center, blood running like red dye down every limb. I had left there with red hands, and now I would once more have crimson coat my skin. I could make this quick, and much less painful.

Iain suddenly grins, a goofy expression that doesn't look like it should belong on a dying boy's face. My heart clenches in my chest and I don't know if I can do it anymore. I know he's dying but plunging that final knife into him feels so much more like my fault. If I were to be honest with myself, though, it will be my fault he dies no matter how it happens. The fire on my knife is leading him to suffocate and it was up to me to at least make his transition easy.

"What did the green grape say to the purple grape?"

I'm caught completely off guard by the question - the joke?! Standing there, shocked into silence by the sudden shift in mood, I don't answer him in time so he tells me anyway.

"Breathe, stupid."

Then he laughs, or tries to. It doesn't sound like laughter, not really. He's coughing more than he's laughing and each time he does he sounds worse. The laughter sounds more like he's choking than anything, like he's dying. He is dying. I suppose this is the time. Retrieving a knife from my belt, I grip it with a shaking hand that I have to steady before approaching him from behind.

"Breathe, stupid."

My voice is soft, lacking all malice. If there were any way to save this boy I might have done it, but he is too far gone. The best I can do is help him however I can.

The knife I sink into the side of his neck is my mercy.

When I remove the blade, which I for one terrified minute believed hadn't been stuck into the right part of the neck, there is a slow flow of blood. As soon as the weapon is out, however, blood splashes from the wound. The jet is more powerful each time his heart beats until the flow begins to cease. What might have taken minutes for him to stop breathing has now been turned into seconds as I severed his carotid artery.

There's almost a sigh as the body goes limp, like all the tension in his body was suddenly gone. What weight had pressed on the air around us coalesces into a stone collar around my throat. For a moment I think I might start choking but then I am left with the mass of the life I took resting on my shoulders as the sensation of suffocation passes away. In a rising of shadows, the form of a boy pulls itself from the corpse before me. He looks at me an nods before going to join the shades of Cecilia, Delta, Basil, and Eryn, at my back.

I would tell them I'm sorry but they already know.

And I know it's not enough.