don't look up [echoes + twd + rancor]

Pearl Millison

Air held no resistance. It felt empty against the edge of her sword, like the darkness would swallow it whole. Her green vision had been replaced by blackness and blurred by tears. She could only hear Sycamore shifting away from her presence, just like she could hear the shuffling stomps of the beast and the hurried sprints of Patricia and the others. Lanterns and flashlights were bouncing around them, the white lights licking different patches of skin to reveal where blood was seeping and where they had yet to be unhurt. She couldn’t see Barnabas through any of it, but she knew he was there behind her. Lying there. Still breathing, perhaps, and forever bleeding. It was only a matter of time before the cannon marked his passing.

She had to defend his body. She was useless, but she would try.

Her flashlight was in her hand moments later, shining like a lighthouse from crevice to crevice. Two eyes like black holes greeted her there, with a mouth of teeth to match their malice. Don’t eat him, whatever you do. She moved away from his still form to lure the creature astray, to lead it toward the living and breathing tributes. It was wrong, but morality had suddenly become the least of her concerns. Career mechanics were beginning to take effect, and for the first time in her life she was consumed by instinct. Glancing over her shoulder in time to spot its arm in mid-trust, she tried to duck away and felt something sharp kiss her cheek. She whimpered, but she didn’t falter. Tears were still hot blurs in her vision, but they were not from a physical pain. It wasn’t something she could bandage up.

”That’s right,” he had said, axe still resting somewhere near Barnabas’ gashed skull. ”He can’t.”

She would remember those words. You shouldn’t mock the dying.

They could see each other coming. The resistance was evident in Blaire’s eyes, and she watched him grab a metal club from the cavern floor. ”Stop!” he shouted. Part of her wanted to. She wanted to stop this, to gather Barnabas and lead him and Patricia away from this danger. That was no longer an option, evidently, because everybody was dying. Patricia was soaked in blood, most likely her own. Asa was still nowhere to be found, and she had little hope of him turning up anytime soon to rescue them. Would she want him to? If he came bursting through the labyrinth he would witness her crimes, he would see her failures. Barnabas was her failure.

She blinked away tears and wiped her face. Sycamore’s shrill ”Stop!” was still replaying in her head like the chimes of a clock at noon. His club caught her in the leg, and the remnants of her shin guards collapsed. Like a nasty pressure she felt it against her bone – it would leave a bruise, but compared to everything else a bruise was insignificant. A bruise was a tickle from a feather, perhaps an ant bite if it was purple and swollen enough. Her armor had absorbed most of the shock. The aching was there, but it was soon forgotten.

”Stop!” he had said.

What did you do when I asked you to stop?

He had stabbed Barnabas over and over again.

The world was a cruel place. Pearl could never be heard.

The world was a cruel place because everybody felt the need to avenge one another, when all she wanted to do was protect. However, in the face of Blaire Sycamore and his request, she held less and less regard for him as a human being after feeling the life abandon Barnabas against her shoulder.

That frightened her. She never wanted to become any less of a human being.

But in the face of Blaire Sycamore, she couldn’t back away. She could only swing.

[attacks Blaire – sword]
SJRlPdKKsword
Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage