and everything golden dies :: astrid shaw's departure

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ali
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Ohana means family

and everything golden dies :: astrid shaw's departure Apr 5, 2016 14:39:05 GMT -5

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Post by ali on Apr 5, 2016 14:39:05 GMT -5

This is farewell

part I

Time slowed again, the edges of the world blurred into fathoms of colour and darkness until all the girl could see was Ezero. It was like she was back in the cage, trapped behind the bars and plunging her spear deep into Nell Locke’s neck, except her opponent was not on the receiving end of the killing blow. Metal met metal as his blades dislodged the aim of her spear, causing it to jut violently sideways. The girl didn’t have the energy to keep her grasp and so the weapon fell from her hands and tumbled away, her gaze following as it softly hopped across the ground and skidded to a halt at the edge of the sinkhole spring. Her gaze held onto the weapon for a second longer and then turned to face her reaper.

It was terrifying, staring death in the face. Astrid had never thought she’d see his face, death, hidden beneath his black hood with his scythe in his hand. Except, death now stood before her and he did not look like the death she had heard about in all of Sol’s stories; he wore no long flowing cloak with a hood that hid his face from the world. He held no scythe in his bony hands. Instead, death stood before her with a beating heart and fire in his eyes, bloody hands wrapped around silver-red knives which glistened in the sunlight like precious jewels. Astrid’s reaper was Ezero Laffan, and he had come to take her life away.

His knife left his grasp and, she held her hand up to protect herself but it was no use. She was not made of stone and the weapon happily embedded itself deep into her hand, eliciting a scream from inside her chest. The pain shook through her, it tore through her body with such ferocity that it knocked the breath out of her after a second and suddenly she was crumbling to her knees, hitting the ground with a crash. Astrid caught herself, prevented her face from slamming into the dirt using the only good hand she had left, but even the movement of forcing her hand out in front of her, to cushion the blow of tumbling to the floor at the feet of her reaper, caused her to whimper in pain.

I am dying. She said to herself, heaving in air. Each passing moment made this simple action more of a struggle, her whole body shook with the final strings of energy she attempted to cling onto. Astrid could only taste the iron and salt against her tongue with each long, laboured breath she took. She closed her eyes tightly and hoped the pain would pass, holding them shut as she felt the air pass through her, each gasp of air felt warmer against the degrading warmth of her body. She waited for the pain to subside, but it never did. The agony clung to her, digging its claws into her skin, greedily drawing what little energy she had left for its own devices.

Opening her eyes, she stared at reality dead set in the face. Her blood stained the the dying earth around her, splatters of it clinging to the grass like dew drops in the early morning, while the rivers which flowed from the wounds on her chest flowed in torrents through miniscule canons in the dirt. She heaved out another breath, her small hand grasping at the earth as death threatened to pull her from the world without a second's notice. Her nails dug into the dirt, her brow furrowing as she tried to focus on the world as it faded in and out of existence; the darkness threatening to pull her into its grasp.

The girl let out a quiet sob, tears pooling in her eyes. I am scared...she thought as she heaved in yet another breath, the shadow of her reaper falling over her, blocking out the light of the sun that watched them from its throne in the pale sky. Eyes widening, the girl slowly moved her gaze to face him, to look into that face which Death had chosen to do his deed, to rid the earth of this insignificant speck of dirt. He’d tried before, he had waited ever so patiently to get close enough so that he could get rid of the monster that did nothing but run from him as fast as she could. Now he had her exactly where he wanted, he had the beast cornered with no ways of escape.

Before Ezero could move, to smite her, to strike her down with his knife, slit her throat and let her drown in the gurggling liquid that would erupt from the wound, Astrid spoke. “Wait!” She tried to yell, but the noise came out as no more than a whimper that just barely passed through her lips. The blond held her hand up, to stop him coming any further, her whole body shaking, straining to even perform the gesture. She heaved in a breath. She wouldn’t leave this world like death intended her to, at the blade of Ezero’s; she wasn’t clean. She was washed in blood of Nell Locke, of the countless beasts she had slain during the Games, the countless blood of those she’d hurt in the years leading up to this moment.

She wouldn’t go a monster, drenched in blood.

“Wait…” she whispered again, holding Ezero’s gaze in her blue eyed, desperate, one before it moved to the knife still stuck in her hand. Lowering her good hand, she wrapped it around the handle and gave it a tug, only managing to shift the weapon from her hand a little before she tugged again and pulled the blade out. The fresh wound stung, but the pain was numbing slowly, becoming absent from her entire body. The fire which had raged, burning from each wound she had sustained, was dying. In fact, her whole body felt numb against the world, it felt cold as ice, burning in the heat of the sunlight which filtered softly through the overcast sky.

She turned back to Ezero, moving to hand him the knife but just at the last second she tossed it, far away into the grass. Before he could move his hand away, Astrid reached out and grabbed his wrist tightly, turning her blue eyed gaze to fixate on his. Her breath was now ragged, and though her grasp around his wrist was tight, she was using all her energy to perform the task, forcing herself to keep hold of his arm so he didn’t pull it away. Keeping her blue eyes locked on his fiery dark ones, her bloody hand scrambled for her backpack, diving in in search of something very important.

“Listen to me…” she begged, grasping his arm tighter “Listen. You...you need to take care of..him okay? Please….I can’t take him...with me….you need to take care of him, it’s really important that you be good to him...you might not feel good but ...you might be good...deep down..I am sure of it...please take…care of Eggie”

As she spoke, she shakily withdrew the egg shaped rock from her rucksack and placed it in his open hand, her gaze still locked onto his. Her blue eyes were filled with the utmost sorrow, fear, bubbling from deep within her, but there was something else, a lingering emotion in her dimming blue eyes that was perhaps the strongest emotion of the three present. It was acceptance. Acceptance that she was going to die.

this is good night

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

Kire
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and everything golden dies :: astrid shaw's departure Apr 7, 2016 0:01:31 GMT -5

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Post by Kire on Apr 7, 2016 0:01:31 GMT -5

please listen to this while reading

There are locks on the doors
And chains stretched across
All the entries to the inside

No sooner had the words left my lips than the knife had left my hands. There was the briefest moment where the world went silent, a collectively held breath, as my weapon spun toward the girl from District two. She lifted a hand, intercepting the blade before it plunged into her eye. I had wanted it to be over quickly, with as little pain as possible. She wasn't a monster like Celia, she was a human like Iain had been and I wanted to extend to her the same mercy I had shown Iain.

But she raised her hand and now the knife was sunk to the hilt in her palm.

I could hear the world scream. Some were cheering, some were sobbing, some were just yelling because everyone else was. The world was no longer silent, but I have no words. Astrid screams with the world and falls. I'm too late to catch her, stunned by the gravity of what I have done once again. She is the third person whose life I have directly ended.

One: Iain Miristioma.

Two: Celia Mortuus.

Three: Astrid Shaw.

There's a gate and a fence
And bars to protect from
Only God knows what lurks outside

Her knees thudded into the waterlogged soil, causing small craters where they impacted. A moment before she would fall face first to the ground, she extended her good hand. Another crater formed around her fingers, a meteor shower of death and pain and endings. Her whimpering tugged at my heart, wrenching at my veins, trying to find a way to make me feel the pain she was feeling. My cuts and bruises ached as I moved, leaving my stomach to ooze blood like a scarlet tap. For a moment the world pulsed with bright light before I came to stand beside the fallen girl.

I wait there for a few seconds, selfishly wishing she would just die so that I wouldn't have to watch her suffer anymore. We both knew she was going to, so why didn't she simply leave her body behind and get it over with. Around her the ground was turning red, or redder than it had been from all of the other times people had fought and died here. Astrid was not one of the first, by any means, to die, but she was almost the last.

In some other, unknown, spot in the arena, I was sure Danny was fighting the boy from Three. Most of the attention would be on them, as the whole of Panem was watching a District tear themselves apart. District partners were notorious for turning on one another at some point, but this time they were pure enemies.

Who stole your heart
Left you with a space
That no one and nothing can fill

I'm terrified for Danny. I'm terrified of her dying, and I'm terrified of her killing Atticus.

I don't want her to die, I really don't. If one of us was to make it out, it should be Danny. Still, even know I sit on the edge of the end, waiting for that last fight. The entire world was watching two people die, and here I was watching each moment for signs that I might live.

I was so close, so close to freedom from this place, but I didn't want to have to go through Danny to reach it.

I'm in the middle of wishing two things would happen, while also wishing that they wouldn't. As Astrid lays dying, cloaked in my shadow, I am contemplating the cost of my own life. Am I worth Danny's life? Quiet sobbing begins to float up from the girl at my feet, the girl I had just sentence to death. Am I worth any of their lives?

Who stole your heart
Who took it away
Knowing that without it you can't live

She realizes I'm there all at once, her body trying to spring her away from me but she's too week. With all that effort, she might have moved an inch. I don't close the gap, just shift my distant gaze to her. "Wait!" She was trying to yell, to scream, but she couldn't. Blood was beginning to bubble in the back of her throat, turning her voice hoarse and wispy in moments. All that came out was a wind's breath of a sound. I don't move, I hadn't planned on moving. It's in that moment that I realize what I look like.

I am standing over the body of a dying girl, thinking about living.

She raises a hand at me, a warning, a gesture, to not come any closer. I still have a knife in my off hand, one I had been readying to throw if she had continued to come at me. She hadn't, but I still had it out. Was it mercy or murder that kept me from putting that blade away.

The hand she lifted is the one with my knife embedded in her palm. "Wait..." Around the edge of her hand, her eyes search for mine and hold them. I feel like a rock, held in place by her desperate gaze. When her eyes move to the knife in her hand I feel a bit of relief that she isn't looking at me, mixed with immediate guilt that I had been the one to cause her this pain.

I'm wondering if living is really worth all of the pain I have to cause.

Who stole your heart
The smile from your face
The innocence the light from your eyes

She pulls at the knife and I wince like the hand it was being pulled from was mine and not hers. At first it stays stuck, but then she gives a strong tug - probably using up a lot of her remaining strength to do so - and yanks the blade free. All at once I realize that I am vulnerable to the whims of a crazy, dying girl, and I had been stupid enough to leave her with a knife.

The handle of the knife is now pointed at me, suddenly and unexpectedly, as Astrid goes to hand me it back. Surprised, and somewhat wary, I hesitate. When nothing happens I go to take it, but just as my fingers are about to brush the weapon she pulls it from my grasp and flings the knife as far as she can away from us. The soft thump of the blade bouncing against the ground was the only sound. I can't even be angry with her, I know that if I were her I wouldn't want to give my killer another weapon to use against me.

Besides, in her weakened state the knife didn't go very far. I could still see the glinting of the blade, alerting me of its location. No knife left behind. If only I could say the same for my friends. Delta, Basil, Eryn. I had had to leave them all behind.

Who stole your heart
Or did you give it away
And if so then when and why

Her hand on my wrist jerked me back into the present. Astrid's breathing was growing more laboured and I waited for the moment when the next breath wouldn't come, but each rasping gasp followed after the one before it. She wasn't dying just yet. The grip she had wasn't extremely strong, but right now it did not take her much to hold me there. I was worried she might go at me again, and yet I knew that she couldn't - the knife I held in my left hand was enough of a comfort right now.

Her eyes searched mine for something, peering into my soul somehow and leaving me feeling vulnerable and exposed. The look of the dying revealed so much to each of us. I now knew that I was completely uncomfortable with how she looked like she suddenly understood me. This whole situation of being held here by her was unsettling. I felt like she was trying to drag me down the pit with her, for both of us to be swallowed by the blackness and never be seen again. I wanted to shake her off so that she would leave this world without my soul being dragged along.

I was already destined to pay my dues, but that didn't mean she could decide when to cash the check I hadn't yet written.

Who stole your heart
Did you know but forget
The method and moment in time

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her unoccupied hand go fishing in her pack. My hackles went up as I expected her to pull another weapon from the bag and attempt to stab me. Yet, even when she had held my knife in her hands with me in easy range, she hadn't tried to kill me. We both knew time was coming to a close for her, just as we both knew that it wasn't for me. "Listen to me..." though she was surely at the last of her strength, she managed to find enough energy to squeeze my arm hard enough to make me wince. If I hadn't been paying attention to her before, I was now.

"Listen. You...you need to take care of...him okay?" I have no idea who him is, and for a sickening moment I wonder if she means Atticus, because I can't promise that. Not when I am bent on seeing him dead, if Danny hasn't killed him herself. "Please...I can’t take him...with me...you need to take care of him, it’s really important that you be good to him..." Things have stopped clicking and I'm left like some cartoon character with a giant question mark over my head. Perhaps she's gone insane. "You might not feel good but ...you might be good...deep down..I am sure of it..." I'm shaking my head, partially to deny her words and partially in disbelief. This girl has never known anything but the worst of me, the only parts of me that I know still exist. Whatever she thinks, I don't think I can believe her. She doesn't exactly seem stable. "Please take... care of Eggie"

The words slip out of my mouth before I can stop myself, before I even realize what I'm thinking let alone the fact that I'm saying it. "What the fuck is Eggie?" It's in the breath of a moment after that when I notice the rock she's putting into my palm. I stared at the egg shaped rock in silence, somewhat taken aback by... by how ridiculous this all is. Here is a girl, and she's dying, and she wants me to take care of a rock like it's a living thing.

She's mad, I'm mad, this whole world is fucking mad.

If you can tear down the walls
Throw your armor away
Remove all roadblocks barricades

But she's fading and I feel the urge to offer her some sort of comfort. If it's to promise to take care of a stupid rock then I'll do it. "I'll... I'll take care of -" I eye the rock dubiously - "of him." I motion a fake pat to the stone, feeling very awkward and self-conscious.

Not knowing what to do, I search through her things and find a pile of bandages. I have more than enough for myself at the moment and so I pile the bandages near Astrid in a makeshift nest. "An egg needs a nest, right. So here's one for -" I want to let out a sigh here but I hold it back - "Eggie." Settling the rock into the pile of bandages, I turn my attention back to the oddest girl I have ever met.

If you can forget there are bandits
And dragons to slay
And don't forget that you defend an empty space

I don't know how to say what I want to ask, so I just go for it. "I... I could make things qui-quicker if you wanted?" I hope that the pleading I hear in my own voice isn't noticed by anyone else. Maybe I'm just hearing Astrid's desperation in my own words. Though no, probably not, this whole time I've been selfishly wishing she would just die already so that I wouldn't have to listen to her ragged breathing or see her desperate eyes anymore. I wanted this to be over with so that I didn't have to suffer with her. Is that mercy, or is that murder?

Before I had even said it I knew that she would refuse. If I were her, would I take the offer? No. There is some part of me that has to cling to the stubborn belief that I would fight to the end. I wouldn't give up like that, and I certainly wouldn't give my enemy the satisfaction of watching my beg for my death. I don't blame her for wanting to walk herself down the aisle on her way to marry Death.

And remember the tinman
Found he had what he thought he lacked
Remember the tinman
Go find your heart and take it back

She speaks about having to do something, about having to accomplish that first. She tells me it's not my fault. She tells me this is all a game. So I watch as she crawls drunkenly toward the largest sinkhole, the one with the giant spring in it. For a moment I wonder if she's just going to stare down into it for a bit and contemplate things.

Then there's the heart stopping, chest seizing, breath catching moment where she plummets over the edge.

A splash echoes like a gunshot in the silence. I realize I had moved half of the distance between where I had been and where the spring was in that second before she had toppled. Had she done it on purpose?

A second shattering of the silence comes as the cannon sounds. The booming sound almost quiet in the wake of Astrid's final act. She had vanished.

I peered over the edge of the sinkhole but she was gone, nothing stirred on the surface of the water. When I breathe in again it's a shuddering gasp. I don't stop to check why my cheeks are wet. I tell myself it was some of the spring water, that it had splashed up and hit me on the face. I knew that couldn't possibly be true, but it made more sense than crying for a girl I had barely known, a girl I had killed so that I might live.

I grabbed up a few things from her bag before turning away from the whole scene.

Walking toward the setting sun, I left Astrid's bag behind, a little rock sitting in a nest of bandages beside it - all alone.

Who stole your heart
Maybe no one can say
One day you will find it I pray

credit to rave for the image

On hills and waves on stormy days.

ali
Retired Staff

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last seen Dec 5, 2023 17:17:50 GMT -5

Ohana means family

and everything golden dies :: astrid shaw's departure Apr 10, 2016 16:42:03 GMT -5

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Post by ali on Apr 10, 2016 16:42:03 GMT -5

Well my heart is gold

Part II

The world had been much prettier when it was not stained in black and white. Once upon a time, Astrid would have been foolish enough to believe the colours of the world meant that she was safe from harm. She had once not even understood the concept of death, it was as foreign to her as the countless languages that had long been forgot by Panem. Astrid had believed herself to be invincible, unbreaking in the face of danger wherever she had come to face it head on, she had believed she were made of stone, unaffected by the ravages of time.

Except her stone exterior had withered away when she’d watched Nell die in her arms. She realized that she was no longer the hardy little girl that had once run naked through the falling snow, giggles bubbling from her chest with excitement as her tiny footprints left a ghostly trail in the snow. She was soft, easily sliced open by even the dullest of blades. Blood pumped through her veins, her lungs expanded with every life giving breath she took, her heart beat 69 times in the space of a minute, her skin felt hot and cold and her eyes saw the world in vibrant colour. Astrid Shaw was not made of stone, Astrid Shaw was human and she was dying.

The girl’s eyes watered as she heaved in another breath, feeling her time slowly running out. Like sand tumbling through an hourglass chamber, Astrid could feel the blood drip from her chest. It was only a matter of time before the last grain of sand trickled away and it was over, the length of that matter was decreasing rapidly but the hourglass had been flipped days, weeks ago. The moment her name had been pulled from the hundreds of names at the reaping, her hourglass had been flipped and the sand had begun to fall.

Grain, by grain, she had felt it, the rumbling at first, before she felt the whole tide of the sands, here, on her knees, staring up at Ezero Laffan waiting for him to answer.

"I'll... I'll take care of- of him” the boy says, patting the egg carefully. The blonde let out a harsh, exhale, what was meant to be a sigh of relief. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she felt the relief that at least one of her family members would be safe. Her little egg, her little friend that she had found on her very first day in this new found hell, would be forever safe in the hands of her killer.

That fact made her laugh little. A weak feeble giggle, her throat gurgling with the blood that was beginning to pool in her lungs, the iron liquid scolded her throat as her laugh turned into a choking cough; her whole body heaved and shook as her lungs wretched, blood splattering on the floor in front of her. Quivering, the girl stared blankly ahead of her, scarcely aware of what was going on around her as the world faded in and out of existence. She heaved in a breath, wanting to shake her head and cry out in fear but it did not come. Astrid instead just sat in silence as the world turned grey, the colours of black and white merging together into one swirl of bland colour, the outline of objects faded for a moment.

“Not…yet…” she whispered, scarcely aware that she was answering Ezero’s question. Her blue eyes slowly moved as the world returned to normal for a second, her gaze finding that of her killers as he sat crouched beside the nest he had made for Eggie. Her lips twitched into some half twisted, happy, sad smile as she spoke. Her voice was hoarse and dry despite her throat being quenched by her own blood “there…is something…something I’ve got to do...”

Astrid remembers being small, feeble, screaming for her mother as the Doctors dragged her into a room with pristine white walls and cream coloured floor; the stench which rose off the porcelain tiles was gut wrenching. Sickeningly clean, it reeked of disinfectant which was attempting to cover the rich smell of blood that had been spilled. Despite her desperate screams, the nurses attempted to calm her, assure her that hydrotherapy wasn’t that bad, that she was going to have a nice bath for a few hours; the little girl was having none of it. She thrashed and screamed, kicked and spat, bit and swore as the nurses strapped her into the bath. The voices were spewing out profanities, refusing to have their little monster cleansed of impurities.

“I’ve…got to wash away the monsters…” she babbled after another moment, as she slowly, shakily pushed to her feet however she did not last long upright and just as quickly as she had stood, she was back on all fours again, crying out as her body hit the floor, dust rising from the impact. She sucked in a breath, feeling the sand tumbling through the chamber, the motion of which was slowing. Drip. Drip. Drip. Closing her eyes, she exhaled again before she scrambled onto all fours and began to crawl.

Each hand reaching out, each drag of her leg, as she edged her way towards the crystal blue water of the spring, sucked her energy dry. She could feel deaths greed, pulling the life from her as the number of sand grains with her name on it dropped from triple to double digits. Astrid knew she did not have long, but the determination and adrenaline drove her forward, kept her heart pumping inside her chest, slowing down the tumbling grains of sand. The last minute of her life began to ebb to almost a complete stop, each second now felt like an eternity.

60….

The sun felt harsh against her back, her nails digging into the pale dirt which was now stained with her blood. Astrid exhaled, her brow furrowed as she the edge of the pool of water seemed to get further and further away with each painful movement she took. The world concaved away from her, dripping into the distance like the sun kissing at the edge of the world.

50…

Yet she still continued the journey to the water’s edge. Her bones shook inside her, her whole body straining to make every movement, soon not even her ragged inhales were enough to sate the burning she felt throughout her body. She gulped in more air, trying to douse the straining flames which lapped at her energy with each flicker but the air was only fuelling that same fire.

40…

Yet she persevered. Her hand reached out, grasping at the frail ground in front of her and she lurched herself forward, reaching out again only to feel the lap of cool fresh water against her fingertips. She heaved in a breath, she had made it to the edge of the sapphire blue hole in the centre of the earth. It’s surface glistened silver in the gently sun, bobbing only at the breeze which rustled across its surface gracefully. Astrid closed her eyes, inhaling sharply before she pushed herself to her feet for the last time.

30…

She stood shakily, like a newborn deer, knees bowing in towards one another as her whole body shook. The lullaby of death was calling to her but she couldn’t succumb yet, she wasn’t clean of her demons that riddled her body like ink on the page of a book. Opening her eyes, she stared down at her reflection in the mirror’s edge of the pool. Inqusitive eyes still managed to stare back at her, almost as bright and blue as the water they longingly gazed into, but the face who stared back was not one she recognised.

10…

This face was older than the one that had entered the arena, not by centuries but by a decade or so. Astrid Shaw realized that she was no longer the little girl she had seen herself as for almost half her life, the little girl who’d run naked through the snow, the little girl who was strapped into that bath kicking and cursing like a sailor. She wasn’t the little girl who had stood on the stage in District 2 and laughed until tears streamed down her face, she wasn’t the little girl who’d found an angel on the rooftop. That little girl had died the very day she’d let that same angel die in her arms, the little girl had withered away like a flower in the heat of summer.

Now she was just Astrid Shaw, 17 years old and dying.

10…

Closing her eyes, a solitary tear running down her face, Astrid made the final decision to jump. Her energy was all but clinging to her now, the final threads of it being snipped away by the sisters three as she stood, teetering on the edge of the abyss. She inhaled sharply as she took a step forward, letting the water pool around her feet as she prepared to jump off the tiny ledge that surrounded the bottomless pool of never-ending blue. Opening her eyes, she looked to the sky with that same empty gaze she’d held countless times before. Then she jumped.

5…

There was no time between being above the water and being below it. One moment she was stood, feeling the sun kiss at her face and the cooling waters of the spring lap gently at her red and swollen feet. The next, the water was bubbling up around her, sucking her under until her body was sinking beneath the crystal clear surface of the pool. She did not panic, she just floated there, sinking beneath the surface as her blood dissipated like red ink around her. With her final string of energy, she looked up towards the sunlight which echoed through the rippling surface of the pool.

1…

And she saw that the light was golden.

Bang.

and my hands are cold

Last Edit: Apr 10, 2016 16:45:50 GMT -5 by ali

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

ali
Retired Staff

1,729 POSTS
Pronouns: She/Her
last seen Dec 5, 2023 17:17:50 GMT -5

Ohana means family

and everything golden dies :: astrid shaw's departure Apr 11, 2016 10:05:23 GMT -5

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Post by ali on Apr 11, 2016 10:05:23 GMT -5

Part III

I drum my fingers against my throne of bones, a soft sigh escaping my lips. It is one of relief, excitement, disappointment is not hinted in the breathy tone; I have been waiting for this moment for so very long. Humming a tune I often hear in the beyond, I rise from my throne. It is rare I take it upon myself to fetch a parting soul, even more so rarely that I collect a soul of a tribute but Astrid Shaw is someone I have been itching to get my hands on. Time and time again she would slip through my fingers, her luck seemed to get better and better each time our paths crossed and she’d run on, keep on living; but even I knew the moment she stepped onto that stage in Two that her time was coming. So I turned the hourglass and began to watch the sand fall. Now with the last grain of sand rolling along the curvature of the chamber, I know that it is time and so does she.

With her last breath I take her soul in my hands, gently grasping the silver slither tightly. I watch the ghostly strand wiggle, refusing to be taken from its home but I do not relent my grasp. I do not feel pity for the insane child, she is a fool and her time should have been up years ago, but there is nothing I can do about that. I have watched her for far too long, waiting, and the sensation of finally having her petite silver soul in my hands is almost overwhelming. If I could cry, I would perhaps shed a tear or two but I do not because I am death.

And Astrid Shaw will not escape me again.

Not this time.

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”