19

She stared at her hand.

“It’s Dead! Oh, thank you.” She didn’t turn to the cries pouring from the rubble.

She fell back unto Mensha, his warm chest providing mixed comfort, she turned to his slack face staring their. . . Success.

She looked up at the ceiling, its bland surface a balm to the scenes seared into her. Yet it didn’t stop the thoughts that trickled in.

Her light guttered plunging them into darkness, she’d given up, and “I was happy,” she spoke without thought.

“Yes,” the buried man said between joyful sobs. “It pushes everything else away. I,I couldn’t cry for them, my poor boys.”

His emotions poured but never touched her. She looked down at the tortured pile of bronze and yellow yarn. Tortured, she’d tortured something, she clenched her bloody fists the soaked threads, burned against her skin.

Mensha’s arms wrapped around her, and his hands cupped hers. His fingers cleaned compared to rivulets of blood that stained her

She laughed. “Why,”

“I was curious.”

“Curious.” She roared at the joke, “So you made me a tortu-“ She swallowed, with tears in her eyes, and breathed in, though her lungs never seemed to fill.

“Speak to me,” the whisper broke her.

“I’m mad, at you, at me, at everything. I can understand killing but you hurt it and I helped you, and I,.” She shivered cold despite her racing heart.

“You enjoyed it.” The truth and like an accusation, and she nodded her head, her eyes shut.

“But you, we weren’t in our right mind.” His voice was low and pleading.

She chuckled bitterly “It doesn’t change anything, I just want to help people Mensha I don’t want to hurt anyone, or, anything” She stilled in his arms.

“You won’t have to, I promise.”

“I thought you don’t make promises you can’t keep.”She smiled.

“I don’t, as long as I’m with you, to the best of my abilities, ill make sure you never have to.” She relaxed into him, not well but better.

“Thank you, for always being here.” She opened her eyes and looked at the corpse they’d made. It pushed at her thoughts yet death had robbed most of its strength.

“You remind me of my wife when we first married,” the stranger whispered. She jolted at the reminder but settled too tired for embarrassment. “I’ll be seeing her soon.”His tone was wistful.

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“Well get you out of here.” She said and rose, pulling Mensha with her. She walked to the man. “What’s your,” she paused and took a steadying breath, “What’s your name.”

“Jerico.” He said.

He was buried under a fallen piece of the ceiling that leaned against the wall along with other rubble. Mensha released her and began removing rocks, she joined him. “What happened here,”

“There was an angel, It woke us up and I thought our prayers were answered.” His voice echoed distant joy, “But I was wrong, monsters, demos! They took them and I was happy about it.” She froze as his hate stuck. She put removed another rock.

“I’m sorry,”

“Don’t be, you killed them right,”

“Yes, they’re dead.”

“Thank you, but.” He paused. “There were others, I heard them outside, please don’t let any of them live.”

“We won’t.”

Mensha glanced at her. She nodded at him, despite her recent feelings they need to die.

Summer stepped back, they’d revealed a largely rectangular piece of stone, filling the room from its corner to near the edge where the floor fell away to the crater. Now they needed to move it. She walked around the edge and found an awkward grip under the slab. She didn’t move the Rubble under th slab, incise it shifted.

“Whats that light,”

“I think your seeing me,” She said.

“Your glowing?”

“Yes.” She said and tested her grip. “I’m going to lift this, and my partner will pull you out, okay?”

“Theres no point, you’ve already done enough.”

“No point in stopping now, just, let us help you,”

“Okay,” he finished

She nodded an Mensha who stood ready to respond.

“One, Two, Three” She pushed and the slab moved, graoning upwards as forgotten pebbles dislodged. Mensha slipped around her and into the crevice she’d opened. Clacking of rocks filled her ears and more than one stone was shoved out over the out to crash below.

Worry and determination gave strength to her tired body and she held the stone aloft.

A grueling minute passed, and Menash crawled out of the hole carrying a bloodied form in his arms. She dropped the stone. Almost falling of the edge befoe she sunk to the ground.

She smiled at Jerico, but her expression turned and blood drained from her face.

He wasn’t right, a mangled body a broken form these were things she could accept, But. There were few intact strips of his skin and she could scarcely tell he was white. From his groin to his chest was crumpled. Closer to a thick paste mixed with stones and bone.

They stared at him, He looked at his flattened body as it burbled and his flesh ballooned around the stone inside him. Bone slushed as they knitted into a collage of twisted matter. The emptiness of her thoughts was filled by the constant cracking that mixed into the babbling of a brook.

She noted his crushed hand swell and join his mix into his contorting body, he screamed.

“Help, please stop it!” she rocked to her feet.

“How!” her gaze swept the room for something anything, she only found more screams.

“Kill me.” He burbled feeling blood frothing from his lips.

She froze and stared at him. His body warped farther and farther from humanity. Muscles grow only to burst like over-full pimples.

“Please,” he whined like a boiling kettle letting out steam.

She ran to her bat. She turned and lifted it over her head, she looked down at him. His wide eyes bulged leaking bloody tears as tumors crawled up his face. Her hands trembled. The bat was taken from her hands. She turned to Mensha, a word in her throat. He brought it down at the same moment.

His skull cracked, the bat fell and it split, again and again until it broke like an egg and its pink contents stained the floor.

His body writhed a final time then stilled, Malformed flesh coming apart as twisted organs and flesh broke into a steaming puddle.

She stared at him, as he huffed and his dark skin turned ashen, as he stared at the man Jerico. His legs shook.

He fell, and she caught him. She held him close and walked out of the room. She met his eyes. Quiet distant orbs stared at her. She plunks the bat from his arms and tried to ignore the relief she felt.