Renata
"Priya!" That voice called out to her again, filtering through ears that made everything sound foreign. The ground beneath her palms trembled, following the rhythm of her inhales and exhales, matching the flow of her blood and the relentless music of her impenatrable heart.
"Renata, talk to me." The plea was closer. The pained sound of it only managed to pierce through some of her scrambled thoughts.
She blinked harshly, trying her best to register the experience overwhelming her body. The feelings and emotions raced by. Names. Faces. Sounds. Touches. All fleetful yet so unbelievably powerful. Punch after punch. The cries ripped through her ears like shards of glass. The final farewells. The pain they felt. The fear that drove them mad. This moment. The next. And the next after that. And on and on and on.
She'd gotten small glimpses of this phenomenon before. One person at a time. But Death waited for no one. The countless screaming and sighing and crying and laughing souls demanded her attention, her presence, otherwise they would never move on from this life to the next.
And whether she liked it or not, she was there. In that tiny window of time, she stood there, took them by the hand, and walked them across the threshold. Some resisted. Others cursed her. The rare ones simply smiled or laughed or couldn't have been more eager if they tried. But she had no favorites. Every individual reaction was valid and human.
She was no god. No superior being in charge.
She was simply an escort, the end to the beginning, the part of the equation which ensures balance, as the universe requires.
A gentle touch brushed across her cheek, pulling her into one spot, the place where her actual body was. No, that didn't seem right to say, as if to suggest she wasn't really with the others, because she was. She absolutely was somehow there with every passing soul in flesh and bone and mind and heart.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Tahoma?" She thought she recognized his exquisite face. Recalled his lips against hers, which now felt like the faintest of memoriesâthat terrified her like nothing else.
Would she fade into this role?
Yes, I will.
She would sink to the deepest depths, swarmed by the wind and the world and the atoms. She would warp into a being she would not recognize but embrace anyway. Yet...as much as she began to do just that, she couldn't fully accept it.
She tried her best to return to the present, but it was near impossible. She had to take the task hefted upon her shoulders and shove it to the back of her mind, if even for a minute or two. First, she practiced for many prolonged momentsâall the while Tahoma called out to her, losing his mind.
"I'm right here, priya, come back. You did it. He's gone. You did it. It's okay, priya."
She realized he was cradling her face, looking directly into her eyes. "Yes, that's right. Don't give up on me."
She whimpered. "It's not okay. This is wrong. This is so very wrong."
He pressed a kiss to her lips, and that helped in grounding her just a little bit longer. "You did what you had to. You saved the world, priya. You are so brave. You did it."
She gasped for air. "We can go home now."
Tahoma took her into the tightest of hugs. "Let's go home."
By the next breath, the blue evaporated, replaced by greens and browns and yellows. Even some fiery orange and red. They both took in deep breaths as the autumn air surrounded them.
"Wasn't it summer when we left?" he muttered.
"I'm slipping away," she warned, turning frantic. Soon, she doubted she would be able to pull herself to the surface again. It would only get harder and harder and more time passed.
"What can we do?" Tahoma demanded.
She hesitated as the thought came to her. Her new and overpowering instincts screamed in denial.
"Whatâwhat is it?"
"Iâ" She clamped her lips shut, shuddering as she took the hand of a seven year old girl. Brown skin. Long black hair. Tired eyes, too mature for her age. Next, an eighty year old man. Wrinkle lines in his tan face from smiling constantly. A teenage boy with shaggy red hair and heavily freckled skin. He's angry and feels betrayed. Renata understandsâ
"Renata!"
She snapped by his insistent shaking. She'd never seen Tahoma so shaken and desparate. "I must undo his mistake."
"How?"
No. No. No.
"You have to help me." Her lips quivered with fear.
"Renata, how?"
She felt dizzy, like any second she would float away. "Take it out." She pressed a shaky palm to her chest.
His red eyes followed her gesture. "Take what out?"
"He took it, gave it to others," she tried to explain but knew she was probably making zero sense, "and now I have to give it back."
"No," Tahoma denied, giving her a little shake again. His eyes filled with tears. "There's another way."
"I stopped him," she agreed, breathless, "but I didn't fix it. I can fix this. You just have to help meâI can't do it by myself."
He released her from his desperate clutch. "You'll dieâ"
"Rip it out, bury it, put my bloodline to restâ"
"Priyaâ"
"Tahoma!" she hunched over as her senses began to become overwhelmed all over again. "I can't be like this. Don't let me be like him, because I will. I can feel it."
"You're sure there's no other way?"
She was so not sure, but decided against voicing that. Instead, she nodded with determination written across her face. "Please."
Slow step after step, Tahoma returned to her. He wrapped his arms around her. "I've only stolen hearts metaphorically, priya." He searched her face. "I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can hurt you."
"It won't hurt."
"It won't?"
"It won't," she reassured him with the lie.
"We never finished our date, we have to try again, have a real, proper one this time," he persisted, failing to distract either of them.
She lifted her hand to his tan cheek. His smooth skin was warm and inviting. She hoped this wasn't the last time she enjoyed it. "Then you'd better hurry up."
"You better work some grim reaper magic," he warned her, "or I'll drag you back myself."
"One last time?" she smiled.
His face darkened with resignation. "One last time." Squelch. Oh, the pain. Yet, she was so distracted, holding this hand and that one, that she didn't bother to scream or cry. She only sighed, falling limp as his hand punched through her chest.
Blood seeped everywhere.
Tahoma was crying at this point, devastating her.
He let her down gently, and her head rolled to the side. She watched through a blurry haze as he followed her instructions.
She sighed again, and with each breath, those feelings and sensations became weaker and weaker, attaching to the organ in Tahoma's bloody grasp. He carried it, struggling like it weighed a thousand pounds. He only made it a couple of feet before he collapsed with it completed. He clawed at the ground like a mad man.
"That's it," Renata whispered. It was the strangest thing. She'd lost her heart and was bleeding out, and yet...that chill which she'd been plagued by for what felt like an eternity, it bled out too. The death. It wailed. It moaned. But it left far too smoothly, chasing after her sacrifice.
"Hold on, Renata!" Tahoma shouted as he pushed her heart into the hole and quickly covered it in dirt.
She felt lighter as the heart became heavier. Her death-soaked heart sank slowly at first, she sensed, but it picked up pace in the next few moments until it soared downward, not stopping until it reached the center, until it exploded and returned to the universe, as it should have been all along.
Don't come back.
And just like all of the other world-bending clashes before between Renata and Death, an enormous gust of wind shot through the air, followed by pitch-black streaks of darkness. One final time.
The world would heal from Angel's sins.
No more undying.
No more stragglers.
The craze would be gone, forever.
To complete it, she'd just had to die.
One last time.
Diamond
She sat up in disorientation, having just been thrown to the ground by a mysterious blast.
With a racing heart, she clamored to her feet, using the counter as assistance. She looked across the way to check in on Amiee. "Aimee?" she called out to the elderly woman who laid on the ground. She practically jumped over the counter to get to her. "Aimee, are you okay?"
To Diamond's relief, Aimee started blinking back into awareness. Her bright blue eyes set in a pale, rosy face, focused on her. "Di?" She looked around. "What happened?"
Diamond hesitated, caught between wanting to help her trusted friend or racing off to check on her wife, Rocio. "I'm not sure. There was an explosion, and then...shadows."
Aimee's eyes widened, exposing the whites of her gaze. "That hasn't happened sinceâ"
"The Blast," Diamond finished for her.
"It's been so long," Aimee breathed out, "could it have happened again?"
Diamond's mind was racing with possibilities. "I have no idea."
Her face flushed with urgency. "I'd better check on Nathaniel. I'm sure Rocio's worried sick about you too." She started sitting up.
Diamond helped her. "I'll give you a rideâyou're on the way. Are you sure you're fine?"
Aimee, the older and spunky woman, waved Diamond off and began bounding forward. "I just got the wind knocked out of me, I'm fine, dearâoh, I do hope no one got too hurt by that damn blast."
Rocio's beautiful face raced to the forefront of her thoughts, efficiently lodging her heart into her throat. She wouldn't feel right until she had her wife in her arms.
Another, smaller part of her sparked with hope. It yearned for the return of someone she tried desperately to let go of for years yet never fully managed, just like Rocio, who mourned her younger sister constantly. "I hope so too."
She's lost, not dead.
Only lost.