There was a man on the train.

  And here he was, now. The man on the train. That face she couldn’t — well, more refused to — quite make out.

  The man on the train, and he wasn’t a stranger.

  Really in retrospect, Gaunt knew this. It didn’t make sense otherwise, that she’d be sitting facing two complete strangers. The train hadn’t been so crowded, there were enough isolated seats and she would have much preferred one of those. And of course it was a hiking group, she wasn’t alone. So really in some way she knew.

  But that was different from accepting it. Remembering. Even if she knew, it wasn’t the same if their faces were scratched out from her memories. Knowing the facts couldn’t hold a candle to that.

  It wasn’t scratched out anymore. The images were always there, waiting for her to place them back where they belonged within her mind’s eye. And even if she’d cast them aside to the darkest recesses of her subconscious, the face in front of her was a perfect match.

  Curl. It was Curl.

  It was all fresh. Always had been, in a way, like a gash held together only by thin stitches. Ready to burst open with the slightest provocation. His easy smile as he leaned on her desk that day, chugging the last of the water in his plastic Aquafina water bottle.

  He’d pointed the butt end of it at her, back then, making her instinctually lean away from it. “So what’re you thinking, Mack? You don’t have to, obviously. I just thought it’d be fun, you know, since we haven’t seen each other in a bit, right?”

  It wasn’t something she usually would have done. Gaunt was definitely more the type to schedule a detailed itinerary and then stress too much over doing everything she wanted and then not go on a trip in the first place. Known for being a shut-in, too, really. But he was right, and even if she didn’t like the idea of it, she knew it was probably good for her.

  “I, uh. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll go, sure.”

  And then Curl had done a bit of a double take at that, almost dropping the water bottle, which at the time really would have pissed Gaunt off but now really didn’t seem like as big a deal as she always claimed it was. “For real? ‘Cuz I know you’re busy and all… but you could probably use some time away from that desk, yeah?”

  She would have been insulted if he wasn’t completely right. But he was, and he knew it. “No, you’re right. I’ve got to get out somehow, right? Not– I’m not saying– oh my god, I’m not saying you’re just an excuse because you’re chill and I like you, it’s just–”

  He’d laughed. Easily, like the smile. “Bro, chill, I get it. You think too much sometimes. We’re cool. And I’m glad you’re coming! It’ll be fun, promise.”

  And then that was enough to get a smile out of her, too.

  Curl was smiling now, too. It wouldn’t be Curl if he wasn’t.

  It wasn’t a smile Gaunt had ever seen before. Smaller. Tentative.

  It reminded her of herself.

  “Curl. I…”

  It was just as well Gaunt couldn’t move because it’s not like she had an idea of what she’d do, if she could do anything. Curl kept holding her there. Arms and arms and forked wrists, joints that jutted out at any and every angle. Twisting and flexing and grasping, holding ready with the utmost fine control. It was almost comforting, having him hold her down. Would have been if there were half as many hands holding her.

  “Do you… remember what happened on that train?”

  Her eyes were wet. She would be shaking, if she could move at all. “I didn’t save you.”

  He tightened his grip, and winced. Maybe he tried to loosen it. But he didn’t. “It isn’t your fault.”

  The moisture in her eyes finally spilled over. “It is. I don’t remember, Curl, but this is because of me. I know it’s because of me.”

  He shook his head frantically. “It’s not. But Mack, I’m…” His breath hitched, and trailed off into more of a snarl. “I’m going to kill you, Mack.”

  Gaunt’s breaths were coming faster, straining against the fingers pressed flush against her chest. “What are you…”

  “I am going to kill you. I have to. Kill you. So…” His smile was back, almost like baring his teeth, almost like a threat display. Sharp and lethal and somehow sadder than he should ever have to be. “You… have to kill me first, okay?”

  “No. Curl, I can’t. I can’t…

  “You have to, Mack. Okay?” His fingers were beginning to squeeze now. Gaunt’s head was spinning, her vision fading. How much from tears and how much from the growing pressure on her chest, she wasn’t certain. “I didn’t really get as lucky as you. It’s not your fault. But you have to be the one to get out of this, okay? Because I’m already gone, yeah?”

  “I can’t do it again. I…”

  He bowed his head. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes, no matter how she struggled. “I’m sorry.”

  Gaunt felt rather than heard the systematic snap snap snap of her ribs, smelled iron in the air. He was going to kill her. Curl was going to kill her.

  Maybe she should let him. After all that’s been done.

  But it wasn’t something to dwell on, right? With all the holes in her memory. With… whatever happened. Curl knew better than her, knew what he was talking about, no matter what her myriad anxieties had to say about it. Curl was smart. He knew what he was getting into.

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  If he told her she had to live, then she had to live.

  She felt rather than heard the systematic snap snap snap of her ribs, but there was no more iron in the air. A pain she didn’t know she felt abruptly vanished. Gaunt attempted to bring her hands in front of her, despite the digits pinning her down. And she succeeded, throwing them out, casting the many grasping parts as far from her as she could manage.

  Some of them dangled from parts that weren’t joints. It hadn’t all been her ribs.

  Gaunt launched herself back, putting some space between her and — it wasn’t Curl, it couldn’t be — whatever it was. Without her vision completely blocked, she made out one of the larger arms reaching a good few metres away from the commotion, clutching a small, thrashing black silhouette. The rest were all pointed at her, diving in to kill rather than capture, now.

  She dove, and most went wide. A few nearly clipped her, but somehow she remained relatively unscathed. As the momentum sent the whatever-it-was past her, Gaunt aimed a blow at something that passed for a sternum. Not quite a clean hit, but enough to cause it to stumble off course.

  It turned its face not the face there is no face she’s not looking Gaunt assumed it twisted around to face her, but its front wasn’t quite in her field of vision. Bracing herself, she gripped her crowbar in two fists, waiting for it to make the first move. More hands came rushing towards her, and she arced the crowbar around in a clean half-circle, driving two of them into the gravel below. The fingers of both flopped uselessly, bones ground into meal.

  Another managed to curve from the side, right from her blind spot, and cuffed Gaunt across the skull. She collapsed to the ground, head throbbing, but her vision cleared in seconds. Still in it. Crawling to her feet, she barely managed to dodge another swipe, almost stumbling a second time.

  In retaliation, she sent out a backhand, shattering one of its forearms. A follow up with the crowbar somehow proved less effective, simply batting another attacking limb aside, so Gaunt threw the crowbar like a javelin as its final hurrah. It stuck firmly in its don’t look Gaunt figured it would have hit clean in the face. The limbs twitched, fell limp, and then started crawling once more. So be it.

  A small black shape flew just past Gaunt’s field of vision, the thing having released everything it was holding. Nearly half its limbs dragging behind, it charged right for her. Would collide in two seconds, at most. She took a breath, let it out, and ran right for it unarmed.

  They didn’t quite meet head-on, so Gaunt reached out as far as she could, wrapped her hands around most of its body, and pounded it into the ground.

  It did not get up.

  She smoothly tore its head off for good measure. She made a promise, and this time she intended to keep it for him.

  She would.

  She closed the eyes on the head she was holding, because… it deserved that much. After whatever she’d done.

  Once she placed it gently on the ground, unsure there was a place for anything like it anymore, she let herself draw her eyes away from the sight ahead.

  A crow was watching her. Unmoving. Smaller than she'd expect.

  Smaller?

  Well, the overpass…

  No, it was Gaunt. She was… Well, looking at her hands, she…

  What the actual fuck. Those were not what hands looked like. Four fingers, one thumb, in roughly the right spots, roughly the right size. Not like Curl’s, with any random number of digits on each. But they were sharp at the end like claws, and if she held it in front of her eyes, it was still. No tiny movements, miniscule twitches you should get when you try to hold your hand perfectly still. It was perfectly still.

  She flexed her fingers, one by one. Snapping into place, precisely, cleanly. Faster than they should, too. A lot more reminiscent of… him. And not even to speak of how she seemed to stand over ten feet tall?

  Though, the overpass was approaching its normal scale, now. The bird was gone, finally. Gaunt could be a freak in peace.

  Definitely something wrong with her. Definitely no way she could continue denying everything after today.

  Kiki said it’s probably fine. Just… don’t.

  It was fine.

  Even if…

  Well she knew in the first place. She knew he… It didn’t really change much actually, because the actual fucking world was ending so probably everyone else was gone too and really she knew that, right?

  So.

  And this was what he wanted.

  So just keep going.

  Focus. Focus on that.

  The rest would come when she had time. Right now, Curl asked her to keep going, and Kiki still needed her to–

  Where the fuck is Kiki right now?

  Gaunt whipped around. No Kiki, of course, she’d been gone since… probably ever since they went through that overpass actually? She couldn’t believe she just forgot about her, what kind of guardian was she at this point? But she was probably fine, so Gaunt would find her. That was first priority. Because she was sure Kiki was still alive, it was just a matter of–

  And there she was, thank fuck, walking out from under the overpass. Definitely smaller than usual, proportionately, and solemn. Appropriate, given that she’d just been chased by som- Curl, she may as well admit it was… Curl, and then separated for however long that was.

  Gaunt took a step towards Kiki. “Holy fuck, Kiki, you’re alive.”

  Kiki stepped back twice, maintaining a cautious distance. Gaunt forced herself to stop walking. “I’m okay.” She looked out ahead of them, where the cliffs stopped as abruptly as they began. “...I want to talk about what happened, as soon as we’re somewhere safe.”

  Gaunt winced. “I…” Trailing off from her original sentiment of I’d rather bottle it up until I explode, actually, she figured Kiki deserved honesty at the very least. Remembering how Kiki was so secretive about literally disappearing for hours was enough to confirm her choice. “Well, yeah. We… should, yeah.”

  Kiki walked over to the body, looking around for a moment before reaching down and retrieving her axe, then kept walking towards the end of the cliffs. Now reminded of its existence, Gaunt pulled her crowbar free too, with some difficulty. Every few seconds, Kiki glanced back at Gaunt as they travelled.

  For hours, the two were completely silent.

  “What was that? How did you know them?”

  Gaunt sucked in a breath. She really had to start with that one, huh. “He’s… a friend. We were both on the train before… I don’t know what happened, but right before we ended up here.”

  “Did he… ever look like that before?”

  Gaunt nearly tripped. “What? I don’t remember… Okay, I guess a lot of shit’s been happening lately, but all these things we’ve seen lately are a pretty recent development. Unless I somehow… missed it before, somehow? I don’t know anymore. This doesn’t make sense.”

  Kiki muttered something under her breath, then continued her questioning. “Okay. What… You were pinned, and then you somehow managed to overpower… Curl. You got a lot larger, stronger and faster during the fight. Do you know anything about that?”

  “No. I…” Gaunt wrapped her hand around her arm. “I dunno. I don’t get any of this.”

  “Gaunt, you can’t just not talk about this anymore. This could be life-or-death.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Gaunt barely managed to keep her hands off Kiki, and let the shame seep into her. “I know that, he just… you know he just died. He’s dead. If I could’ve done anything…” She forced herself to stop. No need to start crying now, and force some distraught teenager to comfort her.

  “...Shit. I’m sorry. I… you really don’t know anything about this?”

  She could only muster the strength to shake her head, and murmur a “no”.

  Kiki slowed, until the two were walking side-by-side.

  “My brother nearly died, once. I… I was watching him while my parents were away, and we were sitting up high in a tree. He was squirming around a bit, and he fell and – I couldn’t catch him. His arm was bent the wrong way and – and he was screaming. And I’ve never regretted anything more than I regret going up there, it was – must have been hours before my parents got back and they were able to drive us to the hospital. I was fourteen at the time, I think, and I didn’t have a phone to call for help, and… I know what it’s like, to wish more than anything you had another choice. I think I would have been willing to die if it meant I could have stopped him from falling, or been able to get help right away, instead of just sitting there and trying to distract him. And I’d be pretty fucking upset if someone brought it up and started interrogating me about it… so yeah, I’ll drop it now.”

  Gaunt had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. But now she was confused about that, and it took over her thoughts completely, so in the end it was probably a good thing. “...um. Okay. Sorry? And thanks?”

  “Yeah, most people have that reaction. I… kinda stopped talking about stuff like that after the first few times, but I thought… nevermind. Um, you… see anything weird during the fight?”

  Gaunt shook her head. “No, it’s okay. It’s, um, I don’t mind. And I… Well, the whole thing was weird? I can’t really pick out anything… specific?”

  “Oh! Okay. Okay, yeah, uh… Hey, does that look like a good spot to set up for the night?” Kiki pointed to a more sheltered area, a little open patch underneath a stand of trees.

  “...Sure.” Gaunt wasn’t exactly one for thinking, at the moment.

  “Alright.” Kiki turned towards the grove, something small and dark drifting in her wake. A feather.

  A feather…

  Well, she did seem to accept a lot of… everything, altogether too readily. It made sense.

  Gaunt would have to hope the both of them really were all that harmless.