Alex stares at the bullet ridden and the crushed. There’s so much gore here, so much blood, so many corpses. The warehouse is small in relation to other warehouses, it could easily hold hundreds of people, and here they all are, piled on top of each other. So many dragons, dead.
Because of her.
She falls to her knees and loses her lunch.
Someone pulls back her hair. How kind, how thoughtful, she doesn’t deserve either.
A hand is placed on her shoulder, “you couldn’t have known.” Says the soothing voice of her oldest friend. No, she couldn’t have known. How could she know? That ghosts leave a trail for those who can look, that the ghost was even real, and that the thing that could see it would be such a disaster.
“It doesn’t matter.” Says the somber voice of authority, “they are dead. Whether intentional or not, that fact doesn’t change.”
And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? If she could talk to the newly christened corpses, she doubts they would be so understanding as to not blame her. Because at the end of the day, if she wasn’t here, none of this would have happened.
“That’s not fair.” protests the voice of reason, although there is a tremor to his words, “you can’t blame her for this.”
“I can, and I will.” He sighs at the sharp looks her friends give him, but Alex finds his words…comforting.
She stands to her feet.
“We need to go, report, and…and find a way to make this right.”
-
The walk back to the border was quiet. None of them really feel up to chatting at the moment. So they just walk as Alex replays the scene she saw in her head over and over again. She couldn’t have stopped it, the thing was a force beyond anything she has ever seen. It ended so many so quickly, and there was nothing she could have done. She almost laughs at the idea that it showed them mercy after all that it had done. Alex gets to stand living for the same reason that it showed up in the first place.
So many people died for the sake of curiosity.
She’s going to kill that thing, she doesn’t know how, or when, but she will.
It’s the least she could do for the dead.
“There’s a group ahead.” Takeshi says as his drones fly silent through the skies. “I can’t tell their affiliation.”
“Must be scavengers.” Sasha says, “stupid fucks.”
Takeshi nods, “we should avoid them, there’s too many for us to deal with.”
They just nod and change routes.
-
Ellie stares at the three of them as they finish their story. Her usual lackadaisical attitude is replaced with a sharp focus, often glancing towards Takeshi as they spoke. Her hands interlock in front of her, blocking the sight of her mouth.
If Alex were to guess, she’d bet she wasn’t smiling.
“You met the Prophet of Death.” Ellie says bluntly.
All of them reel at that, that was a Prophet?
Ellie lowers her and taps it against her table. “We’ll have to move you to a more kingdom controlled area, to avoid a repeat.”
“I’m not being punished?” Alex whispers.
Ellie waves her off, “knowing that at least one Prophet has magic is enough to forgive the loss of lives.”
“That feels wrong.”
Ellie shrugs, “probably is, but that’s life, and it works out in your favour so I wouldn't complain if I were you. The Dragons' discipline can be harsh.”
“So that’s it then?” Sasha asks, “we just move on to another base all hunkey dorey?”
“Sounds about right”
-
Alex cuts through a person in a daze, then another, and another.
She’s pushing her body past what she should, aggravating wounds and straining her soul. But that’s fine. She needs to get stronger, she needs to get better, and pain is the only measure she has that she’s succeeding in that, so she embraces it. She gets shot, a few times, in the arms and legs, and sometimes the chest and head when it can’t get past her bionics, but that’s fine. She can just heal it when she goes to sleep. She’s been…trying something lately, something new. When her soul broke, despite going unconscious, she could still manipulate it.
It was surprisingly easy to replicate, she just had to…will it to be so, and there she was. The her that is her soul stood amongst the shattered pieces, the raging clouds, the fractured ball, and she told herself to heal her body, and she did.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Someone in the back lines gets shot in the head. Sasha’s a better shooter than she is, so after some arguing, she got the sniper position. Takeshi was surprisingly supportive of this, regarding her with something like respect, Alex doesn’t care. She just needs to cut, and cut she does.
Off with an arm.
Intestines left to trail the ground.
Lungs filled with blood as they are stabbed.
Arteries cut open, spraying so much blood.
It’s repetition at this point, routine. She has become such a thing of death, such a good little killer. She is nothing compared to that thing. More bullets, more blood, more cutting.
Until eventually it is done.
This was a big group, sixteen in total, she killed about half of that. Aki is bandaging a wound to his arm and stomach as Alex stares at the corpses. She needs to stare at them. It’s her responsibility.
“Get off the streets, another group is coming.”
Alex moves, albeit reluctantly
-
Her bandages are getting kind of ruined, which is a shame, they looked cool, she’s also lost more muscle. Turning her from something to be mocked to something to be avoided. She…can’t say she doesn’t care, she’s not so free from vanity. She doesn’t want to disgust people, but she needs to get stronger. It is not a choice.
Someone snaps their fingers at Alex, breaking her train of thought, she turns to find Sasha giving her a concerned look.
“Alex,” she says, “did you hear anything I said?”
Alex blinks at her, “sorry, just tired.”
“I can tell.” Sasha replies, “you need to tone it down Alex, or you’ll end up like you were when you were trying to save that girl.”
Alex shakes her head, “can’t stop now Sasha, I need to get stronger.”
Sasha sighs, “just…don’t die at least. Promise me that.”
Alex nods, “I can do that.”
-
Cutting, cutting, cutting.
It is her world, her entire being, for just a few moments. She dances and divides, flowing from one soon-to-be corpse to the next. Her body count is uncountable at this point, miles ahead of any of her peers. She’ll be a Scar in no time at all. The corpses speak to her, not literally, but she can feel impressions of…something for just a few moments before it fades.
She’s reaching an understanding of something, she doesn’t know what it is but all she knows is to cut and weave and move to the next.
So many bodies.
She digs into a man's leg, cutting through an artery as she moves on to a woman whose hands she removes before she loses her head. Then follows another woman who she stabs in the heart. Then comes a man she cuts open just above his abdomen, taking his ability to breath.
More heads roll.
More organs are freed.
It is not enough.
She is on the cusp of something, but this isn’t enough.
-
“We’ve been doing great.” Takeshi says, eyeing Alex “good enough to get us some rest for the week.”
Alex sighs, “I can keep going.”
“Good, because I’m not going to push you until you can’t. Rest, recover, then we can go back out there.”
-
Alex’s staring at the roof from her mattress, they’re set up in an abandoned apartment complex this time, getting a whole room to themselves. She’s bled a lot on this mattress the past few days, but that’s fine, she can just magic it back. She just needs food, and what better resource than their bland ass rations.
Surprisingly their room had a working TV, which Sasha is using to watch the latest episode of Galactic Frontier. Something about a space siege between two battleships. Sasha’s eyes sparkle at the display of professional CGI.
“You think we’ll ever make it back to space?” She asks, eyes glued to the television.
“Eh, they’ll get the disruption field down eventually, so probably?” Aki replies.
“Think it’ll happen in our lifetime?”
“What, you wanna be a space explorer?”
“Of course!” Sasha nods enthusiastically, “there’s so much out there! So many stars and planets. I want to explore them all.”
Alex snorts, “you’ll need way too many injections to last that long, last I checked we couldn’t even afford one.”
Sasha waves her off, “at the rate we’re going, we’ll be rich so…huh. Is it fucked up that the money came to my mind before all the people we’ve killed?”
Alex shrugs, “probably, but that’s just how it goes I guess. Kill enough and it stops mattering so much.”
-
Takeshi eye’s look down at his cards, eyeing Sasha with a dubious expression.
“I’ll stand” He says, satisfied with his collective score of nineteen, Aki nods and turns to Alex.
Alex sighs, “hit me”, Aki gives her a card and she’s hit with a twenty-three total.
“Fuck!” She exclaims, throwing her arms up in the air.
Sasha snorts, “should’ve just given up chink, luck isn’t your friend. Aki, hit me”
He does.
Sasha stares wide eyed at her hand, “What!”
Alex cackles at her misfortune.
Aki sighs at his eighteen total, “Fuck it”
He also goes over the threshold.
Takeshi lets loose a small smile as he gathers his newly acquired sweets.
-
Alex wonders how much she needs to exercise when magic seems to be her new mode of transport, considering as well that a lot of her muscles are missing in action. That thought hurts, she still hasn’t looked at a mirror, but she can imagine she doesn’t exactly look pretty, she wouldn’t have called herself a looker, but her looks were above average.
Now she’s probably setting a new low.
Which is…not something she needs to be thinking about right now.
She needs to heal, and as much as she hates to admit it, a week isn’t enough. So she doesn’t sleep, pushing her healing through every hour of every day, until her body can’t take the abuse any longer.
As she stares at the ceiling above, she keeps on healing.
-
Alex is standing over a field of corpses, blood pools evermore into the ground as the sun shines a deep crimson. Alex looks at the faces of the dead, looks into their hollow eyes, and moves on to the next. She walks for what feels like an eternity before the ghost appears.
This is what you are now, She says, A bringer of pain and death. Are you satisfied?
Alex stares at the woman and her exposed brain, before looking directly at the sun.
“No,” she says, “I need to do more”
