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"You good?" She asked, cooking the meat and handing him a skewer |
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"yeah, why do you ask?" Gale asked, keeping up the happy attitude. |
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"Nothin" She muttered, eating quickly and tossing away the carcass |
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Gale just shrugged, snatching just a scrap to see what would happen. |
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"What'ya doing?" She asked quietly, curling up beside him with an exhausted expression |
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"Thinkin, that's all." He says, gazing off once more. |
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Kayla, only half-listening, began to nod mindlessly before falling straight into a deep sleep |
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Gale got tangled up in thought, his expresion hollow as of that of somebody who'd just been in a car wreck, empty, and lost on the side of the road. |
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Kayla slept dreamlessly and deeply |
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** THE SCENE FROM DEATH'S POV ** The fire crackles. Sounds like bones breaking. Like the ribs of some poor bastard caving under a boot. Maybe his own. His fingers twitch. They don’t feel like his. Limbs of some marionette, strings cut, left to dangle. He tries to flex them—slow, sluggish. Feels like moving through honey, thick and cloying. Poison. He’s been poisoned. Coward’s work. A blade, a bullet—those he could respect. But this? This creeping, silent thing eating him from the inside? It’s wrong. It doesn’t fit. His body should be his own, not some battlefield for unseen hands to toy with. The fire spits. Sparks drift upward, swallowed by the black. He watches them go, wonders if that’s what souls look like when they leave. He’s seen a lot of men die. Too many. They always think they have time. Even when the blood runs fast and thick, they reach for something. A weapon, a friend, a prayer. As if sheer will alone can hold back the inevitable. He wonders if he looks like that now. Is someone watching him? Someone in the dark, just beyond the fire’s reach, waiting for him to stop moving? No. He’d know. He’d feel it. Unless the poison is taking that, too. He exhales, slow. The air feels heavier going out than it did coming in. His heart. It’s slower. Too slow. He wonders if this is it. If the stars above are the last thing he’ll see. They’re not so bad. Not a bad thing to die under. But— Not yet. I can't take him yet, for this story is far from over. |
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Crisp, Clear, and Cool
