Shrike's Heart (#2)

[idolpro]

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

Comments

[romanticlove]

[The recoiling gives her pause. She withdraws her hands from touching them immediately.]

I'm- I'm not going to hurt you.

[One of the objectives 'Do not accept mercy' comes to mind, but she's sure it has nothing to do with this.]

You'll both be okay, I promise. I'm here to help.

[handpuppets]

[ what he says to sekhmet might shed some light on why he's worried. then he wheezes, like—maybe there's something wrong with his lungs, and starts up into a hacking cough, again, before he can say anything else.

the whispers are mostly gone, now, but they swirl around you, into your ears.

Give him the final mercy. ]

[romanticlove]

Wait- but he said to have mercy on him. I can't...

[She sucks in a breath, unsure of what to do.]

It's not right. [He was going to die like this anyway if she didn't get him help.]

What do I do....?

[She looks around helplessly, trying to ignore the smell of blood that clung to the boy and surrounded him and his father.]

[handpuppets]

[ The voices are of no help, with that.

Sekhmet's asked him if the town might have some medicine, and the answer is—maybe. Maybe there's something, but if there's any hope for him it's here, with no other towns on the horizon. ]

[romanticlove]

[But of course it wouldn't be that easy. Would it really be easier to kill them? She can't do that!]

Please... please be okay. There are others coming here.

[And she turns to the first of the others to arrive on the scene.]