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Now

A tremor.

Wildlife bristled at the intrusion, feeling and waiting. Another tremor and they flee, scurrying and leaping. Deeper into the forest.

More tremors.

Like hollow thunder it echoed, but without the glorious clamour, the chaotic thrush. It was too precise, too regular to be the booming reality. Even the cackling blue light heralding it seemed tame.

Harnessed.

For a hidden moment he wanted to follow after the boars and the bees, swinging on vines and hollering; carefree and savage. The he smiled and pressed his body deeper into the tree’s crisp bark, snuggling under the thermal camo blanket.

He comm’d what he was witnessing. “…located transient transport, threw a track in my sector approx 216 metres at eleven oh.” He paused, considering his words. “Allied Panther,” inflecting a restrained futile hostility, “PNT-9R, engaging the stranded runaways with ardour. Request instructions, over.”

“Copy that, Garden Snake, wait one.” Oh how he loathed that moniker, even if it was her that used it. Fitting, maybe, but embarrassing and not for all the obvious reasons. “Big Boss says keep an eye out and get cozy, over.”

He chuckled quietly. “If I get any cozier I may get a crispy kiss, ma’am,” static from heavy energy weapon discharges washed the comms as if on cue, “and I think I’ve been burnt enough getting too close… over.”

The link clicked dead. He probably shouldn’t have said that.

Gazing up at the sun-dappled overcast, through the wretchedly pristine treetops, he shrugged and settled himself to a more relaxed pose. The screaming had just stopped and the leashed energies of the Lord’s Light cannon had cycled down seconds before.

It waved at him, looking embarrassed instead of threatening. So he waved back, a green and brown shadowy arm returning the precise actuated motions of the 35-ton ’Mech.

And why wouldn’t he? Different units, very different methods, but the same sad and necessary purpose. He had broken radio silence because he knew it’d seen him just as he knew its Sipher CommCon CSU-4 would catch the comm signal and hopefully choose not to set his otherwise comfortable tree on fire.

The shadow took a deep breath and decided he needed a vacation. Anywhere without trees. Or ’Mechs.

Or traitors that needed killing.

Now


He returned to camp four hours later, verdantly camoflauged, and recorded the firing of three clips from his scoped assault rifle to the pudgy, pale clerk at the quartermaster’s. Seven dogtags grasped tightly in his left hand clanked in an empty can as he moved to sign for the expenditure, the clerk looking as numb as his butt felt.

The once-and-probably-future bean can, frightfully large had a stenciled sign; it read ‘Runaways Only’.

As if running was all they were guilty of.

Yawning emptily, and nodding to the clerk, he moved automatically to the pleasant steams wafting from the mess. He envied the can’s singular containment purpose; no one bugged it about what it was holding today, or for a report on its holdingness. He had radioed in his report and they did have better things to do right now, judging by the dust cloud meandering through the base, than listen to a bored guard. Just as he had better things to do than sit around some more feeling bored.

It was win-win, he thought as he populated his tray with the least disgusting things he could find.

Unsurprisingly, his tray was less crammed than he would have preferred but still fuller than his sparse normal. A greased, dreary man cocked an eyebrow at his tottering tray as he ambled past.

“Gotta keep my lovely figure,” he winked. The greasy man turned away, unperturbed, returning perhaps to the pondering of life, the universe, and everything in it. Or perhaps mentally undressing the pair of secretaries that were babbling, loudly, in the far corner.

Perhaps both.

Perhaps it was the same thing.

As he dove into his carefully assembled pile of food he wondered, as the lack of tastes hit him, that maybe the ‘food’ congealed in the pits of oil instead of being actually prepared and cooked. Emerging, or slithering, in this cooked-like pseudo state while in fact being un-food; the nemesis of nutritioun everywhere. Then the secretaries joined him and he stopped caring about the hidden struggles of meals.

They left the dreary man standing there, peering into nothing.

The guard hoped they’d both have a better answer than ‘42’.

Now


Insistent thrumming in the night sky told him better than his uncooperative commlink that the militia fighters were up in the air. And way off course. He tried another militia frequency that apparently wasn’t monitored—just like the rest—to try and redirect the presumptious props’ courses.

Sudden blossoms of fire made him stop, not even bothering to look over his shoulder as hurtling debris cratered swaying grassland, grey even in the red moonlight. At least one of the flyers was awake enough, he begrudged, as a desperate purr peeled up and to the right; a classic breakaway response.

It slammed into the treetops, folding inwards, a discarded combatant in the war for heaven.

Night-sight saved from the pyres’ glares, he again followed the spurting from the triple-As to clump of grey and brown less than a kilometer to the west. His earlier thoughts returned; well nestled, amply supplied from the number of trucks that grunted past its northern gate, and keenly guarded with roving foot and canine patrols centred around a low-hung radar tower.

Squat, unappealing, but functional, the firebase would massacre the militia’s vaunted “Wildcats” as they dipped back for refueling, after escorting the so-called “Emancipator” bombers on their oh-so liberating attack runs on “enemy combatant” positions. Like that crumbling town to the north-by-north-west seventeen klicks out full of refugees.

Whoever managed to build that firebase even under the pitiful predations of this militia deserved a medal. But he didn’t believe in medals. Bonus pay, that would do.

Pouting, “Why could they have hired us instead?”

“Simple,” the oiled gravel rumble stole his attention as always. “They’re freedom fighters, meaning they’re all idealistic, like fanatics most like, and they got most of the real militia on their side. Not to mention the civies…” The voice spat into the distance. “In other words they’re poor like all the rest of these idealistic bums.”

“Must you make us out to be whores?” He asked reflexively. “We’re highly trained specialists. Of course we command a fee proportional to our skill and repertoire—”

“—that ’d be killin’ a whole lot, right?—” another shade ventured, shrouded by shrubs.

“—yes, well, that and—”

“—s’plosives, general mayhem, your electronic whatchits—smacking?… Arned robbery… oh don’t gimme that man, the judge didn’t fry you ‘coz we bribed that drunk of a ’Mechjock to mozy past the courthouse!—”

He sighed. “Fine! Yes! We’re a mangy band of freebooters, sellswords,” he glanced to his right, “and miscellanea. Whatever. My point was that with the government we had a solid support structure for once.” He ignored all the groans about bookkeeping. “And that we weren’t hired alone.”

“Now, what’d you rather be? The other guy’s only foreign band of unreliable hooligans who just need to get cornered and shot or otherwise dissuaded to continue fighting? Or being part of a marauding horde lead by near-sighted bureaucrats?”

The sergeant sniffed. “Not much of a choice there kid. ‘Sides, no matter what they hurl at us we can’t back off the contract. No work afterwards.”

He nodded in the dark, ignoring the imprecise snaps of artillery blasts, delayed by an unconscionable amount of paperwork necessary for each salvo. “Yeah, but they don’t know that. Or hell, even if they did they’d realize that if they hurt us bad enough we’d start calling out all clauses to make us a burden...” He still spoke only at a whisper, trusting his comrades’ hearing to pick his voice over the cadence of wild gunfire.

The squad nodded knowingly. A few mercs were valued enough to not try to piss off, mainly because they had ’Mechs with good security. The rest though, they could be killed for their gear.

“Point is, we’d be bigger targets on their side and this war ain’t worth it. Never is.”

“Never is.”

That's a very unique writing style approach to a fanfic. I like it. Do you more episodes in the pipeline?

_________________
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

"Woo, that was bracing! They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself." --Mal, Firefly

"Going bonkers from EI or DNI is pushing it. I mean how many Crusaders or Super Wobbies are sane to begin with...." --RockJock01

Thanks, Cray. I have a few more episodes in the works, but not that much more as I intend this to be an exercise in brevity.

Then



“Sarge, come on,” Private Duschene urged again sighting his rifle to the distance. “I say we plug ‘em now! Them kids let us right to ‘em!”

“Stow it, Dutch.” Sergeant Vipurro rumbled. Stepping back, he assessed the situation and cocked his head to listen to static. He projected the cool calm of a career NCO to his men and women, but even his voice sounded tense as he radioed in again.

No use.

Duschene settled into his favourite firing position, his eyes eager. ‘Dutch’ couldn’t care less about the Snake kids, Vipurro knew. He was just hungry for the promised bonus on captured Drac intel. As if that was their only worry, to collect bonus pay in this malfed up city with no comms, no transport, and no way out.

Vipurro raised himself to a ready crouch, glancing to the far off fires and signaling a ‘ready rush’ to his squad. It’d keep them taut, ready to fight or flee, and gave them something to do beyond listening to the almost tinny sounds of exploding distant ordnance.

Of mechanical giants shattering lives…

Readily plucked memories juggling behind his eyes, the sergeant sniffed, scratching the three-day old growth on his chin; whatever he was now he sure as hell wasn’t going to let an enemy command centre go to waste. He tried the radio again, damning the Davions for their unsupported micromanagement.

“Ahh hell,” Vipurro muttered as he saw the bigger kid, the one they had been tailing discreetly go down in a flurry of rifle butts and kicks. The smaller one raised a keening that made him drop the comm pickup. It was a pure wail of despair.

“Fire! Take ‘em!”

The order was out of his mouth before he could rein the gut instinct in. It didn’t matter, Duschene was already firing and so were the rest of his sharpshooters into the second story portico. Blinding white gushed forward, lighting the street with a lethal haze and erupting panicked screams from the militiamen. His less than sniper-quality men were already pounding out towards the unassuming pre-fab slab of white-washed reinforced ferrocrete.

Compared to the almost organic steel and glass skyscrapers on the street it might as well have had a sign that read ‘Snake Nest—Blow this up’.

He was running alongside the rest of his men, barely remembering the scramble down the rusty steps, as their gunsights swerved, ready to kill whatever the sharpshooters missed. There was a lump of black and red just at the terrace, in between the rough-hewn stairs leading up to the second floor; the only entrance from the street but not the only exit from the slab. It was the bigger kid, with searching hands crawling towards the incessant screaming pile just a few steps in.

He ignored the smoking ruins of what used to be men, crumpled alongside the kids.

Vipurro couldn’t hear what the young man was saying—and he was a young man, now that he got a closer look—not over the crisp blasts of laserfire and his own panting, but he understood the tone well enough. It was the same sounds he used on his own nieces and nephews, cooing sounds to shelter them from lightning and thunder.

The murmuring broke his heart.

He stormed into the wide terrace and double-tapped his SMG into a dazed Drac’s chest, puffing her sweat-stained tan uniform with dark-red blossoms. She had dusty gray eyes. There was no return fire anywhere.

Colten, his only real scout, came out of the backroom with his pistol smoking, shaking his head. “Rest are gone, sarge. Seems they bolted down some stairs as soon as the Shiny Lads started firin’, least two wheels. Pursue?”

Sgt. Vipurro shook his head, shouting for the medic that was already there. He spared a glance at the children at his feet, offering a swift prayer, then barked orders to grab all the datapads and papers they could and to torch what they couldn’t carry. He unlatched the clasps on a round packet on his waist, smelling the promise of a strong, lasting fire, snapping on broken ferrocrete like boiling marrow…

The haze drifted away. He was him again, or whatever passed for it.

Vipurro surveyed the den, noticing a carafe of hot tea, carefully piled reports, and the ever-present gaze of the Coordinator in portraits, wondering if they had it in wallet size. Probably not, he gathered, else you get executed for sitting on the Coordinator’s face.

The sergeant’s eyes settled on the unperturbed holo-image in the centre of the room, glowing intermittently as the city’s power lines wavered. It was classically blue, like in the war holovids, with deep crimson lines coiling around the azure city. Bright yellow globes winked, friendly comm chatter, moving along the blood red paths snaking beyond the city. Sergeant Vipurro knew what it was.

It was the way out.

Now


Wind lashed at his face, sharp barks of nothing and grit flying at him. Distracting him. His arms ached. It radiated heat and death.

He wouldn’t let go.

He heaved as the world crashed past, a concert of sudden sunlight, crumbling ferrocrete, and the crush of war. The pack at his belt was dragging him down. Blood, not his—from its taste, was dripping from his forehead.

He couldn’t let go.

A false sun rose and set; he felt the cackle, the sizzle, heralding the rivers of flowing metal. It was bleeding, a stew of acrid black and stained slag. A skein of steel shattered in its wake. More blood.

He had to get higher.

Beneath his hands its pulse changed. Clanging, locking, settling. It was hard to tell over the steady rattle snaps, the burring like monstrous bees caged by giant ribs. It swayed, rocking-creaking to stillness.

He neared the peak.

A flash of heat. Sweat stung off him, bathed him in ash. Long, hollow whistles poured from its proud shoulders, a nest of dangerous swarm. The mountain shuddered and flowed forward, punishing the audacious ground with its shattering stride.

He couldn’t breathe.

Draped over it was a cloud, a cloak of wafting heat and fumes. It was a terror. Bright slaps coalesced, spearing distant foes with pale jade light. Sunlight was not so scarce. A true wind swept the swirl of detritus and steam away. It was made bare.

Coughing, spitting out what he could from his mouth, the tortured soul swayed atop it. He dared not to wipe the foreign blood from his face knowing it would spread and stick. Its proud neck was oblivious, he reached for his belt.

He had dropped the satchel.

The strap stuck true to him. In the rush, in the heat, its cargo had fallen. Mildly thankful for not going the way it had gone he quickly made up his mind. The panel was concealed, for protection not subterfuge, and slapped open agreeably.

He sketched a pattern on its face.

Telltales blinked, metal pinged, and an air leaking sweat, fear, and heat drowned him. A startled scream. A rush to unlimber and arm, a blizzard of muffled struggling. He was drawn out, withered but crazed with a desperate strength.

He revealed his starved blade.

She dropped back, her silvered helm strained by its chains. Young. Frightened. And guilty. She was begging. Begging. Tears fell, not hers. A small child, a dead family. War and fleeing. Success in death. His grip tightened.

He had heard it before.

The mountain kneeled, its furnace heart shuddered cold.

Then


Light, solid and diffuse, wove afterimages in his sight. He couldn’t move. Pain, distant and spiking hid under an opaque glare; a rubbery film over indifferent sharpness just thick enough to feel the edges but not to harm fully. It too etched its own patterns.

Breathing. More than one. Less than six. One very rasping, familiar. Tortured moaning. It was his, and that made it worse. He wanted to hear her.

Shuffling oil, so quiet, it held him down again… how did he not notice the steady gripping of a groundcar’s tires, the motion? A bump, swerving, some yelling. His ears returned to him, at least the left one did, tendrils of sense extended from him.

Why was he not afraid? Perhaps he was too afraid, too drenched in terror to discern vintages. It didn’t matter. He was bound. The men, three, were gaijin. Federats, or at least one of them was. An Elsie was whining, unsurprisingly. The other was silent, watching him.

His eyes creaked open, slivers of reality snapping into place, intersecting and amassing.

He saw a snake. A chevron highlighted its treacherous head, tongue scenting the night. Was it still night? A dim fixture on the roof, snatches of underlit sky, then a face; broad and keen. The wild sensing expanded, he reined it in, roping the tendrils of feeling and directing it like a whip.

A man in dirty but always-dark uniform stood watch over him. A weeping bundle was to his left, his hearing caught the hurt motions, peripheral vision adding confirmation. His muscles were taut, loose, and strained, pain was a muffled wolf pack nibbling at a fallen yeti; desperate for a rending purchase with its jaws.

He called out her name. A hopeful stir. His breath expanded out, unbelievably thankful.

The hard man’s features unknotted. It was not a softening, merely a loosening. The killer’s eyes halved his time on him and to the two in front. They were arguing with a fourth who wasn’t with them. It was a van or a small truck, explaining the hesistant swaying, the low running, and the over-taut suspension. A hauler.

He spoke her name, stronger this time. His steadily growing breathing and reflexive muscle stretching at rest, taught to one meant to live, kill, and die in small spaces, spread living fire to his body. Agony, wondrous, fraying agony.

Excellent as before. How many episodes were you thinking of making, when you said this would be short?

_________________
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

"Woo, that was bracing! They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself." --Mal, Firefly

"Going bonkers from EI or DNI is pushing it. I mean how many Crusaders or Super Wobbies are sane to begin with...." --RockJock01

I'd say this is close to the halfway point. Thanks Cray!

Any criticisms would be welcome. Even if it's "too vague" as that'd help me judge just how to tilt the writing some.

Then


“He’s up!” The gargoyle perched over him grated, his voice barely carrying.

Smooth dismissal. “Deal with it, alright.”

A coldness. Flames sheathed in leathery ice, sparking cool and bright. It suffocated, or he grew numb, the lack of pain a roaring hum in his mind. His body relaxed in its restraints, his mind now free from holding back the tide of hurt. Allowing him to grip and extend his senses farther even as his sight dimmed.

Tinny, distant. “—yes, yes, he must be kept alive. No one else is living.”

“There is the girl child,” Flowing water, no, oiled steel, whispered back. “She’s relation, ain’t she?”

“Yes.” Distant arguing. “Just bring them both. Are you near?”

The third voice, nasal and bitter. “Almost there,” under his breath adding “you malfing son of a snake, been giving you our damned coords since—”

“—I see you.” The link clicked dead, echoing with confusion.

A dull thud, and another. Whirring actuators, new with its smoothness, lubricated and taut. He could almost hear the golden hum of a solid lock, the electron anticipation building.

“Pull up beside it,” the leading voice warned. “They’re treacherous. Remember, they are Snakes after all, it’s in their blood.”

The driver pitched a laugh, his Crucis March drawl was turned up in an attempt to sound superior. A mimicry of a New Avalon snob. “So are we, Dutch. So are we.”

Then


Silence.

It was the hum of waiting death, danging swords swaying in the breeze. There was yelling, there was arguing. But it was quiet.

Smooth hands, careful or perhaps wary, grasped and dragged him to his feet. Numbed legs and voracious hunger stole what was left of his strength. He fell, feeling the blunt, snapping kiss of another cold rifle butt.

He decided he preferred for them to use that end if they had to use the firearm at all.

Swimming, in air and in oil, he drifted forward guided by unsure limbs. There was no rage now, no bile to fuel fire. Just a hollow throbbing. His mind worked still; cataloguing and parsing everything he sensed. The bored sharpness of two guards, his captors plans for the bounty, and the mundanity of ill-functioning machinery and poorly kept hygiene.

But there, in the dregs of his soul was a hate. There was his new heart and blood, caged by iced flesh. It was sputtering.

Ironic. He had called his father a puppet with no master. Now here he was, a puppet with no strings. He laughed, crying what he could spare. Let them think him mad.

He was an important young man. An up-and-comer, part of the elite. That made him precious in an unflattering manner. But not her.

She was young, less than half his fresh age. He knew her best, the core of innocence was really a shell of inexperience, the easy manner and playfulness were methods of experimentation. Bright, creative, and thorough when she needed to be. A true credit to the family.

An excellent puppet at bargain prices.

He was still worth something, but only to those that could pay. His roving prison felt familiar. There was nothing but a shouted farewell and a distant sobbing as tires fought for purchase in the debris-strewned paths.

Gunfire licked their trail. It barked back, thudding in echoes. He imagined cruel fates to befall all and it made him wail as hidden fire burst around him.

Rotten ice bound his veins, hearts thumping frantically to shake loose the torpor. It spread the poison faster. They were taking her; his constant shadow of mischief, his filtered mirror of a better possible him. His ward, his little one.

He would be lesser for it. She would live, thrive even in his place, but she wouldn’t dare remember.

And he would never forget.

Now


“You look like hell.” Lieutenant Vipurro mumbled through a clenched cigar, an affectation since it was never lit. He peered forward at the crashed giant, studying it as an artist critiquing another’s latest work. He harumphed in appreciation; Its head, or where it should be, still broiled thick cords of smoke.

“It’s all these nice places you take me to, sir.” He replied easily.

The screeching APCs disgorged a whooping explosion of greased faces—idle militia techs tempted by easy cash. Elsies, he thought disparagingly. Celebrating a kill of what was once their own…

“At least you managed to keep your face clean,” mumbling, “pretty boy.”

Laughing. “Envy doesn’t become you, sir.” He jerked a thumb back at the decapitated ’Mech, ignoring the techs spraying foam to calm the fires down. “That makes a full lance by the way sir. And it’s a nice, fat assault-class too, sir.”

“Quit braggin’. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Of course it doesn’t, sir. I’ve never needed to, sir.” He was almost pouting.

Vipurro guffawed, scars and wrinkles disappearing in a burst of laughter. He was made younger for a short while.

“Alright, alright! I remember.” The lieutenant’s voice resounded in the polluted air. “Promised you a ’Mech of your own if you could take down a lance of ’Mechs on foot, damnitall if I thought you’d be stupid enough to try!” Irritation boiled beneath the surface. “The way the whole Sphere’s been turnin’ we’re not gonna be competetive for long without one…”

“So,” Vipurro thundered, flashing a signal to his comms trooper then waved back at the broken warmachine, “what about that one? Its big and fat enough—” A roaring recovery vehicle drowned out the rest of the officer’s words. The techs were settling down, finally, securing holes and inspecting the ammo inside. It’d be hell to lift that much tonnage on a flatbed, even one designed for it. But for the pay they certainly meant to try.

The pair moved off, closer to a matte-black APC its treads ashen white with dust. On its side a pale white ‘V’ was its only outward ostentation. The slithering head and tongue seemed knowing.

“I think we can trade it in for something else sir. A lot more somethings.”

“Oh what? Not your type is she? Pah!” The lieutenant gazed back, longingly thoughtful. “One of them new Maulers right? Damned if I know what the hell that piece o’ newtech’s doing in this rathole of a dirtball of a—”

“Actually, sir,” he interrupted, “it’s real designation is Daboku and it’s not that new anymore, sir.” A remembered thudding echo. It passed. “Davions swiped a stash a few years back and the Dracs,” not hesitating, “never tried to take them back, sir.”

He flashed a wider grin, his true unease shielded. “Not the most reliable of mounts, sir. That’s why the DCMS mothballed them and laughed their asses off when the Davions stole batches of them. Didn’t take them long to figure out why and decided that even priff border militias could put them to some use.”

“Think they were grateful?”

He glanced back at the 90-ton monster, oiled chains slinking around its limbs. “I wouldn’t be, sir.”

Inside the APC it was cool and far less hectic. The keen ringing in his ears was winding down. “So you’re saying you got lucky,” enjoying the mild squaring of the younger man’s shoulders as they sat down, “or that you’re just picky?”

Gulping down an offered sweating water bottle from the commboy, he waited and looked pensive.

“Both, sir.”

They laughed, him joining in reluctantly before the stress was whittled out by the senior officer’s rattling howl. Vipurro knew it was time.

“Tell me what happened to Dutch.”

Without blinking. “The Daboku—Mauler—had friends screening ahead and behind it. Didn’t catch the ones behind it.” He drank. “The sharpshooters were keeping the forward guys’ heads’ down. The rest of us were charging up that ’Mech’s legs, ‘till fire from the rear took us.”

Vipurro leaned back in his chair, cool eyes almost bored.

“The leg charges blew, crashing the ’Mech forwards to a restaurant. Those of us still on our feet rushed to its head from its back, but it got up damned fast. Rifle fire picked the others off. Heard the sergeant call out in pain.” He stopped, breathing out. “That was when I heared our commboy call in the birds—but with the twin pair of Smoothie-2s in that thing’s ugly chest they just got swat outta the sky.”

“As if they’d have made a difference anyhow.”

The lieutenant said nothing, barely breathing under the dutiful hum of the air conditioner.

He flexed his gloved hands. “Had these. Climbers with magnetic grips so I clung on well. For a bit it ran wild through buildings, killing stuff. I guess that was our friends with the tanks.” He sighed. “It broke through and slowed down enough for me to get up. Stuck the charge on the access door, rapelled down, and blew it before it got out of range.”

“Good.” He nodded for his commboy to go away. “Now. Tell me what happened to Dutch.”

Now

Light betrayed her.

She glowed under its touch, pale and taunted, keeping to clutches of dark as she agreed to. Quietly, silently. Disliking it for the frustration of stillness rather than the pangs of hungered action.

To her, Lyran born and bred, subtlety lay in the manner of dealing thunderous assaults. The minute configurations, how the supplies were laid, target priorities--a means of unleashing a well-trained beast. A coordinated calamity.

Thinking of him as her steed's aching metal reached her ears she could've sworn that the white echelon sewn into his shoulder, its hiding patch torn away in the melee, had the face of a snake set on it. Creeping, tasting, and hunting.

He certainly had the eyes of one; uncaring and focused. A Snake's snake? No, that wasn't right. The ancient floorboard creaked, wailing in quiet sympathy as the rattling hauler fastened tight the fallen giant. She gripped a girder, sniffing the aroma of faded metal and ash. It stuck to her dark, wet hands.

It brought her back to the pact she had made on the brink of death, a bargain with a devil if there ever was one. The crisp despair of a failed escape, the swirl of heat, sweat, and fear. The promise of release...That silken shadow could've ended her life with a flick and kept near-pristine salvage. She was wrong, she realized.

He was a Snake--alright--inside a different snake's skin. Devoured but not consumed.

If only they knew.

Cascades of dead dust poured from above. Below, fallen debris rushed upward, as if greeting relatives long lost. The walls quivered, crying perhaps for joy of the reunion. Around, the dead city raised a cheer of creaking metal and loose wind.

But behind her... behind her a dead man shuffled as if rousing from a deep dream. His head nodded forward. Agreeing.

Yes. If only they knew.