Everyone dies alone

"The world has gone to shit and its still so beautiful up there"

Silk laid her head on his shoulder, ear to ear laying opposite directions in the sand. In the distance she heard shouting. Just moments ago Dandy had called her over and beckoned her into the private rendezvous. With one hand on her weapon, she heard him talking,

"You can still see the oldcestor satellites sometimes."

"Some people say they live up there, in the sky"

They fell silent, and she heard his voice in her ear,

"This disease, it's going to take me at the bells if I don't do something-- and I won't have that. Other people dying have drowned in their own fluids."

Silk laid silently, waiting for what was next. She wasn't an idiot, but she let him talk.

"That's why I called the meeting. I am going to die on my own terms."

"What's the point of that?"

"I don't want to be alone when I go, I want to be with family. I want to be with you."

"Everybody dies alone." As soon as the words left her mouth, they felt cruel, but she only received compassion as a response.

"I want you there. When I go in and when I come out. If I come out."

"You will. I'll be there"

"I may not... be myself"

She heard her words like an echo in her head. This man who she was laying under the stars with, she knew she didn't know him, and shouldn't trust him, and yet, she did. She put her lips on his neck as he continued to speak. He confessed to her, his truth and his life, and she promised to look for him, and never stop, no matter how the gravemind changed him.

They stared at the stars and she let the sand pass between her fingers, pressing her hand to the ground, certain that if she tried hard enough she could make glass, stop time, something. Why did she care? Mother had warned her against this, and she had always been shit at following directions.

He got up first, and they climbed out of the pit, walking back to kiva. She knew he was holding her hand but it felt numb.

"I am going to gather family, when I get enough I will find you."

"What is enough?"

"You."

He heard him speaking to people, telling them to meet him, but the words were hollow. At some point she felt her anger flare, and she disconnected from him and walked into Kiva, and walked up to Ayrian, "come to the meeting that Dandy is calling" Ayrian looked stunned and said he would try, and then the call came. It was a mess. Someone yelled that it was septics. Where was he? She saw Dandy run off into the darkness, and knew it was over, that his careful plan was shit. "Medics in the center!" She hunkered down with the medics by the fireplace in Kiva, and proceeded to do her job, until soon enough, there he was, brought and laid, dead in front of her.

She had never been so mad, she thought. No thats a lie. Never so mad since she came to Bravo. Outbursts of emotion were impolite, uncouth, and had she the impropriety she would have screamed at his lifeless body, hit him with her rage. Instead she simply quietly muttered "You idiot" over and over "you idiot you swore I would be there" as another doctor checked him out. The doctor confirmed he died by poison to her, and Silk knelt in absolute stunned silence and anger, tears welling in her eyes. Next to her, she heard a voice, "Do you have anything to write with?" It was Harper, and she handed her her inkpen. Harper took his arm and wrote something....Silk only caught a bit of it, but it was right.

She watched him sink into the floor, and wanted to go search for him, but knew it would be ages before he reappeared, and who knew when he would show up. She began to notify family, her sister, Rajah, who was distraught but then quickly distracted by something else, as she usually was, Ayrian, who was otherwise occupied, Max, who was off in his own world. As far as she could tell, no one cared but her that he was gone.

Running up the steps to Kiva Singer stopped her. Hoarse as always "He died saving me" her voice was a rusty squeak. "I would be gone if it weren't for him." Silk nodded numbly.

She knew he had his outs, she still trusted the doctors opinion, and liked Singer. He died stupidly, and she was angry. She would still wait for him, if only to say it to his face. He should have been in her arms when he went through with his foolhardy plan.

----

Still doctoring, throwing herself into her work, it was a flurry of death and blood. Silk was using Singers crash kit to save people as quickly as possible while Doc Bravo knitted limbs back together next to her.

She thought she heard a Valkyrie cry outside, and yelled again "bring the hurt to us!" Throwing herself into her work right now was the only thing she could do. Wrist deep in blood and glitter, shocking people to life, knitting them together and sending them back out was all she could do to distract herself from the situation at hand.

Out of the corner of her eye Whip came inside, a familiar figure slumped over his shoulders. Silk continued her work, no, if they needed help they would have been in front of her, live for the living. Miitheifs called her name, and motioned her over, and then she stopped everything.

It was Rue.

Silk began to try to save her, knowing it was futile.

"Shes gone" one of them said.

"I came out of the woods as soon as I heard her scream, but it was too late." Whips voice.

Tears welling. No. Vegasians don't cry. She sat with her, hand on her lifeless body, and wrapped her hand around her sword, thirsty, "You need this with you sister." Silence. Chaos reigned around her and she looked over to the medics, who were beginning to become overwhelmed without her.

"Sister, you can't hear me, but I need to live for the living." She looked at Whip, "Please stay with her?"

With that, she walked off and stitched people together until she couldn't anymore. The attack thinned, and she felt utterly, completely, alone.

----

She left early the next day, after searching all night, and getting knocked out by the Scarecrow and left in the woods by her family and friends she had had enough excitement. She still hadn't found Dandy, and would figure that out later. As she hopped the early caravan out of Bravo, she said goodbye to the settlement, and good riddance, at least for now.









"Please find me."