SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

—die.”

A prophecy, perhaps. Willow had been undeniably good at predicting things lately. It could have been useful. But she was too busy. Busy with Sierra and busy with Katrina and then busy with everyone else that had strewn their guts and their minds around her. She could have done something else other than squirming, trying to wrangle whatever control she could get.

But the shells from the sawn-off shotgun had ensured otherwise. It clipped at her head and her neck, effectively destroying any chances of her continuing, and finishing, whatever she had planned to do with the handful of seconds left to her life.

Her last breath had been a violent one. She hacked and she choked and she coughed on her phlegm and her blood. It wasn’t romantic.

The shells that had ripped her skin and reaped her soul had spread whatever she had left in her mouth and in her skull across the room. The blood spurred, backward and unto the nearby camera, tainting the last moment of the now officially broken.

In a way, Willow was glad of the privacy because as the feed disconnected, and as the world came back from the madness and the pain, she had found somewhere peaceful.

Somewhere quiet.

Somewhere private.

Somewhere—

Finally, Willow understood she was only data in the Bluetooth and coding in the wavelengths.

Immortality, at last.

Thump.

A couple of final choked, gargling breaths.

Silence.

just the ringing in her ears.

The drip, drip, drip of her blood.

Snatches of air, panting and desperate.

Garnet set the gun down.

She'd seen the spray. She'd seen how Willow fell. No more tricks. No more, no more...

Anyone. No more anyone.

She rolled onto her side, the one without the glass and with the achilles. Piece by piece, she pulled herself along, scraping across the floor til she got hold of the flashlight.

Shone the light on Willow. Saw what she had to see.

Took a couple sweeps of the light, but turned out her hat was just a short distance from her.

Garnet held it to her chest.

Fell onto her back. Breathed.

Kept her eyes open, til she was lifted onto a stretcher and carried away.

Away from it all.