God in Fire

[Espi]

((Gwen O'Connor's story continues from Cantata Mortis))

Gwen was confused.

She'd been awoken shortly before dawn, and decided to get a move on and head to the hotel. She wanted to find Maynard, and she figured searching around the area she saw him last would be the logical location for him. Of course, she'd been traveling a lot in just the past day so there was no guarantee he'd be anywhere nearby. Still, she had no better leads, so why not keep up the current goal?

Of course, nothing was ever going to go right for her it seemed; she was approaching what appeared to be a fairly large hotel. It looked pretty, despite being abandoned for god-knows-how-long, and it probably was a good place to rest, but it wasn't the hospital.

Either way, she entered with some caution. Maynard might be in here taking shelter, right? It made sense, and it was totally possible that people would seek out a hotel to stay at on the island, right?

Alas, for Gwen, she was far, far too right. The second she entered the building something was terribly wrong. The scent was pungent and sickening, and all-too-familiar. She pushed forward, into the lobby itself, and discovered horror.

Blood and gore splattered the walls and floor like crimson dappled sunlight.

Crumpled corpses, charred and blown to bits, were strewn across the floor like broken dolls.

The stench of rot and ruin filled the room.

Gwen stared for several seconds, maybe 10 or 15. Then she fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands and screamed loudly over and over in terror and disgust and hopelessness and sorrow and mourning and loss and loneliness.

She took a deep breath several minutes later, and looked up, blinking away tears and wiping snot from her nose. Then of all things she heard the announcements start.

It took a while after that for her to recover. She was broken, sobbing again because Michelle really was dead and you know what? So were over a dozen other people, from the killer Theodore Fletcher to Sara Corlett, who was as sweet and meek as they came. Did any of them really deserve this?

Not really, but just because you don't deserve to die doesn't mean you'll like it seemed. Gwen staggered bleakly away from the bloodbath building.

((Gwen O'Connor's story continues in Last Goodbyes))