Pale Rider

[Dogs231]

Noah frowned, a bitter taste welling up inside his mouth; deep down, a part of him wanted this to end peacefully, even if he now understood that such a thing was impossible. His memories of the erstwhile friendship they once shared still lingered in his mind, painful as they felt.

He stared at Raymond's melting visage and watched a deranged grin grow over his face, even as his wild eyes searched for their escape. Noah could feel the yawning hole grow deeper in his heart; as far as he was concerned, the Raymond he knew was gone already.

Noah tried to tell himself that it would be okay. It wasn't an imminent execution, he rationalized to himself, but rather a form of euthanasia; it would be over soon, and then Raymond could rest and suffer no more.

The thought didn't comfort him. As much as he tried to tell himself that it was the right thing to do, there was an innate part of himself that revolted against the idea. His hands trembled as the strain inside his body fought to the surface.

For just a moment, Noah hesitated.

[carduinal-cyn]

Why wasn't Noah firing?

Wasn't he convinced he was looking at an evil, homicidal blob monster yet? Was he still holding on to some fleeting hope of friendship? Or was he simply failing to find his nerve in the face of it all? Raymond couldn't understand. He'd made it so easy. Anyone in their right mind would have done it, seeing him in the bare, dishevelled state he was in. They might have even considered it merciful, if the self-absorbed prats at Duniway High School bothered to let him explain for more than five seconds. (Never mind the fact that he'd just torn through his best friend's chest and still wanted to throw a pity party.)

Then again... Easy pickings.

Ray's neck twisted around on itself like Silly Putty, and his eyes flickered with malice.

Something clammy and hot coiled itself around Noah's wrist.

[Dogs231]

Noah found himself lost in his thoughts; justifications and doubts swirled in his mind, intermingled, as the whole world seemed to enter a state of slow motion. He closed his eyes for just a moment and steeled himself. He would do it, he told himself; with just a single upward flick of his thumb, Raymond would find himself at rest.

It was then that a sudden force pulled him back to Earth. Raymond's burning, candle-wax skin wrapped around his wrist like a shackle, and Noah's feet fell out from under him. The ground rocketed towards him, his whole body swaying forward like a felled tree.

His eyes widened in horror, and his thumb, almost unconsciously, jerked upward. A shot fired off, but it was too late; Raymond's head was no longer in focus, and the bullet embedded itself in the other boy's shoulder. Noah heard the shot, the scream, then the sirens; through the hole in Raymond's shoulder, he watched memories repeat.

The other boy's eyes widened, an inferno within, and he bared his fangs as any wild animal would. Noah saw the swipe before he felt it; before it rent his skin and clothes as if they were nothing more than sheets of paper. Blood mixed with blood, dry, wet, wet; for just a moment, the blood of Sayuna, Noah, and Raymond all coalesced.

The chains around his wrist then slipped away and set Noah free; he fell, end over end, and plunged towards the ground, where his head landed with a crack against a rock below. The blood poured freely from the gash in his chest and saturated the arid land beneath; the sand absorbed it as if it were nothing more than rainfall.

Noah, his heart still beating, dearly clung to life.

[almostinhuman]

((Austin Greene continued from A Protest Against Despair))

A body lay nearby, in sand painted brown-red with blood pouring from a gaping wound in its chest. Its clothes and hair, too, were dyed the same color as the blood pooled around it. It didn't stir. If it wasn't for the bloody ruin of its chest, it could almost appear to be merely sleeping. It seemed to have no awareness of what had happened to it, or what was happening to its friend, or what its "friend" had done.

Its breathing quietly slowed before eventually coming to a stop.

S005 AUSTIN GREENE - DECEASED

. . .

[carduinal-cyn]

What happened was a natural consequence of a body that could melt and deform at will: the inner workings of Raymond LaSalle were far closer to worms, tongues, and elephant tongues than a human skeleton. His shoulder burst open like a balloon. Pain ripped through him. Blood trickled out from the wound faster than any normal man could bleed. He let out a primeval roar, half-rage, half-agony. Instinctively, the whole structure of his shoulder recoiled from the site of the injury, and he lashed out. A partially melted, bleeding claw sliced into Noah's chest, and the shooter fell against the rocks.

Austin's body was still. Noah's body was still breathing.

Raymond stood there for a moment, clutching the bullet hole and panting. He knew Noah had it in him. He just knew. Push someone to the brink, and they'll show you what they really are. No one trusted Ray, all because of one idiot with a petty grudge over an accident.

Well, that ends today.

"You know, we could have stayed friends," Ray hissed, as if he were trying to reassure himself. "But you just had to... to turn him. I know you did. He wasn't there, and of course you wouldn't tell him the truth. You shot me. You hate me."

"Oh, here comes Ray, the big, fat geek, his gift's disgusting and I heard he hit someone when he was in sixth grade. Can't talk to him! No way!" he sneered. His voice affected the duhs of the average Duniway High School student, and it dripped with contempt for everyone and everything. His eyes were distant, as though he were giving an angry sermon to a throng of bewitched churchgoers.

"Austin understood what that was like. And Sayuna, the new girl, didn't know anything about the bad years, she liked all three of us anyway, or—or at least she pretended she did, and now she's gone, because you fucking tripped her, you idiot...! Had a better shot with her than I ever did with Lily, and now you go around telling my best friend I'm a murderer when you can't even admit this whole thing was your fault?!"

Raymond's skin fizzed like a freshly opened bottle of soda. Step by step he walked closer, a trail of blood trickling from the hole in his shoulder. He wore a sickening rictus grin.

"Well, congratulations, Noah. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy, am I right? Call a man a killer enough times, and sooner or later, he's gonna end up following through!"

The deed was done.

[Dogs231]

Noah stared out across his surroundings; Sayuna's grave by the large shrub, the little cross, the still corpse of Austin, and the endless horizon in the distance. He still wore his hat, but it had been pushed rearward in the fall and now resided insecurely towards the back of his head.

The pain resonated in his temple and came and went with a rhythm; it was like a sickening song, beating mercilessly at his skull. Everything was hazy, the world a disorienting blur; his eyes focused and unfocused, but he found no clarity in his vision.

A crimson ocean pooled below him, essence streaming from the yawning wound in his chest. He kept breathing, but with every rise and fall of his chest, he lost more and more oxygen. The injury, he knew, was fatal; he was losing too much blood, and his body weakened by the second. Noah's hope was gone; it disappeared into the same void in his heart where his dead friends resided.

He craned his head up at the dark shape above him; his former friend, no, it was his murderer; Raymond loomed over him, the perfect picture of a reaper. Even though the mud and ambiguity, Noah could piece together the garbled bits and pieces of a brimstone-filled condemnation.

The voice bounced around and echoed in his dying ears, dripping with deceit and delusion. All of the kindness he'd shown over the years, every honest word he'd ever said, his very humanity; all of it cast aside, discarded as if it were little more than refuse.

For the first time in his life, Noah truly hated Raymond. Every cell in his body burned with a blinding, searing rage that consumed him like kindling in a fireplace. Despite it all, though—the hate, anger, betrayal—Noah said nothing; every word was wasted oxygen, wasted energy, so he merely gritted his teeth.

He tried to move.

His legs no longer functioned, and his arms were rigid as iron; his body locked down like a jail cell, his consciousness imprisoned in his useless, failing flesh. His hands reached forward; his fingers, with their cracked, bloody nails and bruised, blue tips, desperately clawed for purchase. They found no hold; instead, they scraped lifelessly against the soil and stone, with little more result than lines in the sand.

He tried to breathe.

Each breath grew shallower, each rise weaker, each fall greater, as his body collapsed around him. His chest burned, and Noah felt as though he was drowning in the air; with every gasp, the oxygen seemed to evade him, as though it was just outside of his reach. The anger subsided and morphed into a panic; his desperation and fear increased with every failed attempt at respiration.

He tried to survive.

He strained to keep his eyes open, but they shut against his will and confined him to a dwindling blackness. He was scared; he was frightened by the end that he now faced and terrified of what may lay ahead in the Great Beyond.

Noah didn't want to die yet.

There was still so much he wanted to do with his fading life. There were still so many promises he'd made to himself, so many burdens weighing on his shoulders, so many self-set tasks that he'd never had the chance to finish.

He wanted to protect the others, lead their charge, and guide them back to safety, even if it took every last bit and piece of him. He wanted to avenge the people he'd lost, to make the captors pay for what they'd done. He wanted to be a hero, to mean something to someone, anyone.

He wanted to see the flower August had made out of his bullet casings one last time, play one last song with Austin, just like they'd always done at practice, confess to Sayuna, undo the fact he'd never done it when she was still here.

He wanted to see everyone again, just like everything had once been.

He wanted to see his dad, his dog, and his home.

He wanted to see one last sunrise, one last sunset.

Noah tried, he tried, he tried.

He tried so, so hard.

S015: NOAH DAVIS — DECEASED
18 STUDENTS REMAIN

[carduinal-cyn]

In the aftermath, Raymond sat there, naked, hyperventilating, between the bodies.

No one was left. Not Sayuna, not Noah, not even Austin. None of them had been trustworthy. Snakes. Enemies in waiting. They'd gotten their just deserts in the end, of course, he told himself, because that was the only way his mind could rationalize the sheer magnitude of what he'd done.

A deep, primal fear resonated through him, down to the tiniest flap of muscle.

Now, everyone will know.

How many kills had the others gotten? Surely this would be the one to put him on the map, the price on his head. He could call himself a serial murderer now. He'd graduated top of his class in Duniway High School's new death program.

They'll come for me.

Sayuna's mass grave and the man who'd built it vanished into the shadows of the night.

((Raymond LaSalle continued in Burnt Light.))