SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Panic.

He had caught her.

She felt his grip on her arm, the one with the spear. Her other hand fumbled for the glass shard. Kimiko didn't know what Cristóbal was going to do to her. In that moment her mind raced through all the things he could have done.

The panic overwhelmed her and she turned with the glass shard held tightly as if she was going to punch it with it. It plunged it into his flesh and Kimiko felt it puncture and pierce his skin, just below his ribs.

She saw his blood. It spilled out onto her hand and she yanked it back as if shocked by an electrical current. The glass shard still held tightly, her knuckles a bright white in contrast to the red.

His grip loosened, she pulled her arm free and without sparing a look back she ran for the door and out of the warehouse.

((Kimiko Kao continued Room of Relaxation))

Kimiko was strong, but she was smaller than him. Cristo ought to be able to stop her, to talk her down, to do something that wasn't completely useless, but no words came in time.

Maybe that was irony, in a way.

For a second, Cristóbal thought that Kimiko had just hit him. He tried to recoil from the impact, tried to breathe in, and the glass caught him inside, a stinging embedded in his chest. As Kimiko wrenched out of his grip and dashed off, Cristo's brain refused to catch up, still trying to draw in breath even as he felt the dampness spreading in a patch on his shirt.

Cristo stumbled a few more steps in Kimiko's direction before the pain really hit him and he tried to gasp and the gasp became a deep, shuddering cough that sent blood welling up his throat. He spat instinctively and looked uncomprehendingly at the dark red splatter on the warehouse floor.

Kimiko had stabbed him, he realized, in the same not-breath that he realized that he couldn't breathe in anymore without tasting blood.

With a strangled gagging noise, Cristóbal fell.

It was wrong.

It was all wrong.

They were supposed to be safe now. They were all good people, they could figure this out and help each other. The rest of this place, the rest of their classmates, that was all clear as mud, but right here? This was supposed to be okay.

People could be terrible, but she'd been awake...minutes. Just minutes. Nobody would go to the dark places they'd seen on screen in minutes. She couldn't believe that. Yet despite her paralyzed disbelief, Kimiko hadn't stayed with them. Abby wanted to stop her as she moved towards the spear, either by just saying something or physically getting in her way. But instead, it was her turn to stand frozen as Cristo stepped up to try and control the situation.

And he got stabbed in the gut instead of her.

The blur of panic overtook her as soon as he fell. She ran to him and fell collapsed to the floor to look his injuries over. If what was stumbling out of her mouth was intelligible, it wasn't on purpose. She didn't have the thoughts to rub together and make anything sensible at. All she had was raw, animalistic desperation that only coalesced into speech as it became clear that there was nothing she could do. "Cris," she gagged, "oh Lord please, Cris, I, I..."

She had nothing. There was no way to make this better. It wasn't even clear if he could still hear her. If he could still be called alive. He wouldn't be for long.

Cristóbal knew he couldn't breathe but he kept trying to anyway, kept tasting blood, kept gasping and trying to just get enough air to say something so Abby would stop crying. He'd never wanted her to cry.

His thoughts were a jumble. Images of his mother, his grandparents, Dominic, Abby's family, the baseball team. All the people he'd tried not to let down.

At least he could say he'd tried.

Cristo's vision was going gray and fuzzy, and he tried to turn himself so that he could see Abby's face before it failed him completely. It was hard to focus on her, even this close. Maybe he was crying too.

He reached over with one shaky hand and let it rest on top of Abby's. He told himself it was good enough, even though she wasn't smiling and joyful like he wanted to remember her. He wanted to tell her that it would be okay to smile again, after this.

Maybe that was irony too, that this was what it took to think of everything he wanted to say.

If he'd had time, he could have written it all out, told her to forgive Kimiko for being scared and lashing out, told Abby that he loved her and he was fine with whatever way she loved him back, told her that she needed to live so she could take some words back to his family for him.

Cristóbal didn't have time. All he had was his last fading look at Abby's face.

By the time his vision went completely black, he'd nearly convinced himself that it was enough.

B021 CRISTÓBAL MORALES: DECEASED

He touched her, and she completely lost it. She thought she was already in a panic, but the weakness of his hand, the way he shook and faded out atop her hand...it broke something in her. At first she could only stare down in horror, until she realized that he wasn't looking at her anymore. His eyes were glassy and empty. He was gone.

She couldn't accept that.

The sobbing picked up as she threw herself on his lifeless body, cradling him up to cry into his chest. There had to be something she could do to save him, all she ever wanted to do was save people, but..."Cris, please," she whimpered softly into his chest. "Don't go...God, don't leave me here, please..."

She had nothing. Not even a prayer. She'd never believed that it worked that way. All she could do was hold him, and cry until she didn't have any tears left. She didn't remember letting go, or getting up, or leaving. By the time she was aware that she'd walked away, his blood on her clothes and their belongings far behind, her mind was barely functional. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to do.

She only had one purpose left here.

((Abby Floyd Concluded in Love Wins))