CONTINUED from @multiverse-of-love
Ciara doesn’t even react as the other skeleton poses the question, eyes seemingly fixed at the wall behind him. How long had she been here now? It didn’t matter. “Ha,” her eyes tear up again despite having finally just stopped an hour before, “I-I don’t know. I ran, mostly.” She seems to curl into herself, pulling her legs up to her chest. “I know I fought if I had to and used my healing magic when I could.....” She couldn’t even bare to see his face right now, if she was being honest. Her body shook and her mouth quivered as she shut her eyes. “I almost wish I hadn’t.”
She takes a few deep breathes in and out methodically, trying to steady her voice, her breathing, her grip on reality.
Wish you hadn’t, either. The words itched at the tip of his tongue, hung over them like the blade of a guillotine ready to cut off their heads at any second. Yet, they remained unspoken and as if to physically wipe himself clean of his thoughts, he stroked down his hoodie in an attempt to straighten the fabric, that already hung heavily enough on his weary shoulders.
“ah”, he then said, his voice hoarse, “i see.”
“y’know”, he added after a pause, as he sat down next to her, eye lights studying the poor, frightened skeleton, he now considered to be the only family he had left in this world, “i, uh, probably’d done the same if i had healin’ powers.” He gave Ciara the most sincere smile he could muster. “so, uh, don’t blame ya self, ok, sis? you’ve done all you could.”
She had; he hadn’t. But the truth was going to do more harm than good, he knew, always had known; and thus, he simply patted her head, before he asked: “say, didja see anyone else outside the lab? king fluffy buns maybe?”
Fingers crossed, he hoped, he wished, that the anomaly had given up after all; that they weren’t alone in this god-forsaken underground prison.
