@walridiing
The end plays out just as she knew it would; blood rain and corpses piled high. The only discrepancy is Val's role in it. She’d been confident at first, prepared. Lynn slipping away had thrown the plan into disarray. Val was meant to be there for the birth. For the end. For the beginning. Would he understand that it was through no fault of her own?
Doubtful. There is no room for excuses when it comes down to the only thing that matters in the world. Failure is failure, whether it's through fault of her own or not.
When she finds herself in the quickly collapsing mines, she isn’t surprised. She braces herself for the consequence of her failure, for a death that doesn’t come and soon, she realizes, it’s morning. It's morning and she's alive, save for scrapes and bruises and a headache that won't stop. It's morning and she's more uncertain of her path in life, more fearful of the future, than she's been in a long time.
The light streams in through a crack in the rocks; she's near the surface, spared in a pocket of safety amongst rubble. As far as she can tell, the whole mine has collapsed save for the section she sits in. It's luck- Or a sign that something is looking out for her. Is this forgiveness? Or is she being kept alive for a punishment worse than death?
She knows she has to face it, either way. She knows that there's no turning back now, no giving up. She pushes boulders out of her path, cautiously, careful not to cause another avalanche, until she's able to crawl to the surface. It's eerily silent; she knows without searching that she's the only survivor.
But, then she sees it on the horizon; the inky blackness of swarming insects, nanites- of nightmares and pleasure both nearly incomprehensible. It's familiar. It's like coming home.
Tears well up in her eyes and the only reason she even notices is because of the way they make the dry mud, caked to her cheeks, turn back into a liquid. Hope swells in her chest. If this entity, this emotion, is here to punish her, she welcomes the exquisite agony that she knows only from her dreams.
She stumbles out of hiding, towards this swarm and it's host. She's never felt such joy and fear intermingling in her life. "You came for me..! I did everything you asked of me, everything for you, my love…"













