2

Give him.

Give him back.

Give him back to me.


I'm running. On the rooftops of the decimated city. I'm no longer wearing my dress. I'm wearing my uniform. But my feet are still bare, bootless, vulnerable and bloodied. My scarf is still wrapped securely around my neck, billowing and as red as the trail of blood I leave on the rooftops as I run. Jump from one to another, feel the cracking in my knees but keep running. There is something in the air. I don't know what it is, and I can't see it, and if I reach out I can't grab it. But I feel it pelting me as I run. On every inch of skin, through my clothes, pelting me. Slow me down, like wind with claws scratching at my face. I can hear the wind, too. It whistles in my ear so loudly that I feel pain in my mind. But I can't stop. I just keep running.

There is a sound in the back of my head that's making me run.

Keep running.

It's the sound of footfalls. Heavy, dramatic, deliberate footfalls. Not the kind you would hear from someone meandering, someone lost, someone wandering these deserted streets. The kind of someone walking to a goal, reaching out to grab it and stepping forward, forward, forward toward it. One footfall after another, rhythmic and monotonous. Boom boom boom. I look around to see if anybody else can hear it, but there is nobody else. I see nobody. Only deserted, crumbling rooftops, upon which I run. Even as the debris pushes up into my skin, from the soles of my feet and between my toes. Even as my knees grow weaker, and I open my mouth to breathe but feel the invisible wind scratch my teeth.

I jump from one rooftop, but I am tired. I slip. I flail in the air, try to use my maneuvering device. It latches onto the gutter of the house and swings me forward, but I collide with the corner of the roof, square in the stomach. I grasp for the bricks of the roof and feel blood beneath my fingernails, coughing and coughing and coughing because my stomach has nearly been sliced in half. My legs dangle and flail, weak. Like a fish out of water. But I claw, claw until I feel the rawness of my fingers, and then I am up on the roof. Panting, trying to find my breath. My body is crippling. But I can't stop now. I have to keep running.

Run.

The footfalls are getting louder.

Run!

I jump onto one more roof and now the footfalls are right there.

RUN!

A monster, rearing its ugly head and baring its square teeth. It is smiling. I cry out to it but it ignores me, doesn't hear me. My voice disappeared long ago. It is walking, walking toward another house. Its hand reaches out to grab him, lying bloodied and immobile on that roof. But his blue (or green?) eyes are wide open in terror. I cry out again, only for the wind to steal my words. The monster's hand grabs him. I get out my blades and run to attack, because I know that I can save him. I'm so much stronger than that monster is. Stronger than he is, too. But when I jump, I have no energy. My maneuvering device doesn't work. I fall, slowly, can see my scarf billowing above me. The monster opens its mouth and places him on its tongue. I keep falling silently and it closes its mouth and I say, Give him back to me.


Give him.

Give him back.

Give him back to me.


I open my eyes. And I realize that my dream wasn't a dream, but a single moment. I am standing on a roof in the same decimated city as that my dreams, in my uniform, with my red scarf wrapped securely around my neck. But I am wearing shoes. And when I tap my maneuvering device, it is working. I hear someone say my name and glance over, but I say nothing. I keep my mouth closed and straight, my eyes dark, my heart heavy. I am standing in the city that has destroyed everything for me, fighting back every terrible emotion that I have ever felt. He says my name and then he says, Look.

I look out from the rooftop and see a monster, bigger than the rest. The little ones have attacked it. And I have watched because there is nothing else to be done. Watched as my heart breaks, moment after my moment and I think in my head, Give him back to me. But I look, just as he told me to. The giant monster lets out a roar, so loud it makes the houses quake, and it falls. Everything shakes and I reach out my arms to steady myself, though I can't see why. There is no why anymore. There is no answer—there is no question to be answered. I don't know why I steadied myself. Why I didn't just let myself fall. As that monster did.

The monster begins to smoke and he says again, Look!

I look but only because there is no reason not to. There is no reason for anything anymore, so I look. My body and mind and soul drained. The monster smokes and disintegrates, like a cigarette. I can hear it hissing in the air. Like the wind of my dream, hissing in my ears and making my brain bleed. But as the smoke clears and the body melts, I spot something there in the debris. Look, look! Hey, look!

A body. A human body. The muscles of the monster weaken and the person inside sits up, surrounded by the smoke and the light and looking more like an angel than anything I have ever seen. Face upturned, eyes closed, sacrificial and beautiful.

I scream his name and jump into the air, activating my maneuvering device. I hear someone else calling mine, telling me not to, but I ignore him. I just go down there, swinging and swinging until I am there in the corpse of that monster and he is right there in front of me. I scream his name again and feel tears on my eyes. I put my hands on his shoulders and bring him down to face me. Eyes still closed—so I can't see if they are blue or green today. My heart stops, my stomach stops, my blood stops. Everything stops and I open my mouth to speak, but I croak. I can say nothing. I wrap my arms around him and press my cheek to his chest and I open my mouth and a sob comes out. Because I can hear a heartbeat, loud and clear against my ear.

I squeeze harder and can just barely feel his breath on the top of my head. The tears flow harder, like rivers from my wide and bloodshot eyes. There we are, surrounded by the smoke in the body of a disintegrating monster. I try to say his name again but only sob. I can feel something again. I can feel why I steadied myself, can ask questions that need answers, can feel a purpose and a reason for every move I make. I sit and cry and I hug him and I think You almost died You almost left me I almost lost everything.

I bury my face in his chest and let the tears fall.

Remember him saying, I don't need protection.

And then, Where you go I go.

A cruel world, Mother. But a beautiful world.


My favorite scene of the entire show WOW THE FEELS