Chord II

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Over Area number XVII, the moon quivers under pale eyelashes.

He lies in a muddy puddle, wet silt soaking the back of his shirt, numbing his head. Back in the day, would this be considered stargazing? He scoffs at the weak flickering dots that look like they've lingered too long in that thick black sky. Some wickedness dulls their white eyes. His body aches.

It would've pitied itself now, the moon he seems to recall from dreams he never had. It would've scorned the dirty silver shell that hangs crooked, bearing no trace of its former wonder. He closes his eyes, the darkness under his lids preferable to the tattered heavens.

Electricity runs unused through the snapped and fraying wires over his head, their sputtering suiting the dying stars.

"Beautiful," he murmurs. "Even when they're dying." Sinking lower, he feels the cold water seep into the hatch work of his skin.

She leans against the single cherry tree, out of bloom, in the hilltop schoolyard. The season is almost over; it hasn't been celebrated for years. Her mouth is set in a glazed line. "I don't think so."

"I know." He is silent for some time, but not out of lack for words. "Do you still like chrysanthemums?"

She crosses her arms. "I don't want them."

"There might still be some around."

"I don't want them."

He doesn't persist further. "You're bleeding," he says instead, opening his eyes lazily in her direction.

"Leave it." Her chin is lifted to the ragged limbs of sakura, her focus intent on the scraps of sky caught in its branches. A hollow plane, void of fire and smoke, void of the flames she seems to recall from dreams. Dreams she isn't quite sure she ever had.

"Should we go?" There is neither fervor nor fear in his voice.

"Perhaps."

"They're coming."

"Who knows when?" Her words come out in a soft breath, condensing instantly into the frigid air. She hugs a thin white jacket to her body, one she used to wear out on morning runs.

Their gazes connect for the slightest of seconds.

Are you afraid?

She bows her head and he eyes her gossamer complexion through her loose falling hair. She's never liked his steely raven gaze. He knows despite her never saying.

"I wonder if we'll have nightmares tonight." He smiles almost amused to himself, amused at his pain.

"We will."

Are you afraid?

Her knees slip out beneath her as she comes to sit on the ground. "We will, like we always will."

"Do you want to go inside?"

The school's broken windows eye them like empty eye sockets.

"No… Never again." For at her back, in the collapsed halls somewhere… She clenches a fist.

Façade never betraying or portraying emotion, he doesn't object.

She tilts her attention towards the wrecked classrooms behind her. It is the sound of glass being ground over concrete that attracts her attention, the sound of a poor soul dragging their body towards the dimming light, disfigured, wrong bones jutting out of the wrong places. The fingers are first, clutching at the window ledge on the topmost floor. Someone is still in there. She frowns. They should have died quickly and effortlessly when they had the chance. A whimper escapes, the throaty sound of a dying animal. The fingers tremble as an elbow heaves over the edge. She watches out of the side of her vision, finds she cannot bring herself to summon any spark of warmth, of care. This disconcerts her; she does not like this expanding darkness.

"It wants to die doesn't it?" Her jaw is taut.

"If they wanted to, they would have done so already." He bears no interest.

"No one wants to," she murmurs. "Not the first time."

Another arm follows, not seeming to have enough strength, hanging limp over the side of the wall. Her palms are cold and dry.

"It could've let itself rot in there."

A head appears next, then more whimpers and a slow distant thudding, mimicking each and every pulse of her heart. It cannot stand, she realizes, cannot push itself over, doesn't even have enough energy left to take its own life. Or rather—is it that it doesn't have enough energy to escape death, escape perishing in that hole of bodies? She turns a thought over and over again in her head. Does she know that creature? Has she memories of holding those desperate hands? Why is that near death people seem to be replaced by mere molds of themselves? She's seen them, the glassy eyes and pale clay faces.

"Are you pitying it?"

"No." Her eyes center on him again.

He sits up, rainwater dripping from his silvery hair. "I see."

She wonders if that strange shade runs in his family, along with those raven eyes, that wispy voice. She pulls her knees to her chest, half scoffing. Even he doesn't know that himself.

Neither spares a blink minutes later at the sickening crunch of a body on ground. "It went and did it," she mumbles eventually.

"Are you satisfied?"

"Wouldn't have mattered either way." Yet still she cannot help but feel she's held those hands before.

"That so?" Rising to his feet, hands in his pockets, he stands loose-limbed, shadows flitting over his profile.

Her eyes follow his into the distance, into the peaks and woods, out beyond the town. "What do you see?"

He doesn't move. "Who knows?"

If one remains still for long enough, can they just disappear, undetected by all senses? She stares hard at his static silhouette. He will always be in her sight, even if she isn't looking. That is how they've lived until now and she is confident that is how they will die.

"They're coming," he repeats.