Blood
By Katianna
It's funny how you don't notice how much it hurts until you see the blood...
"Shalimar, we have to go. The building's coming down around our ears, the reactor's going to blow!" Emma looked around, spotting Shalimar pulling herself off the floor. "Are you OK?"
"Go, I'm right behind you." Emma spins and follows the others out to the double helix. She trusts Shalimar, she knows what she's doing. She doesn't look back. Shalimar takes a step, followed by another. Then she falls, wondering how forward had become down as she examines the ground for a moment. 'Just a little loss of balance' she tells herself. 'I'm just a little dizzy.' But balance is as much part of her as the fight, the hunt, the predator.
Blood is such a fickle thing. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow. Sometimes you wait for it as you dig your fingernails into your palms and wonder why it doesn't come.
The blood is black on her fingertips in the half-light caused by the movement of the building around her, making her doubt its reality. It's tacky on her fingers and she wonders who's it is. The man felled to one side of her was downed cleanly, as the one laying behind her. She had almost missed him, in warning Brennan of his own impending danger, but he lay still and unconscious on the ground now, unmoving.
But his hand, why did his hand bleed? She hadn't touched him there. Her hand unconsciously brushed at her back again as she felt something drip on her. She felt the fog descend. The pain in her back became something solid, ramming into her. Her breathing is suddenly hard and choking. She coughed for a moment, hand over her mouth, dropping back to her knees from her feet that she had regained. Her hand was red - when had that happened? She coughed a little more and saw the redness spread.
Have you ever seen a reflection turn the wrong way? The mind dismisses it so quickly, it is impossible of course, but for that moment you watch as your reversed figure walks out of the wrong side of the mirror, stained with your own blood, and watches you for a moment, tut-tuting quietly before following your own actions once more.
She felt the pain now, the fire in her back which consumed her. Every breath a choking liquid agony. She cried out and fell from her knees.
"Where's Shalimar?"
"She said she would be right behind me..." They watched, all three, as an explosion rocked the building, shaking the floor beneath their feet. Fire plumed, smoke poured. The building fell, brick by brick, sending smoke and dust and rubble out into the street at their feet. "She said she would be right behind me..." Too late.
***
Again, sorry for the deathfic. Written way too late at night (or should that be in the morning) during another bout of insomnia. Someone said to me the other day, "You know, I think the exams are getting to you..." *Ya think?* Plz R&R.
