"Just hang on, okay?"
Locke couldn't have been sure if she could even hear him anymore, but he pressed on anyway. Her wounds had already begun to stop bleeding, with her face starting to take on a pallid shade of gray. The infection was spreading quickly, and Locke fought to stay ahead of it, trudging tirelessly across stairs, vestibules, and even the ruination that had once been the main audience chamber of Figaro. The north wing was much the same as it had been when last he had seen it: ungarnished stone walls, no tapestries on the window, a simple wooden futon shoved back into the far corner of the room. Locke was taken aback from the irony of it all. It was like being back at their inn in Albrook.
"Don't forget about where you belong, okay?" He laid her down upon the cushion, cradling her head beneath his jacket. He paused for some response. He received none. "Celes?"
He felt for a pulse but there wasn't one. He held a hand above her face, but detected no breath, no movement, no signs of life whatsoever. Had it happened while she was still in his arms? His faced twisted up in grief. She had gone through so much trouble to find him again and he didn't even have the chance to say goodbye.
"That's fine," he said, eyes red with tears as he pulled the tunic from his chest. "I'll be here when you get back, no matter what that might mean to me."
The tunes of their favorite Aria started to drift back to him, providing a grim counterpoint to the slamming of dead limbs up against their door. But he stayed at her bedside. Edgar and the others had sacrificed themselves for this? What was left for him to hang onto now, what was left for any who still bore witness to such grim days as these? Would another like Terra emerge from the darkness, some other ray of hope to help nurture and resurrect the world of old?
The springs beneath the futon started to creak, and Locke willed himself to turn back in her direction. Her suddenly alabaster eyes stared back at him, eyes begetting neither love, tenderness, nor even recognition. Locke was just another meal to her now, which was precisely why he sat bare-chested before her. He would not resist, for where would resistance take him but away from all he held dear?
"So what are you doing tonight?" he asked, straining not to tremble.
Celes lunged for him, plucked from the air by the treasure hunter into an earnest embrace - his last embrace. He held her fast, more out of emotion than reflex as he felt teeth rip apart and devour the muscles in his shoulder blade. Life fluid spilled and sopped audibly onto the flagstone floor, until weakness overcame him at last.
"I love you, Cel . . ." he rasped into her dead ear.
The endless munching and slurping upon his flesh was his only response, following him as all the world passed into nothing...
Less than a minute later, the body of Locke Cole twitched and staggered back to life. Eyes rolled murderously as it combed the room for something to gorge itself on, but when they fell upon the blond-haired form hovering over him he stopped. Neither one recognized the other, yet the glint in each of their eyes hinted at something imperceptible - some 'other' primal urge in desperate need of being satisfied. The body of Celes Chere stooped down then, kissing and chewing at the flesh of his lips. When she came up, a small sliver of his face hung clenched between her teeth.
The dead treasure hunter almost smiled, returning the gesture in kind.
The End