- breathe - Silence falls as her senses fail to understand and her over-stimulated body struggles to shut down all sensation.
- breathe – blink – look -
Her eyes strain as images swim out of focus; the swirl of the jacket; the thumping; the glint on the crown.
- breathe – blink – look -
Emotion caresses the edge of her consciousness with warm guilt lapping around her heart, pressing its heavy weight on her chest; he did it.
She wills her eyes to work – blink - To focus – blink - To find.
Debris falls slowly from the sky. It starts with a single piece of ash dancing gracefully, twisting and ambling in the warm air that has enveloped them. It's joined by a partner, heavier and clumsily tumbling. They collide and spiral to the ground.
- blink - The heat wave has made the square shimmer. The banners smoulder suggestively and she can see them straining and whipping against their ties, desperate to be free before the hot ash consumes them. The years of graffiti look different now, they belong to a time when the town was her home – breathe - she knows she cannot stay. All that remains is him.
- blink - She turns her head to the left. Her body guiding her, her mind struggling to protect her. The walls are bathed in a gentle red glow and she is reminded of the Red Lantern District and of bodies pressed together in languid embraces – blink - what she can see doesn't match her thoughts. Her mind slows the flow of information so she can only catch a glimpse of what lays before her.
- blink – Bodies – blink – Embraces – blink - Clutching and writhing on the ground. Her cheeks burn with shame as she takes in the view, as ever so surely she begins to make sense of what is happening. And yet – blink - where is he? To the right again, taking her time and searching methodically, forcing herself to look at the faces and to bare witness to their fear.
The sound of someone heavily armoured crashing to the ground behind her is the first noise she lets herself hear and suddenly she is overwhelmed. Her senses retract again rushing to shelter what is left, she's desperate to know but needs time. Her body trying to hold her still, to let her come gently into her new life. Her cheeks are still burning as she lifts an armoured hand to wipe away the hot ash that has settled there. She looks to the left now, searching, needing, face to horrified face. And now she can feel the tears pouring from her – her guilt trying to swallow her shameful relief as – breathe – there he is – breathe – he's alive – breathe – everything will be fine.