When I was a little girl my parents would mostly ignore me, always too busy with work or their own lives to have time for mine. It was always like that; I ended up raising myself, independent for as long as I can remember.
But then there was that one night… It was a night a lot like this, rain just starting to patter onto the windows. My parents were downstairs arguing and I was upstairs idly surfing the web and watching television. I remember it vividly because I ended up watching the first zombie I had ever seen. It was a scary, dark, hulking thing that was eating someone, and it terrified me. I don't remember screaming, but I remember hiding in my bed until my dad knocked down the door to come save me.
He didn't ignore me so much after that night. It was the night that we started getting along. In fact, it was the night he stayed up with me watching scary movies all night long. He was the first one who said those words that just slipped out of my mouth.
"Don't worry. If it's that scary, I'll protect you."
My heart aches just thinking about him, but he's a thousand miles away and this scared little girl is right in front of me. Her eyes are wide as they stare at me, and from what I can see the emotions hidden in their gaze range from fear to anger.
"You don't understand me, huh?" I ask dully. The tank barrels through yet another wall below us and she shirks back, looking around for something to lash out at. Since I entered this room, I've been beyond caring.
When I quiet down, she looks away and starts sniffling again. A witch's crying annoys me. Her crying annoyed me before I looked at her. Now it seems to call out to me. The first low sob that catches in her throat pleads for me to help her, even if she doesn't comprehend my presence.
Behind me somewhere, I feel the rumble of the tank reaching our floor. It's followed by the sound of metal snapping, wood splintering, and a several ton hunk of meat and muscle plowing through everything in its path. She growls softly through her tears before me, but by then it's too late for me.
I'm in a daze, shuffling out of my seat on the floor, disregarding the tender pains in my body to crawl forward, towards her. Her attention is more on the loud noises coming from outside than me, I make it under the table before she turns back and notices me.
Since the first witch I saw, I always assumed they were driven by only rage and sorrow. This, the low growl that starts slow and rises into an immense howl, isn't either. This is a panic attack, if ever there was one. Her eyes can't even comprehend me when I'm several feet away.
"It's going to be okay," I find myself saying. I say that even though the tank is no more than four rooms away now, and the smell of burning flesh is growing steadily more pungent.
The next shockwave comes from just two rooms away, and she smacks her elbow on the glass behind her trying to back up. It's getting closer, almost here, and close enough that I can feel every footstep through the carpet. From what I can tell, it's heading directly for me.
With that in mind I stand up, holding my pistol ready and facing away from the girl I seem intent to protect for no reason. She howls ever louder now, every one followed by a sharp intake of breath that can't seem to fill her lungs or calm her mind.
I've only fought a tank by myself once, and that one was small and deformed, with a larger right arm that kept hooking on things it passed. Not to mention that was with a hunting rifle from a block away. Now I face one with a single pistol and a single bullet too it. Some part of me knows there's no way, but I believe I can make this work. I can beat this thing, save the girl, and find some way to turn her normal somewhere down the road. My mind tells me that much, which shows just how far I've thought this through.
I tense, ducking down to push the table with all my might, finally budging it just as the wall explodes outwards in a cloud of plaster, splinters, and drywall. When the first breeze passes, I stand, trying not to let my throat seize under the oppressive dust and the smell that assaults me. Somewhere behind that wall is a body of corpses, and somewhere the fire has spread up through the floor and started consuming the final floor. I can tell because the smoke drifts out of the hole in waves, claiming the roof.
All of that, powerful to my senses as it is, I hardly notice. My gaze is locked defiantly on the monster before me. I've seen only a handful of tanks, but this one takes the cake by far. A single arm is longer than me, and his shoulder width alone would take up the space of the conference table before me. His entire form is fleshy and red, tinged pink where he he's been burned, and throbbing or quivering everywhere else. Most tanks are as big as cars, he's as big as a van, and I know a single finger would be enough to cave my ribs in.
Regardless, I stand defiant, looking him in the face and trying to avoid the sight of his missing mouth. It's basically just a nose with eyes, all of it blocky and engorged.
The witch screams behind me. I try to push the scenario where she goes berserk and tears me in half out of my mind, instead focusing on the imminent threat to both of us. He pauses before us, snarling through that jawless maw of his in a deep, feral growl that chills me to the bone and nearly sends the girl behind me over the edge. The door to my right is still open. I should run for it, I should leave these two behind and try to live. But a part of me knows I am trying to live, and holding my ground now is the only way to do it.
Without warning or provocation the tank jerks forward and I jump to the side, scrambling to my feet just after hitting the floor as my senses are bombarded with the sound of the table shattering a wall-long window. It flies free, straight across to the roof of the building opposite us, and my skin chills as the wind whips moisture into the room. The papers across the floor scatter in its path like a majestic field of flowers, but these wrap around the body of the massive giant approaching me, growling.
As I back up, nearly to the door, he turns his torso and his immobile head, no longer looking to me but glaring down at the figure huddled in the rain. She isn't so loud any more. She's letting out pitiful sobs intermingled by the occasional growl. And now the tank has her in his sights.
"Hey!" I shout, drawing both pairs of eyes towards me, one with a squeak, one with a snarl. "She's not the one you want. You came for me, and here I am!"
With that, I raise my pistol towards him, holding myself as tall as possible. I swear the girl's eyes widen at my words, but the tank only seems to get enraged further. But still, there's no rush, just a slow, lumbering step. He's toying with me.
The room is already leaning towards the witch, but with that step a deep crack resonates through the floors and it nearly buckles inwards. Everything suddenly shifts, everything left standing upon the tank's entrance rolls towards us. The tank takes that as the starting bell, launching towards me with arms raised. His form blots out my vision, an eclipse of muscle and death.
Acting more on instinct, I tuck and roll forward, slipping under his elbow and coming up in a flurry of water and paper. The girl shrinks back and I turn, faster than the beast even with my injuries.
One shot. That's all I have, and I make it count. It cracks through the night as lightning, deafening the world for a split second before the tank rages and the witch screams. I hit him, a beautiful shot that struck him straight in the right eye. But it's only made him angrier. And now the witch, the girl I'm foolishly trying to protect, has gone off the deep end and raises to strike me. I see her claws and the shadow the cast before seeing the bright anger in her eyes.
But my fate isn't to die here, something has made sure of that. The tank is already on his way to me, and the floor buckles once more, unseen to the witch until she finds herself swiping at air, tilted perplexingly off the edge of the building.
The entire building is falling in on itself, smoke trying vainly to rise to the heavens through the deep torrent of rain outside. I would have rather it waited another second for me to die, rather than choosing that time to fail and sending her to her doom. But I said I would protect her; it isn't her time to die again, and I'll make sure of that. That's what I think after I've already jumped, wrapping my hand around a slender ankle just before she dives five stories into a concrete floor.
"Damn it," I hiss in pain.
I'm not even thinking, but neither is the girl or the tank. The third player in this little comedy appears only as a brief flash of flesh as he tumbles over us, just shorting of crushing be on his way out the window. I see him crumple against the ground around the form of the witch I'm holding onto.
It's taken her a second to realize her position. First she stares wildly around then her gaze locks on me and she screeches, leaning up to swipe wildly with her foot-long claws. Of course the glass digging into my ribs isn't enough, throw in some deep gashes on my arms and shred my track jacket to bits as well. To make it even more fun, let her nick my jaw too.
"Stop already!" I shout over the rain. "You want to die?"
The building gives off a final shudder before I feel the floor give way and my body start to slide, showering down a rain of glass shards in my wake. It's just enough for the slick, cold skin of the girl to slip out of my grasp. It's also enough for me to follow her forcibly.
I can think of only one way to save her now. I'm still not sure why I want to, the thought hasn't crossed my mind yet. It's just something I have to do, as much as I normally have to survive or have to fight for myself. Today I have to catch hold of her during our five-story fall, spinning myself under her even while her claws swing into my flesh and the wind and rain whip into my back.
Now, falling through the rain on a dark and stormy night, I lie under the pale and beautiful witch who seems to have entwined with my destiny, ready to protect and cushion her even at the cost of myself.