Chapter Text
Cold.
You feel cold.
Not the kind that burns your lungs and goose-pimples your skin, or makes your breath look like smoke in the midnight air.
No, it’s the kind that seeps into your very bones and seems to chill you from the inside out; creeping, strangling, constricting, until you feel as though you can no longer think of anything else. Until you feel as though it has fused with your very being like the sharpest of icicles.
You suppose that makes sense, with how wet your torso is.
Your vision feels strange. Like everything is simultaneously happening in slow motion and at hyper speed. There’s sounds around you; slashing and muffled voices, but you can’t distinguish one from the other. Not with the throbbing in your skull and the weight in your lungs.
Your name is being called, you think. You want to turn your head towards the sound but find yourself unable to move. Unable to do anything, really, except be… Cold.
Are you shivering or convulsing?
A blurry face comes into view. Black hair. Green eyes so wide they look like they might bug out of his head.
Zayne.
Behind him, beams of light cleave through shadowed night, bodies collapsing, thudding to the floor around you. The ones that don’t are infiltrated by an inky red mist that dispels them into dust, or slashed by fiery blades that move quicker than your mind can comprehend.
The hands on you feel warm.
Strange, since Zayne usually felt so cold to you.
You are propped up against a wall, you think. Your chin has lolled into your neck and Zayne grabs your face, fingers insistent. The pressure should be painful, but it’s not - in fact, you can barely feel it. The chill is morphing into numbness, like the sensation you get right before pins and needles hits.
You look at him in confusion, then follow his gaze down to your chest.
It’s at this moment you realise it’s not raining; that the wetness you feel isn’t water from the heavens above or a burst fire hydrant caught in the crossfire.
No.
You’re bleeding.
Quite a lot, actually.
Enough that it pools beneath you, soaking your Hunter uniform a deep crimson, saturated where your muscles seem to be cleaved in half.
Oh yeah. That’s what happened.
You remember, now.
You remember the Wanderer with fingers like claws that had dug under your ribs and ripped one of them free, tearing through your skin and muscles in the process. The one that had screamed in your face, maw open and acrid breath sinking into your lungs as you tried to gulp down air to cope with the searing pain.
The one that now lays limp on the floor with its other companions as the night is finally still.
You don’t register the silence. Not over the sound of your blood rushing in your ears.
“Focus on me. Look at me. Stay with me.”
Zayne’s voice is warped, as though spoken underwater. You frown as you try and do what he says but everything feels… Heavy. As though gravity itself is stopping your body from responding to you.
The others are in front of you now. You don’t see their expressions, can’t really distinguish anything but their eyes.
Their eyes.
They remind you of those dreams you used to have.
The dreams that played on repeat when you were a child - how had you never noticed before? The sad merman, the dashing prince, the all-knowing demigod and the garnet-eyed fiend. Dreams that pulled you to the forest, to the mountains, to the night sky, to the waterside, as though searching for apparitions. As though an unspoken force was luring you there, searching for something deep within you that you still don't understand.
Dreams that you had forgotten, until Death called.
“I’m dying, aren’t I?”
The question tumbles from your mouth unprompted. Voice raspy, rattling in your chest as though fighting to break through with every haggard breath.
Strangely, the fact that you’re dying doesn’t bother you too much. In fact, there's a strange acceptance that washes over you. Not peace, not contentment, just... Acceptance.
You don’t cry or mourn the life you could have had. You don’t plead with the silent gods above to protect you, to save you; why would you, when your entire universe is in front of you right now?
“No.” Even muffled, Zayne’s voice is harsh. “No, keep your eyes open. Count your breaths. You're going to be alright.”
“It’s okay.” You murmur. The words feel thick in your mouth, but you have to say them. You have to comfort them, you have to make sure they’re okay before you go.
“No -“
Somehow, you manage to find the strength to raise your arm. Unbeknownst to you, the movement pushes more scarlet blood out of you even as Zayne desperately tries to keep the wound closed with the jacket he’s shucked from his shoulders to press against you.
You reach for him, but your fingers fall short of his cheek, strength draining as your hand falls back into the wet concrete beneath you.
Your gaze drifts to the one with the watery, sunset coloured eyes.
Rafayel.
“Take it.” You whisper.
You think he questions you, but darkness is pebbling in the corners of your vision, even if your eyes glimmer with more life than you feel you have.
“My heart,” you softly say, “take it.”
“What?” He’s confused, but you’re not. Not when his eyes blur with the one from your dreams; the kind assassin who refused to take the princesses heart even to save his entire civilisation. “No, I… I can’t -“
“M’gonna die anyway, Raffy. Wanna… Help….”
A different voice snaps, “don’t talk like that.”
Xavier.
Worry creases your brow, but not for yourself. Never for yourself. “Is she safe?”
He knows who you’re talking about. The little girl with a plushie in her arms who you had thrown out of the way, shortly before the Wanderer attacking her focused its energy back to you.
“She’s safe.”
“Pretty Prince.” A dozy smile flits on your lips though it looks more like a grimace to them. “Not your fault. Don’t… Don’t blame yourself.’
A hand grasps yours. You don’t know who holds you, not until his voice sounds in your ear, strained and raw.
“Do what the doctor says. Stay awake for us.”
Sylus.
You loll your head towards him, eyes dazed, vision fading. Again his face blurs, and you swear you see twisted horns of a dragon poking through his powder hair.
“Can’t, Sy. Tired. S’like a blanket…”
“Stay awake.”
“Do you remember the flowers?”
“What?”
You smile again, “flowers… for your horns.”
Your eyes drift back to Zayne’s.
“‘nd the Jasmines. You were all alone…”
You try to look at Rafayel, at any of them, but even the colours of their eyes are blurring together. You can’t see them or the dreams anymore; just vague shapes as if the light in your eyes is dimming.
You say to them anyway, “m’sorry to do this again. M’sorry to… hurt you.”
Your head thumps back against the wall, exhaustion drooping your eyelids. You don’t know if you speak it or not, but you try to say,
Look after each other. Don’t be alone. I’ll come back to you. Promise.
Briefly, guilt washes over you like a tidal wave. Grief, not for yourself but for the men you have come to love who now have to watch you die in their arms. You try to claw back to the surface; to open your eyes and talk to them again, one last time, even if only to say those three little words you always shy away from. Even if only to see their eyes one last time.
But you can’t find the strength.
It’s not darkness that overtakes you, but a feeling of calm. Like walking through a snowy forest under the stars, or swimming in a tranquil sea painted red from a ruby sunset.
Like an embrace from an old friend bringing you home.