A Road, Broken
Fragments
Remi kicked his feet over the edge of the jutting, broken bit of road. The place where a path had become an end. The road had buckled upwards in it's death throws, twisted metal rebar sticking out of the shattered concrete. The broken tusks of a beast howling it's last breaths at the sky. Remi leaned back on his hands. The crumbling asphalt felt rough and cool on his palms. Some luckless morning songbirds still sang for mates that would not answer. He stared out over the blasted and blighted remains of what had once been civilization. Remiel looked over at Emily, sitting there on the precipice, staring out at the treeline.
"I think I might be a monster, Em." He said it as though discussing the weather. The birds continued to sing.
She didn't look away, but reached up and held out her hand. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Remi laced his fingers through her's and rested their entwined hands on Emily's lap. He stared off into the horizon with her. Only the sound of the songbirds intruding upon their quiet vigil.
Emily broke the silence after a while.
"Me too," she said. "Or at least, a little bit."
"Yeah," he said again. His hand tightened a little on hers. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "What are we going to do, Emi-bear?"
"I don't know," she said. "I feel like I want to run. I don't want to be part of... whatever is happening to us. To everything." Remi smiled.
"Maybe we should." He shifted a little closer to her.
"What would the others say?" Emily said. "I guess it wouldn't matter."
"I suppose not. We could do it, though. Go rogue. Get off the grid." He smile a little more. "What would we do out there?"
"Whatever. Doesn't matter. It just wouldn't be this."
Remi looked back towards the horizon. His brow furrowed thoughtfully. "I would like to cook." He nodded with certainty. "I think I'd like to be a chef."
Emily laughed, but covered her mouth.
"Sorry," she said. "It's just a funny image. You with a big white chef's hat and chef's--- what do they call them? Robes?"
"Apron, I think you mean...yeah...I think I'd like that." He smiled again. A little sadly. "But you know, no matter how far are fast we flee, I'm not sure we can really escape all this."
She smiled and shifted herself so she could rest her head in his lap. He smelled of sweat. She didn't seem to care.
"Nah, I mean the white uniforms," she said. "I don't know what they're called."
"They're just called chefs' uniforms." He stroked her hair with his other hand. She still felt a little cold. He found himself willing the sun to rise faster. "The hat's called a...toque...I think. I can't remember."
The scab pulsed on Emily's chest, in and out with every heartbeat. She sounded like she was dozing off.
"I was a little mean to Mags. I probably shouldn't have been. I just... it's so easy for me to be angry."
Remi was glad she couldn't see the grimace that flickered on his face. He covered it with another chuckle. "She'll be fine. Everyone knows what a jerk you can be. You'll both be fine." He took a deep breath of the brisk morning air. "We'll all be fine."
"They'll be fine. I'll still be a jerk."
Remi continued to quietly stroke her head, working his fingers through the knots that had formed in her pale tresses. The sun continued to rise, the birds continued to sing. Time and fate would not wait on them. Remi looked down upon Emily's face. He knew it well. He'd seen it twist with pain and anger, lift into smiles of forced politeness and fierce joy, settle into impenetrable stares that arrested his thoughts. A lifetime would deepen the soft lines of her face. Tragedy and disappointment would harden her eyes and weather her skin. Remi would have done anything to preserve her from that. But not just her. Remi looked over the ravaged cityscape behind them.
All Remi had wanted was to protect them. So much of his life had been consumed with that purpose. So many thoughts of how if he'd only been stronger, or smarter, or more in control. But what had it availed?
Nothing.
In spite of all of his efforts, Remi had not been able to save any of them. He thought if he'd had enough strength, dicipline, and cunning he could preserve them from all of the terrible, mundane tragedies of the world. But they all were tormented by demons both intensely personal and tragically shared. Wounded in spirit, mind, and body. Worst of all, broken in fellowship.
What had become of them? Of Freddie, Kat, Jynette, Thael? They had been wrenched from his grasp, taken beyond his reach. Remi looked down at Emily. Even those closest to him seemed so far. All that was left in his white-knuckle grip was despair. A crushing weight that all the strength he had tried to amass, could not lift. All his discipline could not overcome it. All his cunning could not stop him from trying anyway.
But he still had the strength to bear it. He still had dicipline enough to keep it from pulling him down. Still enough cunning to see that there was another way.
Remi turned his gaze back towards the horizon. He breathed out. He let go.
A Lake, Untranquil
Fury
Remi breathed in and almost choked on the smell. He coughed and wheezed. It was awful. Overpowering. More than a stench. He could taste it in his mouth. He was aware of almost nothing else. A bloating nausea suffused his sense of touch. His vision swam and lost a sense of depth. He could hear nothing but the sealed singing of the blood between his ears.
He missed Kim's warning, blinking his vision back. He felt a slight rhythmic tremor of nearby motion. He half-heard Olivia's shouted command. He didn't need to see where the rest of his team were looking. He could still taste the xenomorphs' essence in the back of his throat, smell their stink even with the mountain wind blowing to their backs. He made sense of the memetic sensations still convalescing in his mind.
"Captain," he choked out, his voice sounded strange to him. Alien. He cleared his throat. [INSERT ENEMY INFORMATION SCHPIEL HERE]
Remi was not given pause as the bear that had been his friend Kim charged into the unpleasant xenos surrounded by fire and mounted by Maggie. He did not hesitate this time. He felt a vitality to his limbs, a strength and a speed he had not felt before. Like the world was lighter, easier to manage. He could feel the friction of the Spectators inside of his, rioting into the spiritual confines in which they did abide. The pressure building up, lending a puissance to his actions, while it threatened to burst through him. He found the discipline to reign in the panic of his spirts. To focus their energies to his aims. He turned his gaze to the shifting currents of the battlefield. He had the cunning to see the correct move.
Drafting behind Kim Remi broke as the smoldering ursine hit the first of the larger xeno. His blade was gone, but Remi didn't feel lacking. What good had he ever really done with the blade. Hundreds of hours in the practice rooms. What had that sharp little bit of metal really availed him? He'd let it go.
His first kick met with two of the small, rotund xenomorphs with such force that their bodies deformed, deflated, and punted back into their fellows, who were in turn overturned. Remi's scything limbs reaped the swarming masses, clearing a field on Kim and Mag's left flank. He waded forwards, overextending his battleline, fighting his way to a small hill amidst the xeno horde. More of the beasts flooding in around him. Two more of the larger xenomorphs reared out of the sea of alien flesh before him. Remi's limbs were coated in the morph's orange ichor, as well as some of his own from wounds scoured by the broken bones of the lesser xeno. Remi breathed deep, drinking in more of the monsters cloying stench. Remi's chest swelled and filled with a different foulness, dredged up from the spiritual detritus around the hungering maw inside his soul. The area he'd cleared around him closed with onrushing xenomorph. He felt the slithering fragmented spirits congeal in his core. Remi exhaled, a torrent of terrible spirit stuff poured out of him bathing over the surface of the massed xenos. For a single moment the entire xenomorph swarm stilled as Remi's mimicked miasma filled their gaping mouths and seeped into their being.
The sliver of respite ended as quickly as it had begun. The xenomorphs continued their chittering charge, threatening to engulf Remi and his allies in numbers alone. Remi settle back into a defensive stance. He still had strength, discipline, and cunning enough for this. This was a weight he could bear.
As the fanged maws of the xenos bore down towards him a strange thought slithered into his mind. Big as they were. His mouth was bigger. A rare smile split Remi's face.
The hole in his soul still wanted more.
