[CW] Among the rubble

[Kurotsune]

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She stared deep into the burning embers flickering brightly, creating a stark contrast with the starless night sky they shone against.

She didn’t notice the heavy sigh that escaped her lips when she heaved herself upwards, hand instinctively grabbing onto the rusted iron rod that rested on the ruined wall she sat against not seconds ago.

It was almost time… Her verdant green eyes focused on the embers a last time, shining almost as bright as the coals themselves.

She pulled the hood off of her head, revealing the long dark locks matted against her forehead. The time for the luxuries of constant showers had been long past. The clothes underneath her robes were all stained with sweat, blood and grime.

She was stomping down the last of the once-campfire, lost in thought, when she first heard the sounds. Scrambling all around her, the noise of tiny feet scampering all around the ruins she took refuge in. She knew she was surrounded.

The first glimpse of a dark shadow was caught precisely as it moved past the entrance of a destroyed building, the words “Commerce Center Atlas” rested above it in stainless steel. The image burned into her mind for some reason.

She felt the ground throbbing at her feet as if she could feel the ruins’ heartbeat echoing with her own, muscles tensing up as the creatures kept moving around her, keeping her on her toes.

Even against blinding darkness, she could feel her senses sharpening. Her eyes adjusted, her body surged with newfound energy and adrenaline pumped through her veins. She still quietly acknowledged the hope that they would simply move past her and leave her be.

When the first leaped through the shadows towards her, she knew it wouldn’t be the case.

She brought the iron heavy and hard in a full swing, hitting the creature across its marble-like face. She felt its skin crack and crumble, the vibrations of her weapon carrying with it the full extent of the blow she had just delivered.

The creature fell on the rotten wooden boards beside her with a large thud, dark-blue lifeblood draining from its cracked features as it squirmed against itself. She looked almost pitifully at the creature, a mouse-like being with skin smooth and black as stone.

Its legs ended in sharp stone talons which currently flailed uselessly in the ground as the creature moved to get up, while its mouth opened and closed to blackened fangs as the creature wailed silently in pain. The Bahal had mouths, but they had ended in smooth black stone. When they tore flesh they simply dropped it where they stood, and they could not produce sound.

Before it could stand to move again, she quickly delivered another blow to its head, and this time the creature laying motionless. The sounds around her ceased - The others retreated, as they always attempted to hunt only easy prey - but she knew they had not given up.

Fishing the small flask out of her pocket, she took a long swig, features grimacing as the alcohol burnt its way down her throat, and then dampened a torn piece of cloth that lay nearby, wrapping it around a piece of rotten wood and setting it alight with her lighter.

She held the impromptu torch in one hand and her rusted weapon in the other, taking in how well her situation reflected her. Just as the things in her hands, she was worn, rotten, rusted, broken down. But much like the things in her hands, she still was.

And one last scampering sound let her know that she was certainly in need to move.