RE: QUIETUS [S!5] [Round 3: Deluge]
07-07-2017, 04:16 AM
A whipcrack of lightning across the sky lit the dirty streets for a moment, a pale imitation of the warm light that the sun should have spread, a little sister of nature reaching up for her cosmic sibling’s approval, a finger curling fast across the grey, roiling sky before petering out upon the spire of a church, which burned even as the rain came sibilantly down upon the dark, slick cobblestones. The peal of lightning seemed far away to the huddled shapes in the street, parked under overhanging balconies, curled up on front steps to shut shops whose keepers had gone out drinking for the night. Some of them whispered among themselves. Some of them muttered to no one in particular. Some shouted, ineffectual, into the pitter-patter of raindrops striking the stricken earth.
She did not speak. Not yet, anyway. The rain came sluicing in between her metal plates, draining along the multitude of scratches and etches that marred the alloys where her chest had once been. Water edged its way in between the welded joins that fused her being together, kept her sun together, kept her alive - in as much as she could be considered alive in any sense; water, the essence of life, fell from the sky and flowed over her and yet was not of her.
The little planet of divinity flew across the edges of her vision, scraping orbits out from the rain.
“‘Take care of Anila for me.’” She spat, or would have, had her mouth not gone dry; the events immediately prior were still catching up to her, one by one, like the successive passage of train cars leaving the station. “‘Take care of Anila,’” she said again, and her tone grew sardonic, bitter, towards the end of the phrase, “‘for me.’”
She raised clouded eyes to the sky, and let the rain substitute for tears. Only for a moment. She wasn’t sure if she could even still cry. Where would the water come from? She certainly didn’t drink any.
“Well, Doctor Pearson,” she said to the rain, “You took care of Anila. For you.”
And somewhere, faintly, the rain sang back:
ohhh… things change
no use holding on because nothing stays the same
She did not speak. Not yet, anyway. The rain came sluicing in between her metal plates, draining along the multitude of scratches and etches that marred the alloys where her chest had once been. Water edged its way in between the welded joins that fused her being together, kept her sun together, kept her alive - in as much as she could be considered alive in any sense; water, the essence of life, fell from the sky and flowed over her and yet was not of her.
The little planet of divinity flew across the edges of her vision, scraping orbits out from the rain.
“‘Take care of Anila for me.’” She spat, or would have, had her mouth not gone dry; the events immediately prior were still catching up to her, one by one, like the successive passage of train cars leaving the station. “‘Take care of Anila,’” she said again, and her tone grew sardonic, bitter, towards the end of the phrase, “‘for me.’”
She raised clouded eyes to the sky, and let the rain substitute for tears. Only for a moment. She wasn’t sure if she could even still cry. Where would the water come from? She certainly didn’t drink any.
“Well, Doctor Pearson,” she said to the rain, “You took care of Anila. For you.”
And somewhere, faintly, the rain sang back:
ohhh… things change
no use holding on because nothing stays the same
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So very British / But then again | People are machines Machines are people | Oh hai there | There's no time
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Superhero 1920s noir | Multigenre Half-Life | Changing the future | Command line interface
Tu ventire felix? | Clockwork for eternity | Explosions in spacetime