Masks 2

Finn was conscious. Frighteningly so.

It was easy to think you'd made peace with death. It was easy to say you'd welcome it when it came for you. It was easy to think about how tired of living you were, and about how many less people you'd disappoint if you could just stop breathing, and how things would run so much smoother without you.

But staring into the unending maw before her was something else entirely. She didn't have regrets, didn't start thinking about things she wished she could have done, but the primal fear that overtook her as she laid on that ground struggling for each painful, gurgling breath was intense. It was real.

She wanted to call out, to ask someone to call her mother and tell her what she'd done. She wanted to apologize to Orla. She wanted to tell Lizzie she cared about her, even if the old bitch would never know how to care back. She wanted to tell her father she loved him - just in case he didn't know. But she couldn't. She was broken; ripped to shreds; thoroughly fucked up. She'd give her left tit for one more easy breath.

Thankfully, no such bargain was necessary. A figure who'd been made a beacon of her childhood through intense commodification descended upon her and ripped her bones back together before fluttering off to do the same to some other poor fuck. She forced herself back to her feet, eyes still hollow with pain and fear, adrenaline still pumping through her veins. She looked across the battlefield, mind trying to process the relief of her friends still living.

Then she ran up and slugged a newly-healed Lizzy across the jaw.