Ablaze Spring 2024

bullet was fired. Now I’m frantically pulling at the chains, my arms wrench from my sockets, I don’t care. The suits circle Classic, holding him in place as he prepares the bullet. They’ve undone his chains, but he stares defiantly up at the barrel. He looks like a man who’s cheated death before. “Please!” I sob, pulling harder. “Please! No! Let him go!” The click of the gun sets me off and I scream again. My body breaks, my arm cracks like guns preparing to fire. I break into a thousand pieces. Tears stream down my cheeks as I beg for the life that isn’t my own. My shoulders ache with pain that shouldn’t be there, but I put it in place. They reach for me and a booming roar fills my ears. I startle, shocked by the roar and the hands wrapping around my pain-filled limbs. Classic throws himself against the suits, breaking their hold on him, and he falls towards me. The guns fire, and the ringing that fills my ears is almost too much to bear. The body falls heavy against me, his weight sending searing pain up my arms and shoulders. I curl my broken body around his, my hands spanning his back like wings. When I look at my hands, my fingers are painted red with blood. I push the older man up, he slumps, his chest flowing with sticky red. He blinks slowly, looking up at me as his arms fall to his side, falling into me once more. It shouldn’t be this easy to kill someone. “No…” The whisper escapes me, hoarse and dry in my throat. “No. No. No. No. No.” I catch Classic and pull him to my chest, ignoring the screaming pain that flows through me. I’ve seen blood before, but it never occurred to me how warm it is, how easily it flows through my fingers. The older man lifts his head, my hands pop his chin up as tears stream own my face. My fingers leave trains of red along the curves of his chin, mingling with his beard. I can’t breathe. It hurts to breathe. I haul him up my chest, hands twisting in his bloody shirt, the other cupped at the back of his neck. I want to will life back into him, but it spills into the soil, unwilling to return to its body. “Please-” My voice is raspy and cracking. “Don’t go. Please- Stop. I don’t- I don’t know your name-”

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