Classic stares up at me, his eyes fading light, losing life, but the shimmer of a smile crosses his face. His hand reaches, cupping my face and streaking his warm blood across my cheek, smearing the smell of death on my skin. “I don’t- I can’t- Your name-” It comes out as a whimper, only for panic to fill me as a suit reaches for him. My chains strain as my body sinks back, grip tightening on Classic as I scream between sobs. They grab his shirt, pulling him away, breaking my I feel like an animal, throwing my body hard against my shackles, wailing like the beast I’ve become. Classic blinks dazed and dying as his fingers brush my cheek, the curve of my chin, and then his dying warmth is gone. I cry out, tears flooding my eyes and mingling with blood as I sob into my hands. Despite everything, I know Classic wouldn’t have the mercy of bleeding out before making it to the furnaces. I can feel eyes watching me. The suits won’t shoot me, my notes are too valuable. The suit that lifts my fallen body is too quick to turn my gaze away front the fires. But the smell of burning flesh rips a wail from my throat. I can’t help imagining the flesh melting off his bones and dripping into the flames. My teeth grate against each other, I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing the tears to fall. grip on him. Animalistic. The hands that grabbed me lift me over his shoulder after uncuffing me, turning away from the fields and keeping ahold of my broken body. I don’t fight, not with the pain catching up to me. Tears fall down my face as I watch a collection of suits around the flames. The figure laying in the fires doesn’t move or scream, so neither do I. I’ve screamed enough for the both of us. . . . The woman who bandages my hands once a month, I know she’s a woman because she doesn’t have her suit on, would be pretty if she didn’t look so annoyed. I vaguely hear what she says, something about a broken bone in my upper arm. I hardly feel it when she pops my shoulder back into place, dislocated she said. She says she set the broken bone too. I don’t know what it means, except that she recommends to the other suits that I take two weeks to heal up. They don’t like it, but when one says, “She works like her life depends on it.” Someone responds, “Because it does.”
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