DEIMOS
we've all got blood on our hands
something somewhere had to die
so we could stay alive
He was bone-tired; layered and lacquered in the weight of grief, anguish, and mental exhaustion. Physically present but his membrane wired, wound, and warped into too many angles, parameters, and particulars, he only nodded at her presumption. The results were clear as day, and though he had no insight as to what was discussed, how they decided, or where, why, how it never came to be, the ending was still the same. The monsters reigned, more lives were lost. A certain notion curled and coiled in his skull, despite the weariness, because he still couldn’t fathom how they’d accepted this, year after year after year. That it was fine for demons and fiends to wreak havoc in the dead of winter, to claw their way through the world with every intent towards slaughter – how it was widely known, and barely anything done about it. Naturals had lived with it, grown up on the stories, on the ruminations, on the sounds of claws digging into wood, of voices pretending to be their loved ones, and still thought naught of it. Just don’t go outside. Be quiet. You don’t have to stay. Let the world maneuver around and around, spiral from the Voice’s machinations, like a mistake without consequences, permitted to remain, hunt, maim, and murder.
No more. Hadn’t they seen and experienced enough?
Evie’s proclamation was something to sink into, consider the multitude of it. See who’d be willing, in nearly a year’s time. Who would still be alive to try. What weapons they could possess, what defenses they could muster. How many they could get out, unwilling to see everyone churned and turned into mere remains. “We have time.” Perhaps, given everything else meant to be churning through the void, the Sword was momentarily apprehensive they’ll be preoccupied with too many other doldrums, conflicts, and rising tensions to have an answer for this one – until it was too late. “Best assemble the rest of your council,” he advised, eyes sliding away from his sister-in-law, and onto the rubble, ruin, around them. More words, more voices, then just his alone – a beast prone to digging into the earth and anointing desecration. “Then we can decide how to move forward.”
