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***
I TAKE a deep breath.
Fresh air pours into my lungs, my cheek pressed up against ice-cold dirt. Moonlight drips into my skin, encasing me like a velvet coffion. The world feels as if it's made of jello, as if everything's far too slow and far too fragile. The ringing in my ears is so loud, it feels like somebody's driving a sledgehammer through my head. My eyes snap open, and above me, all I can see is ash peeling off of the blackened sky, combining with heavy, fluffy flakes of snow. Trees reach their branches out like children crying for safety from the clouded-over crescent moon.
The first thing I truly feel aware of is Cerberus french-kissing my open mouth, his warm, wet tongue sliding along my own tongue and my teeth and my gums. His tongue tastes like rotting flesh. I sit up, shoving him off of me, wiping his disgusting slobber off my lips and crying Ew ew ew. I want to bleach my mouth and my entire body and then cut off my tongue and pour back what's left of the bleach like a shot and hope for the best.
I promptly throw up, although I'm not sure if it's due to the physical pain of what just happened, the emotional stress I've been under, or the level of disgusting of getting all the way to first base with a particularly unpleasant Yorkshire terrier.
I look around, hardly daring to believe that I'm alive right now, because it truly doesn't feel that way. This clearing is unrecognizable to the one we were in when the world ended. This one has normal trees. This one has unmoving ground. This one is real, and solid, and concrete. Some of the other people here are like me, sitting up in a dazed sort of disbelief, struggling to come to terms with what just happened. Others are still passed out. I scan the crowd, trying to find somebody I recognize, and my heart breaks as my eyes fall on her — Thea.
"No, no, no," I whimper, my voice sounding like a scream in the eery silence the world's become, frantically crawling over to where her body lies still. It seems as if a million pairs of eyes follow me — I'm the first person to move since the collapse.
I grab her shoulders, forcing her to an upright position. Her head rolls back on her neck, unresponsive, and my heart falls through my stomach, tears blurring my vision. Trembling, I press two fingers against her neck, searching for a pulse, only to find none.
This can't be happening. This legitimately can't be happening. She's still alive and she's still alive and everything's still okay.
"No," I cry, frantically shaking my head. This isn't real — not Silas, not Rachel, not Thea, not who knows how many others. This isn't fair.
Is this justice? Is this vengeance? Is this karma? I caused all of this — I caused all of this death and destruction — for what I thought was justice. Maybe this is the universe's way of showing me what justice wrongly won can bring.
