DEVILS ? C. G. 〖 #wattys2018 〗

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sorry today's was late but at least it's out

SOTC: Past Lives — BØRNS
• i've got the strangest feeling / this isn't our first time around •

April felt her body shut down all slowly, then die all at once.

It began when the coughs were reaching deeper, growing more and more wretched. Each time it felt as if her lungs were being raked with serrated knives.

She pushed through the prison doors, which somehow felt heavier than anything April had ever encountered in her life. Suddenly everything felt heavy. Her skin, her limbs, her throbbing head.

The smoke was even worse outside. It obscured the sun, leaving an overcast gray image with the contrast turned down. April could remember one time when her parents took her to the public pool with her friends. From her position on the ground, it felt as if she were looking up from the bottom of the water, watching threads of light dance across the concrete walls.

She saw a flash of a body. An arm, reaching out of the smoke, clawing for the two of them. April only realized how close it was when the walker hitched its nails on Elle's baggy sweatshirt.

Before Elle could let loose an incriminating scream, April reached into her boot, pulling out a dagger no longer than her hand. She struggled off the ground, eyes stinging from smoke. She estimated the position of the walker's head and hoped to hell her blade would land. The walker's arms fell slack.

"We're in the prison yard," April yelled over the deafening snarls.

Elle didn't answer, but she'd heard it. April pointed at the fence, through the soupy smoke. "You aren't strong enough to make it over the fence, are you?"

Elle shook her head between coughs.

"Well then," April was overcome with a bout of coughs. She held a hand over her chest, trying to stabilize herself. "Then we gotta go under."

She could swear she heard Elle rasp, "shit," under her breath. April felt her bravado threaten to leave. The exhaustion weighed on her bones. Her eyes stung as she swept her surroundings, attempting to determine the best path, but everything was just the rapidly thickening curtain of smoke.

We're blind, she decided. We have to make a blind run.

"Stay behind me," April yelled. Then she began to gradually, carefully, make her way on all fours through the smoke.

It was an tedious task with lethal repercussions. The walkers were strung up everywhere, tied to posts and heads on posts and torsos tied to the fence. They were placed here as a deterrent to intruders. Funny how things had turned out.

Every so often she would lose Elle from the corner of her eye, and fall apart from fright. "Elle!" April yelped as she yanked her friend out of the way, before she could crawl straight into the gnashing maw of a walker. Panic flashed through April's wire-tight body.

Instead of answering, Elle just pointed up. It took a second for April's eyes to adjust, but then she saw it. The Sanctuary ablaze. The flaming decapitation of her teenage years.

"God," April swore. The heat was making her sweat. She dragged a weak hand across her forehead, peeled her eyes from the sky, and continued through the smoke.

She remembered the night she took Carl. She and her father brought the two of them to a walker-filled clearing, far from the rest of their group. It was misty, and there were only the RV lights to see anything. April could imagine this was something like what Carl experienced that night, as he ventured forth as a suicidal hero, and as he sequentially suffered a panic attack.

Fuck. Where was Carl?

They reached the fence. There was concrete underneath, not grass and dirt.

"We have to follow it," April said, pointing down the line of chain-links. "I think there's a spot over there."

Elle squeezed her eyes shut, like she was trying to blink away the smoke. April could understand her concern. Over there was flooded with thick, wicked, ashy smoke. Over there looked like the best way to suffocate. But there was no other choice.

April slashed and stabbed and made her way through the walkers, and the question still pounded in her head. Where was Carl? Would she ever see him again? Was he dead?

The smoke was getting thicker. The monochrome was growing more encompassing. Elle's coughing fits were happening more frequently and raked up her entire small body. April felt her lungs stumble and tear apart. She just wanted this hell to finish with her.

She couldn't see it, but she felt it. Dirt. Eureka.

"Dig," she told Elle, even though it was clear how much her friend could barely do. April welled up what little strength she had left, and clawed at the ground beneath the fence. She pried up little packed pieces of dirt, shoveled them out with her bare palms.

It wasn't enough. She knew it, as she was choking on more and more smoke, and as she began to retch. But it had to be enough. She had to be enough, to escape the lava and burning pikes.

Time was running down. Everything in April's body told her to stop, to roll over and close her eyes. But she needed to get Elle out. As soon as she thought there was a big enough hole, she sat back on her hands, trying to draw a computable breath.

"Elle, you're smaller than me, go ahead."

She saw the look on her friend's face, and squeezed her stinging eyes closed. "Just run, Elle. Get help. Fuck, don't wait for me."

Elle glanced at her one more time. There was so much worry etched there. Then, she got on her back, wriggled under the fence, and was gone.

April felt the loneliness almost immediately. Her hands stopped digging. There were so many noises around her. The snarling and shifting of rotten bodies. The hollow sound of wind through a smokey courtyard. The cracking of fire eating concrete.

I've been searching for a sign, April thought, looking up at the rectangular figment, looking like a effigy against the sky. That's what it was, an effigy. Standing for the tyrant who took up residence in there. Smoke 'em out.

Searching for a sign that I can have a second chance. April coughed and heaved, hands burning. That I can hit the restart button. This is that sign.

She always thought the Sanctuary acted like a human, like it understood what was happening within its walls. The fire wicked along the roof and shattered the gridded windows, peeled up the paint.

This is the exact moment when everything happens. This is the time for the devil's world to end. This is the time for the sky to turn dark again and the stars to crawl from their burrows. It's time for the clock to turn back to the beginning.

With that, April laid her weary body on its back, and crossed her arms over her chest.

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A/N: lots of bad things are happening but you know what's good? summer's here and we got a new kitten!! his name is byron and he's so fantastic!! this morning i woke up to him prancing all over my face. right now he's pouncing on my fingers as i type. he's a good lil boi

anyway happy summer and i hope everyone is having a good day :)

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NEXT CHAPTER:
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Word Count: 1294
Created 5-26-18