FSD Pre-Qual?

She had taken my hand and I was no longer pulling. For a time, she ran with me. I knew then that we would be okay. That love really does conquer all. I’ve been wrong before…

When I found her curled up on the floor of her cell and dusted her back to consciousness she was furious. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” she screamed.

“Would you be quiet please,” I pleaded. “I’ve come to save you.”

“You’re a fool, do you have any idea…”

“Yes, I do. I’m the reason they came for you. But I’ll make this right I swear it.”

I was reaching for her then but she drew away.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “How could you… I don’t understand. What did you do?”

“Claryssa, all I did was love you. Look I don’t have time to explain now, they’re surely on their way already. Just know that I love you, and they know it. This used to be my cave. They can’t catch : me, they can’t stop me, and I’ve been a hindrance to them since they first arrived. You are a way for them to finally get to me.”

I reached for her then and she tried to pull away again but I seized her arm and started pulling her after me. I dragged her into a series of tunnels that I could navigate with my eyes closed. In no more than 20 minutes we’d be free and in the open air.

I knew she was scared, and confused, but she was at least considering that I might be able to save her. There was no way I would have had the strength to force her to come with me, not now that they had gotten to her. She hesitated, but she wasn’t really fighting me.

“You can’t stop them, they’ll kill us both!”

“They can’t touch me, and I’ll protect you.”

“But they’ve already gotten to me!”

I stopped then and turned to face her. I could see her fear, and her pain. Their plan had worked, already they had hurt me more than in all their years in my cave.

“You listen to me, and you listen well,” I said, gripping her shoulders. “These creatures, they shouldn’t exist. They are the things of nightmares and it is an affront that they can walk in our world, but dammit there has to be a balance! If these offenses to reality can exist, then so can the power of love; so can the stuff that all the fairy tales tell us will defeat every and any evil out there; So can we!”

I kissed her then. Mid-escape it had to be quick, but it was fierce. I feel her doubt flee. I knew that I had broken through and reached her. It was then, as I turned away from her and returned to our escape, that she took my hand.

Despite how long I’ve thwarted them, the danger was now very real. They’d stop at nothing to prevent our reaching the surface. If this plan failed, they’d be powerless over me. And they knew I’d never stop.

We were going to make it, as we turned around the final corner I could see the distant light of freedom ahead of us. Then she pulled her hand away from mine. She screamed for the briefest moment then gurgled and then was silent.

We were too close now and I would drag her to freedom if I had to I thought to myself. But then as I reached for her, I saw her eyes. No, that’s not right, her eyes were gone. I was gazing into blackness, her pale skin and dark lashes amplified by the pools of black where her eyes were moment ago. And then a mist swirled inside them forming smokey cobwebs that seemed to solidify before my eyes.

A pinpoint of light appeared in her eyes and grew as if approaching me from some great distance. It began to take shape and was half burning, half cutting it’s way through the swirls I had just watched form. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, but whatever was coming up through them now was most definitely not Claryssa’s soul. She was already gone and I knew there was nothing I could do about it.

Moments later I walked out of my cave, leaving yet another dead body behind me.