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She supposes the first mistake she made was when Vam pulled her aside.
“Soren. Soren, I know you don’t want-” His breath catches. “You need to go. You need to get out of here, Soren.” Her breath, too, trips over the lump in her throat she so desperately wants to swallow. She stares at him.
He coughs, breaking the silence, and it's an ugly, injured sort of cough, a wretched, wet noise that actuates some reflex dormant and deep down in her brain that is wary of death and its mystery. She can’t think, she can’t move, she can only stare and stare.
“I’ll-” A cough. Louder than the last one, lined with a sickly, damp fear. “I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”
He promised, she thinks. But in this state? She couldn’t leave Vam, not with the cut under his eye staining his cheek and the awful angle his left elbow was bent into, not with the limp in his step and the fear in his eyes he couldn’t quite hide. She tries to speak, she really does, she just… can’t get any words out. She opens her mouth.
And then a soldier appears behind him and starts shooting, and there’s no more time to speak, no more time for meaningless noise, and like it’s a second arm, Soren whips out her Hero Shot and slams the trigger.
She hit the soldier in the head. She knows she did because she hasn’t missed a mark since the first few weeks of living in Alterna. She knows she did because she heard the thunk of the ink against their fuzzy skull. She doesn’t see Vam’s gaze harden, she just feels him shove her with the most force he ever has (still as gentle as a breath) and she’s stumbling towards the exit.
The door shuts. She’s trapped. She’s trapped in the terminal, but it’s more likely for the octoling to be trapped in her own mind; this can’t possibly be real. She stumbles backwards until her foam-padded shoes scuff against metal. Her breathing is harsh and ragged, resembling the sheer terror of a forcibly enclosed animal. This can’t possibly be real.
Until it is. The glass is closing her in, and her fight-or-flight response has activated, like a scared mammal - something Vam might just become without her. She finds it harder and harder to take another breath.
She can’t breathe. She can’t breathe, and she’s trapped, and the terminal is taking her away from her brother.
“Let me out.” She speaks for the first time since the terminal shoved the pair into this wretched mission, and her voice cracks -- not from underuse, but from the adrenaline coursing through her veins as fast as she wishes she could run back. “Let me out.”
Her voice shakes. “Let me out.” She doesn’t know who she’s talking to. Anyone, anything, needed to let her out. She couldn’t hear O.R.C.A, which was a bad sign considering it brought them there in the first place. Her breaths quicken. “O.R.C.A, please let me out.”
In, out, in, out, in, out, her breaths rhythmize, until finally she screams. She screams and kicks the door and pounds on the glass until she can’t see anymore, can’t see the blood and saliva streaked across the otherwise pristine crystal enclosing her.
The metal beneath her begins to rumble.
She’s too late.
She’s headed back to the kettle entrance, headed back to face the rest of the platoon and tell them she failed. She’s frozen in shock; she can only hear Vam’s voice telling her to run, Vam shoving her towards the entrance. She can’t see a thing, but in her mind’s eye, all she sees is his terrified, barely nineteen-year-old face. She can’t feel a thing, but she can feel the handle of her Hero Shot despite its place hooked onto her belt. She can’t smell a thing, but she swears there’s the bitter smell of enemy ink lingering somewhere. She grinds her tongue against her teeth in an attempt to ground herself. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. She failed. It doesn’t work because she left her brother to die.
She digs her claws into her scalp and sobs.
She materializes on the kettle, landing with a sick thunk. She can feel the vibrations against the snow as Cleo runs up to her, and a whine rises in her throat; speaking isn’t possible right now. She looks up at the medic, eyes haunted and empty as she feels warm, horrified hands cup her face. She knows there’s blood on her face. She should have done something. She could have done something.
She can barely register Cleo’s tender voice, she can barely realize the frost of the snow kicked up that bites her cheeks, she can’t see anything but the palms of her hands captured by a tremor she’s never seen before. Every inhale she takes burns, burns dry and cold and harsh against her nostrils, but she can’t stop breathing in and breathing out until she can’t differentiate between an exhale and an inhale, and all she smells is sharp, freezing air. She screams, and then she screams again. She tastes blood.
When did she start bleeding?
"I know that was scary."
When did her right palm get that bruise? Was it when she was striking the glass, or was it when she hit the cold, unforgiving metal framing the kettle entrance? She knows Cleo is talking. What is she saying?
"I promise he's gonna make it out alright. He's getting better every day."
Did she break off a fingernail? Was it when she clawed at her uniform after escaping, so desperate for something tangible to grasp and hold and stabilize? Was it when she was holding the Hero Shot, looking the soldiers dead in the eyes as she gripped it so tightly all she could feel was the warmth of the handle?
“Let me know if you need anything. I’m here for you.”
Vam’s body was cold, lifeless. Unconscious. None of his timid spirit ready to reassure her with a gentle hug. He was pale, paler than usual, and he wasn’t moving, and she thinks she’s never hated a color more than the hue of what was coming out of the back of his head.
Maybe she just needs to sleep.