the killing kind - (lgbt | onc 2022)

1

word count: 2195
total word count: 2195

The announcement came halfway through the brief hour of peace Kavi had managed to find. Laura wasn't home, and for once, there were no tasks to be done around town—no generators to repair, no kids to ferry to and from the schoolhouse, no weeds to be pulled from the community garden.

It seemed like there was always something for him to put his back into in Ashwell. But for now, he perched on a worn-out wooden stool, a wide, angled paintbrush held delicately in his right hand.

Light from the sinking sun spilled through the window in his bedroom, falling over a canvas he'd bargained for at an art store a town over.

That was the issue with a colony like Ashwell—the bare minimum of an economy meant almost no cash to use when its residents visited places still under the military's control. Sometimes he'd find odd jobs in those other cities, though, saving whatever he could get and then spending it a few trips later on paints or new clothes.

At the moment, the canvas held not much more than a sketch, a dusty blue underpainting providing the base for the start of a ridged, mountainous skyline lit red by an unseen sun. Kavi used his free hand to tug at the hem of his binder, adjusting where it sat on his chest, then leaned in closer, bringing in the brush tipped in dark crimson.

The mountain had just started to take shape under a long, feather-light stroke of the brush when a knock sounded at the door. Kavi didn't look up, brow scrunched in concentration.

"Kavi?"

"What's up, Laura?"

The woman's voice came out breathless, somewhere between panicked and uncertain.

"Kavi, Jasper is back."

The brush jolted and fell, bouncing off of Kavi's thigh on its way down. He barely noticed; didn't care about the heavy red streak that now slashed across the canvas in a bloody stain.

He could only manage a whisper, somehow on his feet now and facing her.

"What?"

The woman at the door tried and failed to smile. Despite pushing forty-five, she was lovely to Kavi, with soft eyes and a face weathered by hard work. Today, though, the creases by her eyes implied many more years than she'd actually experienced.

"He just... walked back into town."

Kavi's heart pounded in his ears. He pushed past her and out of the bedroom, already taking the steps down to the main floor two at a time.

"Kavi, wait—"

"Did he say anything?"

"That's the thing—" Laura rushed to catch up, a hand on his arm stopping him before he could pull open the front door. "Kavi, he's... confused. Barely responsive. He—"

Kavi heard the words through a thick fog. Jasper was here.

"Where is he?"

"Kavi, you're not listening to me—"

"Where, Laura?"

Her gaze flicked over his face, helplessness setting in. "We got him into Declan's house."

The medic?

Kavi shoved through the door and took off. The sidewalk fell away under his feet; his breaths came as short gasps for air. The main intersection came and went without needing a single glance in either direction—the only people who travelled the single highway through town would be travellers from other places, and those didn't pass through Ashwell much.