Better as Bones

even - XXV

Bastet

I wake up in darkness. The moonlight streaming through the window. Beds are filled except one.

Ota sits in the bathroom, the warm light soaking the cottage. She has her head pressed against the wall, eyes turned upward. I sit up. Ota doesn't move.

My legs slip out from beneath the blankets as I walk to the bathroom. I hesitate before I sit in the doorway. Ota doesn't turn to look at me.

Its hair is damp, bunched up by her shoulders. Her brown skin looks dewy too. Maybe it just got out of a shower. Ota's wrapped in a large, ragged t-shirt and dark pajama pants. Her socks are thick. She rubs her feet together as she brings up her knees to her chest.

"So?" Ota asks, its eyes still closed. I look down at the glimmering tiled floor. That pressure and thickness in my throat starts to overflow. Tears bite my eyes as I fight to swallow it all down. My throat burns like a forest. I grit my teeth to keep a sob from escaping my lips.

I breathe until it's a little more bearable.

"I want to live," I whisper. Ota doesn't move. I look back down at my legs. My knee is still an open wound. Is Quarry okay? "I don't know how."

A swallow travels down Ota's throat.

"You're living already," Ota murmurs back. I bite my cheeks. I blink, tears involuntarily falling. The heel of my hand scrapes against my face. They keep on falling.

"I'm not," I choke out, coughing snot in my throat. "I'm not." Ota stays silent. It doesn't even glance at me.

I look out into the darkness of the cottage. From the bathroom light I can make out Aquarii and Mars sleeping. Elowin is on the other side of the cottage, illuminated in moonlight.

I'm not living. If I was living I'd be okay. I wouldn't be a terrible person and my friends wouldn't hate me. I wouldn't be a murderer.

Is Thorn living now? She never told me she wasn't living, but I felt like she wasn't. If she was living she wouldn't have comforted me in a courtyard in Maylea, grasping into my clothes like both of our lives depend on it. They wouldn't have told me that it wasn't okay. Only someone who isn't living, hasn't lived for a period of time, knows what to tell someone who isn't living.

Is she okay, wherever they are? Are they happy now? Did they find out how terrible I am? Why do I care? Why am I still thinking about them? They tried to kill me numerous times and fuck, I wish I hated them for that. But I don't. How can I hate someone who is better than me?

I've actually done the jobs Thorn was hired to do. Maybe she's killed. I don't know at all. And I tried to hurt her in Maylea. I caused her a pain she's never felt before.

So why am I still thinking of them?

I want to see them again.

I open my eyes as I turn back to Ota. Her eyes are finally open, her body angled towards me. Her deep brown eyes stare into my gold ones. Her eyes are widened, her mouth taunt as she presses.

"I want to live," I tell her quietly. "I'm going to live even if it kills me."