She is Fatal to Death (Standalone Story)

Chapter 37 (Outside of the Living)

Renata

As she inhaled the stale, lifeless air, she surveyed her otherworldly environment. Her eyes squinted against the dull yet overpowering, all-surrounding glow. It was an ashy blue. A strange, familiar blue. She'd been submerged in it, welcomed by it and rejected by it more times than she wanted to admit.

But this was different. All of those instances before, she was on the edge of this land, watching from afar and denied entry. She was pulled back into the world she knew before she truly understood the blue, deathly place she floated near.

Renata looked at the ground beneath her. Blue grass. Blue dirt. She swivelled her head side to side. Blue bark. Blue leaves. The same for the plants.

This is unreal.

Her eyes strained upward, only to be confronted by that same faded, cloudless blue. Like it was once a lively, vibrant blue but was washed one too many times, left to hang out and dry without much more care granted toward it. In a way, it was beautiful in its own tragic right.

It was simply soft and whimsical yet also hard and jaded. A paradoxical space that evoked comfort and acceptance, and a deep, intrinsic fear.

A breeze blew against her cheek. It was cool, like a soft, hesitant kiss. She was almost convinced there was never a stir in the air as she noticed nothing else moved, except for the four of them. It was quiet, though not completely silent. Every rustle led to an echo, an echo that was not loud in the slightest, though it carried anyway, as a scream would. Eventually, that sound faded away too, into the blue.

She looked down at her hands, flipping them back and forth as she realized she felt even stronger than before. Her deeply brown skin was stark against the pale background of this place, and she wondered whether it was bleeding into her, reminding her of when she took from Angel without meaning too.

She felt similarly in this land of the dead but tenfold.

"Renata!"

She returned to the present and looked into Tahoma's concerned, red gaze. "Are you okay?" His words echoed. It was almost unnoticable if she didn't pay attention.

"I'm fine." Her eyes flitted toward Keone and Balam. Balam was flat on her back, and Renata sensed that the woman was slipping away. "She's not."

Renata rose to her feet and kneeled beside Keone, looking down at the struggling Balam. She gasped for breath, the heartbreaking sounds filling the air. Her body was covered in black slashes. Her long dark hair fanned around her head in thick, wavy tendrils. Her face contorted with pain. "Please," she whispered, and a red spittle sprayed upon the border of her lips. "Make it stop. Make it stop."

Renata felt two sides of herself clash at Balam's request. Her more human side swelled with denial, and desired her survival. The other, new, alien part, wanted to welcome her into its arms, absorb her until she was completely at peace, in sync with the universe and outside of the living world, the next step in her existence.

Her eyes welled with tears. Her voice was hoarse. "You did so well. You've helped save the world, I promise."

Those words immediately put Balam at ease. The stress from her face lessened and the softest of smiles graced her pale lips. She closed her eyes, and the trust in her body language pushed Renata to act. She put her palms flat against Balam's body, and those black marks moved from their spots and into Renata's fingertips, moving up her wrists and arms, like swirling, loving snakes. They were cold but not uncomfortable. Renata inhaled deeply, inhaling the end of Balam.