She is Fatal to Death (Standalone Story)

Chapter 44 (Her Sacrifice)

Renata

"Priya!" That voice called out to her again, filtering through ears that made everything sound foreign. The ground beneath her palms trembled, following the rhythm of her inhales and exhales, matching the flow of her blood and the relentless music of her impenatrable heart.

"Renata, talk to me." The plea was closer. The pained sound of it only managed to pierce through some of her scrambled thoughts.

She blinked harshly, trying her best to register the experience overwhelming her body. The feelings and emotions raced by. Names. Faces. Sounds. Touches. All fleetful yet so unbelievably powerful. Punch after punch. The cries ripped through her ears like shards of glass. The final farewells. The pain they felt. The fear that drove them mad. This moment. The next. And the next after that. And on and on and on.

She'd gotten small glimpses of this phenomenon before. One person at a time. But Death waited for no one. The countless screaming and sighing and crying and laughing souls demanded her attention, her presence, otherwise they would never move on from this life to the next.

And whether she liked it or not, she was there. In that tiny window of time, she stood there, took them by the hand, and walked them across the threshold. Some resisted. Others cursed her. The rare ones simply smiled or laughed or couldn't have been more eager if they tried. But she had no favorites. Every individual reaction was valid and human.

She was no god. No superior being in charge.

She was simply an escort, the end to the beginning, the part of the equation which ensures balance, as the universe requires.

A gentle touch brushed across her cheek, pulling her into one spot, the place where her actual body was. No, that didn't seem right to say, as if to suggest she wasn't really with the others, because she was. She absolutely was somehow there with every passing soul in flesh and bone and mind and heart.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Tahoma?" She thought she recognized his exquisite face. Recalled his lips against hers, which now felt like the faintest of memories—that terrified her like nothing else.

Would she fade into this role?

Yes, I will.

She would sink to the deepest depths, swarmed by the wind and the world and the atoms. She would warp into a being she would not recognize but embrace anyway. Yet...as much as she began to do just that, she couldn't fully accept it.

She tried her best to return to the present, but it was near impossible. She had to take the task hefted upon her shoulders and shove it to the back of her mind, if even for a minute or two. First, she practiced for many prolonged moments—all the while Tahoma called out to her, losing his mind.

"I'm right here, priya, come back. You did it. He's gone. You did it. It's okay, priya."

She realized he was cradling her face, looking directly into her eyes. "Yes, that's right. Don't give up on me."

She whimpered. "It's not okay. This is wrong. This is so very wrong."

He pressed a kiss to her lips, and that helped in grounding her just a little bit longer. "You did what you had to. You saved the world, priya. You are so brave. You did it."