For the Greater Good

Epilogue

Suffocating was the worst way to die.

It felt like her lungs were being crushed, and torn, and inflated all at once. She could feel each fleck of dirt, each scratching root,  each ounce of the pressure dragging her closer and closer to the black world that once upon a time she had carved so much. Her limbs strained for something to grab, but the darkness all around her pressed in and only dragged her further away from...anything. Her throat bloated with unidentifiable things--dirt, minerals, rocks all turned to the consistency of olive oil. Her eyes burned, and her scream fell on deaf emptiness for all eternity.

At some point she recognize that the dirt had solidified. Her limbs had stopped reacting long before that. Her heart had puttered to a stop. Her corpse left to decompose in the encasing of dirt. Her own laughter was chilling--a breathless, humorless gurgle on rocks. The worms and Beatles and maggots that lived underneath the earth scuttled away at the sound.

Zara Woods was a mutant. Her ability had been called "the greatest gift that could ever be given". A miracle. A strength.

It was curse. Zara had always thought it was a curse. 

The dirt was about as substantial, as sturdy, as a silk. She pulled and grabbed until her fingers had turned black, scars crisscrossed her palms ripped open again and again before they could heal themselves. She vomited chunks of limestone. Her body swam in an endless sea of clay. She wasn't even sure the way she was grasping for was "up". Maybe she was just crawling her way down to Hell. 

She didn't think she'd mind either way. 

Her hands broken upwards, and light-- sunlight she realized-- rained down through the gaps in the darkness. An angel's blessing. Her lungs screamed in agony as they released the dirt, the minerals, and most of her stomach acids in an attempt to restore homeostasis. 

The sky was dark pink. A sunset. 

In another life, she might have felt another hand in hers, coaxing her to look up, to see the colors and didn't that make her so happy? Wasn't that just the best, Zara? My brother and I use to watch the sunset together before he hated me. 

Zara gagged again. When she looked up, she wondered if she had finally died, if her ability had finally failed her like she had craved it to do for so long.

Andrea smiled down at her, her blue eyes sparkling with mirth. Her ginger hair flowed in a halo of red that matched the sky. Her hands reached down towards Zara, her soft, soft hands caressed her cheek, and slid down with gentle ease looping around her neck, squeezing, squeezing.

"You're a perfect replacement host." Xerxes grated out. "Undying, Invincible! So much sturdier than these ones!" Oliver's face screwed up in an unflattering expression. He looked so much like Andrea, his twin, his dead twin. Zara weakly gripped at his hands, but she felt like they were made of lead. He hoisted her off the ground, that ugly smirk on his face.

"Oliver had stubbornness. Andrea had the power. But you...Zara, you have both!" He chortled, "I will raze worlds with you as my host. I'll turn the entire mutant population into my mindless army and watch them tear apart those blasphemous mistakes that destroyed my ship. All of them! Humanity will be the dirt under my feet when I traverse as the ruler of the stars!"

"Over...my..dead...body." Zara coughed. He laughed.

"That's what Oliver said too! He was so desparate to save himself and when he failed, he did everything he could to make sure his sister didn't get anything better than him. He couldn't stand the idea that he would be discarded after I was done with him." Xerxes head cocked to the side, "He's still upset about it, but he's going to die soon, anyway." Xerxes pulled back part of Oliver lab coat, revealing a large gash that was carelessly leaking scarlet blood onto the grass. An average human wouldn't still be standing with that wound. Zara kicked at it.