Anna crawled to the top of the sand dune. It had taken her a long time to get to the highest point, crawling on the shifting, treacherous black sand. She hoped that by reaching the top, she would be able to see some kind of shelter, some kind of water, some kind of food.
She shaded her eyes from the burning, ugly red sun and scanned the horizon.
Nothing. Same endless expanse of black sand and sharp obsidian that was everywhere else.
I'm going to die here, she thought. Nothing can live here.
Except some things lived here, didn't they? Awful things, things with fangs, and poison, things that lived to hurt and kill.
She heard one of those things screech in the air high above her.
A Red Eyes? Something worse?
She didn't know. She ran down the face of the dune. A shadow passed overhead.
She slipped, sliding down on her back, faster as the sand turned into a landslide. She grabbed and grabbed at the sand, catching nothing, unable to slow her descent.
Finally, she came to a halt crashing into some of the black and jagged rocks that jutted from the black sand.
She rolled over, feeling her belly. Blood. A good amount of blood.
The sun burned hotter overhead.
Anna lay there on the sand, her blood pouring out of her, staining the black red. Red like the sun. The only color around.
If I only had some water, she thought.
But she knew that was madness. There was no water, there was no shade, there was nothing except death from below and death from above. Death to stay and death to keep walking.
She got up, and tore some fabric from her shirt, pressing it to her wound to slow the bleeding.
She kept walking. Death would have to catch her a little further along.
******************************
The Hawk landed on the rooftop. She let Amanda and Heather free from her arms.
Amanda fell to her knees, looking up at where the apartment had been, high above them. The fire from the explosion had subsided into black smoke pouring from where the windows and the balcony had been.
Heather put a hand gently on Amanda's shoulder.
"Maybe he's OK," Heather said softly.
"No," Amanda replied quietly. "He's dead."
"We should get out of here," Heather replied. "If that thing is still alive it could come after us."
Amanda stood up, shaking her head.
"No, he- John killed it. He killed it."
Heather looked at the Hawk, who was sitting on the roof, rubbing her head.
"I'm so sorry, Amanda," Heather said. She pulled the other woman in for a hug. "I'm so sorry."
"I wanted him to know his child. I wanted him to be- I wanted him to be -- "
But that was all she could say. Amanda laid her head in the hollow of Heather's shoulder, sobbing, her chest heaving.
"I wanted the future!"
"I know you did," Heather said, stroking the other woman's hair. "He wanted that too."
The two women stood there, holding each other, watching the smoke from what had been Anna and Heather's apartment turn lighter in color and thin. Sirens roared in the distance, firefighters and police soon to arrive.
"Let's go, ladies," Heather said gently, taking them both by the hand. "We've got to be somewhere else. I still have an apartment across town. It's not big but it's a place we can go to think."
"No," the Hawk whispered.
The other two women turned to look at her.
The Hawk kept her head down, her hair dirty, stringy, clinging limply to her face.
"I don't want to go with you," she continued. "I'm scared. I'm so scared. I just want to go home."
"You'll be safer with us," Heather said.
The Hawk stood up, her face contorting with pain. She reached down, feeling at her ankle. Swollen- probably from the landing, she thought.
"I have to go," the Hawk pleaded.
Amanda stepped closer to her.
"We need to know what you know," Amanda said softly. "We're all scared. We've all been hurt. We need to know what you know, so we can help each other."
"I'm sorry- I really am. I need to go," the Hawk cried softly. "I need to go
home."
She limped over to the edge of the building. The breeze rose up to meet her nostrils, providing her with some strength, some hope. Maybe she could fly so far and never look back and maybe nothing would come after her.
"You're making a big mistake," Amanda said quietly.
But the Hawk didn't hear. She spread her wings and let herself fall off the edge of the building, spreading her wings. Amanda and Heather watched as the Hawk caught the wind, soaring higher and higher as she went. They watched silently as she grew smaller and smaller in their sight, soaring silently over rooftops, high above the City.
Finally, Heather put her arm around Amanda.
Amanda broke open with sobs, ragged chest heaving as the other woman led her down.
******************************
The sand blew in Anna's face as she staggered down what seemed like her millionth black sand dune, one just as empty and useless as all the other ones had been. Her lips were cracked from the heat and dehydration, her tongue felt swollen and raw in her mouth. Blood continued to seep past her fingers.
I did not think that dying here would be so slow, she thought.
She looked down at her other hand.
But maybe dying doesn't have to be so slow.
The knife.
It hadn't done the Fist very much good, Anna thought. But maybe she used it on the wrong person. Maybe she should have used it on herself, opened her veins up, bled out onto the black sand. That might have freed her from the Detective.
And it might free me the same way, Anna realized.
If he catches me, he'll break my mind. He'll torture me until I open all the windows he wants, there won't be anything left of me to fight him with.
I need to die now.
If he finds me dead, he can't use me. Maybe he'll let Heather go, she never hurt anyone. Maybe if I die he'll move on to hurting someone else.
If, of course, Heather is still alive, which she probably is not.
It's time for me to die, Anna knew. Nothing to live for. Better to be dead.
She sat down in the hot black sand. It hurt to sit.
It wouldn't hurt much longer, though.
Anna sat there, squinting, looking around. Nothing to see. No idea why I bother, she thought.
