======Never Alone Again======

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A gunshot. Another body falls to the ground. Raindrop’s story ends with a definitive metal full stop. \\
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Except it doesn’t. \\
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//Because she lives within your mind. Stoic like a deer silhouetted by light casting through trees at dawn, a spectre that exists only within the peripherals of your vision, like a heaviness in your chest, the pinpricks in your eyes when water falls like heavy rain, blowing in from the north. \\
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She’s not the only presence that continues to exist long past her demise, perhaps the worms that ate their bodies have made a home in your mind; those who died for you, Eddy, Lottie. As you wash your face, your features blend with the braided ginger hair and hope-filled eyes of Lottie before her skull painted the infirmary. The coarse hands of Eddy almost do the work for you as you weave together bandages, darting, basting, sniping, red thread tying everything together. \\ \\
But it could never be that simple. \\
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Scratching at your synapses, the fiery static that overrides silence, peace. It does not speak; when it is charred, he does not smile; when he is whole, its teeth clench and eyes are wide. Sometimes you awake with a searing pain around your throat; the cut long since gone, but scar ever-present. // \\
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The road Nio walks is never-ending, but at least she is not lonely; playful chatter mixes with birdsong as Coerna walks beside her, unaware of the spirits that trace their footsteps. \\ \\
//How could you tell them that <fc #ff0000>Devo</fc>, the source of every doubt, the man they left for dead, is breathing down their neck? You couldn’t. \\ \\
One final secret, this is what you tell yourself, your head splinters as the memory of the zombified woman’s teeth sinking into Raindrop floods your mind. You learn from your mistake; you lie to protect them. // \\
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The constant movement takes its toll, // you’ve seen a thousand sunrises, sunsets; always beautiful, always the same. The stars in the sky never change, they are as constant and relentless as Lottie, Eddy, Raindrop, <fc #900620>D̴̞̉e̶͕͆͝v̴̘̺͊͜͝o̷̡͇̹̎̔</fc>. // \\
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On one such night, damp with a chill in the air, Nio fights their way through the thick haze of a nightmare:\\ \\
“I’m not alone!" The words fall out of her mouth through malformed sobbing laughs. Coerna holds her tight in their arms as they wipe the sweat from her feverish brow with a plaid rag, “and I’ll -- Ha Hahahahahaha -- I’ll never be alone again!” \\
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// The ghosts of your mind each lay a chilling hand on your shoulder, their faces far above your own; you are a vessel of souls. //

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