This Lullaby ( Kaylor )

( all those shadows )

Here, have something else in addition to the absolutely beautiful overload of Taylor/Kaylor yesterday.   Since I've been mean to you all lately, I will let you know that this isn't the last chapter...

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"Karlie!"

The scream tore through Taylor like a bullet in her throat, hot and tearing at her flesh.  Frantic fingers tugged at the door handle, but it had locked from the inside.  The scattered fractals of her thoughts told her to loop around the front, but by the time she made it, she knew all too well that it would be too late, and there'd be no one left to save anyway.

So it was with a sob that she took the opporunity Karlie had given her.  She took off across a strip of pavement, into the trees bordering the parking lot.  She was crying out, begging for help, begging for Karlie.  Her throat felt frayed like a weather-worn rope, taught under her skin.  She couldn't seem to stop her vocal chords from vibrating, though, even though her shouting was dangerous.

She couldn't help hoping that someone would hear, that they would come towards her voice and they'd run to Karlie's aid and somehow, it would be in time.  She had to hope because it was Karlie and Karlie was her best friend and her girlfriend and her lifeworldexistenceoxygen

nononono NO

At some point she started sprinting, and her legs were sobbing as she ran and ran and ran and ran.  The woods seemed to push her back but she couldn't go back because what was waiting for her?  Blood and a Karlie-shaped corpse that may or may not have been walking.

Her legs kept burning and her chest was heaving so hard her breaths echoed like hiccups, but she just couldn't stop.  Couldn't quit running.  Her head felt like an asteroid belt, the different thoughts spiraling at hunreds and thousands of miles an hour, rattling against her skull-cage.

And the trees shook snow from their branches and reached towards her with boughs like fingers that had been sharpened into spears.  At some point her coat had turned into a bird and fluttered into the snow because the angry tree hands carved into her skin.  And their trunks shaped and reshaped, forming Karlie's face.  But she wasn't smiling or laughing or blowing kisses.  She was glaring and angry and her eyes were sunken, and she kept asking "Why?  Why did you leave me behind?"

Shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP KARLIE YOU MADE ME LEAVE YOU.  YOU MADE ME YOU MADE ME YOU MADE ME.  YOU'RE THE ONE THAT LEFT ME!

Taylor's brain was shouting the words so loudly her ears were bleeding and she felt something hot and sticky on her cheeks because of it  But her throat had stopped working because she was running too hard.  The walls of it were slimy and glueing themselves together and breathing was hard enough, let alone screaming.

She ran until she couldn't even feel herself anymore, and then even farther.

At some point her knees hit the snow and she couldn't run anymore.  As soon as she stopped, all of the agony hit her at once, and she fell against one of the tree trunks, letting it wrap its arms around her, crush her.  Her eyes were crying but her sobs were still stuck in her throat.  She felt dizzy dizzy dizzy and the tree branch hands were smashing her lungs.

Karlie was holding an xbox remote and she was smiling brighter than the sun, eyes bright with victory.  And Taylor was pouting, arms crossed, not looking over at the younger girl.  "I win," Karlie jested, elbowing her lightly.

"You cheated," Taylor replied, annoyed.

"You can't prove that.  And even if I did, what're you're gonna do about it?" Karlie asked, still grinning brightly.

It was a moment of hesitation, of holding herself back.  But Taylor had wanted to do this ever since that first time on the Victoria's Secret runway, flirting with Karlie as the girl walked past, bleeding confidence.  So she cupped Karlie's face in her hands and pulled her into a deep, lingering kiss, one that felt like fire and ice all at once.

When they broke apart, Karlie was staring at her in a befuddled mixture of shock and adoration.  And Taylor grinned, an expression that was so wide it hurt her cheeks.  She mimicked the snarky tone Karlie had taken earlier, "I win."

"I call rematch," Karlie muttered, and for a moment, Taylor thought she was referring to Mario Kart, its credits still playing on the tv screen.  Then Karlie was pulling her back in, and Taylor forgot all about video games.

The memory was a clear beacon through the rest of her thoughts.  But soon it was gone, leaving nothing but an aching wound in its wake.  Her head was filled with static and her thoughts popped up like strange radio waves.  But now she was bleeding through the static, muffling more.  It filled her up and swelled behind her eyes and she felt her nose start bleeding.  But as she rubbed at it, her fingers came back clean.  Her ears felt full and oozing but they were clean too and she wondered if her blood had turned invisible and she was melting from the inside out and no one could see.

Karlie is dead.

Dead.

Dead.

And there'll never be a funeral or a headstone or even a burial because she's dead and you don't even know where you are and you're NOTHING WITHOUT HER so what now, Taylor?  What now, you fucking piece of shit?  You left her to die so now what are you going to do all alone?  I bet that guilt will haunt you forever.

More clearance in the static, and now it was her mind screaming at her.  Carving her arms and her legs and her chest and her throat with thoughts like razors.  And it was right right right wasn't it?  How was she supposed to live with herself?  How?

Distantly, she thought she heard crunching underbrush.  There was the sound of that death rattle, the beckoning siren call of the undead.  And as she sat there shivering in the snow, barely breathing, bleeding invisible blood and compacting under the sheer weight of what she'd just lost, she knew she was a target.

Her fingers fumbled for the gun, and she pulled it out.  She debated using it to defend herself, but what reason did she have?  What reason at all?  But she was still too much of a coward to let one of those things tear into her like they had to Karlie.  Karlie was always the brave one.

So she pushed the gun up under her chin, feeling the cool metal as it burned her flesh.

And she closed her eyes.

A single gunshot echoed through the trees.

Then silence, louder than the bullet that had been fired to make it.