The dying song

Chapter VI: Eclipse

2020.

Utahime.

She knows she has to stop the bleeding. But there isn't any clean cloth around. Nothing.

The increasingly close rumbling behind her shakes her ground, waves of danger and fear washing her guts as she keeps crawling. The wound in her thigh is full of sand, swollen, awfully itchy, and her dry lips feel sticky, the canteen too far from her to get some water. Utahime winces, desperate to find a safe spot before the monsters arrive because she knows she won't be able to attack in her state, not when pain is clouding her mind and dangerously altering her levels of cursed energy...

" Utahime, you need to answer me ."

A new voice through the intercom appears again, and this one isn't Mei's, but Shoko's. She sounds concerned, a slight trembling shading her tone. It somehow makes Utahime feel relieved, because she had forgotten the radio was still there, due to her pain, her priority now being to get it before looking for a safe place to hide.

Still crawling until she makes it to the bike where the device is hanging from, she rushes to take it and presses the calling button. Her finger slips from it with her own blood, making it almost impossible to answer.

"Shoko??" Utahime tries not to yell, but despair is getting the best of her. There's some interference in their communication before she can get a reply. "Shoko? I'm here!"

" Utahime, it's— " All she can hear is static, and then Shoko's voice again. " Where are you? Please come back, it's not safe out there— " the interference muffles the voice for a brief moment. " Please, I d— Know what you're doing, but please come back now. We're all worried! "

Utahime wants to cry.

Inhaling, she holds back her sobs, doing her best to not break herself at her friend's voice. Briefly, she explains in broad terms what has happened, giving a general description of her location: the ramshackle base of what used to be the Tokyo Tower; there's no time to be detailed with the overwhelming energy coming closer every second...

" Utahime ," Shoko continues, noticeably worried. At this point, the signal has improved, but Utahime doesn't seem to be interested in her words when she can feel danger breathing down her neck. " Please listen to me carefully: you need to remove any cloth that covers the wound but don't try to clean it, okay? Rip your pants off, do whatever it's necessary, but don't touch it..."

"Shoko, it's full of sand..."

" I know. I know it could happen. But please, just press on it and stop the bleeding. That's what matters now. Stop the bleeding until I can get to you. "

"Shoko, I—"

" No, please, Uta—" the static appears again, making it hard to hear Shoko. "You need to—. It's—. We're getting ready to come for you..."

Distant shrieks from a horde of curses startle her until she loses sense of her own whereabouts. As Shoko keeps talking, Utahime gets goosebumps, the malevolent and suffocating energy of the giant being strong enough to make her shudder, even if it isn't close yet. She cuts herself off, unable to answer a single thing of what her friend says, her heart beating faster as the horde comes closer.

"Utahime? Utahime, are you there? Are you alright?" Shoko insists, aware of the reverberations that get through the radio from Utahime's side. "Utahime, answer me, please!"

Lost in her mind, Utahime frowns. The energy of one of these curses—she guesses it's the biggest one—feels overwhelmingly familiar, itching old wounds as she shuts her eyes and pain rips through her heart, triggering nightmares she thought forgotten, freezing in the spot. Don't think about him, she tells herself, don't think about him ; and her soul hurts deep and horrible, as memories of a past long gone flash through her mind's eyes. She can hear Shoko, and she does want to answer, but she's not able to move, although there's an adrenaline rush running across her veins, her brain trying to conceal her body and regain control of the physical response, tense muscles aware of the threat behind.

She's going to die.

Suddenly, the distant sound in her mind of a baby's cry splits her thoughts, shaking her enough to move. She can't die here. She can't. There's a promise she needs to fulfill: she has to find him, even if that's the last thing she does. She needs to live and make it meaningful, so she shakes herself out of it, with Shoko's voice still calling out for her, her own spirit beckoning her to move.

" Utahime, you need to hide now!"

With the two-way radio in hand, Utahime starts crawling again. She'll stop the bleeding later, when she's safe, but now, she needs to find a hiding place among the tower ruins. She clutches her wound with her free hand and rushes to a hidden, crusty door under the oxidized metal bar of the tower base. Just a tiny space for the door that used to be the elevator, the basement between her and hell, but she manages to reach it, trying her best to choke any sound, stirring up the sand on top. She coughs and her wound hurts again, but she bites her lip to not scream, making the bleeding worse.

Her heart pounds, hearing the curses come closer all around; she owns a gun, but she's aware that it will never work against such monsters. She suppresses her cursed energy so they don't find her easily. After all, she won't be able to use her technique, even if she wanted to. Because she can't die here. Not now. Not yet.

There's still a promise.

"Shoko, I'll be fine..." She pushes the call button, but there's no answer this time, signal gone again.

When she finally gets in the underground hole and closes the small gap of the glass door, her senses can even catch the flickering waves of dark energy as the bloodthirsty horde closes in, looking for human flesh to devour, for a sorcerer's, if it's possible. There's still that unutterable feeling of familiarity with the source of this approaching energy, finding it impossible to fathom. Overthinking gets the best of her and gives her a headache instead, making her struggle to rip her shirt off and tie the rag around the wound to press it, despite the confined space she finds herself into. She takes the batteries out of the radio in case anyone from her group talks again; she must keep herself in utter silence until the horde is gone.

And thus, she shuts her body off the best she can, looking up through the dirty, almost broken glass of the door, in hopes to get a glimpse of the monsters she's hiding from. But the truth is, there's little she can see from her spot, feeling a bit relieved when none of them seem to put their eyes on the glass over her head.

Until now.

Instead, she closes her eyes, recalling the scent and colors of her not so distant past: his eyes, the spark of mischief in them; his hair. The way he moved, the way he walked. The way his canines shone through his smirk; the taste of his lips and the warmth of his arms around her. The thought of him is enough to give her strength.

Sometimes, memories can save someone's life.

Struggling to find a better position inside her shelter, as a solar eclipse casts its shadows onto a tumbledown Tokyo, she pants, prey of pain, fear, thirst and hunger, as unmeant tears make their way down her cheeks. She starts humming to herself, very quietly, that same old song she used to sing to him—back when they were together—in the intimacy of their youth.

Utahime wonders, once more, why she left that morning.