Prompts: Body Horror
This wasn't the first body Keith had come across.
He had found maybe a dozen. The adults were hard, but the children were harder. At least most of them looked like they hadn't suffered long. Most weren't even complete. There were random limbs littered about the snowy field. He had found the central area of the impact.
But this body, hadn't been a body for very long. It was a little girl. She was bleeding profusely and crying softly. He had held her, rocking her back and forth and humming a lullaby as she slipped away, her tears frozen to her face.
Keith had himself a good cry, screaming and sobbing as he cradled her small body to his chest. She was so small. So new to life that hers barely started. She didn't deserve this. None of them did. It filled him with anger. What monsters would attack a refugee ship? They had no weapons; they weren't even soldiers! They were just people, some of them already injured. His blood boiled at the indiscriminate cruelty.
He dug a little grave in the snow and laid her tiny corpse inside. He sobbed the whole time he covered her with handfuls of snow. He couldn't bury the rest of the bodies. There were too many.
Keith didn't know how long he wandered after that, looking for someone -- anyone -- still alive. It was getting dark. The night cycle was on its way. He wouldn't last much longer without help.
That's when he found them.
A flash of blue amongst a pool of dark red.
And yellow.
Keith stood there, looking on from a distance, afraid of what he might see if he got closer. But he went eventually. He couldn't help himself.
Lance had propped himself up into a sitting position leaning against what was left of Hunk, who was sprawled out, prone. Hunk's back armor plate was missing, a hole blasted through his back. His ribs stuck out like teeth around the empty maw. Keith looked away. At least it was instantaneous.
Lance on the other hand...
He had a large piece of sheet metal stuck in his shoulder, piercing his armor. Both his legs twisted at odd angles, clearly broken. He must have been in so much pain.
Lance had died alone on this freezing godforsaken moon, curled up next to his dead best friend.
Keith cursed himself for not being able to be there by Lance's side in his final moments. He didn't cry. He didn't have any of those left. Instead, Keith knelt down and used his thumb to smooth out the wrinkle the pain had left in Lance's forehead. Wait. Riger mortis was a thing.
Keith adjusted them, rolling Hunk over so he could see his face and not the ugly chasm in his back. Some of the organs slipped out as he did so. If Keith had anything in his stomach, he would have lost it. But with the wound covered, Hunk looked like he could be sleeping, if Keith ignored all the blood.
Lance was a bit harder to position, what with the cold and him being all bent in on himself when he died. Keith wanted to lay him out next to Hunk, but his twisted legs made it impossible to look natural.
Keith gave up, lying in the snow next them in a line. He'd join them soon enough.
A familiar voice sounded on the comm.
"Shi-iro?"
"Keith? Are you okay?" Shiro asked urgently.
"I'm hurt," he took a ragged breath. "Lance and Hunk, they're--"
He couldn't say it. Saying it made it real. And it wasn't real. It couldn't be. He needed to get out of there.
"I need you to come get me."
