Thermopylae

“Leda. Leda, look at me.” Jane took her sister’s face in her hands, smacking her cheeks. She was trying to be gentle, but there wasn’t much time.

            “Huh?” Leda’s eyes rolled in her skull, struggling to focus

            “They’re coming. I can already hear the hounds.” Jane wrung her hands. “They’re close.” At this, Leda snapped out of her daze, bolting up into a sitting position.

“Do they know we’re here?” she asked, alarmed. Jane took a deep breath, biting her lip.

For a moment, she considered saying that, of course, they didn’t know. She wished she could tell her sister that the two of them were safe. Instead, Jane nodded, her shoulders sagged in defeat.

“What are we gonna do?” Leda cried, her voice rising in pitch. Jane pinched the bridge of her nose as a wave of nausea came over her. Her fingers began to tingle, and she clenched her fists in response.

            “You’re going to run, and then you’re going to keep going on towards the safe house. Remember? It’s the same plan as before.”

            “But…what about you?”

            “I’m going to hold them off long enough for you to escape.” Jane looked away from Leda, unable to meet her eyes.

            “You can’t do that! You won’t be able to,” Leda’s eyes filled with tears and she started to hug herself tightly. “You won’t get away, Janie. You would abandon me?”

 Jane didn’t know how to answer.

            She was spared from responding by the sound of baying hounds, coming closer by the second. These were not the howls of normal dogs, however. They were different; high-pitched, haunting, more of a scream than a howl. Appropriate, as they were a warning of imminent danger. For now, the metal walls of their temporary shelter, an abandoned train car, overturned on the side of the tracks, would protect Jane and Leda. If they waited too long, however, their protection would be their prison. It would be too late for either of them to escape.

            “I’m going to climb out of here first. It’s me they’re tracking, so they won’t go after you as long as I keep their attention. That’s when you have to run,” Jane explained. Leda grabbed Jane, clinging onto the fabric of her clothes as tightly as she could. The poor girl was crying, her shoulders shaking. “No, no, no, don’t you cry.” Jane covered her hand with her sleeve and brushed Leda’s hair back with her fingers. “We don’t have time for tears, love, don’t cry.”

            “I don’t want you to go!” Leda’s voice rose into hysterics, becoming a chant, “Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go.” Her cry crescendoed into a desperate plea. Jane didn’t want to go, either. But she’d learned over the years that the world didn’t care what she wanted, nor did it care about her sister. No matter how young and innocent she was.

            Jane pried Leda’s hands from her jacket, taking it off and wrapping it around the little girl’s shoulders. After all, it was cold, and Jane wouldn’t need it much longer. Her hands stung, as if there were a nest of hornets within, crawling through her veins and burrowing through flesh. The swarm was itching for release. The more she tried to hold them back, the more intense their desire for freedom, and the more painful it was to keep them at bay. Such was the nature of the curse. The same curse that the hounds were tracking, the same curse that had made them hounds. It had infected countless people as well, wiped out cities. Most of the world had become once-human abominations because of it.