"Rest…" Lyra murmurs.
Calen looks at her. Blood dampens her dry, chapped lips. Her eyes are glazed, her skin stained in crimson.
Everyone else nods silently.
"Yes, Lyra… you just… rest up," Ronan says softly, drawing the words out. Then he turns to Calen and Kaitlyn, his voice low. "Let's talk in private."
Without saying a word, Kaitlyn and Calen follow him behind the bar and into the diner's kitchen, which is surprisingly neat given the state of the world outside.
Large gas stoves sit beneath hanging pots and pans. Gray cabinets line the walls, likely filled with utensils and rusted cookware. A metal door with a heavy inside latch and a covered window connects to the outside alley.
Ronan leans on a central island. "Her foot is a sneeze away from falling off." He crosses his arms.
Calen frowns. "What are you suggesting?"
"Cut it off and cauterize it," Kaitlyn answers coldly.
Silence chokes the room. The decision had been made for Lyra.
"Who's gonna do it?" Calen asks, glancing around nervously.
Ronan gestures toward the stove. "See if these still work. Loot the place for anything useful." His eyes land on the sliding door that connects to the dining area. "I'm going back to comfort her."
He slips out, leaving Calen and Kaitlyn alone.
They exchange a look.
"I'll take this side, you take that one." Kaitlyn points to opposite ends of the kitchen.
Calen nods and starts searching. After a short while, they gather a small pile of leftovers on the island.
Calen pauses, eyes drifting toward the doorway. "What's Ronan gonna do about the sword?"
Kaitlyn is quiet for a moment. Then she says, "You feel it too, right? That these 'manifestations' aren't physical. Not in the normal way. It's like... they're tethered to us spiritually. I bet we can call them back when we need them."
"Kinda… maybe." Calen shrugs. "I don't know. We're all new to this." He fiddles with the stove, confused by its outdated and foreign design.
After some tinkering, a dull gray flame ignites on one of the burners.
Understanding Ronan's intent, Calen grabs a decently sized pan and sets it over the flame.
After placing the pan on the burner, Calen walks over to the island and eyes their collected supplies. A few dented cans of some unknown food sit beside a stack of old towels and thin, dusty blankets. Resting among them is a conspicuously sharp cleaver, too clean for comfort.
"Are we ready?" Calen asks.
Kaitlyn jumps at his voice and bumps her head on the cabinet she's been digging through. She winces, then pulls back and rubs the sore spot. "More ready than we'll ever be," she mutters.
They grab what they need, the towels, the now red-hot pan, and the cleaver.
"Do you think... she'll be okay?" Kaitlyn asks quietly, doubt creeping into her voice.
Calen pauses. His words come out wobbly but confident. "She'll die if we don't do this." He locks eyes with her.
With no other words exchanged, they slide open the kitchen door.
Ronan sits across from Lyra in the booth. He's talking gently, spinning fragments of memories like thread, while Lyra mumbles in and out of lucidity, her head leaning to one side, her eyes barely open.
As Calen and Kaitlyn approach, Lyra looks up. Something shifts. That spark, life, returns to her eyes in a sudden rush of terror.
"No! No! No!" She thrashes weakly, realizing what's coming. "It'll heal! Don't!" Her voice is hoarse and panicked, the sound of someone already halfway through hell.
She kicks out instinctively. The stool holding up her foot slips out from beneath her. Her ruined foot slams against the booth floor with a sickening smack. She screams, full-throated and wild.
Ronan holds her down, arms wrapping her shoulders, whispering in her ear. Kaitlyn rushes forward and sticks a towel in Lyra's mouth, muffling the scream and giving her something to bite.
Calen doesn't get a choice. They all look at him.
He kneels, hands shaking. The foot is nearly torn off already—hanging on by threads of tendon and shredded skin. His stomach turns at the sight. His face twists in revulsion.
The cleaver feels too heavy in his hand.
The foot looked less like a limb and more like an abstract ruin of flesh. Torn skin clung in frayed ribbons, soaked in dried and wet blood that had caked into the fibers of her sock. The shoe, what remained of it, had burst apart at the seams, the rubber sole peeling back like melted wax. Her ankle was an open book of carnage, every page turned red.
Bone jutted out, white and serrated, snapping through flesh like splintered ivory. Shards poked through her skin in unnatural directions, gleaming with wetness, some bent inward like crooked nails. Purple-black bruising spread up her calf like spilled ink, and the veins throbbed visibly under her pale skin: fat, sluggish, struggling to pump blood into something that no longer worked.
The smell was almost worse than the sight. Rot had already begun to ferment, a sour-sweet stench of exposed muscle baking against her fevered skin. Tendons snapped like strained guitar strings with every twitch of her leg. One toe was missing entirely, just gone, leaving behind a pulpy, gnawed void.
Calen's breath hitched.
He raised the cleaver, and his hand trembled. The heat from the pan behind him radiated off his back, reminding him of what came next. He tried not to vomit.
"Do it," Ronan said from above, low and firm.
Calen exhaled. His stomach twisted.
The first swing wasn't clean.
The blade slammed down, thunk, and sank partway through. The noise was meaty, a wet crunch-like biting into a rotten melon. Lyra's body bucked hard against Ronan, her muffled scream biting through the towel.
Calen pulled the cleaver back. A thick thread of sinew clung to the blade before snapping. Blood gushed from the severed side like a broken faucet.
The second strike went deeper.
A brutal crack rang out as he clipped the bone. It didn't shatter, it fractured. Shards of splintered tibia snapped off, sticking to the blood-slick blade. More blood followed, gurgling out in pulses that made Calen dizzy.
He gasped, adjusted his grip, and raised the cleaver one more time.
The third strike did it.
With a sickening final chop, the foot came loose. It landed on the floor with a damp thud, twisted in a direction feet were never meant to face. Nerve endings twitched in the exposed stump like worms after rain.
Calen dropped the cleaver. His hands were shaking, covered in thick, congealing blood. Some of it wasn't hers, he bit his tongue hard during the last strike.
Behind him, Kaitlyn moved fast. She snatched the red-hot pan with bundled towels and pressed it to the open wound.
The sizzle was immediate.
Flesh cooked on contact, searing and bubbling like meat on a grill. The smell was unbearable, burnt hair, copper, and something darker Calen didn't have a name for. Lyra's body went rigid, her muffled scream rising into something inhuman. Her back arched off the booth seat, a final burst of agony before her eyes rolled back and she passed out.
Kaitlyn held it firm for five long seconds before pulling the pan away.
The wound was no longer bleeding. The heat had done its job, sealing the stump in a ring of blackened, curling flesh.
The silence after was unbearable.
Calen stared at the foot on the floor. He couldn't stop looking at it.
Eventually, he wobbled away, dragging himself toward the bar. Crimson footprints marked each step behind him.
The diner was still. Hours had passed since the amputation. Ronan, Kaitlyn, and Calen opened three of the seven cans they'd found. They saved the rest for Lyra. She would need it if she was going to recover.
Then finally, someone broke the long silence.
"Is it getting darker?" Kaitlyn asked, peering out one of the boarded windows.
Ronan and Calen joined her, crouching beside the same panel. The once dim but steady luminescent glow that lit the second floor was fading. Calen watched the light drain from the landscape, darker and darker until it felt like the sky itself had collapsed and blanketed the world in pure void.
"I don't like this," Calen murmured.
"I don't think any of us do," Ronan replied.
Kaitlyn glanced toward the vague outline of Ronan. "Hey, try summoning your Soul. We might need it."
A jolt of realization hit Ronan. Though his expression was hidden, his voice gave him away.
"That completely slipped my mind."
Calen sighed and turned to speak, but something warm splattered across his face.
"What was that?" he asked, flinching slightly.
Ronan's voice shook. "It's not as bad the second time..." He let out a deep exhale, body relaxing.
Calen wiped at his cheek, but whatever liquid had touched him was gone. In its place, Ronan's Ruby-Dragon Sword shimmered into existence for a few seconds before the strange energy that birthed it faded completely.
Silence returned and stretched. Each minute dragged.
Then Kaitlyn yawned.
Ronan straightened and cleared his throat. "Alright, listen. We're going to keep shifts tonight. We might not see anything coming, but our ears will still work. I'll take first."
Kaitlyn smiled softly. "Just like when we used to hide in the school after it closed."
A warm memory stirred in Calen's mind. Quiet halls. Whispered jokes. Flashlights under desks. The thought brought a flicker of comfort.
Kaitlyn and Calen found separate booths to rest in. Each of them settled within reach but in their own little space.
Calen rested his head on the old cushion, the weight of exhaustion pressing down on him like a blanket. A dull calm crept in.
"That ringing is gone now," he thought, eyes fluttering shut. "Ever since I manifested."
The absence of that terrible noise made him feel safe. Like something had finally stopped chasing him.
He thought about everything. The next steps. Lyra's injury. The flintlock gun, that fear-devouring weapon. And then, unexpectedly, he thought of home.
Home.
He remembered the smell of dinner in a slow cooker. The muffled laughter of his parents. His messy room. He remembered all of it so clearly, yet something was wrong. Something didn't fit. It was like a wall had been placed over part of the memory. A silence beneath the noise.
And the strangest part?
He didn't want to go back.
That realization left a bitter taste in his mouth. More than fear. More than pain.
And then sleep finally took him.
For the first time in a long time, he rested.