BEXLEY BRIAR
Their physical forms are puny to the all-seeing eyes of the universe, and yet, the three of them compressed into such a small space makes the world seem utterly tiny around them, as if they are giants, now, stretched to gargantuan proportion by the fire of their feelings. Their physical forms are puny, but desire is vast - vast, absolute and utterly specific - and suddenly Bexley is overwhelmed by it.
Overwhelmed by the desire to fight back. The desire to feel bone and blood. The desire to leave this cave, this earth, her body, even, if just to gain a little outside perspective. She buzzes with it, the desire. It almost tears her apart at the joints.
The air smells of dust and of iron, of the stale sunlight that touches her skin in white lace.
And the jackals will eat you.
Bexley’s heart hammers in her chest, hammers-hammers-hammers, beating against bone and muscle with unbelievable, irrefutable force. She feels blood in her ears, her skull, behind her eyes. Violently beautiful, violent as a whole, she meets Acton’s black eyes and begins to speak, but pauses at the sight of a wet glint of metal flashing through the air near her head. You fucker, Bex exclaims out loud in blunt surprise, and then it is not the sight of the knife that shocks her, but the pain that blazes across her face as it slashes down point-to-cheek.
There is a moment of stunning silence. Then the sting flares up in her face with full force, and a snarl, rather than a scream, escapes her mouth without her consent, guttural and obscene. Blood pours from her cheek to settle in the curve of those yellow lips, coats the left side of her face in hot crimson, wet and dark. The cut goes fiery, then numb. Her whole body throbs, pulses, with pain and anger, so deep and insistent that it is hard to feel or think or understand anything else but the way she has just been casually and utterly ruined.
Above the noise in her head, something else thumps.
A pebble hits the ground at her feet. Then comes Raum’s voice, crying Acton’s name, and the concrete pressure of his shoulder hitting hers as he rushes toward the entrance of the cave. Unsteadied, dizzy, Bexley sways dramatically in place. Dust rains from the ceiling; the sunlight fades away; rocks smash to rubble as they hit the floor of the cave, but Bexley barely hears it, sees it, barely even feels it. She is only dimly aware of the Denoctians fleeing - cowards they fucking are.
Her vision starts to dim at the edges. Scraping strength from the farthest corners of her body, Bex crawls toward the edge of the cave, presses her body to the cold sandstone, rocks her head against her chest and listens to the demolition around her, a world falling apart piece by piece.
@Raum @acton
