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“will you miss me?”
blood splatters across rumi’s lips and chin as she gurgles through her slurred speech. it’s becoming more and more difficult to understand her, and it’s only worsened by the distraught and ringing wails of the honmoon that threaten to smear zoey’s brain matter across the dirt.
“of course,” zoey reassures, swallowing back the lump in her throat as she tries to tune everything else out. “so much. so, so much, rumi.”
rumi smiles, all wobbly and weak, coughing more flecks of blood up onto the bare skin of zoey’s thigh. zoey’s heart shatters, as though it's her own chest that the shin-kals are buried into, and not rumi’s.
it's not exactly a lie. zoey will miss rumi immensely, this is undoubtedly true and was set in stone the moment zoey’s weapon punctured rumi’s warm and patterned skin. rumi has been her rock, her sounding board, her teacher. a friend, a tentative lover. someone who zoey will never be able to replace, nor will she ever want to.
but perhaps part of the truth is absent in her response.
zoey will miss rumi—but not enough to not see this through.
bound by duty, zoey remains unwilling to offer up the entire world on a silver platter to gwi-ma. even if it means driving her weapons further into rumi’s soft and familiar body. even if it means losing the only two people who were supposed to be constant in her life.
because she can’t risk gwi-ma tearing his way back into the living world, just so he can claim back what’s rightfully his.
“zoey, stop—please.” mira’s words are no less tired than rumi’s, muffled slightly by the distance between them.
the dirt underneath zoey’s knees starts to dig into her skin, biting and tearing into her painfully. she presses into the ground harder.
“mira…” rumi slurs. “i'm sorry.”
“you don't have to be sorry,” zoey interjects before mira can speak over her again. “you've not done anything wrong, rumi. it’s not your fault. do you understand me?”
rumi blinks slowly, eyes sluggishly crawling over zoey’s face, taking her in.
“okay,” rumi murmurs. “not my fault.”
zoey doesn't believe rumi believes that.
“yeah," she says anyway. she thinks of gwi-ma and his terrible whispers, sounding nothing like rumi. “not you, never you.”
she despises that rumi will not ask why. rumi won’t question the sharp blade buried between her ribcage as her hearts flutters, desperately trying to keep her alive. she won’t question the conviction and certainty in zoey’s voice, even as the hand on the shin-kal trembles with doubt. it builds into something horrible and nasty, swarming up zoey’s throat excruciatingly as she chokes painfully on her next swallow.
rumi’s head lolls to the side in zoey’s lap, blood gushing out between her parted lips, spilling hot and heavy onto the dirt beneath them. zoey can’t bear the sight of it; she gently cradles rumi’s head against her body and props her up slightly, even if it makes rumi choke and splutter on her own essence of life.
she just can't stand the sight of more spilled blood. the smell of it makes her feel sick.
“zoey,” mira calls again, somewhere behind them. by celine’s unconscious body, maybe. the sound of mira’s struggle as she writhes in the dirt pierces zoey’s ears, mira’s limbs doomed by zoey’s blades to be uncooperative. “please, we can fix this. just stop—please.”
a tear rolls off the swell of zoey’s cheek, hitting rumi’s face and mixing with the smears of blood. rumi’s starting to feel cold in zoey’s arms; she doesn't know if rumi can even physically feel things anymore. she hopes not.
“you know i can't do that,” zoey whispers hoarsely, and her grip on rumi’s face tightens. she’s not sure who exactly she’s speaking to. “we have to get rid of them. they all have to go.”
“she's not one of them. she's just rumi.”
zoey bites down hard on her tongue then, savouring the taste of blood in her mouth.
it's not about that; it never has been. the fact that mira is unwilling to see past that affirms to zoey that this is the right choice. that really, there never was much of a choice. a cruel and unfair illusion presented before her, robbing her of all her hopes and dreams by forcing her hand.
zoey thinks back to the train. all those people who no longer walk the earth. all those family members and friends who will never know what happened to their loved ones. they will never get their closure, their grief persisting through the pretense of whatever answers the local authorities will come up with.
she looks back at rumi. sweet rumi, heavy eyelids fighting to keep her gaze open and on zoey. there is a blankness to her stare that sits with zoey uncomfortably. the hot and heavy scent of blood continues to infiltrate zoey’s nose the longer they remain there on the ground, and she holds her breath momentarily to gather her thoughts.
“i love you, rumi.”
“i love you too,” rumi wheezes softly, all garbled and wet and barely comprehensible. the blood from rumi’s mouth dribbles over her lips and onto zoey’s clothes, overbearing warmth blooming where it soaks into the once white fabric of her skirt. hot and sticky like black tar that she won’t ever be able to truly wash off.
remnants that will seep into her skin and won’t let her forget, as hard as she may try to.
(zoey knows she won’t try. she will bear this burden for as long as she can. when the passage of time has played its cruel hand and demanded that she forget what it was ever like to hold rumi and mira in her arms, she will truly understand just how empty and devoid of meaning life can be.)
rumi fumbles about with one of her pale and cold hands to grasp zoey’s. the weight of rumi’s palm is heavy atop the hand that zoey has keeping the shin-kal sunk into her own chest, and zoey swears she feels an insistent pressure pushing the blade deeper and deeper. her fingers curl around the handle of her weapon until her joints creak and ache.
“zoey—” mira moans in pain. as much as she craves it, zoey resists turning her head back. she focuses on rumi, whose eyes are still glued to her face, as if rumi cannot bear to look away as the glow of her patterns begin to dim and her soul dissipates slowly, agonisingly.
the honmoon wails, mira’s cries of devastation joining it in rippling through zoey’s body. it shakes her to her core, but she welcomes the grief in like an old friend. the free fall of her tears wash away the streaks of blood on rumi’s face as the moonlight becomes the only source of illumination around her.
“what the hell is wrong with you?”
“okay, it’s literally not even my fault. have you ever played the sims? these types of things happen all the time and i needed the extreme violence mod so we could kill demons realistically!"
“why are you even role-playing your real life relationship in a video game? you know we literally live with you, right?”
“you guys were gone for ages, what’s a girl meant to do?”
“i don’t know, not role-play murdering her girlfriends? also, we were gone for like two hours.”
“okay, well, first of all, who ask—”
“me. i asked. i’m asking you right now, in fact. oh my god—you were even taking notes as it happened! you’ve literally written this out like a script in your notebook!”
“nuh uh.” zoey scrambles to throw her hands over the scribbled pages in front of her, protectively tucking the notebook close to her chest. “don't know what you're talking about, dude.”
a smile breaks out across her face when mira’s eyebrow twitches at the sound of paper crinkling under zoey’s hands breaching the otherwise silent room. the light from zoey’s screen highlights mira’s face eerily in her dark room, and mira’s glare only intensifies as she continues to stare zoey down.
conflicted feelings rise within zoey at the sight of mira so heated; should she be consoling mira and defending herself? or shutting her computer off and dragging mira to the bed that looks all too enticing right now?
motion in her peripheral vision catches zoey’s eye, and they both turn to look at her monitor just in time to watch zoey’s sims 4 character throw rumi’s lifeless body off her lap so she can get up and violently murder mira’s character as she struggles helplessly on the ground.
they stare at the scene in shock.
complete and utter silence lays upon them thickly as they watch mira take her last breath.
mira grinds her teeth, the noise scraping uncomfortably in zoey’s ears. zoey bites back on the urge to tell her to stop; she supposes it would be ill timed to tell mira off for a bad habit considering what's just plainly transpired in front of them.
“okay, so, that wasn't me—”
“—you just strangled me to death! i literally just saw it!”
“no baby! you know i’d never choke you that hard… and i didn’t even click anything this time!”
“you’re not putting those hands anywhere near my neck from now on—”
“there you guys are.” rumi’s voice silences both of them as she makes an appearance in zoey’s dark room. it’s impossible to tell if she teleported or was just that quiet when she walked in. rumi flips the light switch on and laughs at zoey’s inward cringe as she shields her eyes when warm yellow light spills into the room. “what are the two of you up to in here? why’s it so dark?”
“playing a game—”
“she’s killing us in the sims—”
“mira!” zoey exclaims, smacking the back of her hand against mira’s stomach without much force. mira predictably doesn’t budge, maintaining her stature next to zoey’s chair.
“ow,” mira says, deadpan. “what? it’s true, come look, rumi. you actually died in her arms and now she’s just choked me out.”
“oh gosh,” rumi murmurs worrisomely, hastily making her way over to zoey’s desk and standing next to her, on the opposite side of mira. “did you really kill us babe?”
“no!” zoey wails despondently. “well—maybe! but it wasn’t my fault. i was trying to recreate what happened that night, and it was all going so well until things took a one eighty and i maybe incapacitated celine and mira and then slipped something into you.”
“yeah, of course it would be you slipping something into rumi,” mira mutters from beside her. zoey nudges an elbow into mira’s hip in retaliation. again, she doesn’t budge.
“shut up,” zoey snaps, not even ashamed of her lack of a better response. she turns over to look at rumi, widening her eyes as much as she can before she reaches the point of looking insane. “baby, trust me, i really didn’t mean to. i just wanted to relive saving you and the world and the three of us getting together.”
“that’s so sweet,” rumi says quietly, sounding suspiciously tearful.
“seriously?” mira cries.
“shut up!” zoey repeats as she whips her head round to glare at mira. “you’re just jealous i didn’t stick anything in you.”
mira scoffs indignantly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“right, because i totally envy rumi and wish i was lying dead on the ground with you poking into me.”
“you certainly had no complaints last night when you were lying on your stomach as i poked into your—”
“okay!” rumi interrupts, smacking a hand over zoey’s mouth as she shoots a look at mira, who can barely contain her laughter. “okay, enough. stop talking about poking and stabbing. please.”
the skin of rumi’s palm is warm and tasteless as zoey licks at it until rumi retracts with a noise of disdain and wipes her hand dry on her jeans. triumphant, zoey grins widely at her.
“fine, but only because you said please,” zoey concedes. “my butt hurts from sitting down all afternoon. let's go do something.”
“want a massage?” mira asks coyly, snaking her arms round the back of zoey’s shoulders and leaning into zoey as she tries to shut her computer off.
“it's never just a massage with you,” zoey scolds as rumi laughs quietly, trying to keep from sounding too interested in mira’s suggestion.
she stands, shrugging mira off her back and reaching for each of their arms to tug them along with her to her bed. they follow without question, allowing zoey to do as she pleases with them.
with a forceful yank, zoey shoves them onto the mattress and pushes them flat with a palm against each chest before quietly arranging herself in between them. she has half a mind to tell rumi to take her jeans off so she can rub her legs against rumi’s, but before she can utter a single word about it, rumi does exactly that and leaves herself just in her t-shirt and underwear.
“what are we doing?” rumi asks, but despite her question she winds herself around zoey’s body as much as she can, until she’s practically spooning mira as well, desperately trying to squeeze both of them into her arms. she slots a leg between zoey’s thighs, allowing mira to do the same until it’s impossible to tell where each of them starts.
practically intertwined as one, zoey sighs happily.
“absolutely nothing, just lie with me.”
mira hums a noise of satisfaction, more than happy to abide by zoey’s request. she stretches out, her body long and lithe as her legs extend to the end of the bed. her arm comes to rest over zoey’s body, reaching over to hold onto rumi’s too.
despite the lights being on, zoey can still see the content, colourful flickering of rumi’s patterns.
she basks in the quiet of it all, surrounded by the two constants in her life.