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Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. This is alchemy's first law of equivalent exchange.
Jade can't remember his name. It's somewhere shuffled inside her mind, buried deep in the lining of grey matter. She just remembers that she couldn’t pronounce it without it sounding like a cold gunshot going off. He had a name meant for shouting, to be accompanied with curses, spit, and fury. It stung like whiskey but his smile was sickeningly sweet. His hands were comforting and steady, and he was unfalteringly confident in everything he did.
She leaves a suicide note. Well, it's not like she wants to die. She's not killing herself, but she's letting herself go because it's the only choice they have left. The faster the cylinder spins, the more fuzzy all her memories become. Jade can't remember who she addressed the note to. Maybe to the boy whose name sounded like blasphemy. She wonders what she wrote in the letter. It's not like anyone would want to read it anyway, a suicide note from a girl who can't remember you is like an apology scratched into the side of a car.
Suddenly it's all bright and vivid and crisp. She feels the weight of a thousand lifetimes pressing down on her shoulders. She remembers hundreds of piercing deaths, moments of triumph and loss, and only one true love.
Jade hopes she wrote an apology in the note. Guilt swallows her up as she dies and although she's saving everyone, she feels like she's letting them down. Jade knows guilt. It feels like broken windshield glass and the scent of fire consuming fields of dry crops.
Every atom in her body is alive and burning. Her heart isn't hers anymore. It hasn't belonged to her in a long time, she realizes.
Jade sees a design on her wrist. The tattoo encapsulates something that is tugging deep in her soul. It means something. It means everything, but she can't remember what.
Everyone has to die sometime, she sighs. Jade has been shackled to her destiny since she took her first breath. She expects death to be freeing, like clear spring air and her mother's soft hands.
More of her conscious begins to fade. She tries to hold her intention close to her heart, but she can't clasp on to the scraps of her reasoning. Why is she doing this? What's happening? Who are these people that she's willing to die for?
She hears a sobbing voice somewhere in the back of her mind, and a pair of thin hands pulling her from the depths of oblivion. It gives her the strength to plant her feet on the ground, anchoring her focus.
The machine stops whirling, the mechanical gears come to a stop, and she stares sleepily as time seems to stand still.
Her legs give out underneath her and she collapses against the cold concrete floor of the basement. There's someone there with her, lanky arms desperately trying to hold on, and lips attempting to breathe the life back into her.
"A sacrifice is always demanded, Jade. You proved you were willing to give it. You were willing to give it all." The voice of God lovingly says to her or maybe it's the voice of an Architect. Jade decides that even if she is dead and buried, something better will grow up from the soil. Maybe a better future was always theirs for the taking.
"Ellsworth..." A voice chokes desperately, "Jade can you hear me? You're selfish, you know that? You don't get to die, Red, not now. Not after everything we've survived. Breathe, dammit." She feels the arms wrap around her and her breath steadies. Finally, some sort of recognition clicks in her mind and Jade opens her eyes.
"Isaac?"
It doesn't fire like a gunshot. It sounds like a prayer.