Chapter Text
The Abyss pulsed out a grotesque purple hue, Corey’s screams having been swallowed up by it instantaneously. He fell, hard and fast and with nothing but his regret and vitriol into that gaping wound in the earth. The woods seemed to howl its pain to the five girls, trees shaking, winds crying. Sweat lined Kat’s face as she peered down into it, fists clenched and face twisted into a snarl that glinted in the purple shading.
“Kat–” Dylan gasped, reaching for her sister. “Kat it’s done–”
Kat ripped away from her sister, vehemently shaking her head. “No–no it’s not.”
“What–what do you mean?” Dylan took a step, her voice frail.
But Kat didn’t register the movement, she didn’t register a thing. She looked at her hands, they were fading. Sickly, pale, gradually growing translucent. Automatically her eyes found Swanns.
And Swann understood.
Swann, when the matter concerned all things Kat, always understood.
Her chest heaving, hair wild, thoughts whipping like winds in a sandstorm, Swann charged forward and shoved Nora out of the way, reaching for Kat’s pocketknife clasped into the outside of her grass stained overalls.
When her fingers curled around it she pulled, ripping it off of the loose denim.
The Abyss was only ever meant to take.
It fed off of their sacrifices, its hunger only growing greedier and greedier.
“It got what it wanted,” Swann said, heaving. “Blood. Warmth. Consistency.”
Autumn blinked rapidly, head whipping from one friend to the next. “Swann. Swann listen–put the knife down. What are you doing with that?”
It was heavy in her hands. Swann looked at it. She caressed it. It was one of Kat’s favorite things she owned. “A life for a life. Corey for Kat.”
Nora trembled, roving her gaze back to the Abyss momentarily before flinching away from it. They had shoved him. Kat had beaten him. He stumbled. Lost his balance…
Subconsciously she inched closer to Autumn. “Yeah, exactly. Corey for Kat. Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
Swann shook her head, staying rooted in place when Nora hastily reached for her. “No–it’s not done. It still wants…it’s still…”
“...hungry,” Kat coughed, her hands sickly, pale, weak.
“It’s still taking her.” Swann gripped the pocketknife, a sharp set to her jaw.
“What do you mean by it, Swann? What’s it?” Dylan desperately tried to wrap her head around the situation, but it had proved to be too large, too metaphysical. “The cancer? The Abyss?”
At that Swann angrily swung her arms about the air, the knife clutched in her right fist, yelling, “All of it! Fucking all of it! Nothing about this has been fair!”
Autumn recoiled at the outburst, having never heard Swann be so loud, curse so easily as if she didn’t have to think about it. Nora whimpered, low, under her breath.
Kat, too, startled, going wide eyed. As if her situation finally dawned on her.
“Swann…” She started slowly, quietly. “Swann, it's okay. Give me the knife back.” Kat outstretched her hand, palm up and open, beckoning for Swann to give her the knife. To give in. To let it go. To let her go.
“No! No, Kat, I can’t–won’t lose you–!” Swann stumbled back, fumbling with the knife trying to open it.“Don’t you get it? Don’t you see what this is? It was a life for a life…and now, well, now it’s an eye for an eye…” She laughed then, mirthlessly. “I’ll give it what it wants.”
“Swann!” Nora shrieked, closing in on her friend. “Swann stop!”
Autumn choked, stuttering forward with Nora as well. “You fucking–”
Realization dawned on Kat. “Wait, Swann, don’t do it! I’m– I’m not worth it–!”
And then Kat was rushing Swann as well.
But Swann didn’t hear them, or rather, refused to listen.
In one jerky motion Swann flicked the knife open, and, in the same breath, the same whisper of the winds, sent it hurling at her own eye.
It cut through the air.
Its journey quick and horrid.
But Kat, being the most agile of the four, reached their friend first and caught Swann's elbow and yanked, redirecting the blade.
Still, she was too late.
Swann screamed, the pain resounding within her own head, blood pouring from her left eye socket. Both Kat and Swann tumbled to the grass, fighting for a cause that neither had ever wanted to be a part of.
Kat wrestled the knife from Swann's iron grip, yelling and howling curses at her. Swann yelled back, desperate, angry.
“Kat–no I’m helping!” Blood tainted her vision, and she felt her strength rapidly decline. She was dancing with her consciousness, trying to keep up.
“Fuck you, Swann! You weren’t supposed to do that!” Kat screamed in her face, raspy, her lungs aching, her bones tired.
Nora and Autumn had reached the girls, frantically trying to separate the two. Dylan standing helplessly to the side. It was only when the knife had finally been flung free of Swann’s hold did Dylan regain her senses, picking up the bloodied tool with trembling fingers, and catapulting it into the Abyss.
And then, in a moment’s time, as if the knife had been a catalyst, a blinding flash shot out from the gaping hole, enveloping every surrounding, stunting every sense, shooting through every vein, sending every standing girl to their haunches.
When it settled, like dust on a bookshelf, the bodies of Swann and Kat lay motionless, tangled together in a pile of limbs and blood; stilled and quiet.
The girls blinked, stunned, coughing, gasping, unaware of the sight before them.
Then, when their bearings had come back to them, and they acknowledged the growing quiet, their heads turned.
Dylan shrieked, covering her mouth with a hand. “Kat!” She broke out, nothing short of guttural.
Nora wretched. “No,” she mumbled, on her hands and knees, eyes watery. “No, no no!”
And Autumn got to her knees, crawling the short distance, groping at her two friends. “They’re breathing! They’re breathing, I swear! They’re alive! Help me!”
Autumn hoisted Swann into her lap, covering the girls’ injured, swollen eye with her own hand. “Help me, goddammit, help me!” Her voice was raw and demanding, her stare wild and hurt.
Dylan was the first one to stumble forward, getting to her feet, gently yet fervently snaking her arms under Kat’s shoulders and the backs of her knees to hoist her up into her chest. She didn’t have time to dwell on the ease of the motion, too fluid, too light. Kat had always been too light.
“The truck!” Dylan rushed out. “My dad’s truck–we can put them in the bed of it!”
Autumn nodded her agreement, sharply looking at Nora. “Goddammit, Nora, come on! We need to get them out of here.”
But Nora didn’t move, except to curl in on herself, on her palms and knees, vomiting up the little contents of her stomach. She always hated the sight of blood. And neither Swann nor Kat had the spare time to wait. Autumn grumbled, hoisting Swann forward, and the girl's body did lurch forward, crumble-like, deadweight.
“It’s okay, Swann, you’re gonna be okay,” she gently spoke to her unconscious friend, either to hope it eased the girl in her sleep, or for herself she didn’t know. “Come on, I got you.” Autumn rose with effort, taking Swann’s arm and throwing it over her shoulders, and then, too, taking the backs of her knees and carrying them.
Autumn frowned, expecting the lift to be harder, but it hadn’t been. It just felt like lifting an unconscious body, and, she supposes, that’s exactly what it was.
She followed Dylan blindly, looking back once to see if Nora was catching up. She was, running behind them with gangly legs and arms, wiping at the corner of her mouth. And when she fully caught up to Autumn, she asked, “You got her?” to which Autumn said yes, ignoring the rising burn in her muscles.
Running through the thick, dense, and foggy forest on what was either muscle memory or some unexplainable force that was finally on their side, the girls made it back to the edge of the Mikaelsen Farm. Dylan didn’t know if her parents were home, and without the time to figure it out, she yelled for Nora and Autumn to follow her, and, while adjusting her hold on Kat, which made the younger girls head bob once, she led them back out to the front of the farm.
Her dad’s truck sat with the girl’s earlier defacement on it, scratched and drawn all over, as if waiting. If Dylan took notice of the state of the truck, she made no comment, only whirling around to face Nora.
“Please,” she began, voice crackly, “take her and get in the bed of the truck with Autumn. I’ll drive. I’ll get them to the hospital.”
“What – what about the keys?” Nora questioned, taking Kat into her arms. The thought of holding her friend’s unconscious body made a wave of nausea swell in the low of her gut, and she had to swallow to tamper it down.
“Dad never takes them out of the center console, just get in!” Dylan urged her backward and Nora made no further protests.
Autumn was already in the bed of the truck, laying back against one side while she kept Swann’s upper half in her lap. Her gaze, previously focused on Swann, snapped up to Nora. “Get in, hurry!”
Nora swallowed another wave of nausea roiling in her gut, clambering into the back of the truck and scampering to the far corner of it, swaddling Kat across her lap like a mother might do to her sick child. Once Autumn was sure Nora was settled, she slapped the back window, signaling Dylan to fucking drive, goddammit, drive!
“Nora, fuck, Nora, Swann’s bleeding bad!” Swann’s body shook against the gravelly road as Dylan sped down it.
It felt like flying, Autumn thought, that moment in one’s life where speed equals freedom, but as her stare locked on Swann, it felt like anything but freedom. Her face marred with the sharp, jagged cut of the knife, her left eye swollen and bruised shut, the blood…
“Fuck, that’s a lot of blood,” Nora whimpered, face greening.
It trickled down the side of Swann’s face, staining and marking her skin, her clothes, Autumn’s clothes as she felt the sticky liquid down the right side of her chest.
It flowed continuously, an unstoppable river carving its path through a previously unmaimed forest. It made Autumn sick. Quickly she tore her shirt from her torso, covering Swann’s eye with it, an attempt to please stop bleeding, and to please, please be okay, Swann. Please.
The rest of the ride felt slowed, blurred, until eventually the glare of hospital lights came into view.
The click of a pen made Nora blink herself from an exhausted reverie. She glanced at the time. 1:19 A.M.
She sunk further into the hospital waiting room chair, gripping Autumn’s hand tight in hers. One hasty, cursory glance at the girl told Nora all she needed to know. Still shirtless, Autumn was shivering faintly, specks of Swann’s blood still on her shoulder.
The cop in front of her cleared his throat, clearly tired, his forehead creased in exasperation. “Girls, can you tell me anything else about tonight?” His tone was firm, the edges of it clipped with a thickness one gets when fighting sleep.
“We already fucking did!” Nora huffed, shooting up in her chair. Autumn squeezed her hand, a silent plea to calm down. But Nora was never one to heed rational advice. “We went over this bullshit ten fucking times! My friends are in there–” at that Nora threw her arm out behind the cop, in the direction of a hallway obscured by a hefty set of doors that so far she’s only seen hospital staff emerge from, “–probably fucking dying and you’re here asking us dumb questions that we’ve answered over and over and over again!”
When she was done, Nora sat back with a raspy huff, flushing red as she noticed the rest of the waiting room had fallen silent. Autumn still sat silent beside her, drained, clutching her hand as if she’d disappear–and with the way things were going, Nora wasn’t sure she wouldn’t disappear.
The cop thread his lips into a fine line, clicking his pen closed, clearing his throat. “We just want to make sure every base is covered, girls.”
“Bull-fuckin’-shit! You tool–”
“–Please,” Autumn cut in, her voice small, as if the soft parts of herself had finally broken, and she was left with the scraps of herself, “we just want to see our friends.”
The cop nodded, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. Face drawn. “I’ll go check in with the staff and my chief with word. Your parents are on their way, girls.”
He turned swiftly, walking in the direction of the hefty set of doors.
“And get my friend a blanket too while you’re at it!” Nora called after him when Autumn shivered again. “Douchebag,” she muttered out of earshot.
“You didn’t have to be so harsh, Nor,” Autumn murmured, sinking into the plastic chair.
“Like hell I didn’t! Swann and Kat are back there without us because he kept droning on and on with questions like we weren’t there!”
Autumn winced. “Please, Nor, you don’t have to yell, I’m right here.”
“Right, sorry.” Nora flushed.
“And, they’re not totally alone. Dylan is with them. And all of our parents are on the way.”
Nora rolled her eyes, face coiled in disgust. “Still bullshit we couldn’t go back with them because we’re ‘underage’,” she said the last part in a low sarcastic tone, head shaking with the movement.
They settled in, the bustle of the waiting room humming around them. Life kept going for those people, while theirs had just been turned upside down and shaken. Nora realized they were alone out there, cold, bloodied, covered in muck, and the people around them just kept moving on because that was all they could do.
Nora didn’t realize she was crying until the first set of tears dribbled down her chin. Autumn noticed, because she always did. She knew Nora like one knows the layout of their childhood home–carefully handwoven into the marrow of their bones. Everything that Nora was, and had once been, was forever memorialized into Autumn’s dark skin, so it was useless to turn her head and mutter out an, I’m fine, when Autumn asked, but she did it anyway, if only out of habit.
“It’s okay to cry, Nor, I feel like doing so myself,” Autumn whispered in reply, leaning her head on Nora’s shoulder.
Nora sniffed, choking back all of the words she didn’t know how to vocalize, but Autumn knew it all anyway, and that was enough for both of them.
3:14 A.M. read the clock on the waiting room wall. Autumn wasn’t sure if she believed it, or if all of this had just been a dream, but she bobbed her head along anyway, in and out of a fitful rest.
The rest of their early morning had been filled with hospital staff, police statements, Kat’s enraged parents, Nora’s slightly annoyed parents, Swann’s crying mother and dumbfounded father, and Autumn’s own worried parents.
Nora refused to leave the hospital until she got to see Swann and Kat, and Autumn voiced her alliance to that notion as well. The doctors had been displeased, but empathetic, and so the girls were left with a loose, we’ll see what we can do.
It was a bullshit statement, but one Autumn was putting more faith into than she should have.
She wiped her face on the hem of a hospital gown, as that was the only spare article of clothing they had readily available to offer in lieu of a shirt, sighing.
“Are you sure you’re not hurt, sweetheart?” Came the soft lull of Mrs. Lockhart’s voice.
“I’m positive, Mom.” Autumn didn’t have the energy to be short with her mother, so her reply was exasperated at best.
“I saw a lot of blood, Autumn, maybe we can have someone check the both of you out–?” Her Dad, Mr. Lockhart's, question hung in the air.
Autumn huffed, squeezing her eyes shut in annoyance. “It wasn’t my blood, Dad, it was Swann’s…” She trailed off, guilt clawing mercilessly at the back of her throat.
Her father didn’t ask anymore questions.
And it wasn’t much later when the doctor, a tall, thin man with a moustache emerged from the hallway, stopping a few feet before all of them. “You girls can head back now, Miss Mikaelsen’s sister is waiting.”
Nora was the first to pounce, pulling Autumn up with her. Their hands locked together, they trailed behind the doctor as he led them down a maze of hallways, the stench of antiseptic and hand sanitizer hung thick in the air like fog.
“In here,” he said, stopping at a room numbered 112, opening the door quietly. “Ten minutes, that’s all I’m allowed to give you. Your parents will be waiting out there to take you girls home. I suggest sleep. It is clear you all have had a rough night.”
Autumn nodded mutely at his words, mouth feeling full of static. Nora clearly wasn’t paying attention, as she usually wasn’t, and stepped straight into the room, but froze halfway, mid step, her eagerness draining at the sudden sight of her friends, their seemingly lifeless, still bodies, the only sign of life being the near imperceptible rise and fall of their chests.
Dylan looked up at them, face weathered in that harsh way that leaves behind sunken eyes, and rivets of tearstains, and reddened, raw noses.
“I, uh, fought the doctors and nurses to give them a shared room,” Dylan began after a silent pause, toying with her fingers, unable to look either girl in the eye. “Figured neither of them would want to be alone…you know, when they wake up.”
Autumn could picture it, a five-foot nothing girl bullying the hospital staff into bowing to her will for her sister–her sister who Autumn had never seen the woman defend even once. It was almost humorous to her.
“Thanks,” Autumn said, her voice protruding from her throat in a way that made it so she couldn’t recognize it; gravelly and foreign. She didn’t even know who she was anymore. She couldn’t tell if any of this was a dream, or some figment of her imagination she dredged up, but still, she kept speaking, because the unknown sound of her voice was better than the silence that said more than it was supposed to. “Knowing those two, they’d probably die if they were separated for more than a day.”
That got a laugh from Dylan, not quite genuine, but more than an exhale of air. “Yeah.” She looked up finally, at the two beds only feet apart, the unnaturally still bodies lying on them, wires and IV drips and the steady monitors flowing every which way like a grotesque mimicry of Frankenstein's Monster, yet there was a peace in it somewhere.
Kat’s body–that she had subjected to constant fatigue and mud and hurt, her body that turned on itself those years ago, her body that never unclenched its fists or removed its scowl, her body, the same one that was in constant fight or flight–appeared relaxed. Truly, utterly relaxed.
And it brought a natural looking peace about her features that Dylan had not seen in a very, very long time.
Then, Swann, though half of her face was hidden behind sterile, white gauze and medical tape, was unburdened with guilt in her unconscious state, as she always was for something or other, always consumed by a constant state of apology, the words automatic on her tongue, as though she was sorry for merely existing, now looked completely at rest with it. She looked okay with herself.
“They’re special to each other. At least from what Kat has talked about her.” The words were heavy, weighted, as though they meant more than they should have. As though Dylan was privy to information she should not be, and was testing the idea on the backs of her teeth.
Autumn couldn’t bring herself to look any longer, couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge the two beyond the obvious because she was overridden with guilt, the taste like ash on her tongue, and she was overwhelmed with the thought of Are they… Will they…?
“Do you think they’ll wake up?” Nora spoke aloud what they were all thinking, and Autumn almost hated her for it.
The silence answered for them, telling more than it should have, neither girl having the forethought to rebuke it. Then, all too soon, the doctor had come back, beckoning the three from the room.
It was 4:01 A.M. when Autumn made it home, Nora by her side.
They found themselves in Autumn's bed that early morning, still in their dirtied clothes, arms and legs entwined together out of sheer human need for a connection. Raw and open and something to tether themselves back to reality.
And when the sun rose, they pretended not to notice the other still awake.