From Moving Crates to Killing Gods-Chapter 31: Sing

Darien’s final cry had done more than alert Mira, it had broadcasted raw terror across the wasteland. The massive Corruptor, having finished with him, turned its attention to the next closest source of emotion, Mira and Yami, who stood the closest to the barrier.

The black water on Mira might work. It might confuse the Corruptor, make it hesitate just long enough to miss her. If it did, it would flow right over to Yami. And after Yami... the next target in its path was Finn.

The Navigator had collapsed to his knees when Darien abandoned him, his body rigid with terror, his eyes fixed on the barrier so tantalizingly close yet impossibly far.

"We need to move." Rolen urged. "Now, while it’s distracted."

He was right. From where we stood, a clear path to the barrier had opened up. If we ran now and kept our emotions in check, we might make it before the massive Corruptor finished with Mira and Yami and turned its attention elsewhere.

But Finn would die. The small, gentle Navigator who had grown a spine because people depended on him would perish. He who had guided us back to Argent, would be consumed like the others.

The switch power hummed inside me, still recovering but present. Maybe not enough to do anything useful, but there, waiting.

"Go." I said suddenly, the decision crystallizing in my mind before I fully understood it. "All of you. Head for the barrier. I’ll get Finn."

"What?" Kira stared at me in disbelief, even the black water’s dampening effect unable to hide her shock. "That’s suicide!"

"I can use Switch. And I have black water." I looked at her, really looked, memorizing the details of her face in case this was the last time I saw it. "I won’t be like the Zeros, Kira. I won’t sacrifice others just to save myself. That’s what they did to us."

Her eyes softened, a flash of the real Kira visible through the black water’s emotional fog. "You’re not coming, are you?"

"I am." I said firmly. "Just... after. Now go, please. Take Coco and Rolen and run towards the barrier. Don’t look back."

For a moment I thought she would argue, but instead she just nodded, her jaw set with determination. "Stay alive." she said, no emotion in her voice but meaning in her eyes. "We’ll be waiting at the barrier."

She grabbed Coco’s arm, nodded to Rolen, and they began moving away, following the clear path toward Argent. I watched them for three heartbeats, just long enough to see them pick up speed, then turned back toward the center of the killing field.

Mira did not raise her light blade. Instead, as the Corruptor flowed toward them, she acted with a survivor’s cold calculus. In one fluid motion, she grabbed Yami by the arm, spun her, and shoved her not toward safety, but directly into the path of the advancing void.

Yami stumbled forward with a cry of shock. "What are you doing?" she gasped, the beginnings of a note dying in her throat as she was hurled toward the nightmare.

"Sorry." Mira said, the word flat and hollow as she used the momentum to propel herself backwards. She put desperate distance between herself and the creature, her retreat a slow, careful walk that broke into a run the moment the Corruptor’s attention fixed on the new, closer prey.

Yami, abandoned and reeling, turned to face the horror. She squared her shoulders, her mouth opening in what I knew would be her final performance. A single, pure note rang out across the wasteland, not a scream, not a cry for help, but a melody, defiant and beautiful in its clarity. The sound resonated in my chest.

The massive Corruptor paused, perhaps confused by this unexpected response. It was the opening I needed.

I ran, not away from danger but toward it. Finn was still frozen in place, too terrified to move, his eyes fixed on Yami’s final struggle.

Then, Yami’s note cut off abruptly. I didn’t turn to look. I knew what I would see.

Finn would be next. Then Me. I needed to form a new plan.

My eyes darted across the hellscape. Mira was retreating, still unharmed, her canteen of black water secure at her hip. That’s it. If I could get that canteen to Finn, the black water might hide him. It might give him a chance.

I dropped my gaze, snatched three small pebbles from the dirt, I held one and shoved the rest into my pocket. My focus narrowed to Mira’s belt, to the specific shape of the open canteen. My mind strained, a static hiss building behind my eyes. Switch.

The weight in my hand changed.

I was holding her canteen. A pebble now sat tight against her hip.

Mira faltered mid step. Her hand flew to her belt, then her head snapped toward me. Her eyes locked on mine, with instant, venomous understanding. ’YOU’.

The massive Corruptor, still lingering over the space where Yami had been, shifted. Its single, depthless eye pivoted away from the empty ground. It fixed on Mira, on the sudden spike of emotions. Hot and bright as a flare in the wasteland.

I was already moving. "Finn!" I yelled, my voice raw. "Snap out of it! Catch this and run!"

I hurled the canteen at him. It spun through the air, a dark arc of salvation.

This time, his hands came up. Not fast, not with any real coordination, just the desperate, muscle memory reflex of someone who hadn’t quite surrendered. His fingers closed around the metal.

He caught it. For one breath, one fragile heartbeat, I thought it might work. He had the water. He just needed to move.

Then the air screamed.

A blade of pure, concentrated light shot across the space between Mira and Finn. It wasn’t aimed at him. It was aimed at his hands. At the canteen.

The metal didn’t stand a chance. The light blade sheared through it like paper, and our black water, the only protection Finn had, erupted in a spray of glittering droplets. They caught the sickly green glow of the sky as they fell, beautiful and utterly wasted, absorbed by the thirsty dust.

Finn stared at his hands filled with the dark water. The severed halves of the canteen lay at his knees, already bleeding their last contents into the earth.

Mira didn’t look back at what she’d done. She didn’t have time. The Corruptor was already upon her.

She met it standing. No last desperate attack. Just her body, small and still, framed against that towering void. I saw her mouth move, a word, a name, maybe just a breath, and then the she disappeared.

One moment she was there. The next, she was simply gone, that shifting absence made it seem like she’d never existed at all. Only her boot remained on the ground.

It stood upright, almost neatly placed, as if she’d stepped out of it deliberately before walking into the darkness. Scuffed leather, worn at the heel, the laces slightly frayed. A thing so ordinary it seemed obscene.

The Corruptor paused, digesting. Its eye, depthless and patient, swept across the wasteland. Looking for the next meal.

Looking at us.