flamekitten

Your head turned. The smile didn’t waver.

“Oh?” you replied lightly. “Maybe I just like making people feel at ease. Someone has to look like things aren’t completely falling apart.”

Doey tilted his head, his orange and yellow arms loosely draped across his lap. “But you are falling apart.”

You looked away again.

He leaned closer, blue hat tipping forward, expression unreadable but tone heavy.

“I know what the Prototype’s done. I know what he did to me. To the kids. To Jack… to Matthew. I know you’re angry.”

Silence.

You smiled wider.

“I’m fine.”

Doey’s voice dropped. “You’re planning something. Aren’t you?”

That made you pause.

Just a beat too long.

The silence hung like fog, thick and heavy between you both.

He shifted suddenly, rising to his stubby red feet, the stretch of his arms creating a soft creaking sound as he stepped in front of you.

“Tell me you’re not going to do something stupid,” he said. His voice cracked near the end. “Please.”

You stood too, slower, hands carefully tucked into the sleeves of your shirt. You looked up into his eye-holes, feeling the weight of all the lives clinging to his shoulders.

You reached up and cupped his squishy face gently.

“I’m going to end this,” you said. “That’s all you need to know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

You smiled again, sweet and hollow.

But Doey didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. “You’re going to die, aren’t you?”

You closed your eyes.

And didn’t answer.

——————

The air in the sub-basement vibrated with an oppressive hum. The walls pulsed with the Prototype’s corrupted life—his web of metal and flesh threading deeper into the bones of the facility.

You waited in the center of a collapsed hall. The poison already pumping through your veins. Your heartbeat thundered, and your smile… remained.

Wisteria poison. Slow. Beautiful. Irresistible.

The kind of thing that would make a predator ignore caution and feast.

“Come on, you bastard,” you muttered under your breath. “Come take a bite.”

The shadows parted.

The hand reached first.

Metal tendrils. Rotting flesh. The Prototype's grotesque maw swirled open in anticipation.

He laughed.

And lunged.

You didn’t scream, didn’t move an inch to fight back. Only the same constant variable the prototype expected, except, this was going to be his last and fatal mistake as you smiled with knowing.

———————

Moments later, Doey felt it.

A snap in the air.

Something missing.

He ran—faster than his doughy frame should’ve allowed, the colored streaks of his body a blur through the halls.

When he found you, your body was already collapsed, eyes glassy, lips parted in a frozen smile. The Prototype’s corpse was slumped nearby—twitching in spasms, his insides dissolving from within, poisoned by your sacrifice.

Doey dropped to his knees.

“No.” His voice cracked.

“No, no, no—you didn’t—” He held you close, his arms wrapping around you despite the tremble in them. The blue of his torso pressed to your fading warmth.

“You could’ve told me,” he whispered. “I would've—we would've found another way.”

Tears didn’t fall from his eyes. He didn’t have any. But his voice shook like thunder behind clouds.

“I’m supposed to protect everyone.”

You didn’t respond. But that smile was still there.

Peaceful, relaxed. More then he ever had seen it been. He pressed his forehead to yours.