Through Fire, I Give No Chances
“Tango’s tied up in the basement.” Etho announces as he walks into the room. He lowers his respiratory from his face, red marks outlining where the equipment sat. His eyes were watery, but weren’t they all? Pearl looks up from where she’s reloading her postal, eyes flicking from Etho’s to his.
Grian stands at the kitchen table, maps sprawled out with etchings all over. Towns no longer livable, cities that have been ransacked. Potential safe havens. Jimmy and Scar stand with him, all trying to think of what to do next.
What happened to Tango happened too quickly. One moment Etho was leading them to an outpost BDubs had told them about over the radio, the next Mobs were chasing them. Having come out of a nearby sewer drain. It was a hoard not any of them could face. So they ran. Grian doesn’t want to say it was everyone for themselves but…
Jimmy fell behind, due to an old injury. He couldn’t keep up. Tango, of course, got in between him and the hoard. He got bitten. Now he’s turning.
Jimmy squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s all my fault—“
“It’s no one’s fault.” Scar cuts him off, looking over. He’s holding a red marker, taking note of potential Mob sites on their path. “And Tango might be a hybrid, like Grian.” He flinches at the word. Like Scar shot him in the chest. It feels like it, the way the sentence hangs heavy in the air.
Hybrids weren’t immune to a Mob bite, no one was. They kept their minds, though. Becoming something no longer human, but not feral either. He hugs his arms around himself, hand gripping the teeth imprints he knew laid out across his forearm. Red, blue and yellow feathers sit unkept down his spine. Claws he can’t seem to keep clipped pressing into his sleeves.
“Let’s hope.” Pearl says, drawing him from his thoughts.
There’s a lot of things to hope for, really. Hope Tango’s a hybrid, hope he’s peaceful or a neutral Mob type, hope Tango’s turning isn’t as painful as his own. Hope that even if all else fails, Grian isn’t the one who’ll have to kill him. Because he’s a cowered and he knows he wouldn’t be able to do it.
“I’ll take the first watch.” Grian says, turning to grab his shotgun from the kitchen counter. “You guys get some sleep.”
It’s the next day that the screaming starts. Tango’s voice reverberated through the aging house they took as their own. It doesn’t last long. Not because he’s no longer in pain but because his vocal cords fry out. On day two, Scar tries to bring him some water. Scar ends up coming back saying a simple “He threw it at me.” Before fleeing outside for some fresh air.
On day three the house burns down. Him and Scar have to drag Jimmy by the shoulders out of the house. The man is screaming about not leaving Tango in there to burn. All alone. He tries to block out the man’s sobs when they pin him to the ground outside. The flames were licking at the windows. Grain doesn’t even understand what started the fire until he sees movement in the rubble.
Out from the ashes he sees Tango, or at least what was his friend, in a raging ball of flames.
“Blaze!” Pearl screams, eyes wide.
And Grian's cowered, so when his friends drew out their guns the only thing he could do was hold onto Jimmy. Hope his eyes were closed and wonder if given the chance, would Tango have been a hybrid? Would he have smiled at them and said he was fine? Or would he have burned them all, found a Nether hoard to roam with and be a Mob?
Grian would never know. Because Tango wasn’t given the chance to show them.
