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It doesn't gush blood. You were hoping for blood, for muscle, even for a secret layer of scales, but it's nothing— paper. Your teeth puncture and hit air. You gnash around for a bit, but embarrassedly retreat when it's clear there's no use. Richard, prone but unpained, touches the series of new wet holes you left behind. He doesn't smile, but doesn't not. "Oh, Charlie," he says fondly, and meets your eyes.
You scream and draw The Sword and cleave him in two, from his head through his groin, and take it out and slash again and again, until Richard lies in ribbons, which you sweep to the floor and stomp on, again and again, until they're crunched and unrecognizable, and then you stick The Sword in again and let the flame curl and catch them, him, his scraps. And you stand there until they're ash. And you stand there for a lot longer, then drop to a crouch and cover your eyes and wait for a lot longer than that, until your legs clench and the blood pools in your feet. You don't cry. You can't. You press your thumbs into your eyes until you see sparks and try not to think about anything at all.
You crouch, and crouch, and crouch, and for all your best efforts you think about your wide and terrible future, and your narrow and terrible past, and all the things you'll never know. And you wonder if you did a heroic thing just now, and if all heroic things make a person feel like this. Small, mostly. Alone.
When the ash flickers like a guttering candle and vanishes, when you are alone, you don't notice. And when somebody joins you again, you don't notice either. You notice only when he grabs you, when he yanks you to your feet, when he claps a hand over your mouth— you scream valiantly and bite down on it— and when he shoves three fingers into your skull. There isn't much you can do about that. You go limp.
———
You are tied up.
You are tied up in a chair at a little wrought-iron table, a café table. You are at a café, which is to say you're kidnapped at a café. Your captor, across the little table, is unfamiliar to you: a man, grown but not old, not terribly kempt, with shaggy black hair and week-old stubble and deep dark undereye circles behind owlish gold spectacles. It's possible his spectacles are meant to distract from his suit, which is tattersall and unflattering. At present, your captor is examining his face in the reflection of the metal platter sitting between you. The platter is empty.
You attempt to voice your displeasure, but discover that your mouth's been stuck shut. At length, your captor looks up. "Oh, Charlie, there you are."
He says it in Richard's voice. Your eyes go wide.
"My apologies for the... well, you know. I thought you'd run. Or scream." Richard(?) pushes his glasses up. "You're not known for clear thinking under pressure, let me tell you."
<span class="mu-i">Unhand me, villain!</span> you think as hard as you can at him.
(3/5)
