His feet were already numb, half frozen from the icy slush when they saw a small shack in the distance. The girl wasn’t faring much better. She was coughing. He could already smell blood in her breath though she claimed to be just fine. But in the end, wouldn’t it be better if she died now? At least she had that option. To die peacefully. He knew for fact that there really wasn’t a safe place left. Techno-mages kept casting their portals, and the amount of poisonous residue kept growing. He could keep running, running until there was no clear land left, nowhere to hide, but what was the point in that?
“Logan?” Her voice sounded like it was coming from a bottom of a well, distant and distorted. He tried to concentrate, really tried, but what the hell was the point?
“Logan?” Why wouldn’t she just shut up and die?
“Logan?” It wasn’t like she was walking around, carrying the extra weight and responsibility. Why the hell did she have to be so fucking fragile and needy?”
“Logan!”
“What?” It came out angrier than he intended, but that didn’t faze her a bit. Instead flinching she pointed towards the ground.
“You have been standing there for quite some time already. Is that stuff warm or what’s keeping you from moving?” She asked. He blinked and turned to look at what she meant. There was a miniscule puddle of silvery residue, and he was standing in it. When he shuffled away from it he could feel his head clearing. He could have sworn he had been walking this whole time.
“You can’t feel it when it happens?” Marie asked. He shook his head, now regretful of his earlier foul thoughts.
“That’s weird. It can’t be a good thing. What if it creeps up on you when you’re sleeping?” She asked. The residue actually moved. It wasn’t fast, and Logan wasn’t sure if it was movement per say, or did it just expand, but it was in a constant motion.
“Then you die,” he grunted, struggling not to add the words his mind was still persistently whispering, words of how it necessarily wouldn’t be a bad way to go. Since when had he became this… This depressed? Since when had he become willing to admit the defeat? And why now? They had gotten clear from techno-mages and their portals, their only problem currently was how to get in to that small shack they had seen from the distance before the storm really exploded.
“Logan?”
“Yeah?” Again more aggravated than he really meant.
“Shouldn’t we keep walking?” She asked. We? Wasn’t he the only one walking?
“Yeah. Aren’t we?”
“Nope. Are you alright?” Alright?
“I don’t know. Am I still standing in that goddamned puddle?”
“No. But it’s flowing closer. Can’t you see?”
Now that he knew what to look he could see it. Silvery tendrils reaching towards him, liquid metal oozing forward, reaching greedily towards his bare feet. He forced himself to take the necessary steps away from it. Each step felt like he was shedding something, peeling off layers from his mind, breaking bonds that he hadn’t even known that existed.
“I think that shit is getting in to my head… It gets easier to think and move the further I get from it. Keep your eyes open and give me a shout if you see more of it. We have to start going round it, no matter how small the puddles are.”
“Okay. Just… Could you keep walking?”
“I’m not? Fuck. Give me a kick if I fall to la-la -land again, okay?”
“Okay. Keep walk…”
He grimaced when her dry rattle and cough turned to much less dry.
“You need to spit it out?” He asked. The girl looked at him innocently, then swallowed.
“Spit what out?” She asked.
“Nothing. It’s nothing…” Maybe it was better that she played brave and gave him the option to stay clueless.
“Yeah… Absolutely noth…” She closed her mouth, her cheeks reddening and her eyes watering, struggling not to cough anymore.
“Shit. We better pick up the pace…”
They made it to the shack just in time before the icy slush turned to real hailstorm. Chunks of ice the size of a grown man’s fist were bombarding the ground, and the roof of the shack.
He lowered the girl carefully on to the floor, stretching his back, listening the small cracks of it. Then kneeled next to her. Her lips were starting to turn blue, and her skin felt icy cold. He peeled off the plastic from around her and gathered her on his arms. She was shivering.
“C… Can I touch you?” She asked, her teeth chattering.
For a moment he mulled over her words. Touch? He was touching her even now. What the hell was she talking about...
“You want to drain me? Why?” He asked. Rattling in her lungs was getting louder.
“I... I can borrow your mutation...” She wheezed.
“Why?” He wasn’t all that sure if it would be a good idea.
“I want to live!” She croaked, smearing her lips and chin with gooey black and red blood. He could see with his mind’s eye viral particles eating her away from inside out, attacking mutated cells, consuming them greedily.
“This world has gone to Hell, kid. You really want to live?”
She wasn’t able to answer anymore. Not verbally. But the fire in her eyes spoke volumes.
“Fuck... Just how strong are you?” He asked, already calculating the odds of surviving from the drain. She blinked. Then blinked again, her lips twisting to a grimace, and he realized that her heart rate had hiked up considerably. She’d be gone in a matter of seconds. One thing less to take care of.
One life squandered because he was a fucking coward.
“Fuck this...” He huffed, leaning against the wall, making sure that he wouldn’t collapse on top of her. He placed his trembling palm over her cheek. She had already lost consciousness, but he could feel the pull. Sickening loss of energy and life, chilling cold creeping up his metal-coated bones and turning marrow to icy slush. His heart was struggling now, rebelling against the force of her mutation. It was fighting a losing battle.
World grew suddenly dim. He couldn’t hear or see, let alone smell anything past his own agony. He tried to let go of the girl, but he couldn’t summon enough strength to move his hand.
To his immense relief the girl opened her eyes. Her startled gaze fell over his features, now twisted to a grimace, and she crept away from him, severing the connection between them.
He sagged against the wall, struggling with each breath he took. He was drowning. Carrier. He carried the virus. The perfect weapon. His mutation kept the symptoms at bay, but now Legacy had full reign over him.
“B... Better?” He managed to ask. Marie nodded.
“What about you? Will you be alright?” She asked. He shook his head, then cleared his throat.
“I don’t know...”
He spent agonizing hours in throes of the Legacy, nearly drowning when fluids started to build up in his lungs. In the end he was victorious. Perfect weapon. Unable to die.
“Oh, shit...”
“Are you okay?” The girl. Worried gaze scanning him from head to toe.
“Yeah. I guess. Weather cleared any?” He couldn’t hear the bombardment anymore, but the girl shook her head.
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering she walked to a tiny window that was covered with a tarp. She lifted it. Thick fog crept over the cracked glass, turning the view milky white, drowning all the details. He kept staring at it long enough to fool his senses to believe that there really was nothing but that swirling mist out there.
“That can’t be good...” He shook his head and sat up, then dragged himself to a standing position. The girl was at his side instantly, offering support. At first he was going to brush her off, but when the world tilted alarmingly he accepted, even welcomed her help, and steered their steps towards the rickety front door. Cracked it slightly ajar and peered through the crack.
“Not good at all...” He muttered, motioning the girl to stay still. She dared a quick peek from the outside world as well, lines of worry growing over her forehead as she turned to look at him and mouthed one word: Techs.
Three of them, just standing there, thick tendrils of fog curling around their ankles and climbing up their legs, reaching for the laptops fused to their hands.
“What the fuck are they doing?” He asked. Question was more of a rhetorical one, he could see perfectly well that techs were opening a portal. A giant portal, right at their doorstep.
“It doesn’t look like they know about us. Why would they open a portal out there when they could just throw it in here?” She whispered. Logan shook his head.
“I don’t know, and it scares the shit out of me... Why would they funnel bunch of rocks and dirt when there still are cities left to ransack?”
“You’re scared?” She asked.
“And you aren’t?” Logan snorted, left eyebrow hiking upwards to the challenge.
“I don’t know should I be more scared of the portal, or the fact that you’re scared...”
“Why don’t you think about it while we run the hell away from here.”
“Uh... I don’t think we have the time to run...”
The portal opened with a great woosh, huge silvery disc that swallowed good part of the scenery among the small shack and two terrified mutants.
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