The light was fading, leaving everything blurred and tinged with grey. Sidney reached towards it, she didn’t want it to lose it, the warmth, the feeling of being safe. That cocooning glow felt like a shelter from everything bad that had ever happened to her or ever would. She wanted to call it back, to chase after it and never let it go.
“Sidney! Sidney!” she heard her name being called and vaguely sensed that her body was being shaken. She tried to focus her vision but her head was pounding and her eyes felt sore and grimy. She blinked and she still couldn’t see anything but smears of muted colors.
“Sidney! Shake it off,” she tried blinking again. She felt someone lift her shoulders as her head rolled back. She tried to put her hands under herself and straighten up, tried lifting her head but everything felt so heavy. Like gravity had suddenly increased a thousand percent and her muscles just weren’t up to the task of coping with it. She tried again anyway, every movement a monumental effort, everything inside her crying out for her to quit, to find the light again and linger in its warmth. She fought it, knowing she couldn’t go back, she had to go forward. She had to find… something.
“That’s it, get it together,” she knew that voice. Her vision finally began to focus. Hovering above her was a face that could only be described as beautiful, only inches away from her own she felt his breath brush her cheek. Jet black hair framed his features, making the contrast of his pale skin that much more striking, sculpted mouth turned down and clear green eyes full of concern, she’d seen this face before, she knew this man. Her mind searched for answers until it found the name that belonged with person before her.
“Demon,” she let the word go with a breath as everything came rushing back to her. She cleared her throat, it felt full of debris, “What happened, are the guys ok?”
“Look for yourself,” he said brushing a lock of hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear. She swiveled her head, surveying the damage.
Bodies lay scattered across the yard, some of them of men and women who had come with her, but mostly the men in suits. All of them lay dead, mouths open with blood trickling from their lips, eyes wide with red tears streaking their faces. Sidney covered her mouth with her hand. She hadn’t done this, it wasn’t possible, she couldn’t have done this, it was unthinkable.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice quiet, afraid she already knew the answer.
“You happened Sidney, Jesus,” Demon stared at her intently, probably seeing her with the same horror she was feeling inside. “It was incredible, I’ve never seen anything like it. One minute they were kicking ass and taking names… the next they were on their knees holding their ears and screaming.”
Sidney started shaking her head at his words. No, she wouldn’t accept that she’d done this. She couldn’t, she saved lives, that’s what she’d been trained for. Every day she went to work and did her best to keep someone’s best friend alive, tail wagging another day. She couldn’t stand to see animals in pain, much less humans. She saved lives, she didn’t take them. No, this couldn’t have been her. She hadn’t even been able to explode an apple, something else must have done this.
“Hey it’s ok , it’s ok. Don’t cry, you saved us. The guys were getting butchered and you saved them. If you hadn’t done it then everyone here would have died. Did you see how those assholes were throwing people around? Crushing their bones with one kick, breaking necks with a twist of their hands? It would have been a massacre if you hadn’t done what you did.”
Sidney tried to see it that way, tried to reason that she’d done what she had to do to keep them safe. It all felt hollow. It was a massacre, and she’d committed it. There was no justification for the loss of life that had happened, she
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