Chapter Text
An oppressive night sky overlooks the ruins of Bar-sur-Loup : it is entirely devoid of stars, rightfully choked out of sight by our infrastructure, the omnipresent glow of the great siphon at the top of Wedding Gallows is the only light to guide humans towards a great and crushing despair, the gigantic spire that their prayers mention with fear.
The radar tells me there's forty-five humans hiding in an apartment building on the other side of the street, probably busy cleaning their weapons and urinating in a corner, as if our existence was but silly folklore. They have no clue that the big bad wolf is practically salivating right over their fleshy heads.
My squadmate's hand, landing firmly on my shoulder, takes me out of my contemplation.
- Donc, exclaims Muse, y'en a combien là d'dans ?
- Quarante et des poussières.
- Parle d'un gâchis de munitions, Twelve quickly interjects, rien de plus.
Before we get a chance to stop her (mostly out of reflex, she's always been like this), Twelve readies four knives and a small bag of rocks and pebbles. Her wooden body –oddly gaunt even for a doll– easily runs past the rest of the squad, all sitting there idly taking dust, frustration fueling her great stride towards the enemy position.
Our CO, Branch, weakly protests. She only does this to avoid reprimand after giving the mission report to base command.
It doesn't take long before Twelve's silhouette is entirely swallowed up by the night, only leaving faint clacking sounds to guide our imagination.
- Quelle plaie, mumbles Branch between gritted teeth. Je suis la seule à espérer qu'elle se fasse niquer ?
- Ah que j'aimerais bien la niquer... jokes Muse, to the great dismay of everyone in the room. Merde, j'suis sûre que Cagole-Radar aimerait aussi !
She presses her index finger against the back of my head, proud of her little farce, her face displaying the smug expression we've come to recognize her for. Another one of my squadmates, Marrow, tries to get the conversation back on track.
- Ché pas, c'est une superbe clopeuse. Ça serait fort dommage de perdre quelqu'un ayant tant de talent.
- Pas vrai ?! Elle a intérêt à en ramener après sa petite crise.
While everyone starts talking about Twelve's cigging skills, I maintain most of my attention on the radar, trying to interpret whatever might be happening through the abstract green dots blinking on the display. They're here, they're not, they're here, they're not, rhythming like a little heart in the palm of my hands. After the first one doesn't blink back on, I know it'll take at most four minutes before the three story building is cleared, my eyes are transfixed.
- Nan mais elle est très forte aux imitations, elaborates Marrow, c'est dingue à quel point sa boite vocale arrive à moduler la voix débile que font les humains en suppliant.
- Ouais ! C'est vrai qu'ils sont toujours en mode « Non s'il vous plaît j'ai une famille » avec cette voix d'abruti comme si ça changerait quelque chose.
Joyous conversation continues without me, they know how I get when given the opportunity. Branch briefly walks in my direction to try and peep at the radar, her interest in it is purely professional, her own vice is a bit more hands-on. The kintsugi-ridden porcelain body hidden under her clothes might give you the impression of a lifetime of heroism in the name of our glorious leader, and while it does allow her to be on good terms with her superiors, do not mistake it for respect. The cigging discussion gets interrupted by the gunshot coming from Twelve's bloody dance, all that to give way to speculations and mockery about how the humans must be cowering in fear.
Twelve eventually comes back, business as usual, carrying with her everything she must've looted. Marrow starts taking inventory, five packs' worth of cigarettes, a beret, glasses and a diary.
- C'est quoi cette merde ? Tu pouvais pas ramener leurs flingues par hasard ?
- C'est pour des costumes, imbécile. retorts Twelve.
- Après on peut très bien fouiller le reste demain, on est pas pressées. I add.
Branch goes ahead and still gives a light smack to the back of Twelve's head, trying her best to teach her good frontline manners. Our little loose cannon puts on the beret and lights up one of the cigarettes, Muse joins her in the play.
- Rah... ces poupées. C'est tuer, tuer et encore tuer avec elles, pas une once d'humour.
- Vraiment toutes les mêmes. Une absence totale d'intérêt pour l'art !
- Comme quoi, être des petits soldats ça rend intellectuellement pauvre ! Moi j'te dis si ma gamine était comme ça elle mériterais une bonne baffe.
Branch isn't so happy about being made fun of that way but she knows she asked for it. After all, she's Twelve, so we can't possibly get mad. Even my radar cannot shine as bright as she does, burning on the battlefield, but she's so good at playing with it, so I simply look at her with dreamy eyes, my co-actor.
Chapter Text
I'm on the way to see my psychologist, driving my Twingo along the roads of Nice, the summer air hot inside my car, I'm happy that the usual swarm of tourists have stopped coming here. I park not too far away from the train station and walk towards Mr Cavallo's office.
No one's in the waiting room, as usual, not many people feel like seeing a shrink when a necromancer's burning through towns an hour drive away. Times are strange in Bardella's France. I'm only ten minutes early, so the wait isn't unpleasant, I never was a fan of seeing other patients in a shrink's waiting room, they always seem to look at me weird. The door finally opens.
It's not the easiest of sessions, I'm about to turn thirty and I know I'll probably be busy getting bombed or fleeing to some place like Montpellier, and that is the optimist in me talking. Back in february it looked like a joke, now we're six months later and not only has all military operations apparently catastrophically failed but a gigantic dark cloud has also been growing over the alps. I'm desperately trying to keep working as an administrative assistant but the idea of getting torn to shreds by undead legions has been keeping me up at night. How will this impact the grey-market estrogen production I wonder, it'd be pretty silly to have to ration HRT between all the european girlies. It's clear Mr Cavallo is going to be fleeing this place too, judging by the sudden lack of decoration compared to last month. Were will he go? Surely it must be a cozy place near Paris. My mind wanders a bit too much, I don't talk a lot, he tells me I'll either have to find a new therapist in the area or that we can continue through Zoom, I don't recall him saying where he's going to be hiding, the cowardly small bourgeoisie.
I go to the turkish grocer before heading home, even the neighborhood Carrefour closed down last month, the big players don't want to risk their goods getting lost (or worse, looted!), I chat with the cashier for a little bit, how are the kids handling all this? How's business? The usual.
Entering the apartment, my roommate Margot is playing Melty Blood on her laptop, I put away the groceries.
- Alors, ça s'est bien passé ?
- Boh, j'crois je gagne.
- Ahah.
And just like that, we continue pretending everything's alright.
Chapter Text
Heavy rain has been drenching the trenches of Mouans-Sartoux for the past three days, it's nice that the humans can't drink it anymore. We had to sleep in connected foxholes after artillery shells started rendering the terrain virtually unusable until the downpour would stop. Still, base command wants us to capture Grasse by next week, so we endure.
Marrow sits next to me, mud staining her entire body, ruining her long dreadlocks, she's busy writing down messages coming from the radio. Our coats have been hung up to a few rebar rods to create even the smallest of shelters to the rain. I get up from my spot to go towards the rest of the group, all trying to keep themselves occupied through the boredom. Muse and Lice are digging a ramp to make our exit easier, dirty fringes now sticking to their foreheads and stray drops of mud leaving stains on their eyeballs. Branch is currently discussing with Twelve, who hid herself under a few corpses to spy on the bunker a hundred meters in front of us without getting shot.
- Une sacré ribambelle d'imbéciles de leur côté. J'te rends les jumelles fais gaffe.
- T'es toute sage de nos jours.
- Pardon cheffe, vous v'lez que j'ignore vos ordres ? Qui sait, peut être que la centaine de canons pointés dans notre direction me loupera ! Twelve mocks.
- Non c'est bon, salle peste.
- Du neuf ? I add, now standing next to them.
- Nada.
Disappointed, I go look at the radar for a few hours. Beep, beep, beep. Splosh, splosh, splosh. The display wrapping under water splashes, artificial green light comforts my growing boredom. It radiates a « let's share a comfortable silence » that warms my porcelain skin, a conversation between our sensors. A hand suddenly lifts my chin away from the screen.
- Hey Cagole-Radar, Muse tells me, si t'avais autant rien à foutre t'aurais pu nous aider.
- On a que deux pelles en état.
- Ah mais c'est trop tard, chérie.
Muse shows me a smile she has yet to present to anybody else. A dark secret between her hands and my body, between my small body and her tall stature, between a wall and her knee, all displayed through her teeth. She pushes me into the mud and presses her left foot into my thorax, never hard enough to damage. It's never been worth fighting back.
- Lave moi les jambes, her cheerful voice orders. J'commence à en avoir marre de la boue qui s'coince dans mes articulations.
She tosses a clean sponge into my face, and I obey as expected. Muse is already taller than me, but from the ground it feels like she could shadow Wedding Gallows, I feel a strange empathy to toy soldiers. Her blue eyes usually so perfectly framed by her hair now look terrifying from my point of view, she's calling me a whore through her stare. I dutifully, carefully, press the sponge against her foot, the grime staining my coveralls, deeper, deeper. Her expression never falters, even when I finally get to her joints, parts that are usually sensitive, fragile, essential. I grab a toothbrush to get to the difficult areas, gently stroking against the canyons of her limbs. When did I get so good at this? Why don't I hate it anymore? I get to her knee, delicately scrubbing every minute detail clean. The curvature of her thigh, difficult to access without rolling up her pant sleeves further up, but I haven't been allowed to touch the fabric. She switches which foot threatens my shell, I can't let my eagerness for this to be over show itself with my movements.
- Très bien. Comme quoi tu peux t'rendre utile.
- Merci, I comply.
And just like that, she leaves me alone, satisfied. I crawl back to my trustworthy companion and its reassuring green glow. I hear Marrow and Lice cigging together. Branch calls out to me, I don't know when she got so close to me.
- Je te prête ma casquette, tu ressembles à rien.
- Merci cheffe.
- On lance l'assaut dans vingt minutes, prépare tes affaires.
- Oui cheffe.
Grabbing my jacket from the makeshift tent, I quickly calculate how many bullets I have left for my pistol ; Twelve, long gone from her flesh pile, helps me put the radar equipment on my back before making sure to soak her sword with human residue. Marrow and Lice quickly finish their cigarettes before packing up the radio. Muse is doing who knows what to the human corpses Twelve was laying under. Branch is brooding in a corner in her fancy leather coat, probably hoping we're all ready on time, she's always the first to be ready.
Chapter Text
The evening sun kisses Margot's laptop screen, the reflected light obscuring my character, I know my combos, 2a 236a 5a 236a 5a6aa 2c tkj.236a 2c 6c 5a6aa 421a j.ac dj.c at, the sound effects guide me back towards a modicum of control over the situation, the timer's about to hit zero, every input counts. My execution, while practiced, still is lacking compared to Margot's obsession with fighting games, it's no surprise she's the one to land the final hit but I'm proud that I managed to have her fight for it. She giggles, I'm glad she doesn't feel so insecure about her teeth anymore, she used to show me those memes about british people every other day and say it was « literally her » like an idiot. We start another match.
- T'as vu qu'Bardella s'est cassé la gueule au G7 hier ?
- Raconte.
- Bah il a trébuché car ses lacets étaient défaits, c'te con.
- C'est chaud de night putain.
Margot chuckles, I lose this match too. We switch to watching a random anime she torrented, the normal life of normal women. My mother called me today, checking up on me. It's painful to know she still hopes her little baby boy will come back and that he'll sign up to the military to defend his country, she refuses to acknowledge that he's been dead for a decade. I don't want her to have the final word.
Chapter Text
My face is in the mud, artillery knocked me a hundred or so meters away from the squad, bullets and tank shells flying above my prone and vulnerable body, something pulls me by my legs. Rotated like packaged meat, my eyes open to the carvings of Lice's face, her wooden visage and my hair equally dirty ; a missile flies above, I wish for a bath.
Artillery shells litter and contrast the black sky, explosions reflect off of bloody rain puddles and bullets paint a grim portrayal of mortality into the eyes of shaking conscripts. Enough corpses turn into cover and enough cover turns into an inpromptu forward position, orders are intercepted while surrounded by gore. It's in one of those to-be trenches that Lice dragged me in, my radar is still sitting politely in the open next to a skewer of dolls, impaled by a heated bar of metal, vapor sizzling out of their shared wound. I immediately, automatically, start crawling towards it.
- Mais t'es complétement conne ?! Lice screams at me while grabbing at my hair.
- Euh ? I drool out, dirty rain slipping past my lips, in confused distress. J'ai besoin de mon équipement.
- T'en trouveras un autre sur le chemin, d'radar, she scolds. Faut qu'on rejoigne le reste de l'escouade.
Lice only lets go of my hair to start dragging me by my hand, my friend, confidant, partner, slips out of sight. Beep, beep, my heart calls. Lice sprints through the open field, her wooden feet splashing mud onto spent casings, never letting go of my hand, ducking behind gutted cars, dead weight slowing her down, stepping on broken exposed bones, I don't want to follow.
I'm thrown into a trench. The entire crew is here, Branch's face is the only one that isn't covered in some sort of filth, and it's also the one staring daggers into me.
- Elle est passée où ma casquette ?
- Je ne sais pas, cheffe, I timidly answer, sûrement encore avec notre équipement radar.
- Et il est où, c't'équipement ?
- Euh...
- À cent mètres au sud, approximativement, mercifully answers Lice.
- Okay, Twelve, va aider l'autre idiote à récupérer nos affaires.
- Pas de soucis, she answers.
Twelve, my designated escort, steals a chainblade from the closest human body she can find and stands next to me, Lice going in her own direction to help the others defend the trench.
- Bon, ça va être très simple, she explains. Je vais courir, attirer l'attention, et toi tu vas profiter de cette diversion pour te faufiler comme un petit cafard et récupérer la casquette de Branch et ton bordel.
- Okay.
Without waiting a second longer, Twelve leaps into the continuous carnage, only a two-handed chainblade and a pistol to her name. I climb out and follow the sound of Twelve's sword revving into a screaming human, taking the enemy's attention while I scuttle in her shadow, insignificant to her, my star. I run across the field, a man, barely holding on to his life and stuck under a few of his dead comrades, manages to grab my ankle and makes me trip, I fall face first into the filthy mud, again. I blindly kick behind me and eventually feel my foot breaking into something wet and squishy, his hand lets me go, I don't bother looking at him before rushing to get myself up, mud dripping from my face, panicked breaths sucking in the liquid.
I arrive to the doll skewer, my companion is still there, politely waiting for me, my eyes frantically dart around for the sergeant's kepi, her expectations making me feel overtly aware of the rain battering down on my body. I quickly find it resting under a severed arm –the embroidered lace insignia easily recognizable– and waste no time to shove it inside my jacket, I hastily grab my radar equipment and rush back, not paying any attention to the conflict around me. Twelve makes sure to see me jump into the trench before eviscerating back towards our position.
Twelve pats me on the back and I hand Branch her beloved hat, she can't help but wince at the state it's in, she shoves it inside her coat pocket. Free from my duty, I hold my dear sensor close, staining it with my filth, turning it back on and letting the countless little dots judge me, savouring the small amount of time we have before we're ordered to continue the offensive, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please forgive me.
Chapter Text
The government issued an order to evacuate the city so we're crashing on a friend's couch in Antibes. It's fascinating how quick governments act when it's their soil being razed, their taxpayers being gutted, their white voters forced out of vacation homes. Margot is eating breakfast on the balcony, blonde curls resting on her shoulders while sunlight frames her body with a warm glow, she's really pretty. Is it wrong of me to hope?
- Hey, tout va bien ? she asks. Tu me fixe depuis cin' minutes.
- Oh pardon, ça va t'inquiète. Je me demande juste ce qu'on va faire.
- Donc ça va pas, tu peux être franche tu sais ?
- C'que tu peux être chiante le matin, on t'as déjà dit ?
- Comme ça ouais, désolée de m'inquiéter pour mon amie hein, she sticks her tongue out.
We end up bickering back and forth, non-subjects bouncing around, childish nostalgia for five euro kebabs and being able to browse booru image boards without a VPN. The conversation flows well into the afternoon before coming to a sudden stop. First, a deep rumble could be felt, vibrations in our legs, plates clattering together and glasses threatening to spill, then came the noise, attacking eardrums and reducing balance to a mere concept, the raking scream, like nails on a chalkboard, swallowing us all in it's power before abruptly disappearing. Margot helps me stand back up and we foolishly go to look outside, I quickly see a large turquoise beam of light bursting out of the Alps and slicing the horizon, arcs of energy frantically circling around it and disappearing into the dark clouds we've grown accustomed to. A deep, pathetic feeling grows within me : that maybe it would've been better if the noise had killed us outright.
Chapter Text
The irritating bark of loudspeakers is constant, reverberating both inside my head and the warehouse's interior, that huge metal prefab is where we'll be staying until Branch is finished playing connections with the base commander, which could take a while. I can spot Twelve's beret in the distance, peaking through the mass of puppets all trying to call dibs on various looted items, her crudely carved eyes stare back at me, I feel embarrassed and avert my gaze, back towards my three other sisters standing next to me.
- Faut que j'arrive à trouver de l'eau histoire de te laver, c'est pas possible de te garder dans cet état, says Muse in a frustrated tone.
- Mais laisse la bon sang ! exclaims Marrow. C'est pas comme si elle avait besoin d'être jolie.
- Peut être pour toi, chère Marrow, mais Cagole-Radar mérite qu'on prenne soin de sa charmante frimousse, explains Muse, cupping my chin and directing my muddy eyes towards hers. N'est-ce-pas, ma p'tite Cagole-Radar ?
- Bien sûr, Muse.
- Tu vois, elle est d'accord ! she continues, looking back at Marrow with her usual self-satisfied grin.
- Laisse tomber, flatly adds Lice, trying to save Marrow the headache. D'toute façon c'est dans nos directives.
It indeed is part of the attrition we enforce upon our enemy, we do not need to eat or drink, so we have no reason not to waste all that we find. We are encouraged to wash ourselves as a form of victorious ritual, showing that we prevail and maintain our crafted beauty while humans have to see their flesh rot and malfunction in real time, another day covered in their own filth, another finger falling from the freezing winters. Branch approaches us, kepi and coat freshly cleaned, her left thumb is missing, I have an idea of where it might be. We know not to comment on it.
- Bon, les filles, on choppe Grasse d'ici après-demain matin, she explains.
- J'peine à y croire.
- C'est une promesse, pas une date limite. On va avancer doucement par la route de Cannes après que les artilleuses aient fini de raser la ville, on aura plus qu'à finir ce qu'il reste. Ça devrait être facile.
- Ok ok, plutôt pépère, says Muse, nodding along.
- Vous expliquerez ça à Twelve quand vous la voyez, moi j'dois retourner m'assurer qu'on soit en bonne entente avec la direction.
Speaking of, I can't quite see her near the loot pile anymore, maybe she went cigging, Marrow and Lice are going to find her anyway. After their departure, Muse insists on finding me a bath, the melody of heavy rain attacking the roof is a nice distraction while her plastic hand holds my waist to guide me through the crowd, she's going to insist on washing me herself. We go through the entire warehouse a few times, she acts like she didn't find what she was looking for, giving me a poor act of resignation as she directs me outside, feet clacking against the broken concrete. With Muse « not finding » her sponge, I know what follows. She orders me to undress, I try to figure out what sleep would feel like as my body responds, I try to look towards Wedding Gallows as she moves me around, pressing a dirty uniform against the side of my face. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if I could discover what the sky looked like before we filled it with toxic smoke. Muse's assault scrubbed away into the great siphon's glow, a gigantic wound, her long blonde curls eclipsed by the only light the world should see, the only scar that I should care for. A buzzing noise envelops my body, a far away song. Beep, beep. Singing melodious echoes. I'm safe. They are not. Green dots.
I've been told, since awakening, that humans deserve what we're inflicting, that they deserve to be hunted down to extinction. Our glorious and benevolent leader must have reasons she's never mentioned, I'm sure, gods need not share their every thought with canon fodder.
Something's in my mouth, tracing along my teeth, the rain battering against my naked body, onto my eyes, forming facsimile tears, Muse is holding me, smiling down at me, tranquil yet focused, like an artist working the fine details of their masterpiece. It would be terribly improper of me to fight her off, so I content myself with laying there. Her fingers perform a last sweep across the bottom row of my dentition before meeting back with the outside air. She eventually lets go of my body, now back to its usual gray, and goes back inside the warehouse, leaving my soaked uniform on the ground next to me, raindrops getting into my joints, I can't get up. I don't want to.
Chapter Text
Everyone acted like nothing happened. Journalists had less problems acknowledging walking corpses shooting at people than the gigantic beacon of light manifesting out of thin air. Eric Ciotti told Le Figaro that it was just a solar powered laser like in Saudi Arabia and thus we shouldn't worry about it. Obviously he's already in a safe room far away from us commonfolk or any form of conflict, so that's easy for him to say.
In any case, Margot and I are watching Bardella's press conference on the subject, his dumb face prominent on the phone screen, his dumb mouth giving vapid answers, his dumb body suddenly falling over, like doll whose strings have been cut. There was no blood, there was no scream, it's as if his very soul just vanished. It's shocking to us, of course, watching it on repeat like kids on Liveleak, trying to figure out what happened, the slight catharsis to know this fucker's dead urging us to watch it just one more time. It happened all at once, government officials dying just like this all around the world, it was difficult to ignore the headlines.
- Quand même, c'est toujours beau un faf qui rend l'âme.
- Si seulement c'était aussi arrivé à Lepen, answers Margot.
- Boh, avec un peu de chance elle sautera comme Zémmour.
- P'tit caillou dans la tronche, ahahah.
We were told to evacuate Antibes the next day. Packing our things, the video plays in the background, again and again, until it becomes noise.
Chapter Text
Grasse, on top of its hill, was already largely reduced to ruins a decade ago, but since remaining human cells decided to try and take back Europe, we've got to do it all over again. Hopefully we won't pepper it with too much artillery that it loses its strategic advantage. White phosphorus scatters across gutted neo-provinçal houses, debris flies in all directions, fracturing foundations as easily as it perforates bone. Bodies flee in unison, their still limbs covering remains of the local heraldry, sheep's wool now painted with a mix of insides. Necrotic energy flies above us, greenish smoke trailing behind screaming projectiles, dramatic lighting to our little cigging troupe, distant explosions could be mistaken for fireworks.
- Oh putaing c'qu'on va leur mettre à ces 'kâgoles en por-celaine, screams Muse, elles m'en su-ceront le moignong !
- Pas si elles te butent avant, mon brave ! Lice adds, chuckling.
- Rah et toig, t'en penses quoi hein ? Muse tells me, letting her arm rest atop my shoulder, hand hovering my chest. T'aimerais le sucer, mon moignong ?
- Euh... nan, I awkwardly answer, c'est super chaud de night mon gars.
An awkward silence takes hold of our session, I'm not good at this improvisation thing. Thankfully, Twelve, my idol, tries her best to save me and get the ball rolling again.
- Trop vrai Ludovic, te laisse pas manipuler par les avances crasse d'Robert.
- Rah 'kôment t'es pas drôle ! Faut savoir s'amuser en-tre couilleus, says Muse, annoyed. T'façon quand j'rentre, moi j'te dis, j'fais un goss-e-à ma femme !
- Oublis pas d't'acheter un sens de l'honneur aussi, chenapan ! adds Marrow. À ce rythme on s'attend à c'que tu t'butes pour rejoindre la nécromancienne !
Branch is the only spectator to our little game, she's never been too interested in cigging in public, as far as I'm aware, it's like the kintsugi that now decorates her thumb, purely an administrative tool. She's watching, passive like the sky, with golden lightning strikes covering her blue porcelain, the leather of her clothes simulating the clouds above. Our cigarettes eventually burn out, and the growing absence of artillery shells detonating in the distance tells us it's time to go. I grab my companion and hurry to join Branch.
We slowly advance through the road, rifles in hand, radar telling us where to shoot. Why doesn't our great leader employ the undead anymore? It would make these advances much easier. Beep, beep. Bang, bang. The green dots disappear one by one, in sync with our guns, rhythmic progress, it almost overtakes me, like a song that gets stuck in your head. Left, right, left, right. One foot after the other, beep, beep, one cadaver getting closer. The automatic rhythm gets interrupted as I suddenly find myself a bit lower to the ground, yet still standing. A sharpened stake pierces my foot, just some old and cheap trap, I struggle to get my foot out of the small pit. By the time I ask for help, a shot is heard from far away, a high caliber bullet hits me in the face, penetrating my right cheek, chunks of porcelain shatter and fall to the ground, I follow shortly after.
Hands grab onto me, drag me to the side, behind cover. Most of the right side of my face is missing, something is leaking out of it, a liquid whose color reminds me of sewer waste, strands of hair poking inside, dirtying themselves, everything feels both hollow and itchy, I would vomit if I could. Nothing in my body seems to work properly anymore, I want to scream, please help me, please make this stop, the only sounds that come out of my throat are confused gurgles, bubbles forming around my cold lips, Twelve is trying to shoot at whoever did this to me, the gunfire is so loud please no more no more, I try to grab at my radar but my fingers refuse to respond. I can feel something detaching from the inside of my head, like slop slipping off a spoon, I have no choice but to look at it fall on my coat, it looks like when you mix all your paints together, iridescent sludge. Muse is spraying something in there, it feels like acid is burning through my very being, I can't fight back, Lice then wraps plastic sheets around my face. I'm thankful, otherwise I would've eventually seen, through small puddles or pieces of myself, what I'm made of.
Chapter Text
We're stuck in the middle of the A8, my unassuming Twingo flanked by pretentious Teslas, the Manierisme CD Margot burned for my twenty-seventh birthday barely audible through the hundreds of car horns battling each other. I feel like my head is going to explode.
- J'crois qu'on va y être encore quelques heures, shouts Margot, on l'a foutu où le casque anti-bruit ?!
- Quoi ?!
- Feur ! Le casque anti-bruit ! Il est où ?!
- J'en sais rien, I shout back, j'arrive même pas à penser avec c'te vacarme !
The sky has rapidly been clouding up, and with all that noise, I'm none the wiser to its hidden gifts. Unseen lightning building up over our heads, we only notice it once a bolt of energy rushes downwards, eager to meet with the ground. The Citroën Ami in front of us suddenly, for meager seconds, becomes a blinding light. Only a deep charred carcass remains. Margot and I sit there, mouth ajar, dazed by the simple finality of this somber spectacle. I lower the window to properly look up, what I see doesn't reassure me one bit.
- Margot, I state, faut qu'on se casse tout de suite.
- Quoi ?
- On va creuver si on reste là.
Confused, she opens her door to look, too. To gaze at the face that formed itself in the dark sky, pressing downwards, further and further, looking at the sea of automobiles with a cruelly satisfied expression. I step out of my Twingo and rush to grab Margot's hand, guiding her away from the car, the other drivers look at us with a confused expression. We run as fast as we can for an exit, what's with all these fucking barriers that are impossible to cross? It doesn't take long before a few more of these lightning strikes land on various vehicles, that's when the rest of the crowd started thinking that they should flee, too. The rain of death picks up the pace, not ready to let any of us survive. We're unlucky enough to witness what's left of people hit in the blast, a burnt suggestion of humanity.
The gigantic cloudy face never falters from its impeccable expression, its eyes make contact with mine, we don't have time to react, we're just ants trying to escape from a child's unforgiving magnifying glass. All I feel is the absence of Margot's hand before being consumed by light.
Chapter Text
There was nothing but a vague feeling of motion, like smoke stuck in a burning building. A small rat skittering away from the light, into comfortable eigengrau. Is this it?
Something reaches and twists, making complex knots of my incorporeal guts. It only feels nauseating. I'm drowning.
Behind the alps, a great spire challenges the horizon, Wedding Gallows. Its surface a black deep enough to swallow color itself. Four long prongs reach into the sky, flanking the great siphon emanating out of the tower. Thousands of small stars converge towards it. A great echo screams, at the whole world, that their doom is inevitable.
Ding, dong. Ding, dong.
Ding.
Dong.
Ding...
Dong...
Ding...
Dong...
Ding...
I can feel my eyes. I clumsily rotate them in place, they eventually, each at their own pace, look to the other side. My breath, suspended. Invisible strings keeping me in place. I do not gasp at the sight, I do not scream for help. All is well in the world. Lined up like livestock, a dim red light watching over us, hundreds of ball jointed articulations moving, waking up, a nursery. No one has said it to me, but I know my name. We all wordlessly put on our uniforms and walk outside. I'm given a standard issue radar system. Beep, Beep. It says to me. I don't answer. I'm waiting for someone, my blue porcelain waiting on the asphalt, as if forgotten at a gas station
- Salut, t'es notre nouvelle opératrice radar ? she says, her blonde hair highlighted by the floodlights.
- Oui, ça serait moi.
- Super, bienvenue dans l'équipe, j'te présenterais aux autres ! she beckons me to follow her.
- Merci, j'ai hâte de me rendre utile.
- Oh d'ailleurs, she adds, turning back towards me. C'est quoi ton p'tit nom ?
I, of course, having been born less than twenty-four hours ago, answer truthfully.
- C'est très mignon, she comments, j'aime bien ! she extends a hand, giving me a warm smile. Moi c'est Muse.
There's an emotion buried in there, one I can't seem to understand.
We shake hands and get in the back of a truck, where the rest of my new squad is waiting for us. Marking the beginning of our transport towards Villefranche-sur-Mer, away from Wedding Gallows, away from its oppressive architecture, away from the womb. Everyone introduces themselves, I have no questions to ask.