Each step, each scorching step. Skinless toes, frantic slaps of limbs, her breath echoed in her ears like a distant howl, her body, her veins screaming to halt. But she continued. She ran and sprinted with every last pounding sweat. Arms, leg, and throat sore. Her ears deafening to the roars that chased her. Keep going, going, going, don't stop. Her mind flared as she followed his back.
"Hurry," Marshal said.
His boots crunched steel. His reflective bones pumping muscle. Carry her; she lingered, take this sting away for a moment, a second, she could beg for it. But like ice, soul scratched metal, and she ran. The following words out of his mouth were muffled and distant like she was underwater. Her heart beat like a wet thud that vibrated, but the sound was echoed… faint.
But hammering her will, like taught string; she looked forward only forward. The blur of light bounced through her eyes, the sensation of mass, pulsing lights, and crimson-like blenders of vague shapes. Each step, each step. Her focus wavered—step, step. Just keep stepping.
"Lorelai? a muffled shape said.
She couldn't tell who it was. But she had to step, keep stepping. Consciousness seduced her, whispered to her. Re-bell, Re-bell. Stop. Stand and take no more steps. And despite forcing it, her eyelids grew heavy, her muscles like dead weight as her legs stumbled forward on instinct alone. Sleep. She needed to sleep. And like a switch, she couldn't resist, as each sensation shut down one by one, and her horns smashed the deck.
Like pillowed steel, she rested her temple on the unforgiving metallic floor, which felt like a pillow to her exhaustion, the hardened surface contorting to embrace. Step, step. She had to--
Looking up, she saw legs. Marshal's legs. He continued his shouting voice, a dull ring to her senses. But as he ran, his back shrank with each moment. She longed to extend her fingers, to reach to grasp something, something. What was it? What did-- did she want? It eluded her. It betrayed her. Sleep, yes, sleep, she was tired, so very tired. Why was she running again? She blinked, trying to focus, but the reason eluded her, slipping away with each ragged breath.
As she lay there, the sensation of heat sparked within her, a tiny ember: fighting, fighting. Against what, she could not know. But it kept fighting, screaming her name. The damp campfire rose inside her, and the wet wood scorched her brain--step, step, step. Like a clock that hated her, each tick, each clock, boiling her blood. Steam gushed her fangs, and a fire bubbled under the surface, a tempest in her heart, her very core. A burn that wanted out. A scream that wished to howl.
"Marshal." Her lips said, seeming to know more than her. "Marshal!" her lips howled, but nothing, nothing. Always nothing.
Step, step, step. Her heart raced. Run. She needed to run. Why was she down? Why couldn't she move? The creatures screamed, their thousands of growls chasing her spine.
"Amara!" she cried. "Cass, Cassian," Her fingers clawed the steel, her body too heavy to pull... "Someone, anyone!" The chill laced her and penetrated her core. Her brittle bones, ready to snap, her cry, voiceless and without hope. "Help," she whimpered. "Help me."
Step, step, stamp. A boot crashed into her sight, and his voice hit her like a wave. "Shadow!" Marshal howled.
In a burst, steam erupted from his lips, and a green Voltite blazed through his veins, lighting them like twisted wires ready to snap. His steps faltered, his chest heaving with an electric burn, but he clenched on.
Like a bullet, his arm fired, and the explosion of power flashed the hallway in a bomb of light. The sight of what she had been running from made her go pale.
Hands, feet, and eyes, all in a mess of bodies, dead, alive, and all the faces she once knew, plus some. The dead ran, a woman's scream splitting as the arc spliced her and a few others in half.
"Come back!" the head said before another foot crushed it—the avalanche of bodies, like a single organism. The air thickened with the stench of decay, bodies twisting and reshaping themselves with a sickening squelch. Their broken faces leered, each mouth stretching to repeat the same word: "Come back! Come back! Come back!"
Marshal yanked Lore's limp arm and chucked her into his arms, cradling her like something precious he refused to let go.
"Wha-what," Lore exclaimed.
However, ignoring her, a second pulse of steam rushed out of his lips, a burn of his chest, sizzling her legs; he lit up more Voltite. So much that he could have been made of electrical energy, his whole being, every nerve, every inch, sparked alive. And he ran, ran as fast as a demon could ever run.
"Don't let go." He said, and before she could reject it, he ramped up the pace.
The wind smacked her, and its claws dragged each finger of grip. She squeezed, basically kneeing him as he shot forward with railgun speed. As she held, she listened to the build-up of each jump or step—His core like a pumping machine, spark step, spark step. Again and again— The rhythm was like the beat, a flow she could follow.
So, pressing her own core, she mimicked it. Pretending momentarily, it was her running, her racing down hall after hall. Her boots hammered steel, her legs chugged with power. Her body, which was set ablaze, overheated and breathed out steam. Her heart, unfortunately, followed the uninvited organ, thumping with the eagerness of her wagging tail, an exhilarating race, and cuddling this unfamiliar man.
Marshal steered towards the hangar, dusty ships and cold metal ready to spark alive. And for a second time, her stupid heart howled. The childish core ready to thump for just about anything. However, that came to an end when Marshal's feet tripped. And with the momentum of a fright train, she was thrown into the control panel, her back slamming into knobs and switches, the metal kissing bone.
"Hell, what was that for?" She whined. But upon blinking her eyes, she halted, "Marshal!"
She scurried over but struggled to get close as Marshal's body sprayed heat. The wave frizzed her hair, the air in her throat cooking from pure proximity.
"Keep going," he said.
"Are you stupid?" she snapped. "Don't you know your limits? You're ready to melt down any second now."
"GO." He said.
She glared at him, a fire building in her chest. "And what?" she growled. "Leave you?"
He thrashed as his bones, his diamond bones, began to warp under the heat.
"I'll… I'll manage." He forced out.
She wanted to kick him, but held the urge. Then, feeling her fingers burn, she wrapped her arm around him and pulled. Every second in contact with her, the feeling faded, the sensation of bone touched bone, and she was sure she had no fingers left.
"What are—"
"You can die when you get me out of here." She said.
Spotting a bike, the closest thing she could use to haul this mountain of a man, his steaming bones weighing a metric ton, her shoulder burning and boiling as she dragged him over like grilled meat.
"You're crazy." He said.
"And you're insane, so we have that in common." She replied.
Planting his arse on the seat, or what was left of one, as it melted under him, she chucked herself in front. Tempering the ignition, she made one plea to the gemstone gods for a working engine. Then cranked.