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Blood.
Blood everywhere.
Sigrid gags on the air, ferrous and thick as it is with the stink of death. The urge to throw up claws at the back of her throat with every breath, but she knows she can't. Any noise will alert them.
The Ring students stalk the perimeter of the small Index camp like wolves, waiting for a command from their docent. They had come so swiftly from the smothering blackness, that Sigrid hadn't had time to react, and it was her proselytes who paid the price.
God, she's a coward, isn't she? She could be doing something to stop them, and yet, here she is, trembling and weeping silently in the shadow of a rust-rotted cargo container while the sound of bones shattering fills her ears.
She could be doing something, anything, to at least give the dead proselytes their dignity.
And so, she creeps out from behind the container. Sigrid crawls on her hands and knees, wincing as gravel and shards of unidentifiable refuse dig into her palms, until she can finally see into the campsite.
There, silhouetted against the dim glow of the streetlights, is one of the proselytes— contorted into a backwards bow, they rest their weight on their hands, their own sword pinning them in place like a preserved insect and their neck hanging limp and headless.
“Hey, Harlow, Director, come check it out! This one's still alive!”
“I’ll be with you in just a moment, Quinn. If it’s not the proxy, you two can feel free to play around with your materials and experiment a bit, alright?”
Sigrid feels her stomach drop, her body freezing like she’s a deer caught in headlights. They can’t be talking about her; she can see the one who spoke on the other side of the camp, half-hunched and circling, a starved street dog crazed by the scent of blood. But then, if they haven’t seen her—
A shriek of pain.
Sigrid knows that voice—as easily as she can recognize the street corner she lives on, she recognizes the cries of one of her dearest proselytes.
It’s Hilda, the youngest of the group, always so soft-spoken and patient. She's never flinched when danger loomed too near, never run in terror, never screamed like that, not in the presence of another Index member.
Not until now.
She can't see what's happening to Hilda, not from her vantage point at least, but she doesn’t need to. The howls of agony fading into choked gurgles, the delighted cackles of those monsters tearing into her, the green-branch snapping of bones tells her all she needs to know. After what feels like an eternity, blissful silence finally falls over the devastated camp and Sigrid dares to crawl forward again. She tells herself that there's a chance Hilda is still alive, that she's not beyond saving, but some gnawing, primal part of her brain digs into that thought and drags it down.
Sigrid raises her head. Slow, hesitant, swallowing the aching terror lodged in her throat, she fixes her gaze on the shadows beneath the streetlamp. In an instant, she's able to see what's going on, and in an instant, she wishes that she wasn't.
One of the students sits on the ground, a mass of blood-darkened entrails hanging from her mouth. She throws her head back, a chunk of flesh tears loose, and she swallows. Again and again and again, that thing bites into Hilda’s body, shredding, desecrating, devouring like she’s nothing more than meat.
Sigrid can’t keep looking. She can’t. She shouldn’t. She can’tshecan’tshecan’tshecan’tshe’cant-
All at once, her body twitches, and her hands instinctively reach for her hair. She knows what’s coming as her mouth begins to water— stopping it now is out of the question, and all she can do is hold her hair back from her face in fistfuls of golden tangles.
When her stomach finally begins to clamp down on itself and bile carves a burning path up her throat, Sigrid almost welcomes the pain.
After all, it's the only proof she has that this isn't just a nightmare.