Page 56 of Fable for the End of the World

I brush the dirt from my hands and turn to go inside. But before I reach the cabin, I stop. There’s a strange, hollow feeling in my chest, one that seems to have the centripetal force of a black hole. Possessed by some odd and unnameable sensation, I search through the leaves until I find a rock. It’s a perfectly ordinary rock, flat and about as long as my arm from elbow to wrist.

I drive it into the ground so that it juts up from the earth. A makeshift gravestone. I wonder what Azrael would say about it, if he were watching. What messages would be pinging through the chat. I’m not even sure what I feel. I just turn away and head back into the cabin, my palms prickling.

Inesa is standing by the table, utterly still. She’s found and lit several more oil lamps, and it’s light enough that I don’t need the night vision in my prosthetic anymore. My gloves are filthy from digging, so I slip them off and set them down on the table.

“It’s done,” I say. “He’s buried.”

“Thank you.”

Her voice is low. She steps closer to the table and puts her hands on the back of the chair, then lifts them up abruptly, as if she’s just remembered a dead man had been sitting there. I’m gripped by the sudden worry that he died of an illness and we’re infecting ourselves by being here, but if that’s true, it’s probably too late already. I’m exhausted, and the fear just falls through melike water through a sieve.

Water. “I should fill up something from the stream.”

“Later,” Inesa says. “It’s dark now.”

“I can see in the dark, you know. It’s fine. I’ll go.” I turn and head for the door again.

“No!” The urgency in her voice stops me dead. “Wait. I don’t—”

I turn back, frowning. “What?”

Her eyes skim the floor. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Silence washes over the cabin. I’m not sure where to look. A lump forms in my throat. Then I hear the sound of something dripping, very faintly. It takes me a few moments to locate the source. It’s Inesa’s blood, falling from her clenched fists and splattering the floor.

“You’re bleeding,” I say, in a voice that seems too distant to be my own.

She blinks, as if roused from sleep, then uncurls her fingers and looks down at her palms. “Oh.”

I feel frozen, stuck fast to the floor. And then, like before, I’m possessed by some strange force that carries my body across the room. Makes me dig through the supplies until I find the alcohol pads and gauze bandages. Makes me bring them over to Inesa, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

“Let me see,” I say.

“No.” She folds up her fingers. “It was stupid of me, to dig a whole grave.”

I just watch her, clutching the gauze, feeling like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff. Height pulses in the soles of my feet.

At last, slowly, she holds her hands out to me.

The sight is more gruesome than I expected. There are twin gashes across her palms, blood welling up bright and ruby-red. The pads of her fingers are swollen and pink, giving the skin a taut, painful look. My own hands sting in sympathy.

I’ve bandaged my own wounds before, but it’s different, dressing someone else’s. I dab gently at the cuts with the alcohol pad, and Inesa sucks in a sharp breath.

“Sorry,” I say. It comes out in a whisper.

“It’s okay.”

The alcohol pads turn rosy with Inesa’s blood. When I’m satisfied that I’ve done enough to prevent infection, I try to wrap the gauze. This involves taking one of Inesa’s hands in both of mine. Cradling it. It feels almost impossibly fragile, like a creature just hatched and entirely new to the world.

My fingers are trembling as I wind the gauze around her palm once, twice. I try to tear the strip off the roll once I finish, but it holds tight. My nails aren’t sharp enough to pierce it, so I have to lift our joined hands to my mouth and bite through the bandage.

When I do, my lips brush her finger. My teeth graze her knuckle. We both freeze.

Heat rises to my cheeks. I snap the bandage free from the roll and step back. A flush is painting Inesa’s face, too.

A few moments pass, light flickering in the long chimneys of the oil lamps. At first, I think Inesa is going to pull away from me. But instead, hesitantly, she holds out her other hand.

I bandage it in silence, my fingers trembling slightly. Inesa’sthroat bobs. She doesn’t say a word until I’ve finished, until I let go of her hand. Then—

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