| | 18 | |

Jane takes a deep, sore throat breath and her body shudders to life. She witnesses across her physicality at her bare feet and notices she's wearing the black patchwork Ghost combat pants and the rucksack reaper jacket. She leans herself up by her elbows and witnesses her nighttime surroundings. But it's dark, darker than she remembers. She's been laying on the concrete forest floor for who knows how long and her ass and back are sorely numb and probably imprinted with whatever uncomfortable stones and twiggy sticks are beneath her. She notices that the dark forest doesn't move, it doesn't breath. It's as deceased as Rist was. And Jane surmises that she's back where she was when her mind was dying and that she is all alone in a lonely place.

Judith's let her go from wherever she was; the downward spiral that left her naked in the gray born concrete snow of a summer's winter.

She tries to speak but her one word is a croaking, crinkly whisper, "Rrrrrrrist?"

The mire girl slowly and achingly stands like a marionette hobbling up and down attached to string lace limbs and witnesses photopsia in her vision and is placed in a trance by the foggy, apparitional workings of whatever's malfunctioning within her body. Maybe it's because Jane's fluorocarbon strings have been cut. And so she collapses like a wounded prey animal, like she's been shot on a bridge for a Hart's head on a hunter's wall. She feels like a cadaver hook is piercing her head and is dragging her out of the subconscious river. And there is no fisherman. And there is no hunter anymore and no shooting and she's not a Hart or a trophy or a jawless Terra Coal.

Jane barely crawls toward an opening in the four tree clearing that seems to unfold into a bigger, breeze touching loch. Her "stomach rumbles" poke her in places that she's forgot about. Jane stops to wonder in the way a person wonders for the first time in a long time.

I'm hungry. I'm woozy because I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. My throat is dry because I'm thirsty. I'm sore. I'm sore and I'm weak.

Jane drags herself heavily over a small embankment made of roots and her body tumbles down out of the four trees and onto the concrete beach that exists as a crumbling sand before the slumping lake. The waxing moon provides her with some light upon the dusty, sandy, root ending concrete.

She can make out a silhouette in the distance by the edge of the lake. Someone is holding their knees and rocking back and forth as if they're a crumpled human rocking chair. Jane can hear the softest of wailing and sobbing. Rocking back and forth. Back and forth. Again and again. Could it be?

She's becoming less conscious but she must try to get to the water, to the person that she's so excited to see again. But at this point, she needs help and she needs it promptly. Jane tries standing one last time before she passes out. It takes everything she has to get to her feet and all of her concentration to walk, step by step as a freshly risen corpse, woozy and slouching and wheezing.

Her voice cracks but it's her voice, not the monster, there's no monster anymore. She's not used to that yet. And she feels a great relief in knowing that horrible part of her is gone. And as she gets closer to the silhouette, she yells as loudly as her vocal chords will let her.

"Rist!"

The person in the distance stops sobbing and Jane can see movement. The mire girl collapses to her knees and almost falls over, except she hears running and then Rist catches Jane in her arms.

"Terra! Oh, Jane! You're alive! You're alive! I thought I lost you!"

"Water..."

Rist leaves Jane on the dull gray beach to get her rucksack. When she returns, Jane's still sort of conscious. The skull mask lady pours the sanitized water into the mire girl's mouth. It flows through Jane's body and quenches something. Little by little. It helps. She has a headache and probably a fever; she has a chilled sweat. But it's better than what she just was and has been for a long while.

Rist holds her and hugs her and kisses her forehead and the skull mask lady's tears of joy melt away all the horrors that Jane experienced with the bone saw man and the empty city in the mind of another world. Her mind? Was it her mind or was she merely a visitor in someone else's Judecca?

"I love you, Rist. I thought I lost you. I saw your dead body. I thought I lost you forever."

Rist laughs the kind of laugh that can only be made when someone you love who has died ends up coming back to life and then shares a similar experience.

Rist holds Jane and feeds her water. Sip by sip. Dripping the quenching liquid down her cheeks and running her fingers through the mire girl's hair. Jane watches the skull mask lady's unending smile and bright black eyes in the night. She lifts her hand and places it on Rist's cheek.

"Oh, Jane...your eyes were gray...but they're green again...I'm so happy!"

"I need to see something, Rist, if you don't mind. Could you help me to the water?"

Rist lifts Jane's frail, wounded body up and carries her to the lake, holding her like they've just been married. And the moment that Rist sets her down, they both stop and stare into the water.

"So this is what I look like in a reflection. I guess I'm kinda pretty, for a dead girl. I wonder what my reflection would have looked like from the bottom? From the bottom of that other world's lake, noticing myself from the opposite."

"What? Just enjoy it for now and don't wrack your brain. I love that about you but you're beautiful anytime, anywhere."

Rist positions Jane so that the skull mask lady can sit behind her and hold her at the waist. She pulls out a piece of animal jerky and hands it to the mire girl.

"Since you're drinking water and you have a reflection, I hope you're hungry."

Jane takes the dead, wrinkled meat and bites off a small piece. She chews and tastes the spice and feels the leathery texture of the dried hunk in her mouth. She sorely swallows and is somehow satisfied by this action. She ends up eating the whole piece.

"Do you have anything for bad breath, Rist? I might taste a bit gross when I try to kiss you."

Rist squeezes the mire girl tighter and leans her face closer to Jane's countenance. She pops a few mints into the mire girl's mouth.

"That tastes better, my Rist."

Jane moves her dry lips onto the skull mask lady's freshly licked kissing place. As the two friends make out, the sun shows its nether as if it's lifted its dress to expose bright and burning loins. Old Sol exposes itself upon Jane's skin.

The mire girl notices the warm feeling coursing through her body. It's like the blood in her veins has heated up and is moving at a far quicker pace. The headache and fever melt into the oblivion of what once was. Jane is quickened by this healing moment. She's no longer a night time creature. She's bound to this world and isn't a wayward traveller anymore. And she becomes increasingly horny. The butterfly's in her belly fly to every corner of her body.

Jane sits up and turns to face Rist. She stands, brushing Rist's face with her bottom cheeks and smiles like she's brand new. The mire girl positions her ass toward her best friend and takes a few steps away. Her feet feel water and a rush of goosebumps grace her body. She bends over while slowly pulling her pants down to her ankles and steps out of them, tossing them up on the beach. The skull mask lady's eyes are saucers at the sight of Jane's legs and womanly backside staring at her in the sunshine. Jane lets her look for a long moment. Then she turns around and unbuttons her reaper jacket. She pulls it off quickly and throws it at Rist. The skull mask lady doesn't even try to catch it as it hits her face. Rist sits in awe as the morning rays shed light upon the naked body and beautiful thought provoking mind that she has so longed for. And Jane wants Rist's blood and bones and voice and ghost touching her everywhere. The mire girl walks over to Rist and with her bare foot toes, lightly pushes her lover onto her back and stands over her, like she's conquered her. Jane takes another long moment for Rist to witness Jane's naked body standing over her. The skull mask lady lightly brushes Jane's nether region with her fingers. And then Jane jumps on top of her and begins the process of making love to her best friend. Stripping her, touching her, tasting her, hearing her moan while feeling inside of her with a licking tongue and some curious fingers. Jane has found the sunshine that Judith meant.

                                              ****

Rist and Jane hold each other in an perfect hug while laying in the glisten of a warm morning sun, listening to the water lap by their feet. Rist smells like Jane and Jane smells like Rist. They inhale themselves from upon one another. Rist has her chin on Jane's sunny blonde scalp and Jane has her face buried in Rist's cozy cleavage. They're both as calm as a dawn hour yawn and are comfortable wearing each other. Jane wants to wear Rist like tight clothes. She wants to feel Rist wrap her every curve. But she also wants to tell Rist what she is and who she is.

"I'm happy, Rist. I remember having this kind of feeling from before the mire, but not exactly like this. This has bellybuttons and nipples and loyalty attached to permanence. I can't imagine myself without you anymore. But I'm also not Terra. I'm not the Terra of this place. The memories I have are of a different Terra. I was tortured and turned into a horrible weapon meant to destroy my so called friends. You didn't exist in that world, at least as far as I know. And maybe you didn't exist in many other worlds that I've existed in. But I think you saved me, Rist. I think this time was different than all of the others because of you. Because you love me. Because you loved me from the fist moment you laid eyes on me. Thank you. You're my guardian angel, my brave love."

"Jane, you're Terra to me. I know that you're her, even if you technically aren't. It's you I love, Jane. The rest doesn't matter anymore. And I saved you? That works both ways. But there's something I've wanted to ask you."

Jane nods with her face still enjoying Rist's breasts.

"Terra's tattoos would be nice to see."

"I'd love a tattoo! Terra had tattoos? What did she have?"

For a second, Jane wonders why she doesn't know about her own tattoos. Terra's tattoos. Is she forgetting herself again? She lets the thought fall away like an unread toe tag.

"They were really cool. On her arm and around her back she had ravens on a branch and that branch turned into roots. She also had a serpent that seemed to want to eat it's own tail wrapping around her leg. And she had the sun right here."

Rist rests her hand below Jane's navel. Jane places her hand on Rist's and looks up into her beautiful eyes. The eyes that mean it. She kisses her deeply and won't let Rist's hand move. Whispers.

"I can taste the pictures hanging in your mouth."

A soft wind blows upon their goosebumps while they begin again the process of making love, because they are in it.

                                             ****

Rist is the one who digs the hole and places Rhie's head to rest. She found a spade shovel in one of the torn tin warehouse buildings on Glanton street. Jane's the one who scoops the dirt back into the grave. Then they carry a big glacier stone and rest it on top of the freshly disturbed dirt. Jane writes haunting words on the rock in big red letters, 'Rhie was here.' They both hold hands and place palms upon the stone, watching the final words as if each symbol tells the story of a loving friend.

Jane and Rist whisper, "we are ghosts waiting to be ghosts."

They hug and cry and hold each other for a broken edge healing eternity existing in a moment.

"I miss him," speaks Rist. "What we had was a kind of settling. He loved me and I loved him in my way. But he always knew what I was missing, who I was missing. He settled for my imperfections and I settled for my imperfections, too."

"I'm sorry he's gone, Rist. Maybe he isn't though. Maybe he's in that eternal recurrence that I was chained upon."

"No, I hope he can rest. He died so we could escape without you going further into madness. He cared about you, Jane. He didn't want to see me or you suffer."

"I would've killed all of them if you had let me go back up that hill."

"You did anyway. Rhie would have been dead before you got to the top. It happened so fast. The "what if's"will eat you alive, Jane. But if you need to think like that, I'm here and I'll catch you when you fall. I'll be your safety net."

                                              ****

Jane walks into the forest where she chopped into gory pieces most of the Ghosts. The memories she thought she didn't have of the horrific event have found her and are forever branded upon the crimson scarlet neurons in her mind. As she witnesses the dank rot and smells the clammy decay, she finds the oversize battle axe by feeling around in the sanguine pudding mud. She pulls the molasses dripping metal suction out and stares at the half moon double blade's unblinking killing nature. The mire girl wants to keep it as a badass souvenir of what she was, and what she still, in a way, might be. She wants to keep the weapon close. Jane doesn't hate the black hilt double blade. She finds its figure attractive and feels it only instinctive that it must be attracted to her.

When she brings it out of the forest, Rist's eyes widen. "It's almost bigger than you. But it's so you. It's horrible and gross with all the drying blood but it's really sexy too! Have I ever told you how badass you are, Jane?"

"You can show me later, skull mask lady. Right now, I want to clean their blood off and carry it with us. It's a lot lighter than it looks."

Jane heads back to the lake and washes the gory demon weapon with the remnants of a dead Ghost's shirt. When she comes back to Glanton street, Rist has made her a small horseshoe attachment on a long belt. She wraps it around Jane's shoulders and it crosses on her back and loops under her arms. Then she takes the axe and fits it into the horseshoe for easy traveling.

Rist smiles impressively at the mire girl.

"You're beautifully amazing! And it's amazing what exists out here in these warehouses. We'll have to come back sometime."

The two friends hold hands and begin walking through Glanton street with the intention of heading back into the city. Neither are afraid of the Ghosts anymore. Their leaders are dead and their members are scared shitless of Jane. And Rist wants to see the charred remnants of her house and maybe move into a new accommodation.

They kick stones and imitate each other with odd ways of walking and tell rude jokes about bears and rabbits and shit and fur. And they sing each other songs of the past and forget the words and make up new meanings and memories.

The two survivors make a point of stopping at their van for the night. They drink the sanitary water and eat their animal jerky and do what lovers do.

A mouse sits outside the van, listening to the laughter and poetic words and moans. It can hear bodies sliding and smell fleshy perspiration. Then it gets scared as the van doors push open and two women climb out to run around in their bare flushing skin. It watches them stand on a big stone for a moment and it curiously sniffs the air. It can smell two bodies becoming one. Then it turns and runs away, scurrying into the tall grass like it just remembered something it's always forgot.

                                            ****

The house is a burnt heap of ashes and blacken wooden char upon broken cement. Nothing salvageable remains except the collapsing porch and the wind pendulum creaking swing. Even the preliminary shed is a charcoal wreck. Rist wants to check on the crawl space, if they can get to it, if there's still a crawl space under all the demise.

Jane's the one who finds the opening and manages to go down into the place where Rist and Rhie hid from the Ghosts. She brings up an intact box that holds all of the pictures Rist hid when they needed to hide.

"Oh, Jane. Thank you! Pictures of my parents and sister...and Rhie. They survived!"

Rist places the pictures in her rucksack and discards the box. As Jane climb out of the destruction, Rist notices a group of around fifty people closing in on them. Skull masks adorn their faces in the broadness of daylight. They're wielding bats and guns. Some look injured. One Ghost is missing an arm. They are the ragged remains of the militants who killed Rhie and tried to kill Rist and Jane.

Jane hurried out of the destruction and steps in front of Rist, knowing that she still has her strength, though not her ability to become the monstrous revenant the masked militants fear. She eyes them up and down with a hatred that can only exist due to the trauma of previous, horrific encounters. The mire girl uncovers and unhooks the battle axe that's horseshoed upon her back and prepares for battle. She actually smiles at the Ghosts as she moves toward them. They all back away as she skips forward, smiling and twirling the enormous double blade nightmare. Jane utters a single word.

"Boo!"

The Ghosts flinch. All except one unarmed woman who moves forward and stands in front of Jane. She very slowly and bravely and with a terrified intention, removes her mask and witnesses Jane directly in her malachite eyes.

"I'm Sylvia. I was there. I saw what happened at the forest. You're the Terra. Terra Coal. You're our real leader. We're yours to do with as you see fit, Grand Ghost."

Sylvia kneels before Jane and lowers her head. Every Ghost removes their mask and kneels. Jane looks at Rist and Rist breaths a sigh of relief. Then she nods.

Jane walks back to Rist and whispers, "I don't want this. I want us and only us."

"I think it's because you don't want it that you'll be the best at it. I don't want this either but we could do something with this. And don't worry about us. I'm not going anywhere, my love, my Queen."

"Don't you dare kneel. Not for this."

Jane kisses Rist on the lips and turns her attention back to the grovelling apparitions.

Jane stands in front of the decimated house, holding the horrific battle axe in front of her unexpected new army. She raises the weapon into the air and points it down at Sylvia and speaks.

"The first thing that you're going to do is rebuild this house. Find some builders, pay them for their services, allow them to join your ranks as builders and make it happen! We will guide you through what we want. Gut abandoned houses for material. Head to Glanton and the warehouse district to find as many building supplies as you can. This is your redemption in my eyes and it's penitence for what you've done to my Queen, my Rist"

Jane stomps her boot into the ground and swings her axe back and forth in front of Silvia's face and begins twirling the demon weapon again. She can smell the urine bleeding through Silvia's pants.

"And for murdering my friend, Rhie? You're all mine for the remainder of your lives! All of you! Now go! Except you Sylvia. You're staying with us. I want to know everything you know. And anyone who disobeys me will lose their head! I'm not fucking around with any of you. I'll burn this city to the fucking ground if any of you motherfuckers betray me."

The kneeling mass speaks in unison. "Yes, my Queen."

The Ghosts quickly disperse to carry out their task and Rist wraps her arms around Jane from behind as the mire girl halts her axe twirling.

"Fuck, you're scary! And this is our new life."

"Yes. Politics and hierarchy...fuck. But know this, I love you no matter what. And now that I'm in charge of saving a city that can't be saved, we should really see what that slaughterhouse is all about."

They hold each other as lovers do and watch the Ghosts leave. Rist tries to kiss Jane on the cheek but Jane turns her head at the last moment and kisses Rist on the lips. The eternal recurrence continues.

                                   | | end | |