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All at once light and sound are cut off, leaving him deaf and blind save the steady sound of a heartbeat. His own? As he cautiously moves forward, he becomes aware of a softly whispered mantra underlying the rhythmic thumping. He doesn't know what the voice is saying, only that it gives him incentive to find what he's looking for so he can leave.

The beat gets louder the farther long Vane shuffles, until he stubs his toe on an obstacle in his path with a muffled curse. He ignores the mild pain and reaches out to feel what he has run into, only to discover that it is a box. No amount of pushing budges it so much as an inch, and there is no room around its sides for him to squeeze through.

The beat gets louder.

Vane feels around the box to see if he might be able to climb over it, only to discover that it is open and, upon closer inspection, that something is glowing a very faint red. The heartbeat seems all but deafening as he bends his head towards the light. He doesn't stick his head inside, but the glow is just barely enough to illuminate vague lines and angles of whatever resides within. He reaches in and pokes at it, following the line of something to its end, where it dangles over the edge of the crate. He can feel it twitching, but when he wraps his hand around it, it stops.

This has to be what he's looking for, but he can't get to it with the bulk in the box in the way. He tries lifting it, pushing it, pulling it, squishing it down--nothing seems to work.

Then he remembers that he's still holding the scissors. The Goddess did tell him that She only needed the heart, after all.

The first slice is a test to see how tough the thing in the box is against the sharp blades of the scissors. It gives way easily, though it oozes a bit. Subsequent cuts are deeper, messier, and he has to tighten his grip on the scissors as his hands get slick and slippery. Soon he has all but torn the outer covering away, the scissors finally meeting resistance in the form of something sharp and hard. They won't cut through the protrusions, nor can he saw through them. He puts the scissors down and feels around with both hands. He finds that he can grip whatever it is and does so firmly. There is a little bit of give to them. He braces a foot on the outside of the box and pulls, feeling their resistance give way by inches until they break apart with a loud, wet crack.

His hands are suddenly drenched as things fall out of the hole he's made. He can finally see the still-beating heart, no longer buried, but still somehow attached. It looks easy enough to pull out, but he lacks finesse; he would crush it if he used his bare hands. Fortunately, the scissors are still nearby, and even though they are caked with gunk and gore, they remain sharp enough to snip away the things holding the heart in place. Finally, the heart is in his grasp, nothing between it and the awaiting bag except for open air.

It stops beating.

Suddenly, the thing in the box jerks to life, startling Vane. He tries to take a step back, but it firmly grabs him with the appendage that had been twitching earlier. Its fingers dig in painfully, holding him fast. Its eyes open, looking up at him in horror. Its mouth parts, and it screams a single word.

"Evan!"

On his right stood a stick of a man who didn't look old enough to be there. His standard issue clothing hung off of him. He probably wouldn't last 12 hours, let alone 12 weeks. On his left was the other half of a study in contrasts, a tall, wide oak tree of a man who made him feel like the gangly teenager he was quickly leaving behind. They were only some of the dozen dozen recruits being yelled at by a man at least twice their average age and half their average height. He probably weighed as much as the guy on his left, but unlike him, it wasn't muscle.

The drill instructor paced in front of the ranks of new recruits, welcoming them to their first day of basic training with curses and insults and bets that none of them would make it. None of the recruits responded, standing as still as statues and starting straight ahead, bearing the tirade patiently. They had been told what to expect.

Eventually, the drill instructor stopped in front of the man on his left, staring up, up, up at him. "You!" He barked. "You think you're some kinda tough s**t, boot? You think being as big and bright as a refrigerator's gonna get you through the next 12 weeks?"

The man kept his eyes forward as he responded, "No, sir!" His voice was like two mountains colliding, deep and rumbling as befit his size.

"What's your ********' name, shitstain?" The drill instructor barked.

The man hesitated only a moment before responding, "James Carter, sir."

The drill instructor squinted up at him. "Like Jimmy Carter, the President?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Jimmy Carter is a hell of a man and a hell of a President!"

"My parents thought so too, sir!" The man responded with the ease of someone who had to say this fairly often.

The drill instructor got toe to toe with the man then--or tried to. His gut got in the way. "You're not worthy to lick Jimmy Carter's penny loafers. You're nothin' but a ********' runt. You got that?"

"Yes sir!" The drill instructor paused to let that sink in before nodding and moving on, resuming his tirade about the low quality of recruits these days.

He had to press his lips together to keep his snickers in, but was only partially successful. Beside him, Jimmy Carter muttered, "Shut up," very quietly out of the corner of his mouth, but he was fighting back a grin, too.

"Runt," he whispered.

"I know," Carter muttered.

"He's probably half as tall as you--"

"Stop."

"--And weighs twice as much!"

The two of them burst out laughing. After the drill instructor was finished screaming at them, they were ordered to run laps until lights out.

It was totally worth it.

The hand slides off of his arm and the body stills just as suddenly as it had animated.

It's too much. He doesn't know how to handle the weight of the memories when he's struggling for breath, and the Goddess is waiting for him. Dying now would be pointless and wasteful, and no matter what significance the man trying to drown him once held, his priorities are clear. He has his mission objective, and he will see it through. Nothing and no one will get in his way.

He still has the scissors clenched tightly in one hand, and he stabs upward with them blindly. It doesn't have to be a precise strike; the creature holding him down is so large that he's bound to hit something. His efforts are rewarded by an angry scream and the immediate removal of both the thing trying to drown him and the water it was drowning him in. He coughs and chokes and sputters and rubs his aching neck, breathing hard as he waits a moment, just in case.

When it appears that he is once more alone, he picks himself up and starts heading toward the dim light shining in front of him. It's a doorway, he can tell, and if he's very lucky, it will lead him straight out of here.

Before he goes through it, he takes a final look back. He is surprised to see the creature standing there, the light illuminating it in all of its gory glory. The hole in its chest glistens wetly with blood and fluids and worse things, the bones of the broken ribcage pointing accusingly at him. Runt glares at him with eyes as hard and unforgiving as parched earth, the scissors in his hand now.

Vane blinks and Runt is gone. He heads for the exit, mission accomplished.

Vane tries throwing his weight against the door again and, when that doesn't work, takes a step back to try and kick it down.

"Might be a little less messy," the figure continues speculatively. "Nah, let's call a spade a spade--this is probably gonna be worse."

((Distance: 40))

The rusty creak of the scissors opening and closing and a lazy, idle humming accompanied Vane's useless attempts to figure out the code on the paper next to the door.

((Distance: 30))

Eventually, Vane notices the other piece of paper that explains the code. It takes him a minute to figure out how it works, but once he does, the door finally clicks open, allowing him a chance to put some more distance between himself and the figure behind him.

((Success))

Finally, there is nowhere else to run. If the only options left to him are turn and fight or stand there and die, it's really not a choice. The dagger in his hand blazes red as he turns to face his pursuer, who meets his gaze easily, fearlessly, as if it knows it has the upper hand.

"This your first funeral?" Runt looked down at him even now, slumped and halfway to drunk on his barstool.

He shook his head. "I've been to a few for people my dad served with, and they're sad, but I didn't know them. This is the first time it's been..." he trailed off, idly scraping at the label of his beer bottle with one fingernail. "We knew him, you know? We all served together, made it through those 12 weeks of hell together. It doesn't matter if we never kept in touch after that, there's a bond there. He's one of ours."

Runt nodded blearily, seemingly understanding what he was rambling about. "You think he regrets it? Dying overseas in a foreign land instead of at home as an old man?"

"I think it's a choice he made, that we've all made. I don't think he wanted or planned to go out like that, but who does? He knew the risks when he signed his name on that dotted line. We all did."

They were silent for a long time after that, long enough to finish their beers and start on new ones. "Doesn't make it any easier to deal with," he finally said.

"Nope. We'll be seeing him again, though. One way or another."

"Looks like today's your day, brother," the figure taunts Vane.

The words are enough to snap the delicate thread of anticipatory tension, and Vane launches himself at the shadow, leading with the dagger. It is difficult to say whether it is a disparity in ability or just a longer reach that determines the outcome, but it remains the same.

Vane's arm is frozen in midair as the rusty blades of the scissor slides between his ribs. One of the figure's arms holds him in place, and he finally screams as the metal slips in deeper.

"Shh, shh, shh," Runt soothes him even as he impales him further. "It only hurts the once."

Hurts is an understatement. It feels as though his entire body is on fire as it struggles to accommodate the sharp and unwelcome intruder. The pain radiates outwards from his chest, where he can feel the blade moving. He hears more than feels the snip of the blade, and suddenly it's like he's been doused in cold water. He feels nothing, he feels numb, and it's almost a relief, even when Runt drops him and he sees his own heart glowing in the big man's hands.

He watches him turn, watches him leave, and then sees nothing else.

((really evan really))