((OOC: I got Vamps's okay to use Castor in this.))

There must have been a massacre to leave this much blood.

The hallways of Crystal Academy ran with blood. Every time she moved her feet, her boots splashed down into three inches of red. It was thick and vivid, like blood in movies, like what characters on Buffy might drink or what Sacha Baron Cohen bled when Johnny Depp sliced his throat open, like strawberry syrup. It splashed and got everywhere- her steel blue boots were stained red; blood dripped down her legs, congealed on the backs of her knees, spattered darkly on her rust-colored shorts and stained the white front of her uniform deep crimson.

Sailor Europa and Sailor Castor passed an open classroom door. The two senshi peered into the room: it was a science lab – desks in front, long lab tables at the back. At every single desk was a crystal girl in a sky blue uniform, slouched in her seat, a dark hole in her chest and a stream of blood leading from her heart onto the floor.

“We couldn’t save them,” said Castor. Europa looked at him. He was gaunt, a bit nightmarish looking, like a Tim Burton character. His brown-blonde hair all askew, the gem was missing from his tiara- his bloodstained uniform was ripped and torn, and an angry red gash puckered the side of his handsome face. “Come on, Shorts,” he said, lacking his usual edge.

They kept walking. Every classroom they came to, it was the same story – row after row of lifeless Crystal girls bleeding out onto the floor, the dark holes in their chests seeming to draw all the joy and light out of the universe.

Tallulah had only rarely been onto the school grounds of Crystal, a few times for swim meets recently, and a few times for tours while she was still viciously competing with Giselle Petrova for the scholarship. Her unfamiliarity with the school only made it more nightmarish – under the rules of dream logic and distorted memory, the sunlit halls of Crystal Academy for Girls became impossibly long and gloomy. Portraits of dead benefactors and famous alumni stared sternly down at her and Castor as they trudged somewhere unknowable.

A pair of enormous oak door towered before them.

“Kiss for good luck?” asked Castor weakly.

Before she could tell him not on his life, a burst of angry wind whipped up the blood around their feet and pushed the doors open.

The scouts stared into the darkened auditorium for a moment, and then the lights came on. (At this point, Europa wished the lights had stayed off.) In every single chair in the plush auditorium sat a Crystal girl in a blood-stained uniform, her eyes dead and turned to the stage, her chest open and empty, a river of blood flowing from her exposed, cracked sternum.

Europa and Castor took a sloshy step into the room, and then another. Every girl in every chair turned to stare at them with empty, dull eyes. A shiver ran down Europa’s spine as they moved towards the empty stage and ascended the stairs. They stood in the spotlight, three hundred pairs of dead eyes watching them as they stared back.

“We couldn’t save them,” Europa echoed, and in this moment, she understood that she and Castor were the only ones left, of anyone, anywhere – the last senshi. There had been a great battle here, and they were either the survivors, or losers who didn’t know it yet.

“We couldn’t save them,” she said again, and wept. The world went blurry with tears, and this somehow made it sharper, because she could now see distinct faces, those of girls she’d gone to middle school with, or knew from swimming, or Giselle – why was Giselle there? Where was Sailor Libra? Or Milla, her study partner- or-

Everyone was dead. They couldn’t save them.

“I couldn’t save you,” said Castor.

“What?” asked Europa, not understanding what he meant.

“I couldn’t save you,” said Castor.

“I’m still here- I’m okay-“ she protested.

“I couldn’t save you,” he said again, and Europa looked down. Blood poured from her neck and chest. The human body was said to contain six quarts of blood, a gallon and a half, but far more spilled down her front, down her uniform, down her legs, across her boots, onto the floor-

“Call nine one one,” she said. She fumbled with her pockets, found her phone, shoved it at him- “Castor, call nine one one!”

He took the phone from her, opened it, dialed- “I can’t get through.”

“Elzo, call nine one one!” she insisted, more frantic. More blood spilled from her neck, thick and vivid, like Hollywood special effects, like a victim on NCIS. “Elzo, call-“

“I couldn’t save you,” he said, and she realized he was bleeding, too. They were both bleeding out onto the floor of the auditorium. Maybe they’d been dead all along and hadn’t realized it until now-

Europa felt hollow.

“We couldn’t save anyone,” said Castor.

From somewhere far above the scene, maybe perched up on the lighting rig, Tallulah watched as Europa and Castor both collapsed, lifeless, into a pool of their own blood, that ran onto the floor and mingled with that of an entire dead world.