They screamed ….
Neither Loki nor Tars knew how long they knelt there, the burning body of Mari between them, her ashes mixing with their tears. The room was thick with smoke, the air too hot to breathe, but neither of them moved. They held each other and they held what remained of Mari, and they screamed until there was nothing left.
White-robed figures appeared through the haze. They carried canisters that sprayed water in wide arcs, dousing the flames, clearing the smoke. Water poured over Loki and Tars, cold and shocking, but they didn't move. They knelt together, naked and covered in ash, Mari's burnt body cradled between them.
A voice crackled through the room. "Two alive. I repeat, two alive. The rest are gone."
Footsteps approached.
Loki stared at the hooded men but his mind was blank, empty, a white room with nothing inside it. Tars was looking down at Mari's body, her single white eye fixed on the ruined face, as if she was waiting for Mari to wake up, to smile, to say something sharp and kind.
Water sprayed again. Loki felt his mind begin to slip, the edges of his thoughts going soft. He closed his eyes and Mari was there, smiling, her voice clear and close.
Loki, please put me to bed.
He was lying somewhere green. Grass beneath him, sun above. Mari was curled against his chest, her head tucked under his chin, her hair soft against his skin. His arm was around her, holding her close.
One day we'll walk on the green fields together, he said.
Mm hmm. She pressed closer, her small hand flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat.
You and me. I'll be your provider. He brushed his fingers through her hair, slow and gentle. Your shield. Someone you can rely on.
He felt her smile against his skin.
Then her chest grew hot. Too hot. He looked down and she was burning, blue flames consuming her from within, her face already charring, her eyes turning white.
Loki! Her burning figure stood and walked away from him, her voice no longer soft but urgent, desperate. Fight!
He ran after her, screaming her name, but she was already ash, already gone, already
"Ahhh!"
Loki sat up.
He was in a bed not the hard bunk of Camp 12, but something soft, something that swallowed his weight and held it. Thick white sheets covered him. The mattress beneath him was warm and yielding, nothing like the thin pallets he had slept on his whole life.
He threw the sheets aside. His wounds were healed. He ran his hands over his chest, his arms, his face the burns from holding Mari's burning body were gone. Smooth skin, unmarked.
He touched his face again. Then his chest. Then his arms.
A sound came from him not a word, not a cry, just a vibration in his throat that grew and broke and became something else. His shoulders began to shake. The sound got louder, filling the room, and tears dripped from his face onto the clean white sheets.
He didn't know how long he sat there. The tears came in waves, each one pulling something out of him, leaving him emptier than before.
When no tears came anymore, he lay back on the bed, his left arm thrown over his face. His body trembled with small, involuntary shivers, goosebumps rising on his skin despite the warmth of the room.
Tars.
She was alive. That was something. That was everything.
He sat up again.
The room was clean .A desk stood against one wall with a single chair. A door marked EXIT sat opposite the bed. Another door, smaller, was labeled BATHROOM.
He stood. His legs held. He walked to the desk and found a note written in neat, precise script:
Please head to the bathroom.
He stared at the note for a long time. Who had written it? When? Did they know he would wake up? Did they know he would need to wash away the ash?
He left the note on the desk and walked to the bathroom door.
Inside was a shower not the communal washroom of Camp 12, but a private stall with clean white tiles and a metal spout that promised hot water. Opposite it sat a toilet, cleaner than anything he had ever seen. And on the wall, a mirror.
He stood in front of the mirror for a long time, staring at his reflection.
His black eyes now had flecks of blue in them, like fragments of sky trapped in dark earth. His hair was no longer brown it was blue, a deep shade that seemed to shift in the light, and it hung longer than before, brushing his shoulders.
His face was the same, but different. Older. Harder. The boy who had entered the white room was gone. Someone else stood in his place.
He thought of Camp 12. There had been only one mirror in the whole camp, and you only got to look at yourself if you worked hard, if you earned it. He had looked into that mirror a hundred times, searching for something that was never there.
Now he looked into this mirror and wished he could look away.
"Mari," he said to his reflection. His voice was hoarse, unfamiliar. "What is all this madness? I'm lost."
His composure broke. He knelt on the cold tile floor and wept again, his hands pressed against his face, his shoulders shaking. He wept until there was nothing left, until his chest was hollow and his eyes were dry.
Then he thought of Tars.
She was alive. She was somewhere in this strange place, waking up alone, waking up changed. She had lost an eye. She had held Mari's burning body. She had screamed with him until their voices broke.
He had to be strong. For her.
He stood up slowly, gripping the edge of the sink. He looked at his reflection blackneyes, blue hair, a face he barely recognized and nodded once.
Be strong, he told himself. For Tars. For Mari. For what comes next.
He turned from the mirror and noticed clothes hanging on a hook by the door a blue tunic, grey leather vest with faint lightning patterns sewn into the shoulders, dark trousers.
He dressed quickly, the fabric strange against his skin, softer than anything he had worn in Camp 12. Beneath the bed he found a pair of leather boots and pulled them on.
He pulled the hood up over his blue hair and walked to the exit door.