Prompt: They were forced to hide from population thinners.

Jas had been shot, which made for slow going, but Ezra ignored his howls of pain as she dragged him across the bridge. Her radar was pinging like mad, drilling into her skull with its incessant beeping, and Jas' thrashing wasn't helping with her progress.

"Will you shut it?" She hissed at the writhing figure, and received a stream of mixed profanities and shouts from the wounded boy. Not like she was excepting much more, Jas' first language was probably swearing.

They were close, so close the beeps were almost on top of each other, a buzz of adrenaline that spiked through her veins and stopped her heart, but she kept tugging at Jas' armpits to keep him moving, heels clattering against the cobblestones. They were barely a quarter of the way across, and they were going to get caught. It was as simple as that.

Ezra wasn't scared, she was infuriated. They had been so close to the border, and Jas had to take a slug to the leg. And here she was risking her neck for him, the one she didn't even want to tag along for the ride.  She was going to die for this foul-mouthed teenager, and then what?

The beeps turned to a constant hum, her radar trembling on her belt. This was the end. It was all over. Their journey for nothing. 

Jas began to swear again, which was no surprise to Ezra, and she could see tears tracing their way down his grimy, hollowed cheeks. Good, let him cry. Now he knows what it's like, the pain of having to drag someone across a bridge with the population thinners right on your tail.

Their boots were clattering on the cobblestones, she could hear them echo across the expanse of the bridge, straight into her heart, that clip-clop of hoofbeats. Steeds of shadow rounded the corner of the buildings, so dark that Ezra almost missed them. Nostrils flared with the smell of blood, red eyes bored into her chest, stared hungrily at Jas' prone body. More victims. Another meal. 

The horses reared, whinnying shrilly and kicking their hooves at the night, some proud figure of justice taking its toll on the world. Jas gasped and swore, biting his lip, but Ezra refused to let him go, tugging his body again and again with every scrap of her strength.

The sound of drums, the slow beat of fast-approaching demise. The horses lowered their hooves of night, inky blackness, and faced their two targets. The figures on the horses' backs emerged, hooded cloaks covering their faces, another wash of darkness coursing down their frames. A cloak woven in midnight, a hand as pale as death clutching a single spear. Ezra could see the veins pumping under the sallow skin, the thrill of the chase running through the figure's body. The steam from their breath rose in smoky clouds and came in bursts. 

They love it. They love the look on our faces when we give in.

Tears sprung to her eyes and she hated herself for it, channeling her anger and rage into dragging Jas harder and harder, yanking at his shoulders while he wailed like a child, tensing at every touch with the bridge, and she was tempted to swear too, call every curse down upon him that she could imagine for killing her, for losing their battle. Goddamnit Jas, why? 

You had to drag me down with you.

The gleaming silver of the spear reflected the dim light of the moon, turning the musky light into a brilliant beam as it glanced off of the metal. The metal that would plunge through her body and still shine. 

It had plunged through her mother and her sister, and was only more brilliant when it emerged, painted scarlet. 

Everything would come full circle.

They beamed down at her - or at least, she imagined them beaming, grinning with teeth that stretched to their ears and pale gray lips and a gray tongue and gray everything, so unreal and gleaming like the spears, turning ugly moonbeams into harsh light and smiling. 

Smiling as they punctured her skin with their weapons. Doing their job.

Thinning the surplus population. 

Jas had stopped crying, sniveling as the horses stood there, shadows stretching over their heads and meeting the sky and leaping into their souls, plunging them into the eternal night. He would go out without a fight. But Ezra would stand up to them. She would fling Jas' dead body at them if she had to. 

And they were still only halfway across the bridge.

The horses made their slow approach, hooves clamoring over the stones with the sounds of a thousand devils, each contact brisk and brusque and clipped. Lean muscle stretched across their body, barely sheathed under their skin as they stepped slowly closer, rippling flesh and carefully brushed coats. Each follicle a shadow. Each a life they had taken.

Ezra imagined the hooves coming down on her head, crumpling under the sheer force of the beast. How they would throw her off of the bridge and chuckle as her body hit the rushing water with a deafening splash. How clean and neat it would be, and then they would go hunt for more. Follow the trail of blood and despair to another clean kill.

Take Jas! She was tempted to say. But Jas wasn't worth it. He was a richie who thought it would be fun to sneak out of the the Census and got stuck on the wrong side of the fence. He was still wearing his suit and tie when she found him sobbing in the middle of the street like an idiot. The horses would have been on him in an instant if any one of those tears had touched the stone. 

That's what happens when you leave the Census, where everyone is monitored. Too many people and you gotta do what you gotta do.

Dark horses and darker cloaks. Blackened souls and charred ashes.

A trail of tears in their wake.

And they were watching her. They were watching her. 

Ezra never knew anyone who had survived an encounter with the population thinners. Their cloaks were like shrouds that they covered the dead bodies with, that sense of finality and finishing. There was the rumor that someone had gotten a shot off before the shields kicked it, but she doubted it. They were meticulous, prepared. No sooty-faced kid would get off a round without them knowing. Every action was accounted for.

Then why were they taking so long?

Her heart beat slow, real slow, each thump lasting a minute as she dragged Jas along, arms straining, legs burning, muscles aching and throbbing with pure heat. She would kill Jas and his stupid attitude and his privileged bull that got her killed, too. They would do the work for her.

Glowering down with red eyes and lips drawn into eternal grins, teeth bared and sharpened to tear, to wound, to devour. A step closer. A second gone. Her life dwindling before her eyes. The sands of time draining between her fingers. The shears leveling towards the thread of life, ready to cut it with a snap.

The snap of the horses clattering across the bridge.

Her nose was dripping from keeping the tears in and her vision was red. Jas had to get himself shot, he had to ruin everything. Her plans for leaving, to be out of Census territory for good, to meet other people who could live without worry of being trimmed off like fat on steak. Jas knew what steak tasted like. Ezra could only dream. Her mother's mud pies were delicacies.

Her mother. The red gleam on the spears. The red gleam in the horses' eyes. 

Blood and fire.

It was fruitless, but she kept pulling. The closeness of freedom was almost tangible, the one thing she wanted to cling to as the spears were drawn and the horses reared again, sideways in her dying vision as she collapses against the bridge. Spinning as she plummeted to the water. The rushing of the water, the rushing of her heart.

Ezra knew Jas' last words would be curses, but her last words would be something more impactful. Something inspiring. She glanced down at Jas, at the pant leg so bloodied it was stiffened red, and began to speak.

"I was told by an old man once that a king of some long-ago kingdom said, 'Jerusalem' as he died. I don't know what it means, but I want to go out that way too. Funny, I never thought it would be now. I figured if we got this far we would make it. Strange how things work out like that, eh?"

Jas responded with colorful language that she chose to tune out.

"I like the sound of the word, too. Jerusalem. Kind of holy, you know?"

Holy in the face of unholy demons bearing down on her, honing their claws, extending their fangs, ready to bite. Slash. Kill.

Thin the population. 

She could see the hem of their cloaks now, swirling around the horses' hooves like a bedskirt, teased in the breeze from the roaring river. The edge of the hood had form and Ezra peered in to see a face, but there was nothing. Sheer, utter darkness. Consuming and constant. Never swaying, ruffled in the breeze. 

She couldn't beg, she couldn't scream. She could only hope.

Jas clenched his hands together and screwed his eyes shut as she pulled him, lips bleeding from when he bit through the skin. Ezra never had the time to admire his looks, and now was no more appropriate than ever, his snobby features blotchy red and damp from tears. Jas' death would be no detriment to her, or the Census. He would never do anything great, she knew that about him from her short journey with him. Jas was miserable, but he was her obligation. 

"Jerusalem." She whispered to the moon as she shoved her feet into the stones, taking great fistfuls of Jas' coat in her hands and pulling him. "Jerusalem."

A final prayer to anything holy.

She didn't want to die, but she would never do anything great, either. She and Jas were the same, a Census snob and a streetkid who weren't needed. Weight to the packhorse of humanity, trembling under the load of billions of hungry mouths. How much easier it would be to just take out the spares. The lowlifes, the ones who weren't needed. Ezra would have agreed if she were a richie, but so much for that. Now she was on the end of the spear, and it was time Jas learned his lesson.

There's a side to every story, Census snob. 

"Jerusalem." 

It was faint, so faint she could barely hear it through the bleeding lips, but Jas was muttering the word again and again, a steady beat against the horses' hooves, laced with pain and enough fear to crush her heart against her ribs and cause her to collapse in a huddle.

But she kept pulling, her fingers white with strain and her veins pulsing against her skin. They wouldn't take her alive, not if she could help it. She wouldn't be another statistic. Jas, on the other hand, could be added to a sum without a care, but not her. She was streetkid tough, and she wanted to show it.

How? Throw a rock at the horses? Their automatic shielding would block the projectile almost immediately. Helpless in the face of danger, helpless in the face of darkness.

A dwindling flame that burned with all its heat. Reaching the end of its wick, about to be extinguished.

A puff in the darkness, and she would be smoke.

Jas had resorted to swearing again, and Ezra let the  words soak into her. The last sensation she would ever feel. She stopped pulling.

The horses were on top of them, ringing them as the spears were drawn. She could see her reflection in the cold metal, stringy hair and gritty face and a tensed, torn look on her face. All would fade away when the spear fell.

Any last words? Her last chance to make an impression on the world. A world of darkness, where demons stalked the night on horseback. 

A flickering flame. A holy word.

"Jerusalem."