Red crouches by the river, which means it falls on me to stand over him, like the big patterned things that humans use to shield themselves from the onslaught of water, when it presents itself. It's not raining tonight, but it's not pleasant either. There's this kind of gray in-between time that permeates everything. I can feel the entire world breathing on me.

"I don't want to do this," Red says to me, his voice barely a soft peep over the water. We've been following the stream for a while, since the Andrews live on a town near the river, up in the part of the town where they're not in danger of getting wet. Of course, right now, we're not chasing some fortunate humans around. We're on the hunt.

"What do you mean, I don't want to do this? You won't be doing anything but watching," I say. "Unless you plan on breaking out some plant powers to save Kali in the nick of time."

Red's ruff seizes up at that. We've cut it down a few times in the last few months, but it's down one of his arms now, too. Looks like it's going to take his whole body at this rate, but I digress. I think I'm the only one who notices it shifting around under his shirt. I know, I do pay a lot more attention than your average... whatever we are... but you'd be surprised we spend as a group staring at Red's back. Maybe I'm the only one who's focusing on him instead of indirectly focusing on myself through him.

Maybe I'm the only one who's firmly locked into whatever terrible delusion is bouncing around his brain, feeding on him like the ivy.

"Dawdling is probably making things worse," I warn him. I kick him affectionately, tapping his shoe against mine. "Come on. Stand up. I'll let you lean on me the whole way over there, if you really need it, even though we both know that you're not actually tired."

Red sighs, practically slinging himself around me. "I am too," he insists.

"It's not that late," I say. The patch of sky where the moon should be reigns over the sky, a pristine darkness cut only by a white slit. I feel nauseous. Old instinct makes me sick way down in my gut. "C'mon. We need to go. C'mon."

Red staggers alongside me. Owls turn in their burrows and every few dozen steps, I hear something scamper out of the way. The forest watches us, parts for us. I feel my face tense up into a snarl. Red's not moving fast enough.

"Red, fucking move. Kali's in danger," I yell, and I burst into animal form. In frantic energy, the fox runs the slope, breathing in their twin scents. I can already smell blood on the air, which makes me even angrier. I'm practically foaming at the mouth when I arrive at the cave, leaves flying up around my thin, orange body. I lower my ears as I enter, dropping near Kali's side, and the back of the cave turns.

She's still there. Elle's hands are cut to shit--guess Kali put up a fight-- and her entire face is at least half Veritas, appendages hanging off the jaw and twitching, hardly recognizable as anything. Limbs protrude out of her broken midsection, and she's wrapped in a black robe that covers a black dress, which barely hides all the appendages, human or otherwise, growing out of her back. These, too, writhe past her control. I see a scythe against the ground, next to Kali's body, whose hilt resides in one of Elle's hands. There's no blood on the silver blade. Kali's head lies against it as if it were a pillow.

I transform straight from fox to Veritas, feeling the certainty of action. Kali has no copper thread about her, save for a thin line stretching far out into the night... that... is suspicious.

Elle's main arms, which are covered in roses, draw the scythe back. Kali's head slips over it and is deposited onto the ground. We stalk forwards, all three heads lowered. There's hardly enough room for action here.

The scythe hovers above the ground. We strike at the same time, scythe through the side, one head around her neck. The scythe falls, firmly sticking it in our side, and through the pain we manage to hold on until all her limbs recede. She does not speak at all when she dies. I let out a guttural yell of pain as I turn back. The scythe seems to remain even when she has died, which is great, because it's currently the only thing holding my innards... in. I don't know if I even have intestines in there. I digest, right? But we've seen other animals insides, never our own. I don't know if this is going to kill me or not. Right now it just really, really hurts.

It's fine. I won.

Red enters. "Red," I croak. "Hey Red. Red! I know you've said I had a sharp tongue, but how do you feel about... a sharp stomach?"

"Dylan," Red falls down at my side. He takes one look at the bloodied scythe, which definitely has something on it (score one for my "guts" hypothesis), and almost throws up. I can feel myself fading out a little. The air is grayer than before, and all the places between the rocks are filling in with more gray, so that everything just looks like one long blur.

"Don't worry, you didn't just miss it or anything. I didn't have an inkling until what must've been way after. Did you..." I don't want to say 'know'. I shouldn't say 'know'. "Did you know?"

Red nods. He grips his mouth with his hand like he's going to throw up on me, which frankly, would be kind of a terrible way to go out. "It's okay," Red says, "It's going to be okay."

Whatever wariness or fear or curiosity I had is buried in the pain. I bury my bloodstained head in his lap, lapsing into fox form. I feel the scythe shift a little as I do, the stab worsening into practically unbearable. I try to bury myself in his scent, because I want it to be the last thing I remember, but I just want something to clutch right now. We both know there's nothing he can do right now.

"Can you let me stay here a little bit?" he asks.

I don't know who he's talking to.

It's a long time before either of us move, but a false sun shines from deep inside the tunnel. It's the only thing that pierces the darkness that's since overwhelmed my vision, and everything makes sense as it removes me: Red, I think, but no, that has to be death.