A Sword Breaks
I felt nothing but agonizing pain.
It felt if I was on fire.
It felt just like back then.
When everything was around me was dying, and I was the only one walking through it all.
Except that the dying and walking part are together in tandem at full-force.
“Shirou, please… you have to wake up. Please..! Not you. Please just not you too!” I heard from someone.
I needed to open my eyes.
Forcing my body to work through the pain, I groggily opened my eyes to see a little girl with a hat.
It was the little girl that stuck with me since the get-go. The little girl who helped me, saved me, and has been my little shred of light through all the shit I’ve been dealing with since the dead started getting up.
“C-clementine… Are you okay? Where are we?” I asked her in a pained voice.
It looked to be some sort of abandoned Jewelry Store.
“I dragged you in here after you collapsed, Shirou… Shirou, I saw them.“ She said in a panicked voice.
“I know, Clem. I saw them too…” I replied as I laid my head back onto the cold concrete.
I already knew the truth about her parents. But I kept telling myself that I was wrong. That we could still find them and save them.
But I was so dreadfully right.
“Clem, is there a way out of here?” I asked her as I slowly tried to get up.
It’s a bit hard too when you cut off your hand and have only a stump to support you on one side, but I manage.
“No. The way we came in is locked. I was in a hurry to drag you in through there, since it was already open. But as soon as I closed it, it was locked.” She told me pointing to the garage shutter.
I felt more pain coursing throughout my body. I felt as if as I was being put into a furnace with thousands of knives stabbing into my body superheated.
“No! Clem, we have to get that open now. It’s not safe!”
“B-b-but it’s not even going budge an inch though. It’s too heavy!” She yelled at me, confused at why I would say such a thing.
I looked away, feeling as if I was going to do something horrible.
It isn’t far from the truth. But I have to tell her…
I don’t have much time left.
“Clem. Listen to me, the reason my arm was cut off…” I began.
“Was because…?”
I closed my eyes and probably had a pained look on my face, and I opened them to looked straight into hers.
“I had it cut off. Because I was bitten, Clem.”
The look on her face was one of absolute despair.
I could tell.
It was a look I had become so far used to seeing throughout my life.
But this one, this one had to be the saddest one I will ever see.
“What? No… No! Not you, Shirou! Not you!” She said with her pained and crying face.
“It’s alright, little one. Now, we have to get this open. We won’t know until we try, okay?” I reassured her.
Clementine nodded.
With that, I got up from the concrete and walked over to the right handle of the shutter. Every step was hell.
I readied my right hand. I poured all the magical energy I had left inside of my body to reinforce it one last time.
I looked to my left to see Clementine at the ready.
“You ready? Now. One. Two. THREE!”
I pulled as hard as I could.
I pulled, and pulled, and pulled.
But to no avail, it wasn’t going to budge.
I stopped to catch my breath and turned around. It was obvious that even with all I had left, it was no good.
It was always never enough in the end.
I couldn’t save anyone.
Not Rin, not Sakura, not Fuji-nee, not Ilya, not Kenny, not even Ben…
But I had to go on. I needed to go on, for her.
I looked up to see if there was another way out. And to my surprise, to the left was a way out through a back office.
Through the glass, I could see one of Them. Stuck to a chair.
I knew what I had to do. I looked towards Clementine.
“Clem, I found a way out. C’mon lets- ARGHHHH!” I yelled out. Falling to the side of a former Jewelry counter.
THE PAIN.
THE. PAIN.
I. CAN’T. MOVE.
BUT. I-
“Here, I’ll help you. Okay?” Clementine told me as she began to hold me on my left side.
I nodded.
Slowly, I moved against the counter. Every step. Every single muscle movement.
Nothing could describe it at all.
It was too much.
Nothing alive could ever stand against a pain such as the one I’m experiencing.
I did all I could, but it was simply impossible.
I fell to the ground and slumped up against a wall.
“Shirou! You have to get up!” Clem yelled at me.
Just one more time.
Get up.
Get up.
Get up.
Get up.
GET UP.
GET UP!
GET UP!!!
“GARGHHH!” I yelled out in defiance to my body.
But it just… wasn’t enough.
This.
This was it.
I sluggishly looked up to Clementine.
“I’m sorry, little one. But I can’t…” I writhed out.
“No! We can still... We can still…!”
“No Clem. I have to get you out of here. Now please… just listen to me.”
She shook her head in confirmation.
I looked around to see if there was a way to get into the office. She could unlock the door, but she would have to break through the glass.
I moved my head to the left to see a baseball bat over by counter.
“Little one. Go over by the counter over to my left, there’s a baseball bat on the ground.”
She went over there and picked it up.
Struggling with my lungs to continue breathing, I continued.
“Now, go over to the door and smash the window on it.”
Again, she did as she was told.
I looked to my right.
“You see that chair to right of you? Pull it over and climb it. Then, unlock the door…”
Done.
She looked back to me.
“There’s a Walker in there.”
“Don’t worry, Clem. He’s stuck in that chair. He has everything you need. Make sure to grab them, okay?”
She opened the door to see what used to be a security card start waving its arms in her direction.
“Now, grab the handcuffs and bring them over here”
“I don’t like this…”
“It’s to make sure your safe, Clem. Now, put the cuffs on my hand and the grate right next to me.”
She went over to me and did as she was told.
“What should I grab first?” She asked me.
“The gun, little one. Always grab the gun first, Clem.”
Walking back to the office, she slowly reached over to the gun in the holster.
But unfortunately the Walker came loose and was on her before I even knew what happened.
It was clamoring over her as she crawled away.
I saw something next to her wobble as it began to fall.
“Clem. Watch out!”
It was an pedestal holding up a piece of oriental art.
It fell upon the zombie, but the art piece had hit my head.
Sluggishly, I opened my eyes once more to see the Walker still have its rotting hands on her.
I used whatever left was in my body to move my leg and slide the baseball bat over to her.
“Clementine! Use the bat!”
In the time frame of 30 seconds, I slid the bat over to her. Grabbing it she proceeded to whack the Walker’s cranium.
Over and over until it finally moved no more.
BGM ON
Good.
She’s safe now.
“Good job little one. You did well.”
“Now we can go, right Shirou?”
“I can’t Clem. My body… I can’t move anymore.”
It was the cold truth.
“This is it for me.”
“No. You can’t. You just can’t become like them. I don’t want you too!” She told me desperately.
“And I don’t have too. You can save me.”
She looked at me in horror to what I was implying.
“But I can’t Shirou. No. Not you. I couldn’t…”
“Look, you have to go now. You have to be strong for me, okay?” I told her as I slowly felt my life being drained away.
“Keep that hair short. And stay out of the cities. Stay in the countryside… And look for Omid and Christa. They’ll keep you safe, and good company…”
She nodded as she continued to listen to my dying words.
I looked at her eyes for the last time. It reminded me of everything I lived for.
The Ideal I strived to reach out to. No matter what the cost.
In the end, even if I didn’t know it, I felt I now knew what Kiritsugu felt at the moment when he saved me.
So this is what it felt like.
I genuinely smiled with tears running down my face.
“Don’t be afraid.”
A gunshot rang.
And I felt no more.
END
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Originally Posted by VelspertheCat
