Day 4 - Rivalta

She knew the alliance was dead, in essence. Two of its members were dead and the rest of them were covered in broken bits of glass. Just grand. Being ‘s career’ wasn’t worth it. It brought more trouble than good. The sound of the word now was bitter on her tongue. 
Career, career. The word made her sick. 
Or was that the blood? 
Rivalta’s eyes were drawn to it as soon as she recovered from the initial shock of the blast, and the imagery and sound wouldn’t leave her mind for a good time afterwards. Thet… Thet had dropped to the ground, lying awkwardly and curled into the fetal position. His legs were twisted and grotesque and shaking and convulsing. His hands were at his throat, trying unsuccessfully to staunch the bleeding there. There was so much blood, pouring incessantly from that wound, dying his hands a deep crimson and pooling beneath his body. His eyes were rolling; she could see the whites of his eyes and hear the gurgling as he struggled to breathe from the blood drowning his air pipe, and then he grew limp. His hands slipped from his neck to the ground and his eyes grew glassy, but the blood wouldn’t stop erupting from his neck.

Rivalta took a couple of steps backwards, drawing in quick sharp breaths, before she stumbled over Mercutio’s body and the blood-fear started anew. He was already still, there being more wounds, but like Thet, his blood still flowed. The wounds directly to his head had destroyed his once-beautiful face, blood and foam staining the skin and the sharp shards off glass embedded there alike. 
Rivalta didn’t stay after that. How could she? Her stomach was reeling and threatening to give up the little food she was still running on. Her heart was beating faster than she had ever felt it and her head was light. She tried shutting her eyes but those bodies were still there on the insides of her eyelids. The air was reek with the smell of the blood leaving her nose crinkled in disgust. She just about managed to control her mind long enough to pull Thet’s sabre from his clenched hand before she bolted, not staying even to find out the state of Azul and Teal. Azul was yelling something incomprehendable, but Teal was quiet.

It was a good thing Barracuda was gone, for if they had met, the battle on Rivalta’s part would have been an animalistic, instinctive frenzied battle for survival at that moment. She was so suddenly aware of just how fragile and vulnerable the human body could be, she would not have wanted to see her own blood in  volumes of which she had just witnessed Thet’s and Mercutio’s. If there was blood at all it would be they that were attacking her as far she was concerned, and she still had her ability, that thing she hadn’t yet used.She could burn out their eyes and tongue and throat so they couldn’t breathe and ears so they couldn’t hear, and any of those would be without blood. She had injuries of her own, of course. As she ran, she could feel her arms were peppered with little pieces of glass, and feel her own blood trickling lightly down between her fingers as the held the sabre. The dress had done a good job of shielding her legs and body for their part, and she had blood rolling down her cheek too from where she had pulled yet another small piece of glass, but luckily she had been facing the wrong way and far from the main brunt of the weapon that had been thrown into the booth, else it could have been much worse.

 
She didn’t know theatres, of course she had never been in one, but in her mind she knew roughly which way the open air was even with the winding passages that seemed to be trying to lead her astray. Eventually she made it to a back exit of sorts, one that opened out onto a narrow street, and she walked along it a while before slipping into a darkened doorway and letting herself slide down to the ground and gulp in deep breaths. She was still acutely aware she might have been followed, that there was still danger, but she needed a moment. 

The faces in the sky appeared and were snuffed out again, and then came the announcement. By then Rivalta was already on the move, somewhat relieved she wasn’t simply following what someone else told her to do any more. She made her way up to the top level of an opened building to the south east of the theatre she had been in with the others and sat behind the door, so that she could surprise them should someone come in after her.