He watched.

     This was not the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. Laruku was not the first man he had killed. That right belonged to a man with crooked teeth and yellow eyes, who had been so surprised when the knife had hit him. Each time Ahren had killed he had used that knife. Nearly twenty men by this point; each one had meant less then the last. They had either known what was to come or died startled, scared. Each time, they lied. They all lied, right up until the point they had nothing left. They usually wanted to die a hero, as if injustice had been done to them. Maybe it had been. Ahren didn’t know what kind of people they had been. Only that they had been in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

     When Laruku smiled, Ahren did nothing. He waited for nearly a full minute after that before checking the pulse. The hybrid’s ragged frame had stopped breathing before that, slowing to a point of absolute stillness. His heart was gone. He was gone. Pushing himself up, the blonde walked out into the snow. It was a peculiar silence, one that felt nearly unreal. The world was black and white and gray, and he could see no stars. The match he lit fought the darkness for only a moment before it was tossed to the wayside, used up in the cigarette’s life. Ahren inhaled and breathed out smoke and steam into the snow. He did this for a few moments before he coughed again, this time hard enough that his eyes watered. Red now marred the pristine snow, his coat, the taste of the tobacco in his mouth.

     He smiled, finding amusement in this fact. Of course, it should come to pass like this. Ahren walked away from the cabin, and chose a tree at random. He continued to smoke as he used the knife, carving a small sigil into the bark. When finished, he drove the knife in with such force it caused his hand to go numb, caused the skin under the fur to break against the quillon. It was so cold he did not feel this. Lifting his hands, he undid the chain around his neck, removed it for the first time since it had been put on, and hooked it around the knife. Someone had to know. That much the sane part of Ahren, as small as it was, understood.

     He returned to the cabin, and sat next to his companion’s body. Ahren undid his belt, curiously light without the knife, and wrapped it around his upper arm. There was enough left; he had made sure of this fact before he left the hospital. The familiar pattern of the needle and the drug followed suit. He had enough time; again, he had made sure of this fact. Ahren brought out the kerosene and drew a path in the cabin, over Laruku, over himself. He hit the ground hard, and hands shaking (not because of the cold, not because of the natural fear, but because of the drugs rushing through him), fumbled with the matches. By the time he did catch one, his vision was failing. He let the box begin to burn as he undid the belt, tossed it towards the door, and felt the drugs finally rush in. He had given himself more then double the dose that Laruku had needed. His addiction demanded such a thing.

     He heard the fire start, felt the familiar heat, and then quickly was pulled down into a dark place. It was warm, though, and that comforted him. Ahren’s body slumped onto the hybrid’s, and was gone long before the flames raced across their forms.


     The fire burnt for well over an hour before the cabin collapsed.