I open the door. The cold morning wind rushes inside, momentarily blowing away the overwhelming stench of blood. 

She stands there, on the far end of the rooftop, gun in hand, slowly heaving. She did not hear me open the door, it seems, too preoccupied with watching the commotion below. That and the wind, combined with the sirens screaming below make for loud enough cover for me to approach. 

I come closer, closer, and closer. Finally, I reach out. My hand brushes her arm.

She spins in place, and with her face contorted into a rigid mask of hatred, she pulls the trigger a couple times.

Click, click, click.

Fang looks at the gun in surprise. Then, she looks at me and gasps, taking a step back. 

“A-Anon?” her voice trembles, from exhaustion, surprise and shock. “W-what are you doing here?”

She doesn’t wait for my answer though. Not that I had any to give. It's too late for apologies. 

The next few seconds are a blur.

The gun falls to the ground, clearly spent on ammo. She turns and with a cry of anguish, she leaps towards the edge. Without thinking, I rush forward, and, just as she sets her foot on the precipice, I grip her hand. I pull her back.

She shrieks as I yank her back, back away from the edge of the rooftop. Away from the plunge. You will not die today, sweet tooth. 

I will not allow it.

As I pull her down to the ground, she tosses her vacant arm up. I grunt as I hit the floor. She hisses in my face, eyes wide open, wild, filled with killing intent. As she snaps her beak at me in a cacophony of shrieks and screeching, I can see, out of the corner of my eyes, her hand. 

Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Her talons are at their full length. Just like back at my place that night. 

I close my eyes and wrap my arms tightly around her, pulling her close. I can hear her clawing at the concrete, the sounds of scraping closer and closer. 

Fuck it, I’m a worthless piece of shit anyway. As long as I can keep her away from the edge for long enough…

I tense up in anticipation of pain.

But the pain never comes. The scraping stops. Over the sirens, I can hear her panicked breathing. I slowly open my eyes and look up at her.

She's trembling, fuck, she's shaking as if in a fever. She goggles at me, her eyes wide open, her pupils shrinking and dilating at random intervals. 

"Fang-" 

I grunt when she clings to me. She starts weeping, screaming, bawling, all at the same time. She pushes her face against my chest, her tears soaking my shirt. Between the choked back sobs, I can distinguish two words, repeated in a litany of near-incomprehensible mumbling.

"They're dead... They're dead... They're dead..." 

I don't say anything. What could I say? "Oh Fang, I am so sorry"? 

The cavalry arrives shortly after, surprisingly without her father leading the charge. It takes a lot of effort on their part to separate us. She screams and starts lashing out the moment they start prying her away from me, but surprisingly, they don't retaliate. Perks of being a cop's daughter I guess. 

She's gone. I am left alone on the roof with a cop and a paramedic. The first keeps an eye on me, the other checks me for injuries. There are none, besides some bruises from when me and Fang fell down. 

"You're a hero." 

I blink and turn my eyes away from the rooftop door, snapped out of the stupor. 

A hero? Fuck, if you only knew…

I only shake my head and sigh, doing my goddamn best not to let my voice tremble. 

"You stopped a shooter." The dark blue dino continues, dressing up my bruises. "You deserve a medal or something." 

I only shake my head again, running my hand across my face. A medal, bah. What I deserve is a kick to the jaw. I look at the door again and with a soft tremble, hide my face in my hands. 

I sit like this, listening to the sounds of footsteps and voices. I'm half-deaf to all that's happening around me, too occupied with my own thoughts to care about anything. Until one thing gets my attention. 

"That's Ripley's gun." I hear from behind me. 

"How do you know?" 

I look over my shoulder. A gray-green spinosaurus in a police uniform, is kneeling over the abandoned revolver. He's talking to a dark blue-and-gray velociraptor lady. He is almost as large and bulky as Ripley himself. 

"He shoots it at the range all the damn time. Wilkins, evidence bag!" He whips his head to the side, turning to another cop. 

"Uh, yes, yes, on it, sergeant!" 

I watch them put the gun in the bag. It's as large as those they have at the grocery stores. The spinosaurus finally takes notice of me staring at him. He nods at the raptor and stands up. 

She approaches and kneels next to me. 

"Is he unhurt?" She asks the medic. 

"A couple bruises, and…" He hems. "A very slight concussion, he's good to talk to." He gets up. "Just don't push him too hard. The guy looks spent." He nods at me with a sympathetic smile and leaves. 

She waits until he's gone, keeping her eyes on him until he disappears behind the door. Then, she turns to me. 

"Sergeant Jennifer Blue, Volcaldera Bluffs Police Department." 

I nod. 

"How are you doing? Do you need anything? A bottle of water maybe?" 

I sigh and grab the side of my head. I want to wake up. Or die. Either sounds good right about now. 

It takes me a moment to muster up enough strength to speak. 

"Where-" I clear my parched throat and swallow hard. "Where are you taking her?" 

"To the station." She looks over at the door. "Do you know her?" 

I press my hands against the sides of my head, sighing slowly and shakily. I can feel her eyes boring into me. I can feel the eyes of every single god damn cop on the roof right now, staring at me as if I was a piece of meat on display. 

God damn meteor dodgers, stop fucking staring! 

"She's my…" I hesitate. 

I see that you can learn!

"She's my girlfriend."  

She gasps softly. I have to force myself not to twitch when I hear the shock in her voice. She puts her hand on my shoulder - she grips like a pair of tongs, even though she's only holding onto me. 

"Oh, oh god, I am so sorry." She mutters. 

I only shrug, hiding my face in my hands again. God, this is a nightmare. 

I want to wake up, I want to wake up, I want to wake up. 

"Come on." She grabs me under my arm. "Let's get you on your feet. We'll have medics check on you." 

"But the guy said…" 

"Come on." She gently pulls me to my feet.

I look at the door. 

A dark, gaping opening, like a pit of hell. I don't want to go there. I'll see it all again. Bodies, blood… so much fucking blood. I resist. I dig my heels into the floor and jerk back as Jennifer tries pulling me forward. 

"Come on, you can't stay here." She frowns.

"I-" I swallow again, saliva barely squeezing through my clenched up throat. "I don't want to go down there." 

She stops and looks at me. Then she looks at her colleague. She nods and sighs, then looks back at me. 

"I understand, but you will have to. This is the only way down." She beckons at the door, then pulls at my shoulder again, more gently this time. 

I look over my shoulder, at the hole in the suicide fence. 

Her grip on me tightens immediately. I stifle a shaky, bitter laugh, shake my head and, turning away from the precipice, allow myself to be pulled through the door. 

We slowly make our way down the stairwell. I tense up, more and more as we go down, as the smell of blood and other bodily fluids start to creep back into my nostrils. I cover my face with my hand at one point, gagging softly. 

By the time we get to the bottom of the relatively short stairwell, this smell permeates everything. It's thick in the air like mist. I can feel it sticking to my clothes and skin. 

At the last stretch of the stairwell, I notice something strewn across the floor of the corridor below. As we arrive at the bottom of the stairs, I see that it's a bunch of cards. Tarot cards. Spread over a distance, as if they fell from someone's hand, while they were running. 

An image of Stella, falling to the ground with a bullet hole in her back flashes before my eyes. 

No.

I freeze, clench my eyes shut and lean on the wall, huffing and gagging. Jennifer waits until I recover. It takes me a good while, but finally, I'm able to stand on my own and face the aftermath of Fang's work. 

Don't look at the cards. Don't look at the cards. Don't look at the fucking cards!

The corridor is almost silent. There are a few paramedics, moving around like shadows, tending to the injured and quietly covering the bodies with sheets of white fabric. Most of the injured have already been transported out, leaving behind some of their belongings - phones, notebooks, backpacks those kinds of things. Some of the bodies too are being carried out. The sirens outside are still wailing, a muffled, distant sound. In the almost-silence, I notice something I hadn't before - silent sniffling and groaning of the injured. Fuck, this makes passing through here even harder. Almost impossible, actually. I have to stop a couple of times to lean on the wall and regain just enough strands of composure to keep going.

The parameds pay no mind to us as we pass by. I do my best not to look at any of the bodies, in fear that I may recognize some of my classmates. I keep my eyes glued forward, at the far wall, away from the blood, away from the dino-shaped mounds lined up along the corridor's walls, away from the bullet holes. Away from those injured, curled up on the floor, meds kneeling by them.

Don't look. Don't see. Don't think. Just get the hell out of here. Get out. Get out. GET OUT. 

We arrive at the stairs. I put my hand on the railing and I look down. I freeze. A cold, ice cold, death-fucking-cold wave crashes through me, making me stop in place, as rigid as a block of iron. I can only look, eyes wide open, hairs all over my body standing on ends. 

Ripley is kneeling at the bottom of the staircase, holding onto Naser's lifeless body. 

He's rocking slowly, forwards and backwards, his arms clenched around his son. He squeezes him tightly, desperately, pressing his face against his wide chest, the mountain of a ptero shivering slightly. 

My hand hurts. I cast a brief - very brief - look at it. I'm squeezing the railing so hard that my fingers have turned white. And as I look back at the father, rocking the body of his boy, I can - barely - hear him speak:

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry, son… I'm goddamn sorry…" 

He suddenly lets out a low, quiet sob. The sudden sound makes me start.  

Shit. 

The sob cuts off, as if cut with a knife. Ripley stiffens. He stays like that for just a brief moment, but for me, it feels as if time had stopped for an eternity. I walked in on him in his moment of weakness, and he is pissed off.

"Who's there?" His voice is hard, with an audible hiss. 

"It's me, chief. Blue." Jennifer speaks up from behind me. 

"Is the skinnie with you?" He asks, never turning his head to us. 

"I'm escorting him out, yes." 

Ripley is silent for a moment. His body tenses up for a moment, then relaxes as he takes a deep, rigid breath. 

"Take him to the station." 

I blink. 

"What?" I hoarsely mumble out. "Why? I didn't do anything, sir." 

"I-" his voice falters for a moment, which makes my heart drop, all the way to my stomach. "I will be the judge of that." He breathes in and out again. "Get the hell out, Blue." 

I slowly turn my head to her. She's shocked. Must've never seen the ol' Rip like this. She stares at the commissioner with eyes and mouth wide open, body rigid, tail stiff. Seeing me staring at her though, she composes herself and nods. 

“Y-yes, of course, chief, on it.” she stammers out. 

She grabs my arm and pulls me away, towards the staircase at the opposite end of the corridor. 

I catch a glimpse of her wiping away a tear with the cuff of her uniform. 

We make our way to the ground floor. It's all the same all the way down. A body here and there. Splatter of blood. Bullet holes. The stench. And medics, moving around like ghosts. I see none of it. I only see Ripley, clutching Naser's lifeless body, begging for forgiveness in a neverending ramble. 

The song of the sirens gradually reaches its crescendo as we go down, nearing the peak right before we pass through the main door.

Jennifer throws the door open. The cold wind rushes in, and with it, the blaring sirens and klaxons of cop cars and ambulances. There are even more of the latter than when I arrived. 

Immediately, I feel tens of pairs of eyes on me. As we make our way down the stairs, more and more eyes join in. I falter, and almost fall. I'm tired. So fucking tired. I want to wake up. 

Somebody, please wake me up from this fucking nightmare. 

I cast a wide, sweeping glance over the collection of bystanders, cops and paramedics. There they are. The white mounds. Each mound, a life. Ten in number, and there will be more. And the sobs of those hurt, either by Fang's bullets, or during the stampede. Their families huddled around them. 

Fuck, I can't…

I hack and gag, almost falling backwards, but before I can, Jenifer catches me. 

"Whoa there, careful." She holds me up. "Take it slow." 

I do take it slow. Very slow. 

The ring of people is getting closer and closer. Suddenly, a cry - more like a scream, shriek of pain and anguish than a sob - audible even above all the commotion catches my ear. My head whips on its own, my eyes looking for the source. 

The source is a forty-something parasaur woman, kneeling over one of the mounds, with a man next to her, holding her in his arms. She's squeezing the hand of the person under the sheet.

My eyes widen. 

It's Naomi's hand. 

It’s too much. Too much, too fucking much. I’m gonna-

Buzzing, humming, thundering, whatever it's called, it rings in my head like a cannonade. My head is swimming, my vision starts to blur. I trip over my own feet. Behind me, I hear Blue curse and feel her hand brush against my shirt. 

Imfallingimfallingimfalling-