Garbage is used to fear as a weighty, draining thing. The fear of being alone, the fear of having to keep going, the eventual fear that he may not die at all, as his back grew swayed and his muzzle gray but he stayed so persistently alive.
(This was before the rebirth. Now he knows he can die, but does not know if he can stay dead. None of us do, I suppose.)
He is not used to this fear, the thing that spikes white-hot in his chest as the noise rings out, impossible to place in this furious darkness, and then Agetta shifts to an eagle and the fear spikes even sharper, thinking for a moment she has disappeared altogether – but no, he sees her then.
And then there is not much time for thinking, because she is calling for him to run, and he obeys – he will always obey her – and he runs, trusting she is with him even if trust feels like dust in his throat, choking.
The cries are more frequent, and he can sense, even as he runs, that there are two distinct ones. That they are hunting. Branches whip at his face, his sides, and then he stumbles, falls to his knees, and the noises are closer, giving chase, because it’s all a game to them. And oh, once he wouldn’t have cared, would have halted, let them come –
(Have you died before, my dear?)
But he wants to live. Wants to live with her. With that beautiful peace.
He’s found his feet again, still running, and then he is at the river, ground to a halt. The river is high, here, its rapids furious, and he thinks of the beach, of the dark ocean that he once sank into so easily.
He can’t see her in the dark. But he feels her. She hasn’t left him. Unfortunately, neither have the things that pursued, because something bursts from the grass and it moves so damn fast and the river might well be his only option, to hope that the damned things can’t swim, and hope that he can.
“Agetta!” he shouts, and the word is a stand-in for everything he does not have time to say, all these things he has told her but it’s not enough, nothing is, if he saw her every day, forever, it still would not be enough.
@[Agetta]