Starglow Basin We don't wanna go home

for a moment he closes his eyes and the phantoms behind them give it a rest; it's just him and sangre in this empty, black space.

her voice intrudes. words he doesn't understand.

he opens his eyes slowly, gaze affixing on her scarred features. in the present, she was so very different than the image octavio held onto in soto's head. it was like two images blurring over one another; the lines congruent and yet somehow, out of shape.

the green; he didn't touch the stuff but now he wondered if it was in the water or somehow his food. what was happening to him? did she see it? did everyone else?

he wanted to press her to ask what she meant, but the way she stares at him now forbids it.

soto frowns, licks his lips, and looks towards the northeast, where their enemy lies skulking like a puma in wait.

there's nothing to say, and he's never been a man for monologues anyway.

besides, the two ghosts in his head do plenty of talking and presently, they're bickering over which hole of sangre's they'd like better.

soto sighs as he studies a shape moving in the distance. he can feel sangre's stare burn into him, and somehow it aggravates him more than his wounds do.