Everything went silent.
Nia couldn't hear anything. It was as if the entire world went mute around her as she watched the scarlet bloom against Val's shirt, right around where their heart was. When their body started to fall, it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. Nia urged her body to work and forced her aching, screaming muscles to move forward.
She managed to catch them before they hit the ground.
The noise of the world came back, but it wasn't as though it was filtering in. It hit her hard, like a gong, everything coming back in at once, and she realized that her throat was hurting like never before.
Oh. She had been screaming.
"No, no, no, no, Val, why," She cried, putting them on the ground as she rushed to put pressure on the wound, "Why would you…You fucking idiot! You can't just…Come on, Val, you can't leave me here!"
"H—Hey, sweetheart," Val croaked out weakly, reaching up to cup her face, "Hey, it's alright…Don't…Don't cry—"
"It's not alright!" Nia yelled, tears streaming down her face, falling against Val's, "You're…You're not…How am I not supposed to cry?! You can't leave me again, Val! Not when there's so much we need to talk about…"
Val laughed a bit, but the laughter turned into coughing, "I'm…Sorry. I was hoping we'd have more time but…I suppose the others are just going to have to tell you for me."
Nia shook her head, "I don't want to hear it from them! I want you to tell me! You haven't told me about what we were like when we were younger, you haven't told me about what we went through together—How can you just leave me like this?!"
"Nia," Val murmured, brushing their thumb against one cheek, dragging it along the constellations on her face, "Huh…I had always hoped I'd die looking at the stars. I…Didn't expect it to hurt this much, though."
This just pushed Nia further into hysteria, "No, no, no, you're not—You're not going to die! You can't die on me, you can't leave us! You can't leave me, Val, I need you! I love you, Val, I love you, please, don't leave me alone, don't leave me here…" She clutched at Val tightly, holding their body in her arms, "I love you, so, please, don't go…"
"...It's so hard to watch you like this," Val said softly, "But if I can keep you safe, then it's okay. You can get over this."
"I can't! I won't, Val, how am I supposed to live without you?!"
Val hummed, and the light in their eyes seemed to be getting duller, "You will. You're stronger than me, sweetheart. It…It's so hard to stay awake but…If I can go while looking at my favorite star, I don't think it's all that bad," Their eyes fluttered shut.
"No, no—Val, you can't, do not go to sleep, I swear—"
Her head shot up as she heard an agonized scream from not too far away. It was a sound that Nia wished she had never heard because she knew that from that moment on, that scream was going to haunt her.
She raised her head just to see Hyunwoo fall to his knees, staring at the both of them with a look of absolute devastation on his face.
He dragged himself over to them, "No, no, no, Val, you can't—Keep your eyes open, Valon Solaris, I swear to God. I'm not losing you, not like this. You can't do this to me," He looked at Nia, "What…What happened?"
Nia was crying, "It was my fault, I wasn't paying attention and I—I got grabbed and I—" She was hyperventilating, "If I hadn't stepped away and gotten grabbed, none of this would have happened. It's all my fault, I—If I hadn't even come here then we'd be safe at home, I'm so sorry, Hyunwoo, this is all my—"
"It's not…Her fault," Val said weakly, their voice raspy, "Even if she hadn't come here…I was planning on coming here on my own, anyway. And it was my fault for bringing us to this area…We were just sitting ducks…We gave him the perfect opportunity."
Hyunwoo seemed to have connected the dots, seeing the man's dead body a few feet away. Almost in a trance, he pushed himself up onto his feet before grabbing the axe he had dropped a few feet away.
Then, as he stood over the body, he raised the axe and swung it down, almost as though he was chopping wood. Nia flinched and looked away, but couldn't bring herself to stop him. With every sound of the axe swinging down and sinking into skin, she felt herself drifting further and further away from reality.
Was this it? Were they really going to lose Val?
It was Val wiping away her tears that brought her back to reality, "I'm sorry, Nia, I really am. There was…No other way," They were extremely pale now, struggling to speak coherently. They coughed, blood dripping from the corner of their mouth.
No. Val wasn't dead yet.
"Hyunwoo," Nia said, "Hyunwoo, we need to go," The man didn't seem to hear her, swinging the axe down for the fourteenth time, almost mechanical in his movements, "Hyunwoo! We can still save them, come on!"
He couldn't hear her.
Making a decision, she gently laid Val on the ground before struggling to her feet and throwing herself at the man, hugging him tightly, "Hyunwoo, get a hold of yourself! They're still alive but if we keep wasting time, they won't stay that way! We need to get them out of here!"
That seemed to knock him out of whatever trance he was in. Turning to look at Val, Hyunwo let out a shaky breath and dropped the axe. Stepping over to them, he tore off his shirt and wrapped the bullet wound with it. Then, he lifted them carefully, gently hushing them as they made a noise of pain, "I've got you, you're—You're going to be okay," His voice was shaky, "I'm not going to let you die, Val."
"Hyunwoo-Anna…" Val said dazedly, and it was becoming obvious that the blood loss was getting to them, "Don't…It's okay…"
Hyunwoo didn't respond, instead, he turned to Nia, "I'm going to carry them. I need you to clear the way. Does your in-ear still work?" The younger girl nodded, "Good. Switch with me. You can still hear through mine but the microphone doesn't work," She handed hers over to him and he placed it in his ear, taking the remote that controlled the microphone of the earpiece, "Are you ready?"
Nia nodded, putting the in-ear on herself, and she forced herself to look away from Val. She was scared, of course, she was scared. If she turned around and Val wasn't…But if she didn't pull herself together, then Val would die.
She held her knife at the ready.
Diving back into the battle was almost a relief for her. At least now she could focus on cutting down everyone in the way and not the way Val's blood was soaking through Hyunwoo's shirt. With every movement, Nia could feel her mind slipping away and going blank. It was almost like she was back in the army, just mindlessly killing for the sake of survival.
She never talked about it because she never let herself think about the fact that the first time she had killed someone was thirteen years old. She still remembered the man that she had murdered. There was nothing she could have done, really, she had been ordered directly by her commander to shoot the man.
That was the first time she was confronted with the fact that she had the ability to kill someone. After they had dismissed her so they could discard the man's body, she had gotten to her bunk and hyperventilated so much that she had passed out.
After that, she forced herself to never feel anything when she killed a person.
It was a skill that she was grimly thankful for now, as it didn't matter to her what the people in front of her said, if they were the White Lotus or the army, she didn't hesitate.
"Guys?! What the hell happened, Lumina said that she heard Nia scream—" She could hear Bella's voice over the in-ear, sounding panicked.
"We need to retreat," Hyunwoo said, cutting her off, his voice almost monotone as he spoke.
"What? What do you mean? Did something happen? Are you guys okay?" Bella asked again, "Did they…Did they get the Wings?"
Hyunwoo grunted as he kicked a dead body out of the way, following close behind Nia who was clearing the path for him, "No, they didn't."
"Then what—"
"Val's been shot. It's bad."
There was silence for a moment, "...Fuck," Bella's voice was shaky over the in-ear, "Okay, we can—We'll get medics ready over by the fighter jet, can you guys get there?"
"We're coming," Hyunwoo replied, "But we have to retreat."
"He's right, Bella," Auntie Li's voice could be heard over the in-ear as well, sounding exhausted but there was an underlying tone of misery in her voice, "We're losing too many people. We need to get out of here now."
For a moment, it was quiet, and Nia grunted as someone's body slammed into her. She didn't hesitate to shove them back and as they moved to attack her, she slashed them across the abdomen. She turned back as she heard Hyunwoo call out for her, struggling to keep a man off of him while not jostling Val too much.
She knocked the man's legs out from under and without hesitating, she stabbed her dagger down into the man's chest, "Nia, you—" Hyunwoo began to say, seeming to realize that Nia was not entirely there.
"No time," She replied, "Val."
He couldn't argue with that.
"...Auntie Li, where's Uncle Gong?" Bella's voice was in her ear again, and it sounded unstable, trembling, "He hasn't…Said anything in a while…"
Auntie Li didn't answer her question, but it was an answer enough, "...Retreat, Bella. Please," She said softly.
Nia heard Bella take a deep breath.
"Alright. Alright, I'll call for a retreat."