Boiling
It's a chilly walk, from their third-floor apartment near the hospital to the diner, and Clair's glad to stay close to Alastor's side as they go, her long coat pulled tight around herself and her arm linked with his. She hesitates when the dim, yellow streetlight above them flickers, looking up, and collapses right there, gray eyes rolling back before they fall shut.
Something's moving, rolling, roiling, like water boiling in the streets and up the walls and falling.
Steam, hot pressure, force that changes, drives, and flays flesh from bones. Clouds that
cover and fall again over torn umbrellas into rivers that cut and sink into forgotten
graveyards dug into the crust that flows and melts into the core, boiling
back to the surface to rise up behind the wallpaper and fall again
as blood, welling around smooth-gloved hands and flowing
over the pearl of living bone like steel uncovered from
frozen sands by the screaming, lonely wind.
Something's moving, rolling, roiling, like water boiling in the streets and up the walls and falling.
Steam, hot pressure, force that changes, drives, and flays flesh from bones. Clouds that
cover and fall again over torn umbrellas into rivers that cut and sink into forgotten
graveyards dug into the crust that flows and melts into the core, boiling
back to the surface to rise up behind the wallpaper and fall again
as blood, welling around smooth-gloved hands and flowing
over the pearl of living bone like steel uncovered from
frozen sands by the screaming, lonely wind.