Kyle hated this—despised every second of what was to come. Eventually he stopped walking entirely, forgetting his curiosity, too emotionally drained to continue. He originally followed her almost as a duty, but as the forgone conclusion lounged through his psyche, spilling remorse and guilt at his inaction, he finally snapped.
"No!" he growled through clenched jaw, balling his fists. "You can't make me do this. I won't watch!"
His only answer was a mild titter, fluttering around him as if upon the wings of butterflies, blustered in shifting winds that carried their insolent mocking. Kyle was ever a dreamer, and once upon a time, mastered lucidity well enough to live within a world of his own creation as ultimate master of his domain. Not so, here. This was a place beyond him, and though his feet moved not, the landscape shifted around him. He'd fallen behind Arin, sure enough, but there was a limit to his impudence. The ground beneath him drew itself forward, the mountains in the horizon glided effortlessly past him, broken buildings slid and flowed like a river over an insignificant jutting rock.
No choice. The damned voice again. He could feel it: the unsteady vertigo, the rush of forward momentum; he was moving, never losing sight of Arin, tugged by an undeniable leash to her blackened house on the hill. Even after she reached that morose destination, Kyle never brokered another step. Then the leash dwindled, hauling him still beyond his comfort until he stood a handful of yards from Arin. Close enough to see a trickle of blood running down her arm, close enough to see her empty eyes. Close enough to witness.
Fine, he thought. If I can't avoid this, I'll stop it! And so he ran, launching directly into raw acceleration, pumping his arms and growling with effort. But the road apparently traveled both directions when it came to having its selfish way. He came no closer, even after over a minute of hard sprinting. He stopped and muttered a curse; it was no use. The scene was that of a petulant child clamoring for satisfaction, and finding nothing but toneless rebukes of an exasperated parent. No. Watch, and stop trying to avoid your punishment.
So Kyle chafed and fret, wishing to be anywhere else, even wandering the horrid tunnels he and Jason found, hours or centuries ago. Tunnels? What tunnels.
He knew he was beaten, though, and collapsed into a crosslegged position, with his right hand supporting his chin in affected boredom. If he had to watch, that didn't mean he'd get emotionally involved. I'm at a boring play, that's all. Just Phantom of the Opera, or The Nutcracker. It'll be over, and I can go home.
Arin had not waited for him to succumb to his fate. During his internal and external battle, she climbed through the dangerous ruins of her former home, slipping on charred boards, and stirring up nebulous plumes of ash. It was too much. She gave up trying to navigate the mess, and found a flat spot just outside the largest pile of debris, and sat down. She bent over, reaching for the ribbon on her left scuffed black dress shoe, untying the knot and hastily pushing the shoe off her foot. It clattered onto a charred board with a dusty thump. She repeated the process for her right shoe, and continued to remove her stockings.
Kyle wondered just what she was doing. Were the shoes impeding her progress so badly, that they would be sacrificed so she could complete her task? Then why the socks?
But she didn't stop there. She continued—much to Kyle's embarrassment—to rustle behind her back for other laces, and her dress loosened. When she shrugged it away, it crumpled into a loose pile at her feet, and she dutifully stepped away. As if it were fresh laundry, she bent over and picked up the pile, gently folding it over her left arm, a neat bundle she set atop her discarded shoes and stockings.
She doesn't want to get her dress dirty? Kyle could hardly believe the scene. Was she eleven? Maybe twelve? Should he be titillated or disgusted? She wasn't flat, verging on the rite of menarche, but still flush with the boyish figure of a spindly young girl, and regardless of social mores, his instincts overrode his social programming. It made him feel uncomfortable, dirty, and sick. But he was trapped, just as she was, in the play. He could close his eyes, but that seemed even more obscene—wasting her final testament.
Of course, her undergarments followed. But Kyle needn't have worried himself over her impromptu disrobing. Weeks of improper nourishment had left her skeletal. No longer hidden by layers of clothes, her body resembled nothing more than lilly-white paper pulled tautly over a biology classroom skeleton. This, class, is the female skeleton. Notice the distinctive hip structure... Kyle couldn't gaze upon her nakedness, or examine her exposed sex, without feeling revulsion. Somehow, impossibly without discernible muscle, it moved. Her desiccate frame, literally void of but skin and bones, moved still.
Kyle hastily suppressed the urge to vomit. At his age, a nude girl, a guilty pleasure or not, should be an exciting prospect. Instead, he felt a rush of pity and nausea. She really does have nothing left.
Unconcerned, Arin finished her preparations, and satisfied, daintily stepped over fallen lumber, broiled supports, and exposed nails, utilizing her newfound mobility and prehensile toes. Like a centerpiece in those ballets Kyle had earlier lambasted, she skipped magically from one precarious heap to the next, until she found something which gave her pause: a metal-edged chest in what used to be her parents' room. In it, she knew, would be a heavy length of rope her father used to corral horses. He presumably kept it there instead of the barn for emergencies, but the truth was, her parents dropped such pretenses when the children were fast asleep. Regardless, it would serve.
But it was heavy, oh so heavy, for her withered muscles to loft and carry to a distant intact roof-beam where she could secure one end and finish her work. So she dragged, hauling it like pulling against a reluctant calf, leaning backwards with her diminished weight and letting gravity move the rope for her. Even then, it took easily twenty minutes before the unwieldy bundle was close enough.
All along, Arin had a plan. Depressing and forlorn maybe, but she was certainly determined. Kyle couldn't help himself in rooting for a different outcome, dissonant and concerned about the demons that lurked embedded in the very ground, and the shocking contrivance playing out before him. Was this for his benefit, a warning of his own fate perhaps?
Regardless of his attention, Arin continued unabated. She would have her satisfaction, even at the expense of her future, the pain would stop. Her family needed her, and she would soon join them.