Hallneen had stopped breathing.

Kyrin didn’t know how long he had been holding her like this; her breathing had been so faint for hours that he must have not even noticed when it stopped all together. Kyrin hated himself for not even noticing when she had passed. He wanted to scream and yell and kick at the pegs holding together his ramshackle shelter that barely qualified as a home. But in that moment he realized that he didn’t have anything left. There were no tears, no screams, no panicked ‘Hallneen! Hallneen, please don’t go!’ There was just emptiness.

He had cried himself silly when he found out that Hallneen had contracted Pipe Rot, a horrific disease that some Ursa Major in his ivory tower had named after a cheap double entendre. The disease attacked the lower intestines, eventually eating away at their ability to properly digest food, until they burst and the person died of sepsis. Ironically enough, one caught the disease from spending too much time in the humid and unsanitary levels of Ursa Major’s underbelly: the slums that residents of the underbelly called ‘Ursa Minor.’ Of course the name brought much amusement to Ursa Major’s upper echelon who were in no danger of contracting such a disease. Kyrin found no amusement in the sickness’s name now, but he felt the mocking laugh of its name all too keenly.

Kyrin laid down Hallneen’s lifeless body, and backed slowly towards the wall of the alleyway they had set up their shelter in. He found that instead of grief or rage, he felt fear and dread. Fear of getting sick himself. Dread of ending up another lifeless body in the endless sprawl of Ursa Minor. The one good thing about living in the vast shadow cast by Ursa Major had vanished.

He had always known there was an expiration date to his time in the slums. Kyrin realized in that moment that watching Hallneen slowly fade had been his final sign. Hallneen had been vibrant and loving; in fact she had contained the opposite of the harsh, oppressive, and violent crush of Ursa Minor’s pubs and alleyways. Seeing one of the last good things about Minor wither away left him with nothing left inside. But even if all that suffering tied up in his miserable existence of the last three months, the slums were still Kyrin’s home…the place where he grew up, the place where he had loved and lost countless friends. But with no Hallneen, it wasn’t really a home anymore.

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Kyrin heard the rustle of someone lifting the edge of the solar-tarp, and looked up like a frightened student who had been caught with notes to an exam. He wasn’t sure if he was ashamed of allowing Hallneen to waste away like that, or if there was some deeper reason for his shame. All he knew was that he didn’t want anyone to see him like this.

“Ky? How is…” One-Eye stopped short when he saw that Kyrin was no longer cradling the girl in his arms.

“It’s over. It’s finished.”

One-Eye looked at him like he was an alien from a cheap halo-soap on the vid streams. Kyrin realized too late that he should have said something like ‘she’s gone.’ But instead all that came to mind were words that conveyed his relief and exhaustion.

“I’m.. I’m so sorry, friend,” One-Eye offered.

Kyrin shook his head vigorously.

“No…….. no…. It’s okay. It’s over. She’s g...she’s gone. No more pain. No more…”

Kyrin tried to will himself to cry or sob… but his throat was dry as dust, and his eyes were cracked with salt stains. He really was empty.

“Do you need anyth--” One-Eye started.

“Out. I need to leave,” Kyrin said, suddenly determined. He stood up, fists clenched with his nails biting into the flesh of palms. The physical sensation of pain helped strengthen his resolve.

“There’s nothing here anymore. She’s gone. It’s over. No one in the seven towers or in the three hells gives a shit about us, or our lives, or our deaths. Anything is better than this.”

Kyrin looked off into the middle distance as if focusing on something that One-Eye would never be able to see or comprehend.

“Yeah… I’m leaving.”

One-Eye cocked a half smirk for the first time in three months.

“Good. And I’m comin’ with!”