Sit in rot and crumbling pavement

Gathering grey dust and spare change

Growing fangs and rusty claws

A high rumble screech loosed

As muscle and coiling metals

Leap into the fouled airs

Cutting with sharp poisons

A cloud of dust unleashed

Chokes and blinds the free

Opening them to dead eyes

Prone to jagged orange points

In the blindness’ heavy air

Skin, cloth and bone rip

Under rusted, broken nails

As saviour falls to asphalt

The healer’s dance is swift

And she twists around the blades

Her sea-forest eyes are sharper

And she sees hatred coming fast

The true wise man a fount of blood

His blue eyes focusing and fearing

Building resolve as he gathers strength

Gaining his feet and dripping scarlet

A rusty arm connects with legs

Sending her lithe form a-spin to bricks

Cracking stones and ribs on impact

Leaving a heap unconscious

Gripping the fire escape ladder

Trapped and frightened

Sheridan swings himself into air

Crashing feet into barb wire head

Both fall forward to ground

Rust shards and barbs cut long lines

Sharpened fingers grip a shoulder

Launching saviour from the light

Sheridan’s blood marks his path

Falling and collecting amid debris

A cry unbidden is loosed

Full of desperation and pain

In the dark, hit by scraping sounds

Heat and rage collect in blue drops

Mingling with the red, calling out

Breath giving out, mind fighting to stay

Neci’s fall echos in his mind

The crack he couldn’t hear then

As the blood beat within his head

Is all his mind can breath now

As his vision and the dust clears

One sharp thumb and four like fingers close

And pierce her throat slowly

Flakes of dead metal falling on her

Sheridan pushed away all but Neci

All but she and this decayed life

Weak as he was, he rose from the ground

She lay silent as her cuts connected

Blue licks along his arms

Drip upon his fingers quickly

Flames the color of oceans flow

Around and deep inside his soul

He runs the meters and halts

Bringing his fiery hands forward

Gently drawing out claws

Then throwing the rusted man backwards

Sharp teeth dig into his shoulder

And he feels the poision’s seeping

But his love pushes him onward

His own hurt he will bear, not hers

He slams his fist into the torso

And then to the coarse neck

He draws only his own blood

The flames can not penetrate

With his last strength he grips the throat

And is torn by metal splinters

And brings his essence into the motion

As he rips the needles through his skin

The barb wire wraps his arm

But his force drives the head

Back into the rock wall

And snaps loose the needle-jaw

Rust locks its cold eyes on Sheridan

As the saviour wills blue light up

Up from his finger tips, tight-clawed

Burning decay from inside

As the death crumbles down

He too falls to the rubble

And finds the hand of his love

His dying healer still