Vane didn't know how long he lay there in the dark listening to the silence.
Eventually the cold reality of the room pressed in. The smell of the corruption... no longer held back by a living will... began to thicken in the stagnant air.
He sat up his body feeling stiff and incredibly heavy like gravity had doubled in the last hour. He looked down at Senna. In death the fierce tension was gone from her face leaving her looking terrifyingly young. The black web of necrosis was already spreading rapidly claiming the vessel that had fought it for so long.
"Not here," Vane whispered to the empty room.
He wouldn't leave the General to rot in a mildewed storage closet.
He climbed out of the narrow cot and bundled her ruined body in the rough infirmary blankets. When he lifted her the dead weight was shocking. She had been light in life wasted away by energy expenditure but now she felt heavy with the sheer mass of the history she carried.
