Naught but death...

Their group sure was a strange sight for a newcomer to the ever growing mountain of absurdity the town had become. The skanky looking prostitute of fifteen was holding her steel bar loosely at her sight, half-unwilling, half-resignated to go go foward once again. By her side, the two kids were wrestling with somewhat amusing temptatives of weapons, chains and woodplanks. They were but a vision from an hallucinoid dream, a collaboration of your mind and your daily opium consommation, or equivalent thereof. The women, or barely, with her hair colored enough to light this fated night, the though little girl with her sandy skin and pale hair, and the boy, his hair still red and ablaze through the dirt the recent fights and escapes had afflicted him with. A common point could still be observed, as if three people together always had to have something in common: Their orbits were surrounded by thick, smoky lines of black kohl, as if masquerading some sort of death's angel.

Karolynn took a deep breath and let her gaze rest upon those she now realized were her friends - and the only few who remained. Was it a sign that this madness was ending, the simple fact that it didn't freak her out that they were kids even younger than her? When did all of this became normal, acceptable? Thoughts were racing her mind, and she couldn't help but put on her usual sarcastic smile, to which both Amnesia and Tommy replied without a sound. This, more than any make-up tricks, what was always united the unwonted street gang. Sarcasm, irony, cynism, sardonism and an hint of satire. They were but a delusioned bunch of kids and teens and this showed, more now than ever. Was there anything special about them? No, they were just that, neither heroes or anti-heroes, just a bunch of kids, delinquant ones at that, with more flaws than ever qualities. For the few qualities they made up, one could be courage she guessed.

Amnesia patted her side softly, cringing under the pain. She bit her lips and thought how weak she was, once again. She held her chainmail chain tightly, and couldn't do much more than hope for the best. Nothing was left. Cougar died. Éloïse died. All the others died. She had lost her lover and her best friend. She had lost the people that had changed her life. She thought of nothing, not because she did not want to, but because she couldn't. Her mind was empty, an ever growing hole filling her insides with more and more conviction. Her senses were still functioning, however, and she smelled the fumes of gunpowder and stirred up dust and dirt. Even if her soul was now numb, her body knew what was coming, and as her heartbeat rate raised, she closed her eyes to retire in the deepest part of herself for a moment. She gave Tommy a quick look. He wasn't stressed either. They knew no matter what, this was the end.

Tommy looked all around him, laying his eyes on this street he had learned to love, like all the other. If someone had told him, all those years ago, that he was to die on a street he probably would have laughed. Or he would have been too young to understand what death meant. He didn't want to remember now how careless he could have been. This meant nothing anymore. The nailed woodplank he held was all he had anymore. And them. He looked at the two girls and this was his moment of epiphany: How meaningless this had become, if all he had left was two girls he had barely ever spoken to? He kept strolling around them, and registered in his mind, for no obvious purpose, that the lights were dim and that this was quite a foggy afternoon.

Karolynn put on the stolen police officer cap, sideways, and so did her young colleagues with their own hats. "Ready to go kids?" What she wanted to be a quiet whisper rang through the somewhat silent alleyway, her voice more strong than the energy she believed was left in her body.

"Yup captain" Answered Tommy, in a tired but tentativingly playful voice.

Amnesia interrupted, with this rough, gritty voice of hers "Captain, may I ask for permission, uh?"

"What permission, kid?"

"May we sing with the abandon and merriment that suits this situation?"

"Permission granted, kid" And they all laughed dryly, for this was not a situation of much joy, at all.

Amnesia threw one arm around Tommy's neck and Karolynn stood right before them, in the sun just beginning to set. "March!" Continuing their foolish roleplay, they walked towards nowhere but what was before them, and soon Amnesia's unique voice rose to the sky:

"Show me the way to the next whisky bar! Oh don't ask why" And soon the others joined in with her, chanting this incongruous song. "Oh moon of Alabama, we must say goodbye!" And they kept going towards the urban battlefield, laughing, singing and pushing each other around, and you could hear their voices go fainter and fainter into the sounds of shouts, and soon, of gunshots. They walked to their death with no more resignation, but with the laughs that would remind them of their first times together.