— Still standing? I threw out, a torn smile on trembling lips, voice carved from breath but still laced with that sharp irony that never left me—even on my knees.
She answered instantly, without hesitation, her reply as quick as the gleam in her eyes. Her smile, subtle but sharp, settled at the corner of her lips like a shard of victory still contained.
— Still standing, she said.
A pause.
— But you… you're falling.
Her voice wasn't aggressive. She was stating a fact. Naming the scene. Framing it with the calm of someone who knows they've already won.
But I lifted my chin slightly, my eyes locking onto hers, burning, alive, fueled by a last spark that neither fatigue, nor poison, nor even pain could extinguish.
— That's true…
A breath. A tension.
— … but look around you.
She barely furrowed her brow, intrigued. Then, slowly, she lifted her gaze.
And she saw.
At first, just a flicker. A pale reflection.
Then a second. A third. Then dozens. Hundreds.
