Cutting the Knot

"Had enough yet?" Calamity Jet looks down at Klara and Iko, both of whom kneel at her feet, achilles tendons slashed and bodies almost entirely bled dry– neutralized.

"What is it that you're after here, Valeriya?" Klara's voice is labored and filled with spite. "You going to kill us over a petty family matter?"

"No. I think I've proven my point." Calamity Jet spits on the sand. "Our family is diseased. Rotten to the core. And only rotten seeds come from rotten fruit."

"What… are you saying?" Iko glares at her sister.

"We were poisoned by your father."

"How many times are you going to repeat the same thing over and over again?!"

"Fine! If you can't see things my way then I'll make you see." Jet begins to back away from them before running straight towards the gate leading out of the spirit realm.

"Wait–!" Iko tries to stand up but it's no use. "Stop!"

But Calamity Jet doesn't pay her any heed.

It's already night by the time Iko and Klara emerge back into the real world. The skies are gray with emergent rains. Iko and Klara don't bother flagging a taxi, instead opting to travel by jumping from roof to roof. They dash away from the edge of the city, traveling deeper and deeper through the capillary-like alleyways until they reach the back alley clinic Iko calls home.

"Papa?!"

Silence.

"It's me! It's Iko!" Iko runs through the corridor before bursting through the clinic door.

"Papa–"

The sound of dripping blood melts in the sound of rain. Slumped over in a chair in the opposite end of the room is her father's body, his heart pierced. Once a mountain of a man, now reduced to this. The bloodstain on his chest grows ever so slightly as more and more blood trickles out of his body. The mechanical aberration that was her mother lays motionless in the device, its head severed at the neck. Calamity Jet stands above it all, heaving from the weight of what she's just done. She places her bloody blade on the table.

"A fitting punishment, wouldn't you say?" Calamity Jet looks up at Iko and Klara with an expression of deranged pride on her face. One that wavers ever so slightly once she sees the horror on Iko's face. "Papa bled our hearts until there was nothing left, and mama turned her gaze away from our plight."

"What have you done?!"

"I– I freed you!" There are traces of something in Jet's voice, tripping up her words. "I freed us both! No longer do we have to suffer under the yoke of blood–"

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Iko completely ignores Jet and rushes to their Papa's body. There's a chance, no matter how small, that he's still alive. But that delusion is dispelled the moment Iko's hand brushes against his skin. It's cold. "Papa! Mama!"

Jet stares unflinchingly at the two. "I made sure of it."

Iko pulls out a party popper from her pocket and aims it at Jet. Her hands are shaking but she doesn't hesitate to set it off. Jet tries to cut through the blast but her hands are an instant too slow. Her entire arm is blown off.

"Get out."

Jet opens her mouth to argue but

"GET OUT!"

Though stone-faced as her arm was torn to shreds, Jet flinches at the venom in her sister's voice.. Tears begin to fall from Iko's eyes. There is no elegance in the way she cries. She sobs, on the verge of screaming, her face contorted in agony as if it were her own heart that was pierced. She calls out for her parents but they do not hear her. Her fists are clenched so tightly it looks like the skin on her knuckles might tear.

"Iko?" Jet calls out her name, but the eyes that meet hers are someone else's. They are that of a monster's. One she created with her own blade.

Iko conjures another party popper in her hand. "I'll give you this one last chance to run. If I ever see you again. I will kill you."

Lightning splits the sky followed by the crack of thunder. Without another word, Jet vanishes into the rain, left with a hefty curse. Doubt.