Fever of Stingrays

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Salem stood there until the noise of the shots finally faded, staring at Colm as he collapsed in a heap and stopped moving, finally stopped making noise. He was breathing hard, though he wasn't sure why.

Eventually, his arm dropped back to his side. He squeezed the grip of the revolver as though it might give him some comfort.

He searched for something snappy to say to Colm's crumpled form and came up empty.

"Whatever," he breathed into the now-deafening silence. Mechanically, he turned away and began gathering his things. He wasn't going to abandon the basement so soon, but he also didn't want to stand here in front of Colm's body to finish changing his bandages.

Picking his way around the boxes to put distance between himself and the body, Salem located a suitable corner and then sat down to peel his leggings off and change the bandages on his thigh; at least that wound didn't seem to be getting worse, though it was still raw and painful. Salem was acutely aware that there wouldn't be time for it to heal any significant amount. He'd just be putting up with this for... however long.

However long.

When that was done, he pulled his leggings back on and curled up beneath his coat and skirt as makeshift blankets. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was now, deep in the dark of the basement with no sound or light filtering in except for Colm's abandoned flashlight. He could just sleep the rest of the day away here and then get a move on early, before the new Danger Zones cropped up to restrict his movement.

No matter how much he tossed and turned though, he couldn't get much sleep.

((Salem Fox continued in Burning Down the House (Naive Melody)))