Short Story

Kat had to be put down today.

We were heading north along highway 304 when we were ambushed. Perfect killzone. Five of our men were dead before we knew what was happening. I thought we were dead for sure, but then Kat threw up some sort of barrier. It stopped everything they were throwing at us, giving us just enough time to get to cover amongst the wreaked cars. I started yelling orders to return fire, but then I looked over at Kat.
She'd taken cover behind one of those old pickup trucks. The thing looked like it had been on it's last legs before it had been riddled with bullet holes and heaven knows what else. She was concentrating. Hard. I yelled for her to drop her Weave, to let her barrier fall. She looked up at me in a daze, sweat streaking the grime covering her face. We locked eyes and everything else faded away. Time slowed down and everything became muted. I could tell she was loosing it. I started to yell, but her pupils suddenly went wide and reality crashed back down around us.
Then she started to smile.
It wasn't one of those happy smiles, or one of those smiles filled with relief. It was one of those smiles that tells you how broken a person is. Jagged, terrifying, filled with indescribable horrors. I don't have the words to describe how much her smile disturbed me.
She turned away, cocking her head as if she were hearing the gunfire for the first time. She stood up and raised a hand towards one of the enemy combatants. She threw a Weave at him that I could barely comprehend and quite literally tore him apart. The gunfire stopped for a moment as everyone got over the shock of what had just happened. In the time that the enemy sergeant started yelling orders for everyone to focus their fire on her, she'd massacred two more of the enemy force.
Gunfire split the air as the enemy force desperately tried to bring Kat down, but if any of them did hit her, she didn't take notice. It seemed that she was Weaving the bullets to miss her completely, something I hadn't thought possible. She proceeded to slaughter the enemy force, killing them each in a unique and gory way cackling insanely as she did so. She cut down the ones who were smart enough to try and flee, laughing like it was all some perverse game. I thought she was going to kill them all, but then a bullet tore through her shoulder.
Kat staggered backward and looked around for a moment in confusion. A dark haired man, couldn't have been older than twenty, stood holding a heavy caliber pistol. He must have been an opposing weaver; his face was covered in sweat and his pupils were different sizes. He fired again, trying to break through to her with his own Weaves, but she just swatted them away. The two closed distance as he fired again and again, each shot sent wide by Kat's Weaves. When the action of his pistol finally locked open he dropped it and ran at Kat. He jumped and tried to hit her with a flying kick, but she leaned to the side, letting him fly past her. He hit the ground and rolled to his feet, pulling out a machete that I could have sworn he hadn't had before. He went at her, lashing out again and again, but she dodged each strike with unnatural speed. The man grew more and more frustrated as Kat played with him, slipping around his strikes as if she were made of water. Finally he roared, throwing all his strength behind his machete, aiming to cut Kat's head from her shoulders. Kat snapped her arm up and blocked his blow. The machete hit her arm like it would a block of wood, making it about halfway through her arm. She grinned at the shocked expression on his face as she drove her fist through his skull.
If Kat felt any pain at all from her wounds, she didn't show it. Instead, she held her hand in front of her face, watching the man's gore run down her hand and arm. I nearly vomited when she licked the blood from her fingers. She shivered as if in pleasure and looked over at me. I glanced down at the pistol I didn't know I'd drawn. It seemed better, somehow. More personal than the longrifles that we used. I raised the gun and aimed at the woman I'd fought beside for the better part of six months. She cocked her head, still smiling, and raised her ruined arm in response.
She was still smiling when I Weaved a bullet between her eyes.
Kat's head snapped back with the impact, and she stumbled, trying to regain her balance. I fired again, Weaving this one into her chest. I fired again and again, tears blurring my vision. I Weaved each so they hit her ruined body. I emptied my clip into her before she finally hit to the ground.
I stood there for a moment before my knees gave out. I don't know how much time passed as I sat there on the ground, my empty pistol smoking in my hands. Shadows danced at the edge of my vision and the whole world seemed to darken. Black ink instead of blood spilled from Katherine's wounds and eerie creatures crawled out from under the cars to lap it up. The wind began to whisper strange things in my ear and...
"Ma'am?"
One of the new recruits tapped me nervously on the shoulder, his face filled with concern and fear. The other soldiers had taken up defensive positions around me, but they all glanced at me nervously.
"What're your orders, ma'am?"
I shook my head and started spitting out orders. I wanted to know how many wounded we had and how many casualties 'we' had inflicted. I shoved a new magazine into my pistol and holstered it. In a few moments the report came back. Five dead, one more wounded, not including Kat. We were nearly never included in the casualty list. Maybe it was because so many of us died from friendly fire. All in all, the enemy had lost nearly three times that many. I shook my head and ordered us back to base.
When we got back to base I told them that the enemy was nearing our position. We would have to move soon, or we'd be discovered. I also told them that it appeared that our enemy was beginning to deploy its own Weavers and that I had been forced to put down Katherine when she snapped. I don't know what disturbed them more. Probably the enemy Weavers. Up until now, us Weavers were one of the few advantages that the rebellion had.
As I write this, though, I wonder. Are we really worth it? They say that they put is in pairs because we work more effectively together. The fact of the matter is, though, that I've had to kill five of the last six partners that I've had. Six of the seven now, I guess.They say that it's necessary. We're too valuable an asset not to use. That without us, the war is lost.
Supposedly, Weavers only snap under unusual circumstances. I'm seeing that as more and more of a baldfaced lie. Even as I write this, things crawl at the edge of my vision. When I turn to look, they're not there. I'm starting to feel constant, subtle anxiety. I wonder if it will develop into full fledged paranoia like my second partner had.
Sometimes I feel like we're all just walking pillars of insanity. We think we're all high and mighty, the pinnacle of evolution. We can weave the very fabric of the universe, bend reality to our will. But the universe doesn't like to be toyed with. No. So slowly but surely it breaks us. It plants little seeds of madness in our minds, and each time we Weave they send their little tendrils a little deeper into us, cracking our fragile brains, tickling our silly little realities.
They'll be sending me my new companion tomorrow. He's younger than Kat was. I wonder how long he'll last. Guys never last very long.