7.13

I fixed the computers in the lounge. Now I'm taking a well-deserved respite.

The fanatic preacher has us trapped in the crumbling architectural tableau. We gathered in the last room with a roof.
"Thank you for bringing her to me!" He shouts. "Please, stay and watch. This will be a fitting place for her baptism--the water in which humanity's last baptism took place will be the place where their first baptism takes place." He moves behind the girl and she walks forward unthinkingly. They exit out the hole in the wall into the holding area of the reservoir. The too-blue sky sits heavily overhead. The waters (absolutely still) ripple out from the motion of her feet. The crumbling building all around slopes down to the water's edge, making a giant basin.
I stand up, motioning to the rest of my crew. "She's gonna blow, and when she does, we don't want to be anywhere near here."
"What's happening?"
"As soon as her mouth hits that water, anything in that lake is as good as dead. Let's go."
The preacher drones as he holds the girl in the chest-deep water. "I now baptize you in the name . . ."
I walk around the corner and open the door to the outside. My crew files out the door. I turn around for one last look. The water washes over the girl's head, and instantly blows away. A too-large, half-translucent green snake whips out of the girl. Its striated body coils in the air above the shaking preacher. The snake's tail finally whips out of the girl's mouth and into the air, hundreds of feet behind the head. The Pure Elemental swallows the preacher and its host body whole. They dissolve completely before they pass a hundred feet through the serpent.
I shake my head.
The Pure Elemental sees my movement and turns one glassy yellow eye at me. I smile, and fire a single, green flare high into the air. I slide around the corner and out the door. I break into an easy trot.

Maybe tomorrow I'll be dead, but not today. Today, I live.