Famine’s Hand

Going down. The lift reached the bottom floor after making its journey at a leisurely pace. Lore and Char erupted from its mouth at extreme speeds as they charged to the streets. Exaggerated foot prints of dying moss gave them a way to track their adversary but to avert the crisis, they would have to be quick. Following in her footsteps, they ran as fast as their legs would carry them hoping that the cause of this degradation would be just around the next corner. Three hopeful corners later, the cause stood plain as day. They had been expecting a human female but actually seeing her was still somewhat shocking. Lore and Char stopped a few buildings shy of her, keeping her within sight but not approaching to catch their breath. Breathing heavily, Lore attempted to soothe their shoulder. They twitched as what felt like an ice cube slid down their spine. They turned to the woman ahead of them and history repeated itself. After the second twitch, Char turned to Lore and put her hand on their back.
“You alright?” Her breathing was almost back to normal.
“Yeah. Fine.” Lore had been shocked to normalcy. “Let’s go.”
They trudged through the rotting street and toward their target. She had her back to them but turned as they got closer. Her hair obscured half of her face and neck and she wore a leather jacket with a single sleeve. Apart from her odd clothing, she appeared to be a fairly normal, if slightly underweight, example of a female human. Now about a meter away, she flicked her hair over her shoulder. Curtain lifted, the magic was revealed. Her face had been segmented, split in two halves. One showed a beautiful woman, slightly freckled skin and maintained eyebrow; the other detailed a walking corpse, waxy skin fused to the bone beneath. Her removal of her glove revealed that this motif was universal across her body with the black leather’s withdrawal making way for her twig like fingers to breathe. Only her smile crossed her face unchanged.
“Just a guess but you’re here to stop me. I felt you arrive.” She spoke with confidence. “I’m Famine.”
“Fitting name. Lore.” They extended their left hand. Char was about to stop them but realised that Famine’s left hand was her ‘normal’ one. “Why?”
“Why? Why not? Everyone here will die one day so why not make that day today?” Famine rocked on her heels.
“No. This is new, has to be or else it would have been stopped.” The icy chill returned as their head jolted once again. “Oh…”
“Oh? You want to know why I haven’t been stopped? No one cared until you showed up. There may be a whole department of our government dedicated to time travel but you.” She pointed between Lore and Char. “You are the only people who have shown up and even then, you came on my second time round.”
“Second time?” Char tilted her head. “What about paradoxes?”
“Who cares? We all die someday so why not go out with a bang?”
“There won’t be one.” Lore spoke softly. “Time doesn’t work like that.” Char moved in slightly closer. “Do what you need Famine then leave.”
“You’re letting me go?” Famine looked at them in disbelief
“You’re letting her go?” Char got in front of Lore. “What’s wrong with you?”
Lore simply nodded and pulled Char back onto the withered road. Famine’s smile grew as she raised her hand to the sky. She knelt down and placed the other on the ground. As she made her connection, the clouds above began to coalesce and what had once been a sunny day with scattered clouds soon became overcast and grey. The clouds then began a descent towards her, carrying with them the atmosphere’s moisture. The square became muggy and humid for a moment as Famine took in the skies. This phase completed, she swapped her hands over. As the skeletal shadow she called a hand touched the floor below, it died. The grass of the green dried to brown before withering to black in a pattern that spread like a shockwave from her point zero. It took longer than the clouds but soon, the planet lay vanquished. Famine rose from her crouched position and replaced her glove.
“Not as fun.” She shook her head before crossing her arms over her chest. “Maybe we’ll meet again.” She smirked before falling back onto the dead green. Reality tore open as it had when they brought Quatarr back and swallowed her before closing.
“Now what? She’s killed the planet and you’re saying she can do it as many times as she wants so now what?” Char was understandably confused and distraught.
“When The Chronicle took me into his room, he taught me about time but also about how he thought I was able to feel the difference between the types of time.”
“Like The Oracles.” Lore nodded.
“Well, I think this is a fixed point. No matter what we did, Famine would always kill the planet and if we stopped her, she’d try again.”
“So what do we do?”
“Plan B.” Lore smiled as if it were obvious. Char shrugged. “From my research I’ve got an idea of what each pre famine group was like so all we have to do is use that information and the stuff you’ve gathered to find the best point to go back to, to convince them to come together and prepare as a planet.”
“So we go back in time, unify the planet then get them to institute rationing?” Char could feel the weight of her sentence.
“Basically yeah.” Lore tried to smile reassuringly.
“Why can’t it ever be easy?” Char relaxed her shoulders. “This continent had uncharacteristically good crop yields for three years in a row, three years ago if I’m remembering correctly so perhaps we go back to then?”
“What about everywhere else?”
“There’s only one other continent and their last good growth season was when the written records began so useless to us.”
“Three years ago it is then.” Lore tapped at their Breacher once more. The white light flashed. Uneasy Night.