Kiph didnt realize he was deaf at first, in fact instead of silence, he heard an ironically deafening roar blaring in his ear drums...only then, after a few minutes, did silence reign.
Kiph lost it. As Bakur shoved him down and inside the cellar door, Kiph immediately jumped to his feet, drawing his machete, only to bobble, stagger and fall again.
"Bakur....BAKUR!!!..Bakur?" he stared dumbly trying to come to his senses again. Why wasnt the giant answering him. Kiph noticed the trickle of blood pouring down the behemoth's ears. He felt his own neck, and his blood was flowing too. His bad...blood...was.....flowing.
Kiph could not hear anything outside anymore, he could not hear anything at all, but he had still not come to the realization of the what exactly had happened.
Disoriented to the extreme, the nomad managed to rise again, and finally feeling a tinge of comraderie, made his way over to Bakur agian.
"Hey! Hey!!" Kiph screamed at the giant, and Bakur finally looked up, from his sitting position, glancing directly at Kiph, a bizarre look on his features.
"Bah!!" Kiph cursed and climbed back up to the entrance room of Damien's. His head began to pound again, no noise this time, just pain. He dared a glance out the window, and chaos greeted his gaze.
He watched as a father and child, blackened from soot, oblivious to their surroundings, searched the ground for an arm...the little boy's arm, which apparently had torn off during the explosion. Blood gushed from the boy's shoulder, and though the father had wrapped his own shirt around his son's mutilated appendage, the boy would soon die, Kiph knew.
He looked at the body of Tiphala. She wont be much use to Ceres now, he thought, an intense migraine headache, ravaging his brain the entire time. But Kiph was used to pain...
Turning, he next eyed the cooling room, where Damien kept his organs. Wordlessly Kiph ran inside the open door.
Several glass shelves and cabinets were shattered from the impact of the catastrophic explosion.
Kiph, stopped, and stared at one of the cooling canisters. He could read the label from where he stood.
"You have no heart, nomad. It must have been ripped from your scrawny chest, during your "bad times" How can you live without a heart?".
Kiph stood motionless now, oblivious of his surroundings, staring incessantly at the container lying before him, remembering Bakur's mocking words to him when they had first met. Kiph had shrieked and bumrushed Bakur in fury, that day, threatening to rip the big man's heart out in return. Bakur had calmly proceeded to beat the s**t out of Kiph that day, leaving him lying in a pool of his own blood from the beating.
You have no heart nomad, the thought kept repeating inside Kiph's head. All he could hear were his own thoughts. The silence around him was deafening.
Kiph bent down to pick up the cannister and returned, limping and staggering to the cellar. Bakur was still stunned, but had risen and was taking turns glancing outside, and down the passageway,the one which Damien and co. had opened to escape.
Kiph neared Bakur, pulling the giant's sleeve to catch his attention. Bakur turned. Kiph opened the cannister.
"Look Bakur, I have a heart now." Kiph spoke, holding up and showing the giant, the metal, cylindrical cannister. Bakur grimaced in confusion, not understanding the nomad's words.
Kiph removed a slimy, bloody lump from the container, unfrozen now, and leaking fluids. He raised the organ to his mouth and began chewing on it, standing directly in front of the giant.
"Look Bakur, I have a heart now, look!", Kiph smiled. The loss of hearing did not prevent Bakur from showing his revulsion and even dry heaving unseen vomit.
"Come", Kiph said again, not hearing his own reedy voice, "we need to go...now". He finished chewing and swallowed the heart, blood now covering his mouth. He pointed to the door which Damien went through.
Bakur hesitated, Kiph managed a smile..."Come, Bakur".
Kiph was beginning to let his madness take over. It always did during times of stress.
