[ TT ] You killed them ! Those are n't bad guys ; they protect us from something far worse !

Mitchell cupped his forehead in his hands, slowly massaging his temples with his thumbs. The dark circles beneath his bloodshot eyes betrayed his lack of sleep, while a toothy grimace and sharp, drawn-out intake of air demonstrated his frustration. His elbows slid slowly out from under him, their motion made more free by the numerous papers and maps strewn about his lacquer-topped desk. 
 
 He held the general affect of a man with a three-day headache. 
 
 He he sat like this for what felt like a long time, though it could n't have been more than five or ten seconds. Eventually the prolonged inspiration ( which I perceived to be more for my benefit than his ) resolved itself into a baritone sigh of such strength I felt he must have immediately regretted his careless placement of the single paperweight on his desk ( a trophy skull from an ill-mannered leprechaun prince I had deposed just last year, and subsequently made a gift of ). 
 
 The documents displaced seemed to fall for a long time, swooping casually back and forth before hitting the floor with a scraping sound. One skittered under the closet door, carried by an unfelt ( to my experience, though I was still in hat and jacket ) indoor zephyr that seemed to me entirely separate from the initial sigh. 
 
 His hands never left his face as he spoke, staring intently at what I imagined must be his distorted reflection in the dark lacquer. 
 
'Strips or Ribbons, Gerald?' 
 
'It was dark, sir.' 
 
 *'Strips or ribbons?'* 
 
'... Strips, sir.' 
 
'You're certain of this?' 
 
'As I said, sir, it was dark, and between the blood tears and the screaming, my senses were somewhat disoriented.' 
 
'...' 
 
'It could have been ribbons, sir.' 
 
'...' 
 
'I'm sorry, sir.' 
 
'What you're telling me is, Gerald -- *in essence* -- that you were *not* able to confirm whether the banshee you removed from the site in question possessed flesh that hung in *ribbons* or *strips*? This is the information you wish to convey? Because darkness?' 
 
'Yes, sir.' 
 
'Well, fuck me.' 
 
'Sorry, sir.' 
 
'Fuck you too, Gerald.' 
 
 The commandant raised his weary head then, and alighted from his chair smoothly and deftly, as though he had n't been sitting bent over his books and letters for so many hours past, hoping. 
 
 He walked to the window, just beyond the glow of his reading lamp, where the darkness of the night seeped in, and seemed to fight at all times for a space it once called its own, and would again, it knew, in time. He gazed out the window into the courtyard, the skeleton trees' branches being whipped about wildly in the howling wind, the crescent moon casting a pale shadow after the fountain. His headache appeared to resolve entirely, and despite the dark, I swear to my eyes he almost smiled. 
 
'Fuck us all.' 
 
 Somewhere between the rise and fall of the wind, I began to hear them, far away; approaching ever closer. 
 
 The screaming. 
 
 Fucking ribbons.
