A coward and a liar

She felt a distant flicker of guilt at Noor's reaction. Still so apart from her own body, Fable found herself frustrated - she should care more. She should comfort her. But she'd been carved out from the inside, nothing left to give. Truly, she just wanted to sleep. A long, deep, restful sleep. Maybe she could sleep forever. Fable made a small, sad noise when Noor hit the wall and cried out from wrenching the wound in her side, but that was the most she could muster. Her eyes were already too sore from crying. There wasn't any moisture left in her body to spare.

Although she was shell shocked, physically she was in better condition than Noor. As empty as she felt, maybe this was also better than the terrible, blind fear that had sunk its fangs into Noor's neck. Fable didn't blame her for her reaction: they had all been reduced to a miserable pile of frantic impulses the moment that the worm had attacked. "No running," she rasped. "Dead. It's dead." She couldn't possibly conceive that there had been more than the one worm her group had fought. The idea of multiple beneath the Earth had fled to the outer reaches of possible in her mind. All she assumed was that Noor had seen the one they'd fought before the cave collapsed and had been injured in the fray.

"We'll walk out of here together. Lean on me," she said, her words halting and unsteady. Fable leaned down to gently nudge Noor's cheek, trying to stand tall and steady for her. She needed to breathe fresh air before she could even consider debriefing on what had occurred.
"Speech"