To prevent the screams, they punctured her lungs. Rope layered rope as they bound her hands. Spears went through flesh and bone to immobilize her, to occupy her. The onlookers wept and the mountain of corpses grew. The pole stood proud, the pile of wood ready. The sharp tang of gasoline gives way to the hungry licking of the flame. Her fists clenched. Her bones ached. She melted, flesh sloughing off muscle, hair catching ablaze, eyes bursting. She died there, burned at the stake, unable to even cry.
They burned her for a week, taking turns hiking into the forest to chop more logs for the bonfire. They stirred her bones and then her ashes, ensuring that no scrap of flesh survived. Even as the other bodies stacked up besides the fire, as they filled pits with them, they never even considered burning the others. Why would they?
The priest blessed her remains. He stood over that which was once her, the grisly scene long since purified of anything biological. He smiled that ungainly sad smile. He stretched slightly, brushing ash of the smooth black felt of his jacket. He held out a book and read words in a language long dead. He told them that they were safe. He told them that she couldn't hurt anyone anymore.
They nodded and shrugged. They wouldn't be safe until everything she had ever touched was also purified in the flame. But they'd sent for explosives. Such things could be arranged. Such blasphemies must be corrected.
They threw her ashes off a cliff, watching them drift away on the ocean breeze. She drifted for a moment. For just a single moment, the pain stopped and there was just birds singing. And then the waves swallowed her and the rest was white noise.
When Dove was born, her mother wept. The doctor held her aloft and studied the way her hands closed like claws, her chest collapsed in on itself, and how her lungs failed to inhale. Her legs twisted the wrong way. Her bones bent in on themselves. Her heart failed to beat. Her eyes were closed and her lips were curled into an ugly grimace and her mother wept for her child's future was already gone.
They carried her outside to the courtyard where snow gently fell. The crowd gathered in a rough circle, mournful cries in their throats. Deep noises ricocheted off old stones, the walls of the temple crying with them. The doctor held her little body up and shut his eyes. The crowd hummed in unison, whispered their prayers of choice. The mother fell to her knees.
Their circled slowly, as predator around prey, as victims around victors. Their overlapping songs, a cacophony of individuality bled together. The doctor drew his hand down her spine, feeling each bump, each decaying mark. Her skin was too loose, already sloughing off. Each of their frail hands clutched at space, clutched for a reason why.
One by one, they fell silent, until the only noise was the impact of shovel on earth. It crunched as the frozen dirt gave way to muscle. With each straining motion, the hole grew. Hidden behind clouds, the sun crept ever closer to the end. The doctor carried her to each person. Gently, they kissed her withered forehead. Her mother cradled Dove in her arms, weeping. They hadn't yet washed her and the blood left stains on the lips of all present. They didn't seem to notice.
The doctor paused for a single moment above the grave. He laid a single finger upon her lips.
Dove opened her eyes and giggled.
When she was eight, Dove threw herself off the temple roof. She said later that she saw the birds flying and she too wanted to fly. It hadn't occurred to her that her arms were shaped wrong to catch the winds, that her bones were too heavy, that she was human and the gods had cursed the humans to be brought to ground. They explained this to her as best they could.
They showed her how to catch birds by patiently sitting until they learned to trust her. They showed her how to bash its head to kill it and they showed her how to cut it open. Each organ was labeled and demonstrated. Each piece was carefully weighed and considered. They showed Dove the secrets of the flesh, how the right salts can preserve it and how fire can rend it and how easily it parts in the face of a blade. She looked at the diagrams in old books, the careful labeling of muscles showing the process by which a wing flaps. She looked at it and wondered how glorious it would be to fly.
"You see, Dove," said her father, "You're not a bird. You're a human."
"Then why do you call me Dove?" she asked.
"Because you're as pretty as one," said her father as he kissed her forehead.
"Okay dad," said Dove. "Okay."
Dove smiled then because she was not a human. Humans don't laugh after an impact shatters every bone in their body, blood pooling from punctured skin. They don't slowly pull themselves back together, climbing shakily to their feet, enjoying the sensation of the pain. Humans don't throw themselves off the roof again and again and again. Humans feel the pain and stop. Humans don't realize the impact itself was a joy.
In distant cities, beneath towers that broke open the sky, the great machines hummed. They glowed their unearthly light and hissed softly. They were noticing things. They noticed everything. Each and every motion of wind and wave was subject to their inquiries. They studied the world and saw things out of place.
In a far away sky, a bird fell upon a child, claws out. The child made no motion, gave no protest. It hung limply as the bird climbed, dangling into the air. The child had no history. It had died just as suddenly as it had appeared.
In a deep ocean, a whale screamed as bullets peppered its flank. It was the last of its kind. This would be the last recording of its song.
In a nearby building, the lights flickered and the people cheered. The machines spewed their cash like blood from a wound and the circling hounds brayed. The joyful cheers gave way to panicked screams and the slaughter brought back balance.
Near a distant mountain, a roving doctor was turned away. There was a miracle child up the mountain, whose touch knitted together flesh and brought breath to stilled lungs. A child who took no payment but joy, who turned away none but the cruel.
The machines saw millions of things and chose the child. The child was worthy of the machine's attention. It was worthy of their dread masters, who lurked in smokey rooms of silk and golden liquids.
It was worthy because it sounded like blasphemy.
The wind whistled in the trees. It was a cold day, cutting through the dull fabric of their coats. In the distance, a bird cawed. Slowly, the commander lowered his gun and pulled the trigger. Dove's mother screamed as she collapsed, clutching her leg. The harsh gloves released Dove's shoulders and she ran to her mother. She sobbed even as she knitted the metal back out, as she bid the blood clean itself and reverse course. She clung to her mother as she climbed back to her feet and glared.
"Yeah," said the priest. "That's blasphemy."
The commander raised a single fist. The soldiers raised their guns.
The residents of the temple got one bullet each. The villagers did too.
Dove refused to die. They shot her until she was more metal than girl and bits of her were strewn all over the yard. They shot her until it was impossible to pick out the scraps of her from the blades of grass. They shot her until their guns were empty. And when she sat up after that, they turned to the priest.
"Fire," he said. "We'll burn the blasphemy from her flesh. We'll purify her like so."
The screams haunted them until they thought to stab her lungs.
Her ashes hung in the air. Dove wasn't in them any more. She was in every single breath of air, every single body she'd ever touched. Each time she knit the flesh, she knit herself into them. She crashed back to the world and found herself once more. She was unkillable. She was more alive than she'd ever been.
The piles of corpses shifted slightly. She was waking up.