Desmond opened his eyes slowly, against the sun's rays that burned his tired retinas.
His head was spinning slightly.
He felt like he was on a piece of wood floating in the middle of the ocean. Lost.
Alone, standing still. But at the same time in constant motion.
His guts were churning. But he had the feeling that there was nothing to throw up in his guts. Not anymore, at least.
He felt anything but good. If he had his way, he would close his eyes and go back to sleep. Rest and recuperate. Rest was essential. But... he wasn't lying in bed in his new home. He had been asleep on a pile of rubble. And what surrounded him wasn't four walls, but a sky tinged with red, and the 'corpse' of a city decomposing in the sun.
Nothing but ruins, as far as the eye could see.
Ruins and the ruined, of course.
Multiple traces of blood. Body parts torn off. Arms here, legs there.
Near him, he saw a heart still beating.
It was the most human and recognisable part of the person that heart belonged to. What was next to it... was a mass of bloody, shapeless flesh, which not even his own mother would have been able to recognise.
He felt like vomiting again.
Desmond put his hands to his mouth.
They were trembling.
Weakness. He couldn't afford to show weakness.
Because if he did, he would be eaten alive. The world was not kind. He knew that. He'd known it ever since…
This had to be a dream, right?
Same old dream. The day of his rebirth.
The ruins. The dead. The wailing of those who wish they were dead.
A sky tinged with red. Burning with the souls of the damned.
This was... the same old scene, relived over and over again in his nightmares, the only thing he seemed to be able to dream about.
Wasn't it?
This was it, wasn't it?
Desmond rose from his bed of rubble.
Slowly. With effort. He hadn't noticed until he started to move, but it was bad.
His whole body burned with pain. It protested his efforts vehemently.
Desmond looked around, and soon came to the conclusion that....
Although it was the most attractive idea, this couldn't be it. The city was in ruins. But even so, it wasn't hard to see that the streets were too wide.
And the buildings were too big.
Many were broken and scattered on the ground. But others he could not see. The intact ones seemed to skim the sky. Buildings that brushed the sky… And streets designed... for the passage of automobiles. This was not the place where Desmond Orosco had been reborn, but a city of the Empire.
What little was left of it, at least.
And anyway...
Desmond had to admit he didn't feel like he was dreaming. He had no idea how he'd ended up here or what he'd been doing before. There was a black gap in his memory. But he could worry about that later. First of all, he had to focus. Find his people… And then… Then, they would try to get out of this. Whatever it was…
"Hello! Is anyone there?"
His voice echoed through the ruins and faded into nothingness. He only realized then, but, at some point... silence had fallen.
Suddenly, he seemed to be the only living being in these bloodstained ruins...
But, it couldn't be true.
"Mum, where are you?"
He didn't understand why they were back in the Empire. He couldn't understand.
But, even in the worst of times, in his most confused and desperate moments, there was one thing he could always count on.
That his mum would be by his side.
So...
"Mum! It's me!"
There was no answer.
"Are you there?"
No answer, but...
But nothing.
Desmond put his hands to his head, covering his face. He took a deep breath. If he had intended to calm down, it didn't work at all. In fact, by the time he dropped his hands again, he was even more nervous.
And angry.
There was so much rage inside him, always, for one reason or another, it seemed.
Desmond wandered into the ruins of the city, searching for his mother, searching for his loved ones.
Looking for survivors, so he can understand the situation, at least.
Looking for... anything.
He would settle for anything.
——
You didn't want to push your luck. Luck was a bad bitch.
But Abigail couldn't help but think it had been too easy. Sow chaos among the enemies, those golden masks, and run out the door.
Abigail was grateful, of course. No matter what. Or why.
"What was that? What the hell was that...?"
The girl was as confused as she was.
Scared, even. Intellectually speaking, Abigail understood why. It was the natural reaction to a terrifying and mysterious power like the one Christina had just displayed.
Her heart, however, didn't understand.
Her first instinct was that it was no big deal. She should have seen it and forgotten it.
Abigail, indeed, had not been slow to forget it.
Desmond's life was at stake. Her whole world. She didn't have time for trifles like that. She didn't care what the hell she'd done or, for that matter, why this was the first time she'd seen Christina use something like that even though she'd been in two dangerous situations, fighting alongside the girl.
It only mattered to her that she had used it.
That, when she'd needed it, Christina had provided an escape route.
What the hell else did Abigail need to know?
"How long is it going to last?" Amy asked.
That was a more pertinent question.
The longer the effect would last, the longer they'd take to recover, then the more time they'd have to escape, and...
Abigail couldn't say.
She couldn't even say it in her head. She was too scared at the prospect of losing... everything. Everything.
She had come so far, only to have it all taken away from her.
In the cruelest way possible, on top of that.
She didn't want to... have to watch him die slowly... Not being able to do anything... Just resigning herself...
She didn't want to see him die in any way, but, if it had to happen, why like this?
Hadn't he... Hadn't he suffered enough?
"Not too much. The effect depends on the distance from me," Charlotte said, explaining. The girl's voice brought her out of her thoughts.
"I see." Abigail forced herself to speak. She couldn't say why, really. She swallowed. "Anyway, we have to hurry."
Abigail, still running, of course, looked down at the boy in her arms.
He showed no signs of improvement.
Quite the opposite.
And frankly, she couldn't say she was surprised or that it would increase her concern. Because it was already at its peak. For one thing... she hadn't thought for a moment, even though they hadn't tested the poison until today, that Desmond could come out of this without help.
That was a fact.
They had to get him help. Or he wouldn't get out of here alive.
She'd had a long life. For all her suffering, Abigail couldn't say that she hadn't been loved. Or that she hadn't had people dear to her. But… Desmond was different from all the others. He didn't want anything from her. He didn't want her immortality, he didn't even want her body, for that matter. He was... genuine. That was the best word to describe him.
And what was between them had only just begun. It could become... so much more. But not if it was cruelly taken from him, here and now. Plucking a flower before it bloomed.
A flower unique in the world, she was sure.
No matter how long she lived, she wouldn't get another chance.
She'd known all along.
That Desmond was the one. The one she had been waiting for for two thousand years.
The only one who could do this. The only one who could save her.
So... It couldn't end here.
They ran and ran.
It seemed like a never ending road.That they would never find the exit. It felt like she was being buried alive, with every passing second.
So much could be born/flower from this. But only if she saved him.
And if not, the dreams of what could be would remain in her imagination.
Yes. It really did seem like a never ending maze. To make matters worse, Christina stopped suddenly, ducking her head.
It took her several seconds to realize, stop and turn to look.
She shouldn't have done that.
She should have kept running, really.
But Christina was an important person to Desmond. If they lost her, if anything happened to her, when Desmond woke up he would be sad. And she didn't want to hurt her little boy.
He'd cried enough. She didn't want him to shed a single tear more.
She just wanted to see him smile.
He deserved it.
So... that was the only reason she stopped, but...
"What's the matter with you?"
There's a limit to everything.
"We don't have time to waste. You better have a good reason."
The most important thing was, at the end of the day, Desmond. If her foolishness endangered Desmond's life, which hung in the balance, she'd abandon her without once looking back.
Because she knew her priorities.
"No!" Amy screamed.
Thinking, surely, that she was going to stab her friend in the neck, Amy stepped between them, raising her hands.
Abigail couldn't stop herself in time, so the knife went through one of the girl's hands from side to side. She wouldn't be able to use that hand for the rest of the escape... problematic, if they were caught. And they were losing quite a bit of time.
But she registered that only vaguely.
She was... out of her mind, even if she didn't like to admit it.
Abigail yanked the knife from her hand and shoved the girl against the wall. Amy collapsed, bringing her unbroken hand around the wound, squeezing.
The hole was such that you could see from one side to the other.
Blood, very copious of course. Like big red snakes.
Abigail advanced towards Christina. Without letting go of Desmond at any point. Of course she didn't. Nor dropping him. Even with one hand only, she wasn't that clumsy. Still armed with the knife, which she had raised.
She was ready to act.
——
Desmond was wandering through the ruins of this city. Occasionally calling his mother, his friends and comrades. He never received an answer. And in all the time he'd been walking, he'd found absolutely nothing.
Desmond wasn't even coming across the dead any more. Or parts of a dead person. Just bloodstains in the ruins. That seemed to be the only trace of the thousands of people who had lived in this city. People. It was strange to refer to them as people, when for so long they had been nothing more than animals to him.
But Abigail had told him the truth.
That they were no different. That they could be as human as they were... and as monstrous.
She had opened his eyes.
There were... innocent people in the Empire too. People who didn't deserve to die. So... this devastation should shake his heart, shouldn't it?
Maybe it was the sheer scale of it. But Desmond felt no pain.
Not even fear for his loved ones. As if his brain still hadn't caught up with events… Now, more than anything, he felt like... numb.
Just blood.
As if everyone had mysteriously disappeared. As if... he was the only being, dead or alive, for miles and miles… He didn't even hear animals. Birds chirping or… Or something. Desmond climbed a hill of rubble carefully. In a situation like this, the first thing to do was to find a high place, right? A spot that would allow him to get a wider view of his situation and perhaps clear up his confusion.
Yes. Yes. It made sense.
When he got to the top of that hill, however, he saw nothing that could help him. Just more of the same. Unfortunately. Which didn't mean he was never going to find anything. Of course. Too soon to give up. Desmond took a deep breath, and took a step forward. He stumbled like an idiot, too distracted by his own thoughts, and rolled the rest of the way.
He ended up landing on some debris that dug into his ribs.
Desmond let out a sharp intake of breath.
"Fuck. Just my luck."
He brought his hand to the point of impact, convinced that it hadn't just been a hard blow. Convinced it had penetrated skin and flesh.
But it hadn't. There was no wound, not even a small one.
A lot of pain, but from brute force. Nothing sharp. He was fine.
So far so good.
Desmond got to his feet and continued forward.
But not for too long, because he heard a strange noise. Enough to catch his attention, enough to make him stop suddenly. Though he supposed any noise would have had the same effect. For it had been too long since he'd heard anything but his own breathing and the whistling of the wind.
"What was that?"
Good question.
The answer manifested itself before his eyes soon after.
Before, the wind had been whistling. Now it began to howl. Violent, almost knocking back, literally.
But that was only the beginning.
Bits of ice rose up in a circle, with each passing second spinning faster and faster, to the point where, even to his superhuman sight, they were just a blur.
An ice storm.
A storm that washes away everything in its path.
Things, even people.
It wasn't hard to imagine what would happen to his body if the storm caught up with him. What little was left of him.
Would he be able to survive it? He wasn't sure.
It wasn't an immediate concern, though. It was far away. At the moment it was far away.
And it was only causing damage to the skeleton of the city.
As the ice storm raged, debris joined the chunks of ice that whirled and whirled. The debris was gathered, crushed and then spat out in even smaller pieces.
A shower of debris and metal that, despite its size, was going fast enough to kill a normal person.
Surely.
Desmond swallowed.
Maybe it already had. Maybe it had already killed a lot of people.
Maybe... that unnatural storm was responsible for the ruins he was surrounded by.
He didn't know what to think.
Ice. For a moment, it occurred to him that Amy might be behind it.
It occurred to him to head in the direction of that ice storm, in case Amy and the others were fighting somewhere in these ruins and needed his help.
But no.
Amy was not, she was sure, strong enough to create something like that.
What's more...
Would any human being be strong enough to do that?
Would Abigail, who could control all the elements, even be?
No.
Most likely not.
The ice storm destabilized one of the few buildings left standing. Desmond watched it collapse before his eyes.
It shook the earth so hard... Desmond thought the whole world was shaking.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Desmond definitely was.
His legs shook and he almost fell to his knees. Almost.
"I've never seen anything like it. This really looks like...
The end of the world, he thought. But he held his tongue. He kept it to himself.
Because it seemed too terrible a thing to utter out loud.
Humans were killing each other all the time. They destroyed buildings, they burned forests, they harmed nature.
And there was no end to it. There could be no end to it.
But... The world was a constant.
The world will always be there, no matter how many corpses are piled up, how many mountains and mountains of corpses.
The sun and the stars will continue to illuminate this planet and mother nature, even though human beings will manage to kill each other until there's not a single one left. Not a single one.
The world was a constant. On which they could all depend.
Or so... it should be... at least...
But, faced with such a horrible sight, he was no longer so sure.
His heart filled with fear. Irrational, perhaps, but he had never been so afraid. Never. Not once.
Nor had he ever felt so... alone.
Desmond ran off in another direction, to avoid the ice storm that was approaching, slowly but surely, sweeping away everything in its path.
Amy hadn't created that ice storm. No way had she.
And she wasn't or had been anywhere near it. Because then... As if a safety mechanism had been activated in his brain, the thought was cut off completely. Suddenly and violently.
Soon after, not only could he not finish the thought.
He couldn't even be sure what he had been thinking about.
He told himself he had just been lost in thought.
Desmond ran and ran. Hard, determined to survive. Ten years ago, he had been helpless on his own.
He had been a scared, wounded child, with his fate in the hands of others.
And he had simply been lucky that his fate had fallen into the hands of the best possible person.
But now things are different.
Now he was strong.
Strong, strong, strong, strong, strong!
And he would survive!
He couldn't escape the disaster. The ice storm was far away now. So far away that he couldn't even hear it.
He would see it, no doubt, if he looked back.
The storm and its effects on the ground. All around. But he could no longer hear it.
Still, it turned out that wasn't the only thing he had to worry about.
At one point, he staggered and thought he had been in a hurry. Fear.
But then he looked down.
Then he saw, with his own eyes, that the ground was opening up beneath his feet. That wasn't the only thing. Of course it wasn't. As before, that was only the beginning.
Fire.
Like a volcano.
There was fire burning under the ground. It boiled in the hole that grew wider and wider. As terrible and certain a way to die as the ice he had left behind.
Desmond reacted and barely avoided falling into the hole.
Lying on the ground, he bemoaned his fate. More to release stress than anything else.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit! This can't be happening! This can't be happening. Right?"
He ran, as fire poured out of the hole in the ground like blood from a wound.
He had seen an ice storm, he had seen the ground spit fire. As if that wasn't enough, it got worse.
Now it was the earth's turn.
Randomly, with unnatural speed, chunks of the ground were rising and falling.
Creating unevenness.
More chaos and destruction. He could simply be running down the street, only to have the street turn into a 'wall' a few seconds later.
That is, from running to climbing, in the blink of an eye.
The terrain was in constant flux.
And the wind, the wind was like a gigantic beast that gripped the world, that shook it.
It was like... Like the fury of nature.
Normal people, normal mages, it would be impossible for them to survive in a situation like this. Even he, with all his advantages, was getting desperate.
Desmond didn't understand anything. He didn't understand why he was here in the first place.
He could only pray that his loved ones were far away.
If any of them were here, it would be Abigail.
Because she couldn't die. He couldn't lose her, no matter what happened. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.
Abigail was the constant he could and did depend on.
Tired, bruised, his body full of wounds, of bleeding cuts, Desmond reached the seashore.
He didn't even want to think about the state of the inside of his body.
But... he could taste the taste of blood in his throat. That was saying a lot in itself. It was enough for him. He was out. He was out of the death trap that was that ruined city.
That was the important thing. And now... he would be back with his people.
And everything would be all right again.
Desmond waded out into the sea, without really thinking about it, until the water was almost up to his waist. He stopped then because he saw someone floating in the water.
Only one arm, one shoulder and long hair were visible.
The rest was underwater.
Desmond swallowed hard. Because he had a feeling that... he knew who that person was. Even if he didn't want to admit it. Not even to himself.
But it couldn't be.
It couldn't be true, what he was thinking.
But he grabbed the floating person and turned them around, and saw that it was her, after all.
Abigail. Dead. Something told him those eyes would never open again.
Death is death, whispered an inner voice, dark and insidious. Desmond took several staggering steps backwards. Uselessly, of course.
One couldn't escape death. No matter how hard he ran.
Eventually, the moment came for everyone.
Looking back, he had been... trying to escape for ten years. He should have died that day.
But Abigail had come to change a fate already written.
So everything else... had been borrowed time, come to think of it.
He had never felt so empty, so desolate. But his eyes were dry. He was too crushed to cry. He couldn't... he couldn't get it out.
Borrowed time. A miracle... It was already more than he could ask for, to have come this far...
So he supposed...he should be grateful....
He turned around.
He saw two people floating on the blood red sea.
This time, he didn't need to turn around to see who they were. For it was more than obvious at first glance.
Charlotte, Amy.
Even Christina was there.
All dead.
All the people he had cared about... dead. They would be swept away by the currents of time and disappear, forgotten. Like all people in the end.
How banal existence is.
How banal and ridiculous.
If it had to end this way, he thought clearly, I wish I'd never been born in the first place.
Desmond began to scream.
——
The Witch was quite strong.
In a disdainful way, she had managed to knock her to the ground. She was strong... that, or she herself was too weak. True, she felt strange, at least.
She felt dizzy. Like she was floating.
Even with her head down, her gaze between her legs, she couldn't shake the feeling.
Weird.
Something was happening to her. Or had happened to her.
But this was no time to think about trivial things like that. The one they called the Witch, with good reason, was in front of her.
The target, unconscious, in her arms.
He had already received several doses of the poison.
But she couldn't allow him to get help, because then, maybe, he could be saved.
They couldn't allow that.
For the sake of the whole kingdom.
So she had to stand up and act... But her legs were shaking. It was as if she had been punched hard in the sternum. It had left her... unbalanced, barely able to breathe.
It wasn't just her body that was wrong. She wasn't sure, to be frank, how she'd gotten here. How she'd ended up in a situation like this.
The Witch approached her, knife in hand. That girl...
She had stopped it from being used against her. And that was why she had received a stab in the hand. She had taken it instead.
To save her life.
That... it didn't make sense. She was her enemy. Something was wrong here.
Something was very wrong. But she had no idea where to start. No, it was clear... because where she should start...
In the first place, who am I?
She put her hands to her head.
"Don't hurt her! You heard what she was saying. They've done something to her, it's not her fault," that girl said. That Amy.
What the hell was she talking about?
"I'm not going to kill her. Just put her to sleep."
What was going on here? Christina put her hands to her head, squeezing hard.
Christina?
That was her name?
Somehow or other, in the midst of her confusion she was knocked out before she could react.
——
Just when she thought things couldn't get any worse, this had to happen. First, Charlotte had gone... crazy, or something. Starting talking like she was somebody else. Trying to grab Desmond. And Abigail... gods, she thought Abigail was going to execute Charlotte right there.
Right in front of her eyes.
A person Charlotte had spoken to very little, but who had been kind and honest with her. A person who didn't deserve it.
A person who surely wasn't acting under her own free will in the first place.
Amy had believed it too, evidently.
That's why she'd taken a knife through her hand....
No, wait.
If only...
If she'd only meant to knock her unconscious, as she'd said afterwards, then she wouldn't have attacked her with the sharp side of the knife. Had she... Had she really been trying to kill her? Even if she had come to her senses afterwards? Charlotte felt a shudder at how close it had been. But more than that, she had to worry about what was coming. They had wasted too much time fighting each other.
Now the golden masks were here.
They were speeding forward like bullets.
——
Those bastards had finally caught them.
They were fast, Abigail had to admit. Between those whose respective affinities allowed them to move faster and more fluidly and those who could help their companions do so, they were like a human bullet heading her way.
A huge bullet.
Or a gigantic rock drill. But no matter how strong the drill was, they couldn't bring her down.
Even if she was a small rock... She'd seen mountains rise and fall, and she was still here.
This time would be no different.
Much to her chagrin, Abigail passed Desmond to that shitty little princess. Because Amy had her hands full.
The other option was to leave him lying on this floor.
This dirty, damp floor. Unacceptable, at least to her. She couldn't let him get dirty.
If he got too wet, he could get sick. That was the last thing he needed right now. Of course it was.
Abigail was aware that her thoughts weren't entirely coherent. She felt... she couldn't say how she felt. This situation defied words.
Abigail shook her head.
The group of golden masks, like a giant rock drill, continue to close in on them.
Abigail took a few steps forward. She held her hands out to her sides.
Now she would show them why they called her the Witch.
——
Adam thought it would be futile. That, as he struggled to regain control of the situation, they had plenty of time to escape.
As it turned out, however, he was wrong.
All five were in sight. In front of their very eyes.
The Witch, the target... and the queen (because she was a queen for all intents and purposes, it didn't matter if on paper her title was princess) they were sworn to protect.
He didn't like this, of course. Having to attack.
He was a loyal servant of the crown. He couldn't call himself a model citizen... but someone had to get his hands dirty so that others could remain model citizens in peace.
So, as much as he hated this, what else could he do?
They had to ensure the death of the target. Of this Desmond Orosco.
And then of the witch who had a contract with the boy, of course. So that she couldn't corrupt or empower others in the same way.
With her it would be more difficult.
But all in good time.
He was afraid that what happened before would happen again. That... nightmarish madness. But upon arrival, they found that girl, Christina, unconscious. For some reason.
All the factors were in their favor, now. It was like a divine message.
Telling them that this was the right thing to do.
That they had to go all the way.
And they would.
——
Abigail was fed up, to be honest.
Sick and tired of it all. At the same time they wanted her, but they underestimated her. They thought they could handle her. They believed that, no matter how many others had fallen along the way, pursuing the same thing, they would be the exception.
How deluded human beings could be.
Now... Abigail would give them a demonstration of the power they craved.
"Out of the water," she ordered, as she stepped into it.
She kept her eye on Desmond.
To make sure Charlotte was handling him well. If she dared to drop him…
She wouldn't be able to control herself.
They were heavily outnumbered, and that counted, regardless.
The advantage they had, among other things, was the place where the fight would take place. Ironically. They had chosen this place because it was the most convenient for them.
For hiding. For carrying out their activities in secret.
But... this was a sewer.
Water flowed everywhere. And she controlled all the elements. The whole power of nature.
Human beings weren't on her side. But nature was.
Abigail smiled as if mocking herself.
Many of the golden masks were touching the water. Or at least they were wet.
Abigail crouched down, dipped her hand in the water and sent out a pulse of electricity. Last time she used it to power the lift. But of course, it wasn't just for something so specific.
It was useful for many things.
And nobody was faster than electricity. Not even Desmond, no matter how hard he pushed himself, even if he did it at the risk of his life.
So the result was inevitable. The electricity traveled down, towards its targets.
It affected her too, of course.
But she could take it. She had sent it as if it were... a wave, she thought. The voltage would be small, at first, growing more powerful as it went on.
Becoming capable of killing.
Abigail recovered from the death quickly, she'd barely notice.
But only barely.
Even a few seconds could decide the outcome of a battle. So she had attacked that way, judging that she couldn't afford a few seconds in darkness, even only a few seconds.
The screams began. Many fell, writhing like rats with their tails caught in a trap.
But that alone made no noticeable impact on the number of their enemies.
There were simply too many of them.
And the screams and deaths of their comrades served as a warning. For electricity had a long path to travel. They couldn't outrun the electricity, but they could get out of the way, given enough time. Or at least protect themselves. The attack had been less effective than she had hoped. But quite a few had fallen, and that was enough for her.
She'd never been so optimistic as to expect them all to drop in a single attack. No matter how strong it was.
"Fuck," Amy whispered.
Well, this had only just begun.
But they didn't have to stare like idiots.
"What are you waiting for? Run!"
She didn't like the idea, of course.
If she had her way, she wouldn't turn away from Desmond for a second. Of course she would. Especially in a situation like this.
But she had to accept reality.
These two couldn't hold back the horde.
She wasn't doing it to protect Desmond's friends. His most precious people. She was doing it because they wouldn't be able to buy her enough time.
So there was only one option left.
She could only do it with her own hands. As always.
If Abigail had learned anything, it was that life had a way of messing up even the simplest and safest plans, which you couldn't see how they could go wrong.
And it went wrong because of the following: she noticed Desmond opening his eyes.
Breathing again.
But as much as he had come back to life, he wasn't any better. He remained unnaturally pale, his face covered with sweat.
His eyes were open, but not all the way. And they were unfocused.
They looked nowhere and everywhere at the same time. He wasn't hurt. But it wasn't hard for her to picture his face covered in blood.
It wasn't hard at all to imagine that his breathing would stop and never start again.
Never again.
"Run!" Abigail shouted a second time.
But, contrary to her plans, she ran with the two of them.
The golden masks, those who were left standing, followed behind them. Abigail did her best to hold them back, to drive them away. She had come to the conclusion, just from seeing Desmond's half"open eyes, that throwing electricity around was too risky.
But he still had plenty of tools to fall back on.
Water, fire.
Earth, air.
As Abigail had said, the force of nature was on her side.
But... numbers were not.
No matter how many she took out of the fight, whether she killed them or not, they seemed to have replacements in reserve. In other words, the wall of enemies wasn't diminishing in the slightest, or that was the impression it gave.
Her heart pounded painfully against her chest. As if it was going to open its way out.
He's not going to make it, an inner voice whispered. He's going to die and you know it.
Abigail gritted her teeth.
No.
Just no. She refused to accept that. As long as she could do something... Yes, as long as she could do something about it, she would never allow it.
And she always could. Because she was eternal.
It was the first time in two thousand years she'd thought of her curse as a good thing. Damn, what twists and turns life took.
Even in a life as long as hers, she supposed there was always something new to find. That there could be something... even just around the corner.
If you hang on just a little longer. If you're willing to keep going.
It's not like me to think like that at all, Abigail told herself with a sardonic grin.
Due to the sheer number of enemies, soon she was forced to simply defend herself. She had neither the time nor the space to attack. Her hands were already full with simply defending herself against the attacks.
Defending them all, because Desmond wasn't in his arms, but in the arms of that girl.
She had tried. She was good and she had powers like no other person in this world.
But the numerical advantage was simply too overwhelming.
If this were a normal situation, she and Desmond would have stayed and fought, and they would have been dispatched quietly.
Without breaking a sweat.
But this was not a normal situation by any means. She was under a time limit. It was advancing, invisible, with every second.
As a consequence, she paid no attention to anything other than the battle and its flow. She didn't even give the terrain a proper glance...
And, before they knew it, they were between a rock and a hard place.
Not literally. But it was getting pretty close, actually.
Their only way out was through the golden masks. She couldn't find a way around them, through them, over them, or anything else.
Behind them and to the sides were only walls.
She'd lost her way, and now....
Now, would Desmond pay for it? Her blood burned at the mere thought.
If anyone had to pay, let it be her. She had... she had cursed him. She'd put him on this path, so....
No, pay for what in the first place?
There was no hit they had to pay for. Even these enemies had admitted it outright. That they had done nothing wrong, that they were after them simply because of the threat they might pose in the future.
Because they were too powerful.
Because they weren't human enough for their tastes.
That's right. None of them had to pay. Nothing about this even resembled justice.
I... With these hands...
They rushed at them fearlessly, despite everything, seeing them cornered.
Abigail screamed at the top of her lungs and began to spit fire. She threw it by pointing with her hands, from her palm, she threw it by opening her mouth and spitting, literally spitting, fire like a dragon from the ancient legends.
She wouldn't give up. Not until the last moment.
A blizzard of ice rose up around them, and at first she thought it was an enemy attack. But then she saw that Amy had gone to work.
Creating ice, sending it around them, creating a kind of protective shield.
Against which the golden masks crashed. Violently.
Shaking the whole structure. No matter how strong the shield proved to be, sooner or later it would fall to these onslaughts. And even supposing it would hold up forever like nothing else in the world, not even her, what the hell does it matter? They were fighting to get out. Not to survive. There was a difference. Huge.
With this thing they could only buy time. Which was counterproductive. Every extra second they could get would only bring Desmond closer to a final death. Final.
She took another look at her boy.
His eyes were still open. And he was alive. But he was hardly conscious.
His eyes were like trembling flames about to go out.
They looked nowhere and everywhere at once. Perhaps he was seeing things none of them could see.
Abigail had seen too many people die, not to mention the times she herself had died, not to recognise the signs.
And she didn't hold out hope that Desmond would come out of this, as usual.
No.
The poison hadn't been tested until tonight, but it worked.
It would serve exactly the purpose for which it was designed. If they didn't get him help quickly.
If they didn't manage to save him. And she...
She realized.
Finally, Abigail thought of the first thing that should have occurred to her in a situation like this. Hadn't she promised?
"I'm going to end this," Abigail said.
"What are you going to do?" Amy asked. "Whatever it is, you'd better do it fast. This isn't... going to hold much longer."
That's true. She could hear it cracking.
But that's none of her business.
And she hadn't been addressing them in the first place. No. She had simply been talking to herself.
Abigail reached out to Desmond.
To his sweet face.
To her surprise, she was interrupted. Not by Charlotte or Amy. Neither of them could see in the dark.
Desmond himself did.
Gripping her wrist tightly. With what little strength he had.
Not enough to really stop her, that was for sure. But... she'd stopped in surprise. Because of that. Not anything else.
Desmond was too weak to really stop her.
That fact brought tears to his eyes.
Strange, that it had only been now... As if she'd had no other reason to cry all this time. Ever since she saw him tied to that chair. His state... As if she'd not... had... had... reason enough...
"No," Desmond said. Quietly, but with surprising firmness.
How had he known? How had he realized what she intended to do? Abigail had never told him what the process involved.
But... perhaps she shouldn't be so surprised.
Surely ever since he'd learned that she could already do this... end it all, he'd imagined it. over and over again. He'd stayed awake thinking about it.
Abigail swallowed.
She apologized inwardly for not having thought about it until now. For not having considered how he might be feeling for even a second.
She shouldn't listen to him anyway. She should push his hand away, even if she had to do it by force. She should touch him and... do what she should have done all along.
But... But...
"Desmond, you're going to die. If I don't do this, you're going to die."
"Still... no." He begged her. "Please."
And he kept begging silently, with those eyes like foggy glass. Even on the brink of death. Even knowing what he meant to her.
He had used his meager strength to say that.
Although it was quite possible that these were the last moments of his life, he had chosen to use them in this way.
He...
Abigail lowered her hand, finally.
What bothered her was not that. It was that she wasn't sure why she had done it. Because Desmond had begged her to?
Or for herself.
I don't understand myself anymore, she thought with a certain note of... desperation?
Desmond dropped his hand as soon as she withdrew it. He had gathered enough strength to grab her arm, to stop what was about to happen.
But, as soon as he thought the danger had passed, he couldn't for a second longer.
She didn't... she didn't believe.
To be honest with herself, she wouldn't do that. She couldn't do that.
Not after looking into his eyes, having him look back at her, and hearing him say what he said. She just wouldn't be able to do it.
"Desmond is...?" Amy asked. Only she didn't have the courage to finish the question. The truth was, she couldn't blame her.
"He's not okay, but he's still fighting."
Just like me.
"What were you going to do?"
"Give him my immortality," Abigail confessed. "That's... no longer an option."
So she had to think of something. When the ice barrier, which formed a circle around them, fell, the golden masks pounced on them like a pack of hungry wolves.
Even if they could win, they had no time to finish the fight.
That was the problem.
The weather.
That had been the problem all along, hadn't it?
Only she'd always had too much time. And now she had too little. And increasingly less.
Ironic. Bitterly ironic.
"In a little while, I'm going to make it explode," Amy said. "That'll take a few of them off our backs. I hope so. Then run to... There was a ladder. Behind them. A red ladder. I think we got sidetracked somewhere along the way. But going up can't be bad, can it?"
No. As long as they went up, they could be reasonably sure they were going in the right direction.
A red ladder. Rusty, surely.
She hadn't noticed it. But of course, if she'd been paying attention, they would never have ended up between a rock and a hard place to begin with. If this costs him his life, it's my fault. No, it's my fault from the start. Because I should have protected him. Because I should never have let this happen in the first place.
"Okay," Amy said. "On three."
The countdown began.
"One..."
She had a feeling that, if Amy didn't hurry, the ice shield would explode prematurely. And inwards instead of outwards. Which would practically ensure the death of everyone but her.
"Two..."
"Pass him to me," Abigail commanded. Charlotte didn't understand, not at first, but then silently handed it to her boy. He was back in her arms. He should never have left them. Speaking of bad ideas.
Now that she stopped to think about it, this defense had been a fucking bad idea.
Except for the fact that it had allowed her not to make 'that' mistake. To have time to talk to Desmond. To hear what he really wanted. But... Her stomach flipped. That in itself could also be a mistake. The most terrible mistake of her life, and if there was one thing she knew well, it was making mistakes.
Damn right.
"Three."
The moment of truth had arrived.
Amy exploded the shield, sending sharp shards of ice flying in all directions.
The attack wasn't as effective as one might expect. Because they had already prepared for it.
It was the downside of having a fairly common affinity.
That people could know what to expect and anticipate your moves, even if they hadn't seen much of you in action.
Amy, talented as she was, couldn't fight very differently from the countless others with a similar affinity.
But, as she had said, the goal wasn't to win the fight.
She didn't intend to kill them all. Not yet, anyway.
This attack was only meant to be a distraction. She just had to buy herself some time, and that's what happened.
Abigail and the others ran out into the rain of sharp ice shards.
Deadly rain.
Abigail made sure to shield Desmond with her body. At least she could do this.
The target was the fucking ladder, of course. They had quietly agreed on that.
It didn't take long for the golden masks to recover and go after them. Launching attacks from a distance. Magic and even knives.
They were so desperate to stop them from escaping that they hadn't even allowed themselves to wait for the ice rain to end.
Desperate to snuff out a life... that had done absolutely nothing wrong. And all because they think they are heroes.
To satisfy... a twisted sense of justice.
How angry it made her.
She wished she could strangle each and every one of them personally. If they had been left alone, they would have been no threat to them. Nor to anyone innocent in this kingdom.
But they had to step in.
A ball of fire hit her in the back, passed through her like the tide. Only it burned.
And how.
A good chunk of her shirt was devoured and the skin was scarred as well. She couldn't see it, but she felt the pain and had been burned enough times to imagine the outcome perfectly, just from the sensations.
Abigail staggered and for a moment thought she would lose her balance, that she would end up on the ground.
But she didn't.
She regained her balance and kept going. It wasn't because she was more than used to any kind of pain. Although that was true too.
It was because the pain of the burns was nothing compared to the pain of all the ice chunks stuck through her body.
And the inevitable feeling of dizziness due to the large loss of blood.
The shirt regenerated before she even set foot on the stairs. She was the last to arrive. Not on purpose, as if she was letting them pass before her, risking herself (and by extension Desmond) more.
No.
Abigail was simply the last to arrive. One of the golden masks dared to grab her ankle in an attempt to stop her.
With all other options and tricks exhausted.
Pure desperation. He wanted to physically stop her.
She stopped the attempt with a single thought. He was touching her. So that was all she had to do to set him on fire.
The golden mask, squealing like a lamb with its throat slit, threw itself into the filthy water running down the gutter and rolled around trying to extinguish itself.
Even if the fire didn't kill him, that would end up killing him, most likely.
All that shit getting into his wounds. It would get infected and he'd die a slow, painful, agonizing death...
No, what was she talking about?
He'd get medical attention before that could happen. It was a real shame. But her sadism wouldn't be satisfied that way.
Her shirt had already been returned to its original, pristine state before she reached the top of the stairs.
After she passed, Amy sealed the hole with her magic.
It wouldn't be perfect.
As with the shield, they would eventually, inevitably, tear that layer of ice down.
But it would buy them time, at least.
Some time.
——
They made it outside, to the street.
But not alone. It turned out the rats weren't going to be left squirming in their hole. In the dark.
They came out into the light, even if it was moonlight.
Abigail gritted her teeth and shifted Desmond into Charlotte's arms, again.
"What...?"
"You can get him faster than anyone back to the palace! Opening portal after portal! So fucking move!"
Charlotte looked at the two of them, then at the approaching enemies.
Abigail stepped into the middle of the attack on Desmond. The water hit her in the chest, knocking the wind out of her, knocking her back a couple of feet.
It left grooves in the ground.
But it wasn't that bad. Not much worse than a good punch.
"Run!"
Charlotte finally came to her senses. She turned and ran, no, flew. Slashing portal after portal.
Faster than any of them could be.
Amy and Abigail, side by side, turned to face the enemies.
Two against many. Many. There was Christina, of course. But she didn't know what the hell had happened to her exactly, when she regained consciousness, the girl might be more of a problem than anything else.
As usual. A fucking fantastic situation.
Fire in the sky: END