The Final Day

I wasn't ready to face the day. I'd had a restless night, troubled with countless anxieties and worries. I wasn't sure I had the strength to face what I would find when I left the inn. 'One, two, three...' I started counting. It was all I could do at first. The same fear that gripped me the day before strapped me to my bed. I worried about what I would see when out there. I worried about the girls with Harrison. I'd left them alone in case he had been right and what I was doing had incited the attack the night before. On the morning of the third day, I began to worry more that he hadn't been right and I had left them to die.

There were too many things to fear. Each one was a brick, carelessly tossed on my still body, weighing me down. I was frozen in the old bed. I closed my eyes and pictured my sister. She was maybe thirteen or fourteen at the time, and she held her hand out to me. "It's alright, Mars. I'll take care of everything," she promised. I'd taken her hand then, when I was just an anxious child, and she had been right. Everything was alright. With my eyes still closed I reached out for her. I felt her kind hand in my rough one, and she pulled me out of the fog. The bricks fell away like leaves in Autumn.

I opened my eyes and... no one was there. I was standing in the middle of the room, alone. Still, it felt the same. Like it had when we were girls. "Thank you, Cammy," I whispered to the missing woman. Then I took a step forward. Then another, and another. I had to face the day, fear or not. I had to be Camilla. I collected my grimoire; I was going to need the extra power. Finally, I forced myself to walk down the stairs. When I entered the common area, there wasn't a soul in sight. Livia had been there the first time I'd lived that day, but whatever had changed, she was missing this time.

I worried she was avoiding me but... that didn't make sense. She would have wanted to be there for other customers. I considered taking something from behind the counter to settle my stomach, but anxiety and food have never agreed with me. I shuddered at the thought and fixed my eyes on the door to the inn. I looked back at the stairs. The 'Mars' in me wanted to turn around and hide until the end of the day. But that's why I was trying to leave her behind. I steeled myself and crossed the room, pausing with my hand hovering over the knob.

'It wasn't that bad yet, last time,' I told myself. 'People were missing, but it hadn't collapsed yet. It was just... too quiet.' I took a deep breath, then opened the door. I was immediately assaulted with the smells of wood, fire, and flesh. The burning air strangled me as I walked into the open. My eyes widened as I looked south and saw an ugly stack of black smoke climbing the sky and smothering the city. 'Of course. There were more of them this time, and I wasn't there...' I lamented. I should have realized. I didn't know why they attacked the first night, but I'd known they had. They had waited for night and burned people alive in their homes.

Then they had a full day of 'recruiting' new members to their gray, mindless mob. Of course they had done it again. It had nothing to do with me or Harrison. The inn I was in had been left alone. 'Luna's gift, Marcus must have been one of the people burning homes' I considered. I hadn't known him long but... he was so kind. It wasn't right. Then another thought occurred to me and my face paled. Harrison had been wrong. The Quieted had attacked even after he stopped, and they hadn't attacked me. The smoke was coming from the same direction. It was too far to see if it reached the garden or not, but the girls...

The thought knocked all the hesitation out of me and I ran. It didn't matter if the loop would reset. It didn't matter if the events weren't set in stone. They were children. Brave children. In this loop, they could be suffering, and Camilla would never have allowed that. Of course, she never would have left them in the first place. She wouldn't have spent her time memorizing a sequence of events. She probably wouldn't have to. Even as I made plans to emulate her, I was still me. But I didn't have time to lament over yet another failure. I had to get to Hadley's house.

I was picturing Junia and Millie as I ran, so I missed the signs. The broken windows, the quiet sobbing, the empty streets, and the woman, clawing at her own face in horror. I would become more familiar with all of it over the loops to come, but that time, I was numb to them. I needed to know. So I ran and ran until I had a stitch in my side and sweat gluing my hair to my face. The city bled into itself like chalk on a rainy day as I ran past it. For all my attention to detail and all my desperation to know as much about each loop as I could, I let it flood past me. Fire burned my nostrils as I ran. Not a fresh fire with the promise of danger if I found it, but something far worse. Fire and ash and cold.

When you study the energy and aura of time, you become acutely aware of the small differences it makes. Not just the smells or the light and other obvious things but the pressure in the air. The sounds and the stagnation. Things feel different after time has passed. My entire world was saving those two girls. Those children I had been imposing myself on since I met them, and every little thing I noticed carried a four-word promise. You are too late. Any damage the fire could have done, it already had. Still, I didn't slow. At some point, I stopped passing homes that hadn't been touched by fire. I ran and ran until I stood in the courtyard with Hadley's home. The garden was untouched, as far as I could tell. The gate was open and I could see a glimpse of pristine flower beds, not so much as a footprint marring them.

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Hadley's house, however, was a shell. Like all the other buildings. It was black and collapsed. My eyes were wide. I couldn't have left them behind, why did I leave them behind? Because Harrison could care for them better? Because they might be targeting me? Bullshit. I had abandoned them to death.

'You leave them to keep them safe and you blame yourself. Next time, you'll keep them with you and if something happens, you'll blame yourself.' Something inside of me whispered to me but I was deaf to it. How could I listen, I had left them, with all the information I had, and they had died. They had...

"H-help" a small, feeble voice called. "Help us..." I froze. I blinked. Then I moved. I couldn't be so lucky. There was no way I had been so lucky. I burst into the ruined home, bypassing the door, this time barricaded from the outside, and going through a fallen wall. I scanned the husk of the quaint home, praying for Aethon's grace, begging Luna to stay her hand. I wanted to find the girls alive so, so badly. I saw what must have been Harrison, hunched over by two tall and mysteriously green culms of bamboo. He was dead. Not from the Quiet, and not recently. Near him, a brick fireplace was on the verge of collapse, exerting the pressure of its weight on the tall bamboo plants beside him. They must have been magically enhanced, from Camilla's garden most likely, or they would have long collapsed. When they did, they would crush his body.

I realized I was praying out loud and clapped my hand to my mouth. I would cover the next call. "Help, please," the girl called again. I looked at Harrison's boiled back and my jaw tightened. It was coming from him. It was coming from behind him. I moved, forgetting my fear of the dead and any respect for the kind man's corpse. I grabbed him and pulled. My fingers wrapped around his now leathery black skin which pulled too easily from his bones. I had neither the stomach content to vomit nor the mental capacity to dedicate to the task. I pushed his body away with all my strength and found the two children, scared and blackened with soot, but alive.

They were wrapped in what must have, at one point, been a wet cloth. It was dry and stiff when I found them, but its purpose was clear. Their heads were near a small hole in the wall behind them. I don't know if Harrison made it or not, but the story was clear. He got them away from the smoke. He wrapped them in water and made sure they had at least a little clean air. Then he shielded them with his body and the magically enhanced plants. He had protected them in my stead. Junia looked at me with terror, the events of the night robbing her of her senses. I could see, in the rapid flickering of her gaze, that she wasn't sure if I was even real.

I knelt down on one knee and held out a hand. "It's alright, Junia, I'll take care of everything," I promised. She held her tiny sister to her chest with one arm and reluctantly reached out for me with the other. Then, as if Luna was mocking me, the bamboo snapped. Camilla's aura inside it was old and tired and it had protected the girls for as long as it could. The bricks of the fireplace began to fall. The world slowed as I watched death approaching the children I had just promised to take care of. "No." I refused. I wouldn't allow it. My grimoire lit up and, for the first time in my life, I cast a spell without chanting. Instead, I simply whispered two words. "Still World."

Everything froze. The stones in the air. The collapsing bamboo. The resignation in the child's eyes. They were beautiful. The ash on their face and their dirty hair falling in their eyes. Junia's arm, struggling to carry the younger girl. Frozen in time, they were a sad story. A tragedy played out on a stage in front of me, and I was denying the ending. I couldn't touch anything in the Still World. I had never been able to touch anything. I couldn't even breathe, or the spell would end. I felt those teal sparks of aura invigorating me, and I changed it. It wasn't quite a new spell, like when I put out the fire. It was simply... a refusal of my limits. Because who was I to have limits when two girls, left alone in the world, needed more from me?

I pushed past the bricks and the spell held. I wrapped one arm around Junia and pulled. Her body wanted to maintain its position in the Still World but I didn't care. It was my world, and I was saving these children. It took some work, but I eventually stood, Millie in one arm and Junia in the other, her frozen arms wrapped around my neck. I left the house. They were heavy, in more ways than one, and it was a struggle. For all my changes to the spell, I still couldn't breathe. But I couldn't release it near that house. So I went to the garden. My lungs begged for air but I shambled through the gate, placed the girls on the soft grass, then closed the gate before finally releasing the spell.

As I gasped for air, I heard Millie coughing again. I turned and met Junia's glassy eyes. They went from resignation to confusion, to a watery mess. But they were alive. Thanks to Harrison, and thanks to me. I fell to my knees and joined her with my own quiet tears.