Time moved forth at breakneck speed, irrespective of death or glory. Addie and Ellie were but footnotes in history - blemishes at best.

But the Sisterhood never forgot.

It weighed upon every single girl. Like a specter, their passing colored the entirety of the catacombs with a tenebrous tint. The caverns and their winding, twisting pathways, which for so long had been sources of coziness and comfort, turned into the cold and damp spaces they were - places of isolations.

The atmosphere was outright sepulchral. For the first time in a long time, the catacombs had turned into just that - catacombs.

Some laughed in despair. Others wept. People like Everie soldiered on.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

It was almost as if Addie and Ellie had been the floodgates, holding back the tide of death from shattering even the weakest links in the family they had found for themselves. Selena may have been the linchpin, but they had been bastions of nearly equal importance. Their deaths could do nothing but herald more death.

By the time she was twelve, Everie was ranked ten. By thirteen, rank seven.

By fourteen, rank six.

By fifteen, rank five.

She kept her heart cold throughout. That final conversation she had shared with Selena had faded deep into the depths of her memory.

Until finally, when she was sixteen, Everie reached rank two, and Everie was once against forced to stand besides Selena.

Only in a much different way from before.