After putting enough distance between her and the castle, Mariyah let out a small gasp, her body feeling as if it was giving up. She suddenly dove into a random opening in the trees, snapping branches as she roughly landed, skidding into the dirt, her wings wrapped around her parents.
She didn't know where she landed. Somewhere deep in the forest, far from the kingdom. After a moment of recovering, she shifted into a human and rolled away from her parents, gathering herself and letting her body relax from its sudden strain. Carrying that much weight would'n't have been possible without the adrenaline that had been filling her.
She lay on the forest floor for a short while, staring up at the trees, her chest rising and falling as she caught her breath. The only sound that touched ears were the sounds of her raspy pants, and the occasional bird chirp or buzz of a bee. She finally rolled her head to the side, and looked over at her parents’ bodies. The sight of them stabbed her heart, forcing her to jerk her head away as her face tore into a stricken expression of grief, her mouth turning downwards and eyes clenching shut. Her mouth fell open as she cried out, and repeated gasps shot in and out of her mouth as she dug her fingers into the dirt and replayed the image of her parents' death.
She rolled over onto her hands and knees, rocking and gasping for breath as her rapid breathing began to suffocate her. She finally looked over at them again and crawled over to their bodies slowly, drool dripping from her mouth as she wailed out in agony at the sight of them. “No, no…” She shook her head frantically.
“NOO!!” she suddenly screamed out at the top of her lungs. Her screams wouldn’t stop. She screamed and screamed until her throat was too sore to scream any longer, until it felt like she was slicing the inside of her throat with each strain. Those screams soon turned into heavy sobs as she held their bodies close to her.
Her mother’s warm smile filled her head along with her father’s kind eyes. But those images quickly warped into swollen and lifeless faces. She found herself beginning to wonder if they suffered, how much pain they felt before they died. No matter how hard she tried to force those thoughts away, her mind would not let her breathe.
“I should’ve shifted sooner, I’m so sorry!” she cried to them. “Why didn’t you?!!” she screamed to herself, clenching her fists and hitting herself in the head. She knew Olly could have been spared as well if she had shifted earlier. “Why?! Never fast enough!!!” She tightened her eyes closed and pressed her palms into them, begging to be rid of this feeling of grief. But it did not go away, and her chest began to ache with every sob that left her throat.
A few minutes of her torment passed until finally, she shook her head defiantly. “No,” she said loudly. She looked to her parents again. “No, no, no, no, no. You’re not dead. You’re not,” she said, shaking her head over and over. She suddenly roughly wiped her cheeks off, and held in her weeps for a moment. She struggled as she stood up quickly, smoothing out her dress. “Come on, we need to go back home.” She looked down at their motionless sprawled out bodies.
“I said come on!” Her face was distraught as she grabbed each of their arms and tried to pull them up. “We have to go!”
The young girl continued trying for minutes.
But soon, she gave in to the reality of it all. and her cries turned into wheezes and more pants as the panic that had built inside her was far too much for her body to handle. She screamed out a long scream, and another, and another, until her throat felt as if embers had been swallowed.
When screaming wasn’t enough, she crawled to the tree beside her and slammed her fists and palms against its rough bark, over and over again until her fists were bloody and torn skin dangled off her knuckles. She looked like a lunatic, that's certain, and maybe in this moment, she was. But the suppressed emotion she'd held onto for so long was overflowing, and this poor tree seemed to be all she could take her emotions out on. Her body was too numb to feel the effects of her outburst, as her fragile heart was taking more than enough pain.
An hour later, the screaming had stopped and turned to raspy gasps as no other sounds could come out no matter how hard she strained. Her torn knuckles bled and stung now, but she didn’t mind it. She held her hand against her chest and gasped at a sharp pain that pierced her heart. Her eyes widened in shock as she pleaded for the pain to stop.
But it never did.
She felt weak now, her body tired from her abuse and emotions. Her eyes were heavy as she crawled back over at her family once again, her breathing calming and her tears pausing. “Please come back to me,” she whimpered with a trembling lip, her heart in misery as she silently pleaded with the rules of life and death.
As she calmed her body down, she continued to beg her dead parents to somehow return to her. She intertwined her fingers with her mother’s cold and lifeless ones. “Please come back. Please?” Her voice sounded like a child through her slowing tears. “Please don’t leave me alone, please...” But her eyes soon began to cry harder once again as she hugged her father’s dead body, squeezing him as tight as she could. She hoped, maybe, she could squeeze the life back into him.
But she couldn’t.
She tore herself away and moved over to her mother, pressing her hands on the sides of her face. She looked down at her with a distraught face and bloodshot eyes. “Wake up, Mother. Please, wake up?”
The young girl did this for hours. If she wasn't begging her parents to return, she was sobbing, and if she wasn’t sobbing, she was pulling at her hair or hitting the bark of a tree. She had no idea what to do, where to go, or anything. All she knew was that her parents are dead, Olly is dead, and it was her fault.
Olly…
Her own whimpers and cries were all she could hear in the forest around her, and all she could hear throughout the evening until her body could take no more, and her eyes finally closed, giving her some sort of rest from her turmoil.
The following morning, she woke up on the ground of the forest, dirt and leaves in her hair and pressed against her face. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she was grateful. She twisted her neck around against the dirt and felt it crack, a groan left her mouth as she did so.
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Still laying down, she sighed as she looked at her filthy knuckles that were scabbed and peeled with skin still hanging off of them. She could feel that her eyes were swollen from the crying and her cheeks were tender from the constant tears running down them.
She rolled onto her side and turned her head to her parents’ bodies, and her heart was once again suddenly slammed with sorrow. A loud wail left her throat at the sight, as if part of her had hoped it would all have been a dream. But it wasn’t. There was no dream, only her life. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she mumbled into the dirt ground as she buried her face.
End this, please she begged as turned her red eyes to the sky.
She breathed in slowly and lifted herself onto her hands and knees. Digging her trembling hands into the dirt, she hunched over suddenly as vomit fell from her mouth, choking her. She collapsed to the side once it was all out and lay there for some more time, soon falling asleep again from exhaustion.
When she finally woke up the next day, she did not know what day it was. She couldn’t feel much at all. She arose and looked at the sun that shined in the sky.
Her eyes slowly trailed down to their bodies. Tears burned at her swollen bloodshot eyes once more. She couldn’t bear to look at them anymore. She couldn’t handle her sadistic mind that was beginning to replay their deaths and sprout all sorts of questions like how afraid they must have been or how bad it hurt, if their death was fast or if they could feel it. But if that continued, she might silence it all. It was unbearable.
She knew they didn't deserve to continue to stay laying out in the middle of a forest, their bodies exposed to the elements. Her parents deserved a proper funeral, but she knew she could not give them that. She could barely give herself the energy to stand up.
No, I have to bury them.
Mariyah let out a grunt as she used the little strength she could find to pull herself up to her feet, and looked at their bodies, triggering her throat to choke up. She ignored it as best she could and got on her hands and knees. The soil was soft underneath her, so she was able to begin digging with only her hands...though it pained her as every movement peeled open her knuckle cuts more and more.
She eventually grabbed a flat rock and used it to help her dig, tossing handfuls of the soil away until one pathetic looking grave was finally finished. She wiped her cheek and climbed out of the deep hole, before starting all over again beside it.
The rain began not long after she started her second grave. She finally finished, now drenched in water, shivering in the cold. “You’re first,” she tried to loudly force out at her father’s body, but her voice had no strength to it after the screaming and crying that took place earlier. She carefully dragged him over to the hole and climbed in first, then gently pulled him down with her. His body was pale and she noticed the rope was still around his neck.
In a fury, she shifted into a lion and bit off the rope, throwing it far away from the graves before shifting back. “I’m sorry,” she squeaked out through her broken voice as she knelt down beside him. She kissed his cheek and breathed in and out quickly, forcing away the sobs that wanted to come out. I should have killed the soldier who saw me and Olly. I should have killed Soliath myself...I didn’t know what to do. She breathed in deeply and stroked his cheek once before mouthing that she loved him and then climbed out and brought her mother’s body into her grave.
She cut off the noose and looked down at her mother’s beautiful face. “Thank you for everything, Mother,” she said raspily, whispering in a weak, hushed voice as her heart broke more. “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you.” She kissed her mother’s forehead with trembling lips and climbed out of the grave.
As the rain continued pouring down, she pushed the dirt onto their bodies while the tears fell down her cheeks along with the raindrops. She breathed in deeply as she stood over their graves, her throbbing hands hanging by her side. If she did not move, get food, get water...she might as well die here. But she wanted that. She wanted to die.
Though she knew she could not do that to her parents. If they died for her only for her to kill herself soon after...their deaths would have been a waste. And she needed to force herself to accept the fact that she couldn’t allow herself to rot away.
She felt the warm sunlight that poked through the trees against her skin. With her eyes closed, a slow breath escaped her lips gently as she felt some life come back to her. Just enough to take a single breath.
The pain of loss still stung close to her heart, but she wasn’t flooded with emotions any more. Not like yesterday. Putting their bodies away from her gaze seemed to have helped her state. It was as if she could now think in a straight line...but that line was very dark. Though, the sense of loss no longer suffocated her quite as much.
But what was next? She put a hand to her throat as she swallowed. Her mouth was dry, and her throat was sore. She longed for a sip of water.
She couldn’t remember which direction she flew in, it was all hazy in her memory. She looked around in the forest to see if she could spot anything familiar that would help signify where she was. But all she saw were trees and trees, the usual evergreens. Raising her arm up to the sky, she felt the warmth on her palm, closing her eyes just to allow herself to feel again.
What was next?
She could fly. She could shift into an eagle and fly the rest of her life, never to be taken.
But first, Oliver.
The pain hit her once again and she moved her hand back down to her chest as a cloud moved over the sun leaving her in the shadows of the trees once again. She had to tell his village. She had to give them closure. It had been almost a week since she dropped off the body and left with barely an explanation at all.
She battled with it inside her as she would have preferred to just leave it all behind...but it was Olly. Marcy, Kai, Rose, Kindrick, everyone. She couldn’t. She couldn’t leave it behind without explaining to them.
The girl opened her eyes, tears stinging at them as the thoughts flooded back. She lifted her chin, refusing to let the grief overcome her again. She had to stay in her right mind. As if she was fighting for her sanity, she struggled to not choke on the thoughts of her family and friend.
The fight for her mind was painful and made her scream out with no voice. But, soon the dark thoughts went away...and she sat back down. Fighting the grief was exhausting.
And her lack of food and water, did nothing to help the emotional turmoil. The thoughts of pushing through for the sake of her parents began to seem less important. She wasn’t sure where she was, and she wasn’t sure if she had the energy to find out. Truly, she wasn’t sure she cared about anything other than ending the suffering she felt in her heart.
But that must've been untrue, because she leaped to her feet and shot ten steps back at the sound of rustling leaves beside her. She swung her head around, trying to see if there was an animal running about, but after staring at the still bushes, she saw that there was nothing. It must be a small animal. She let out an amused sigh and paid no more attention to the continued rustles and crunching of leaves, until she realized the sounds were growing louder and they were approaching footsteps.