Chapter 39

Vince couldn’t shake the horrific image forming in his mind. He saw the battle, the one he saw in that damned dream so long ago. And when he looked back at the battle taking place right in front of his awake eyes, there were only a small number of humans left alive and he recalled there only being three in the dream (he was not one of them).

He knew beforehand that there was probably no chance that they would survive, but deep down he kind of hoped there might be some way to live to see a new day.

And yet he was not totally disappointed either. Humanity was taking their final stand against Orion. What an awesome sight it was, too. There were those even smaller amounts of humans who chose not to fight, where they remained back at Vince’s apartment. At this point, he wasn’t even sure if they were still alive. They were no warriors there; they were just sitting ducks.

He felt his mother place her hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her. He had been out of arrows for some time now and he was a little afraid to join his comrades down on the battlefield. There were plenty of weapons, he knew, but there was that terrified little boy in him that was screaming.

“We have to fight with them,” said Tracy as she looked into his eyes. “They chose to fight with you. You need to do your duty and fight with them.”

Vince lowered his head and nodded. “I know,” he said. “In the vision you supplied me with, that dream, there were only three people left – humans – but I wasn’t one of them.” He opened his eyes and looked into her tear-filled ones. “How do I die? Which one kills me?”

“Oh, Vincent,” Tracy cried and looked away.

There was something horrible in what he saw coming from his mother. He had never seen her look this way. Her sorrow was mixed with guilt. She was shaking, shaking the whole damned tree in the process.

“Mom?”

“Is it better to live a frightened child or die an honorable death?” She couldn’t look at him – it was killing her to know the future.

“Do you mean to live like a coward?”

Tracy looked up at him. “I would never call you a coward. You did what you had to do.” And then her mouth snapped shut, as if she had told him more than she was hoping to tell him.

A new wave of shock and grief struck Vince and he dropped his head in shame for that which he has yet to do. “I run and leave humanity behind?”

“You couldn’t bear to witness what is to come. It was too much for you to see – even worse than all these people dying.”

“What the hell could be worse than watching my friends, and humanity, die in front of me?” He truly didn’t believe there could be anything worse.

Tracy took a deep breath, one that sang of sorrow. “Watching your daughter die.” She didn’t need to say anything else.

“What?” Vince stood up, almost falling out of the tree in the process. “I can’t let her die. She was born to save mankind – I’m not going to let her die, God damnit!”

She lowered her head and she knew that this is where it all began.

He jumped from the tree and landed hard onto the ground. He took one last look at Chris, lovely Chris, and turned to run in the opposite direction. He would never get the chance to congratulate her on her marriage, and console her for being widowed. There were a lot of things he would never get to say to her. But most important, he would never get to thank her for being who she was. She risked her life for him and Mykella and he could never repay her.

Chris pulled her sword from the stomach of a Dreamkiller and caught sight of Vince running into the forest at an almost frightening speed. Something must be happening if he would be running off like this. It must have to do with Mykella. She looked around and saw that she was just about the last handful of humans left alive and she shook her head in disgust.

If Mykella’s in trouble, by God we’re going to help her. She looked around. “Retreat!” she screamed. “We’re storming the fortress!”

Things aren’t going the way it was written, but the outcome will always remain the same. Tracy sighed and dropped down to the ground once she watched Chris leading what remained of their army (about two dozen now) into the forest after Vince.

You can’t change the prophecy, she thought and then went after them. She stayed behind the Dreamkillers who took no notice of her anyway. Everyone was running to meet their fate.

And as she ran, Tracy had one further speculation: Although the prophecy could not be changed, Chris, not Vince, had changed – or at least altered – the vision of the battle she had given her son.

In the near distance she could clearly see the fortress silhouetted against the sun. The sun. Why was it turning red like blood?

As soon as her feet touched the ground of the tunnel Mykella quickly spun around to see the happy faces of all those she had rescued (momentarily, anyway).

“We don’t have time,” she said as she forced her way through the crowd. “Orion knows what’s happened. He’ll be here any minute.”

“Where do we go?”

“What’s out there?”

These were questions brought up by faceless humans who seemed more lost heading out into freedom than they were in their dark overcrowded cells. Would they be able to survive any more? How long would it be before they’re hunted down again?

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Mykella made her way to the front of the crowd, just beneath the hole leading out. “I’m not going to lie to you,” she began. “There isn’t much out there. You are what’s left of the human race.” She saw the disappointed looks (and the shattered hope) on faces that are now scared; scared to stay and scared to leave.

“We will survive. We will rebuild our lives and hopes. We will rebuild Faith!”

There were several people who looked at her with expectation in their eyes. What they were expecting of her, she didn’t know.

She glanced up through the hole and realized now that there was no ladder leading out. Irritated, two questions came to her mind: How do we get out of here and how did Agnes get us out?

“Where will we go?” someone asked, which was a valid question; a question for which Mykella had no answer.

Some savior I’ve become.

And then she realized that she hadn’t mentioned the battle yet. She was hoping that they would be willing to fight for their freedom. She was no leader; she didn’t know how to convince them. In fact, she wasn’t really sure, looking into their tired faces, if there was anything worth fighting for.

“There are other humans up there who need our help,” she said.

“You said we were the last.”

She nodded. “I’m not even sure how many people are left. We have to hurry and find another way out.”

And then all was silent. Before she could hear the blasts of Orion, but now even that fell silent. Her savior was dead, Mykella was positive of that.

“We have to hurry,” she repeated in more urgency.

After a moment, “There,” someone shouted and everyone turned to see a tall man pointing at the ground. “It’ll be the sewers.”

Several people cringed, not liking the idea of wading through their own waste. But they also knew that it would be impossible to get up through the hole.

“Fine,” exclaimed Mykella. “Help me with the hatch,” she said and in no time they were able to move the top. And then they all gasped at the sudden fumes that belched forth.

“I don’t like it any more than anyone else, but we have no other choice,” she said, covering her nose with her arm. “Let’s go.”

One by one they jumped down into more darkness and each time someone jumped, a loud splash was heard.

Orion didn’t know what his prisoner thought she was doing when she threw herself in his line of destruction, and it really didn’t matter anymore as he placed his boot on her head and pressed down. She was dead before she hit the floor once his electric bolt hit her in her stomach.

Now he had to go down that hole – the hole he never knew existed. Why was that? Because he has never been down here in this part of the dungeon. And why not? This is, after all, my fortress, he pondered.

“Because you felt guilt,” whispered Beth inside his head. “Guilt for keeping them here.”

Orion felt rage suddenly; a rage he hadn’t known existed. He was actually content living the life he was living. And now someone he created was testing his conscience.

“Go and find another head to torment,” he said and then a new revelation hit him. “It was you, wasn’t it? You created the secret passages. It explains where you’ve been for the last twenty years. And it was you who gave Mykella time to get here with your talk of the past.”

He stared viciously at the hole he saw Mykella jump into. “I’m going to end this once and for all.”

It took them less time to enter the sewers than it took them to get to the entrance, but the foul stench never left their nostrils.

“How much further?” someone asked and Mykella called back that it shouldn’t be that much longer.

She was wondering where this would take them; probably some river somewhere. And if that were to happen, then she was certain that they would have gone past the battle. There must be some other exit to this place. No matter how much she covered her nose, the smell was beginning to seep through her pores and it didn’t matter how much you covered your nose.

“If we stay down here much longer, I think we’re all going to get sick,” replied an older short woman walking behind Mykella, who nodded.

“I know. I’m not feeling too good myself.”

“What’s that?”

Mykella turned and saw up ahead there was a pinprick of light coming from the ceiling, which shot a line of light down.

“I must be seeing things,” chuckled Mykella and sprinted (as best she could under the circumstances) toward the source of the light.

When she got under it, tears fell from her eyes as the sun was looking down at her through that tiny hole. “This is the way out,” she said and turned to the others. “We have to find something to stand on; it’s not that far up, I can barely touch the hole.”

Within minutes they had pulled together what they hoped was mud into a pile beneath the light. It wasn’t a strong construction but it held for the purpose of making the hole larger as they stood – one at a time – on the pile using their hands to pull down the earth.

Mykella was amazed at how fast they had accomplished their task and one after the other they clambered through the hole using their fellow prisoners as balance. She was so pleased at what she saw that she almost cried.

But that was cut short as she heard another splash far behind them of someone else jumping into the sewer.

She turned around in time to see the water behind them turn blue which was heading toward them.

“Dear God,” she mumbled under her breath. She knew this was Orion’s last chance to kill them. If he couldn’t see them, and she was pretty sure he couldn’t, then he was going to electrify everything that his blind eyes could not see.

Several people helped Mykella up, against her protests. She wanted to be the last out. They wouldn’t hear anything of the sort.

“But,” she cried out and they shoved her even harder until her arms were above the ground.

She reluctantly pushed the rest of her body up with the aid of several others and that was when she heard the terrible screams of the last dozen or so prisoners as their bodies were electrocuted. Since she had been raised in a world without electricity, she didn’t know what a person would look like when they’re electrocuted, but she had a pretty good idea.

As the last screams died down, Mykella could picture their eyes being blown out of their sockets.

She dropped to her knees and said a quick prayer for all those who had saved her life – or had at least given her more time to live. Then she stood up, wondering where they were, and saw that they had traveled a good distance away from the fortress.

There was a tickle at the nape of her neck and she looked up at the castle from this distance. She glanced up into the sky and saw the white bird; she thought it was the same one she let go earlier (has it really been the same day?). She saw that it was heading back to the castle.

She sighed and looked at the people she had rescued with caution in her eyes. “We have to go back.”

There was a lot of hostility emanating from them but they remained silent.

“Our war ends there,” she said. As does the last prophecy – my prophecy.