WE BECOME THOUGHTLESS

fifteen | emer

A million things went through Alistair's head the moment he collapsed into the small bed and pulled the blanket up to his chin. A million tiny, guilt-soaked things that would not stop spinning and spinning and keeping him awake.

He shouldn't have been here. He should've been far away, in another land, in a warmer place. Everything he was doing here, in Weles, was one step closer towards a path his mother never wanted him to take. Alistair wished he had died in his hometown – he wished the sickness had claimed him – because then at least his body wouldn't be riddled with dread and guilt.

Instead he would buried under a plethora of faceless bodies, dead and decaying, covered in old, life-taking rashes. His corpse bloated with the Welish plague.

He shivered and curled up in himself, every piece of him feeling heavy. There would be no escaping the army. There would be no escaping the General. The sudden display of powerlessness left him shaking wordlessly in his bed, his throat closing up. No escaping.

At least Cole was doing something he believed in – believed in so greatly he was willing to risk his life and his mind for it. He made his own orders, he went where people needed help, he was doing something good. Alistair went and did what he was told, he destroyed lives, he converted innocent people and turned them into advena, stole their free way of thinking. He was monstrous.

And he was too scared to change it.

Slowly, shakily, he curled in on himself and pressed his knees close to his chest. The bed was no better and no worse than his soldier's cot back in the army, although the furs were an upgrade, and he suddenly felt very out of place in the silence. It was never silent in the army.

He wondered what Tobias would do to him when he returned. The man was unreadable – never revealing too much, always watching. Alistair brought his hand up to the back of his neck at the memory of his prickly gaze. There was nothing scarier than a man who supposedly felt nothing at all.

And then, the eerie feeling of eyes on him only growing stronger, Alistair sat up and turned in the bed. The room was almost completely dark.

Milky light felt in bars through the dusty windows. The door was open, and someone stood silhouetted against the glow outside. Alistair stiffened and tossed the furs over his lap, eyes adjusting.

"Cole?" The silhouette said.

Oh, shit.

Alistair didn't know what to say. He waited and blinked the sleepiness from his eyes. When they refocused, he could see the person's face, and the wire-like hair that lined her face and cast long shadows down her cheeks. The girl who attacked him only a few nights ago.

Maybe he could reason with her. The memory of a furious face and a sword wrapped up in a bruised fist rose in his mind – of the girl dropping to her knees, clinging to her hair. Of a terrified Welish warrior on a balloon ship, battling to the death with a Chrysosian soldier. A soldier who was now dead.

Alistair gulped. "Not exactly."

The girl stilled and said something fiercely in Welish, stepping into the room and adjusting the newly-bound wrappings around her knuckles. The ground creaked beneath her boots. "You."

"Wait a moment," Alistair stood quickly and brought his hands up. "Just – let me explain, I know where—"

"You're dead, witch."

But before he could explain, or protest – or beg – the girl was launching herself forward and overwhelming him with her fists. Alistair struggled to move around her, who was bigger and stronger and better, and when he was almost at the door, already developing bruises, she kicked him squarely in the back.