Author Games - When In Rome

Finals - Phaedra Wolfgang

There is nothing worse than being a few steps away from your dreams and having the person that inspired your dreams tell you that you are wrong, that you’d become a monster. Pain stabbed at my chest as hot tears slipped from my eyes as I cried, feeling as lost and desolate as the empty souls that surrounded me in the Fields of Asphodel. I knew she was right; I was a monster but I thought I’d become one for the right reasons. It is impossible to save the world without letting your morale slip, without turning it off completely. You can’t beat a man with a gun unless you brought a bigger one; or so I thought- was I wrong? Suddenly I had no clue.

I shook my head and looked up, about to ask Dimitra, only to see she was gone. “Dammit!” I screamed kicking a chunk of dirt up from the hard ground. “Why the hell would you say that and just leave me here? Why would you leave me alone again?!” I stopped and felt tears brim in my eyes once again. “Why would you leave me alone in the first place?”

I closed my eyes and looked down, staring at the dry crusted earth below my feet. I took a deep breath, it was time to be strong- whatever that meant. In reality who decided what was strong and what was weak? Who decided what was right and what was wrong? In the end weren’t they just meager human presumptions trying to grasp concepts that could never existed in the first place?

I started walking through the grey souls that floated around me, knowing no future and no past. I looked to the path that was just faintly visible through the grey spirits. I forced my way through them feeling numb. A splash of color caught my eye and I turned in startlement to see a blonde head of hair facedown on the ground; Nixie. And she very was dead. I felt the depressed weight in my chest tug a little more, it had to happen though.

My eyes focused on her back from which a knife protruded….. Someone was had hunted her and killed her and chances were that they were hunting me as well. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I slowly turned in a circle watching for glimmer of color or a flash of movement.

Suddenly the souls that swayed lifelessly around me took on a reflectiveness, my face peered back at me from the rumples of a dead man's shirt, a women's tall hat and an expensive coat that wrapped the soul of a teenage girl. Vainly I noticed that my hair was snarled and still damp from my swim the River Styx…. Thats right. I was physically invulnerable. A coy smile stretched across my lips as I saw a dozen souls flicker with the reflection of a boy with dark hair and mud spattered skin; Jaiden.

It had been smart; trying to take us out while we were distracted in a field of murky souls. The stakes had changed though. The gamemakers wanted us to play a game of smoke and mirrors and now I knew he was here. “I see you.” I said softly, as I briefly tried to decide whether to pursue him or not.

I wasn’t in the mood to kill anyone, in fact the only thing I wanted to do was sit in a dark place and brood, but I wanted to live and if I wanted to live he was going to have to die. I could try to piece myself back together later. With that I was running forward where I had seen the reflection. I ducked and dodged the people with ease and agility. To my right I saw him standing there dumbly. Before I was fully sure I’d seen him correctly my knife was barreling through the air toward him. It went right through him.

“A reflection.” I muttered turning my head toward the opposite direction, the direction it must have come from and took off running, the dry grass crunching beneath my feet with each footfall.