Euthanasia

Chapter Fifteen- Fallen Empire

...The Blade...
Dust polluted the air, infecting my lungs and scarring my throat. The overwhelming scent of blood stained my nose and my body ached. Without opening my eyes, I had no way of telling where I was. It was cool, shaded, unusual for the unforgiving desert climate.
A hiss jabbed the bubble of silence in the room. It was a sound of pain, not a threat. Still, I jumped. I tried to move my body into a sitting position, but agony raced through my limbs. So, I stayed put, breathing in damp smells that I couldn't pinpoint.
I tried to guess my location. From what I gathered it was cool, damp, and dark. I smelled blood, but that must have come from me. It was dusty, but that was most likely from the explosion. My skin prickled with the awareness of someone watching me, but I felt comfortable. The mines. That's where I was.
I opened my eyes, confirming my thoughts. I looked around, at the sandstone walls and the hard floor beneath me, which I had failed to note before. My eyelids felt heavy, like using them to look around the room made them tired. Looking down at myself, I saw several bandages hanging from my upper arm and waist. The events from before the explosion came spilling back and I let my blurry eyes close again.
The fight.
Dream.
My life, almost coming to a disappointing end.
Then I remembered something else. Something George said right before I passed out. There was somewhere I needed to be. He was planning something. I needed the find them. The memory played in front of me, just like it had then:
I leaned against a wall. Blood mixed with dust as I spilled from my wounded side and dripped down my face. There was a booming noise that became muffled as it continued. The ground began to shake; Dream was panicking. George rushed to my side sometime after, whispering things into my ear, his eyes wide, fearful.
"You have to stop this. You have to survive then stop this. Please," he had begged, "you have to follow us, to Aerith, the palace, you have to promise." Before I had the chance to say anything, he leapt away from me. He was dragged away soon after, as Dream took them both away. Then it all went dark; however, I could still hear the gruesome sounds of things breaking, things falling apart.
Then I was somewhere cold. I was awake, and I was breaking a promise I didn't have the time to make.
During my time with George, I came to realize many things. He was a boy that changed people. He was levelheaded with reason and a quick thinker. He was an actor, balancing his lines between a risky pirouette and a heavy metal sword. He was being pulled in two directions, between morality and love. It was a dangerous game that he played, and it was all for Dream.
That's the reason I decided I wouldn't kill him. Neither of them. The one life I sought to destroy for so long was no longer one I would be willing to take. At least that's what I thought before he handed misery to the people of my empire.
After the destruction I felt lost. I had nothing, not even the will to take the life of the one who distinguished me. Feeling the cool sandstone on my back in the cavern beneath my once flourishing city, I was nothing, stripped from my crown, pathetic. I now had a promise that I couldn't keep, dangling over my head, taunting me.
A sharp inhale scattered my thoughts. Again, I forced my eyes open. I searched for the noise, slowly lifting my body against the pain that followed. The cave wasn't dark. Along with a lantern that flashed in the corner of the small room, sunlight seeped through the holes in the ceiling, which were most likely created from erosion or unstable structure. Because of this, it was easy to spot the figure with its back turned away from me, sitting crisscrossed on the dirty ground. It was Michael.
He wore tattered clothing. Simple. Black pants, a torn buttoned white shirt that loosely fitted his figure. His pale pink hair was ruffled and askew, dirty, a result of the mess that recently occurred. He held something in his hand. A knife, about the length of my hand. He watched it dance between his fingers for a moment before focusing on the item in his other hand. A cloth stained with blood.
He held the knife up to his face. In the reflection I could see half of his pale face. His light eyes watched himself as he placed the cloth on his face, washing away blood. I couldn't see the wound, but from my angle, it seemed like there wasn't a lot. As he scrubbed the tender skin, he whispered a curse I couldn't hear.
He let out a deep breath, tossing the cloth away, landing a few feet away on the sandstone. From behind, I could see his face turn toward a small candle that had been recently lit. A small amount of wax began to drip from the top, slowly traveling down the white stick. Then he looked back at his knife again, then again at the flame swaying above the wick. Again, he cursed. He picked up his hand, instinctively wiping his face; when he put his hand down again, it came back stained with a small amount of blood. It seemed like the bleeding was stopping, but still, the wound trickled with it.
He stood from his position on the ground, swaying back and forth as he did so. I was worried he was going to fall or pass out from blood loss; I called his name. "Michael," I managed to force out. He stopped in his tracks. The swaying stopped. Again, he whispered something inaudible.
"I'm going to turn around. Please don't be afraid," he said the words carefully, but I didn't understand them.
"What are you talking about?"
Before anything else could happen, Michael turned around. The sight was gruesome. A white bony structure on one side of his face melded with fleshy burns as a small amount of blood seeped from the edges of a gaping hole. Half of his face had been completely charred off, leaving the other half perfectly normal, except for his completely white eye, which I didn't recognize before. His other eye, surrounded by bone and scorched skin, was fully blackened. The most alarming part of seeing the injury was seeing his skull completely visible.
"I don't know what to do," he whispered, "it hurts so much."
My shock locked me in place. His voice sounded trembled, like he was close to shattering. Without thinking about my own pain, I forced myself into a sitting position.
"What happened?" I asked, my words came out quickly. He hurried to sit in front of me, lowering his body slowly at my side.
"I was in the mines" he said, "everything started to explode, they were close to where I was, and I was burned. The crystal...it's gone too." His voice broke for a moment before he continued. "When it finally stopped, I found my way out of the mines. The mining camp wasn't too damaged, I found a horse there and hurried as fast as I could into the city to find you. When I did, you were bleeding badly. I brought you here, into a shallow place in the mine. I didn't know what to do, or what happened. I hoped you would."
I shook my head. I didn't know what happened and I definitely didn't know what to do. I reached out a hand to touch the injured portion of Michael's face. He flinched away as if in pain, then relaxed a moment later. "I'm sorry this happened to you." I pulled him into a tight hug, trying to give him comfort, but no amount of reassurance would heal the wounds that scarred his face.

We left that cave soon after Michael showed me what had happened to him. We took Michael's horse and left for the next small village over. It took us a day's worth of travel and agony as the sun impaled us with cruel heat. When we arrived, it was well into the night and my wounds had reopened. Finding a place to stay with the meager amount of gold Michael stole from the palace before leaving, we rested until morning.
The tavern's owner was wary of us as he told us where the rooms were, "upstairs, farthest room," he called in a deep voice. Michael hid his face in the hood of a cloak I had been wearing earlier.
We stayed for a night before stocking up on supplies, re-bandaging wounds, covering Michael's face, and heading out again. Without any more gold or silver, we were forced to ride the same horse from the mining camp. Neither of us complained. Our journey had a new destination, Aerith. I don't know why I felt like I needed to fulfill the promise that was pushed upon me, but for some reason I did. Though I knew I could deny this, move on from it all, a bad feeling pooled in my stomach.
Michael never asked why I wanted to go there. He must have understood. I told him what George told me before he was forced away and he nodded quietly. He was usually my advisor in these kinds of situations, but this time, he handed me all the power, willing to string along and follow whichever path I chose.
I just hoped this was the right one. George seemed desperate then. His eyes pleaded with a silent, "help me, I need you to help me." My thoughts constantly traveled to him. What was he planning? Did he have a plan? Why did he need me?
It was something I didn't have to fully understand to know that he was going to do something. A part of me put trust in him. I somehow knew that he wouldn't be one to hurt somebody intentionally. It was ironic that he paraded around by Dream's side, but it made sense.
From what George told me, Dream didn't really want to hurt people. It was the only thing he knew how to do. In his head it was the only choice, the only way a problem would get solved. George simply presented with alternatives. Therefore, they stay together. Without one, the other would either.
Thinking about that made me regret taking George hostage. Maybe, if I had been willing to see more options too, my empire wouldn't have fallen. I hated knowing that it was all my fault, but this is what came with wearing a crown. There was no one to blame but myself and now the guilt of those people hung over me, like a shadow to forever stay by my side.
The desert dried my tears before they had the chance to drip down my face. I was okay with that. There would be time to grieve fully once everything was over. Once I found George and set everything straight again.
Maybe, after everything was over, I would go far away. Maybe I would involve myself in some other foreign government if I found myself reaching for the position that was forced upon me. I had nothing and it's only natural to assume that most people in the empire ceased to exist. My mother might have been disappointed that I was escaping from my duty as an empire. My father would be displeased, after all he was the one who so vigorously taught me honor. But like all things, this dynasty was always going to end, although I never imagined it would end because of me.
Michael was everything I had now, along with a meager I held onto by a single worn thread, my final hopes. I felt like I was grasping at straws, what was left of myself as I collapsed into ceramic pieces. Crossing the sandy desert climate, I entered the meadows as I let myself fall. I let the pieces shatter as they hit the ground. I had no energy left to pick them up, put them back together carefully, meticulously.
We would be in Aerith soon.
Then I would be free.