Lohikäärme

Chapter Twelve - Empty

Chapter Twelve - Empty

          Remekiah crawled his way out of my dress. "Safia," he hissed. "Crying won't help."

          "What else could I do?" I asked him between sniffs and sobs. I wiped my tears with my arm. "We're locked in this place, Remekiah, and these bars won't let us out of here."

          He smirked. "Not me." He was chuckling as he crawled down the platform, near the bars, and lied on his back. He almost laughed when he saw my widening eyes.

          This was unfair! He could leave the place even if the bars stood in front us because he could slide between them. He could leave me alone in this place if he wanted to!

          "Remekiah!" I yelled at him. "Don't you dare leave this place." I stared daggers at him, but he only laughed at me.

          "Hilarious, Safia! Totally worth it." Then the laugh died. He rolled and lied on his belly, his eyes staring at me. "Safia?"

          "That's not funny," I muttered, shaking my head.

          What was I supposed to do now? If only I could escape this place, perhaps I could find out why saving Aethelgard was so bad. I needed to know the truth before I make a decision. Now this. I had always felt that I needed to trust him, but I just couldn't bring myself to believe that this snake could be trusted. The feeling itself was very strange. Why would I feel that I needed to trust this snake who looked suspicious to me? Not to mention he was a snake, and that symbolized a lot of things, didn't it?

          "I was just kidding," he said.

          I turned to look at him. He was curled into a spiral shape on the floor. "How would I know you won't leave me here?" I asked him, squinting my eyes to tell him I was serious.

          He smiled. "I wouldn't." He wouldn't? Great. Just great. Did he really think I was that easy to convince?

          My eyes watched him crawl his way up my lap. He made himself comfortable on my lap by cuddling to his body, making him look like a pile of warm sausages. Unconsciously, I looked at his scaly skin and ran my fingers along his back. He seemed to like what I was doing. I heard a him purr a few times, and he moved his back with my fingers, like he didn't want that feeling to end.

          My mind drifted to what Carina told me. That still puzzled me. She wanted me to stop the magisters from protecting Aethelgard. She told me that they were going to do whatever it takes to protect the castle, and she wanted me to stop them. Why did Aethelgard's destruction matter to her so much? She was already dead, why did she still care about what was happening here in the land of the living?

          Remekiah.

          Carina called death in front of him, killing herself. She had some connection to Remekiah. He must be the reason why she still cared about what was happening here. Perhaps she regretted what she did, separating them by killing herself, or she regretted turning him into a snake when she killed herself. Perhaps she wanted to free him from this pain he was suffering, the pain of living a life as a snake, so she wanted him to die, and the only way to kill him without doing so directly was to destroy Aethelgard.

          I didn't know the exact reason why Carina wanted me to do this, but I was sure that this was connected to Remekiah.

          I sighed, "This is your fault."

          "Hm?" he breathed.

          "She told me what to do. She wanted me to stop them. She wanted me to stop them from protecting Aethelgard." I didn't want to do it anymore. If this was just a small thing between two people, I wouldn't sacrifice a lot of other people's lives just to help them. I didn't want to be mean, but that was the right thing to do. "I don't want to do this anymore," I cried.