No Wings to Fly [ON HOLD]

Chapter 18

At first, there was a silence that lingered in the air, a stillness that made time seem as if it had stopped. One by one, feeling came back. The cold metal of the gun burnt my skin, and the gentle breeze continued to rush by my face. Next came the sight of the boy's face and the sound of his last laugh that refused to leave, and stuck on his face. Time had begun moving, yet it was still too slow. He began to fall backwards, the smile on his lips slowly fading into a blank expression, the laughter replaced with the silence of surprise. A loud thud signified the end of the stillness, and I snapped out of my daze. I lowered the gun and looked down at the boy, who lay still in the shadows of the trees.

Eventually, his body was consumed by the pixels, and all that was left was the lingering feeling of emptiness. I moved my gaze from the grass to the gun; I sighed and threw it to the ground. It was over now, and I had no need for it anymore.

After a few minutes, Ridge materialised in front of me and took a hold of my arm, and I was transported into a room I'd never seen before.

"Where am I?" I asked, reality suddenly hitting me again.

"Just back at my palace, I may have forgotten to tell you, there's always a small celebration after the games for the victor. A few people are invited and you just have to come up and accept a crown, no biggie." He said smiling, as if it really was nothing.

"No biggie? What if I don't want to do this? All I want is to go back to where I was before, I'm tired, I haven't slept in days, I've watched Toby die and killed people, can I not just have a break?"

"Let me think," he said, walking towards the door, "No." he finished, and slammed the door shut. I sighed and collapsed into a nearby chair. This was dumb, why do I have to stand in front of a load of random strangers as a congratulation for what, killing people?

Once I had finished being annoyed with Ridge, I sat up and noticed the mirror in front of me. My face was quite badly bruised and had quite a few scars on it and my shirt was still covered in dry patches of various people's blood.

"You better not make me go out like this," I muttered to myself.

"Oh I'm not going to," I heard a voice come from behind the door, which suddenly opened, and Ridge came through into the room, "You're going to be wearing this." He produced a very 'Wednesday Addams'esque dress and threw it towards me.

"Uh yeah, can I stick with the bloodstained clothes?" I asked, knowing it was a long shot. He laughed and shook his head. "What did you mean by a few people by the way?"

"Well, most of the people from where you grew up come, and it's also shown to all of your friends down there. So yeah, your precious Toby will be seeing this." He said and laughed again, walking out and shutting the door again.

"Fantastic." I muttered. After sighing and pacing around the room for a bit, I eventually game in and changed out of my clothes and into the dress, which, much to my disappointment fit perfectly and very tightly. I sat back down and had a look in the drawers of the table, and like some sort of miracle, a hairbrush was inside. I spent the last few minutes I had trying to sort my hair out until I gave up and just let it hang able my shoulders like it always has.

After a few more minutes, Ride eventually came through and signalled for me for me to follow him. I did so, and he led me down a corridor and down a set of steep stairs, which led into another corridor. After this, we had reached what I presumed to be the wings of the stage, and he stopped and turned to me.

"Okay, I'm going to be doing a little speech, and then you're going to come through and accept your award. You will stay there until I say so, and then you will exit the stage the way you entered, got it?" He said, slightly too quickly for me to understand, but I nodded anyway to save the effort of him getting annoyed and having to explain this all again. He grinned, and then floated off behind a curtain and a loud applause began.

I completely zoned out for the next few minutes of my life, absentmindedly stretching my wings out whilst staring off into space, when I was abruptly snapped out of my daze by Ridge's voice getting a lot louder. Straitening up, I moved slightly closer to the end of the curtains so that I was just about able to look out.

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the winner of the survival games, Pluto Elysia Lakis!"

I stepped out from behind the curtain and was immediately hit by a bright light that blinded me slightly, but I continued to hobble forwards, in an attempt to not make a fool of myself. Eventually, my eyes adjusted to the light and I stopped in front of Ridge, whom had his arms outstretched and was holding what looked like some sort of tiara. I hesitated slightly before talking a small step forwards, after which; he rested the metal on my head. Before I even had the chance to think about turning around and walking out, he grabbed my hand and pulled it up, causing the crowd to start standing up, clapping, and cheering.

All of the sudden movements and bright lights were making me feel dizzy, so I tried to free myself from Ridge's grasp as quickly and as unnoticeably as I could, when I suddenly spotted something in the midst of the crowd.

A woman, probably in her mid-forties, who had long silver hair, and to my shock, also had wings. She was the only person in the crowd who didn't look happy, and instead, her face was filled with remorse and regret. She looked straight towards me and the moment our eyes met, it hit me who it was.

"Mum?" I choked out. Ridge's grip on my hand suddenly slackened, and my arm dropped to my side. Stumbling forwards slightly, I noticed the two people standing by her. Two guys, slightly older myself, one with a rounder face than the other, whom wore glasses. They too, both had wings and their expressions faltered slightly when they saw me staring at them.

I was snapped out of my daze by Ridge grabbing my arm and pulling me backwards slightly, to which I turned my head to face his and could see the anger slowly building up on his face. Pushing me towards the exit as nonchalantly as possible, I jerked my head around to face the crowd again, and was met with the bloody and beaten up bodies of everyone, yet they all still stood like they had seconds ago. Failing to understand what was going on, I looked to where my family were standing and saw that they too, stared at me with dead eyes, their faces too, beaten and bruised.

A scream escaped my lips as I felt two arms wrap around my body and lift me up, my surroundings blurring with the tears that stung my eyes. My mind was shooting blanks and the only thing I was able to do was thrash around as the blinding lights turned to blackness, and after a while, the only thing I could hear was my screams.

Eventually I was put down and I stumbled backwards into a wall, and before I could gather any of my thoughts, my cheek was greeted by the sharp impact of something hitting it.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I heard Ridge shout, and without thinking, I swung my fist up, which, with a horrible cracking noise, came into contact with his face. He staggered back slightly, as I quickly rubbed my eyes, regaining most of my vision. I looked up at the man who was clutching his nose, whilst blood splattered his face.

"What happened to everyone in there? Why were they all bloody and bruised? Why were my mum and brothers there?" I blurted out, not bothering to apologize for breaking his nose.

"What are you talking about? Everything was fine until you started screaming bloody murder!" He shouted back at me, "I know what's wrong with you. You're going crazy, that's what! Something made you snaps and now you're seeing things that aren't even there!"

I continued to stare at the man in shock and disbelief until I managed to string together a sentence.

"If you had just let me go back in the first place, none of this would have happened," I said, getting increasingly worried by this. He glared at me before removing his hand from his face.

"Alright kid, I'll take you back." He said, and with a click of his fingers and a puff of golden sparkles, I was back on the grass that I was standing on before the events of the last few days happened.

~

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