Ralph didn't change. He didn't even bother to dust himself up as he sat soullessly before the mosaic tables at the café. The fast, cold breeze whipped by his face. He scanned the sky as the light slowly started to drain out and starlight began to twinkle in the dark. Until the last of the sun kisses the shoreline, twilight completely takes over the stars and clouds. The moon is full, the same as it was that terrible evening. Ralph turned to look at the beads of water formed on the surface of his glass, caressing the cool, smooth surface with his burning fingers, he waited for Kanitha's arrival.
When he heard the brisk, light footsteps closing up beside him, he felt his stomach churning with fear and nervousness. He had made a decision, but how can he say it?
"We're thinking of the same thing," Kanitha said brightly as she passed by to sit down opposite him in her rose turtleneck. "I didn't change my cloth either."
When Ralph's gaze met with hers, he nearly attacked. Her eyes, her face, and her hair still reflects those of Monk's. For a moment, he even hallucinated that burning hatred behind her smile, until a sharp pain that throbbed across his palm pulled him out of the trance.
He had been gripping his glass so tight that it splintered, his palm was covered in a thousand cuts, shattered pieces of glass dripping with his blood scattered all across the bright mosaic table.
"Are you alright?" Kanitha remarked, casually dripping a droplet over his wounds, healing them. "Is something wrong?"
"I..." Ralph bends his head away. "We're going to arrive at Garavia soon. I think... We should part here."
Kanitha didn't comment on this. She leans back into her seat, slowly sipping from her glass, waving off the waiter that came to take their order.
"You haven't changed at all," she mutters quietly, her voice barely audible in the fast, blustery winds.
Ralph blinked. "We've met before?"
Kanitha looked up to him in the dark, her face glowing warmly under the candlelight of the café. The boat creaks occasionally, they could distantly hear clanks and sizzle from the café's kitchen as other customers slowly start to pour in from the entrance.
"Not only so," she whispered. Placing her glass aside, she climbed onto the table.
Ralph leans back until he hits the wall behind his stool, but Kanitha showed no sign of stopping as she closed in more and more. Her breath was distinct on his face, her heartbeat matching up with his as their lips met.
Ralph stared, but no matter how wide he opens his eyes, his sight still ceased away until darkness looms over his vision.
*
No survivors. I must make sure that happens.
I pressed down low towards the back of my horse as it races through the storm. With snowflakes freezing my hands and winds whipping my face, blobs of shimmering lantern glow weakly between the layers of snow as I sped up through the night along with the other soldiers of the Scars.
I see them. They've taken a smaller track hidden behind bushes, in hope that they would make it through unnoticed. None of the others had seen them, their horses galloped right past.
This is it. My last chance to save them. My last chance to take back the decision I would regret for a lifetime.
But I didn't.
"They're here!" I hollered as loud as I could. The other members of the Scars immediately gathered together around me and soon, they too spotted the two.
We chased after them. The man was already coughing blood from running in the snow for too long, after noticing the army that was coming straight for him, he pulls off his cloak, and wrapping the girl in the dark fabric, he slips her into the dark before the soldiers circle him.
His face and rectangular glasses were stained with blood as he staggered to stand up. The torchlight illuminated him as he pulled his sleeve away, revealing a gold bracelet around his wrist.
The Strange.
One soldier tried to attack him, but the man grabbed him by his neck, the next second he blasted into a bloom of water beads that immediately got frozen by the temperature. In less than a second, the man turned a real, living person into a handful of ice fragments.
The others immediately gasped and backed away. I observed that the man's legs were shivering and unstable as if he were about to fall over if the wind had blown stronger. His whole body was shivering, and he could barely fully open his eyes as he contemplates his opponents. I slipped off my horse, pulling out my sword, I walked up when the others backed off.
This time, I might really die.
I saw the hesitation in the man's eyes when he laid them upon me. Surely he hasn't expected a young boy up in the front line. This kindness of his would kill him.
I swept my feet across the snow, kicking up a wall of snow between us. My sword was sent slashing towards him sinking into the side of his ribs. He screamed but silenced himself by biting hard down onto his tongue. I paused my attack for a beat. Is it for the girl he's trying to protect? It's useless, though. I saw him hide her. She has to die.
I leveled my sword with my eye and sent it into his chest.
Blood gushed out from his mouth, he grips the blade with his bare hand, his eyes locking me in its glare.
"Why..." He rasped. "What have the Scars done to you?"
I just looked at him. The Scars? What have they done to me?
He pulls the sword out of him, blood immediately streamed down from the wound. They sank onto the pure, white snow beneath him, spreading through the snow bed from flake to flake.
I sighed and returned my sword back to its sheath. From years of experience, I've already learned that once the wound bleeds a certain amount, there isn't going back.
I placed my hand on the man's shoulder lightly, it was almost as if I'm petting him, trying to comfort his pain.
But when I drove my other hand into his right chest, it came back out with his heart, and his scream could no longer be suppressed.
I tilted my head up, I've seen scenes like this far too many times. It's a death. Another death added to the list of ones I've already caused.
"Whales!"
A shrilling cry shrieked through the snow. Out of the bush, the girl clambered out. All of the Scars' soldiers watched in amazement as the small child tumbling over her own cloak lunged onto me, pushing me over into the snow.
She was crying, screaming, screeching, hitting my chest with all her force. For the first time, I didn't resist. I lay there in the snow, letting her attack me. It was almost like trying to let the pain torment me for what I'd done.
When she can continue no more, she coiled into a ball on top of me. Gripping my shirt, wetting it with her tears.
Her body shivered from cold and anger as she sobbed.
"Why... Did you do that?" She demanded weakly. Her hood slides off, finally revealing the face it conceals.
Azure blue eyes. Dark, cool-toned hair. A small, sharp nose.
It's Kanitha.
YOU ARE READING
Alasla: The New Age
Fantasy"What killed him isn't me. It's the world." Ralph had never asked for much. Not even his own identity. But when his best and only friend got murdered by the man he calls father, he was forced to set off on an expedition to unravel the truth of this...
