Empty as my Heart

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Instantly my world was in caos.

The open area was thick with fog and debris, that flew out at you without warning.  The only sounds were screaming, thin and loud.  Sometimes I could hear what sounded like thunder.

Yet, walls were caving, seeming to darken and crumble.  Occationally, a face appeared, features distorted in anguish and surprise.  I only stared, fumbling around with Ariana's hand firmly in mine.

Where was James?

Oh, gosh, I was afraid.  He was nowhere in sight.  All I could see was ashes and orange tongues, flaring up like dancing waters.  Liquid heat.  My eyes made out shadows, of ghosts rising up the walls, slowly cast off by frightened participants.  The hunters had found us.

I jerked Ariana to the right, following the passage Zinnia had led us through.  Or at least, what I hoped it to be.  Arms crashed into us, elbows shoved hard into our stomaches.  People unwillingly fighting us to make desperate evacuations.

I gripped the littles girl's hand tight, narrowly avoiding a strong punching fist, and ducked around.  Tears clouded my thoughts, supressed by the thick smoke filling my lungs.  Already, bodies layed, either burned or trampled, yet still unnerving. 

Dark silence seemed to follow as we left the crowd, and a chilled aprehensive glare made my neck prickle.  The man from last night was standing, not only ten feet away from us, smiling.

"Why, hello, miss," he chuckled.  I only watched him, face betraying my thoughts.  I was terrified, but I didn't dare move.  He stood there, still and firm.  Unphased.

"Yeh didn't actually believe that act, miss?" he asked me, teeth distractingly blackened.  I felt myself tensed, ready to sprint.  But how could I?  Ariana couldn't keep up, and hoisting her onto my back was insanity.  She must weight nothing, but neither do I.

"Act?"  I choked out, smoke making breathing difficult.  It would only take but five minutes for me to sink to the ground, coughing.

Ariana let my hand go, kneeling to the floor, taking breaths.  I kept her in my line of sight, making sure she wasn't about to suffocate.  Then I looked back at him.

My lungs were screaming, air burning all the way downwards.  It took all of my will to stay standing.  Sweat made my hair damp, falling in long dark strands plastered across my face.  I grasped every inch of my sanity, focused on the burly man.  Wanting to die.

"What act?" I demanded, no longer afraid.  My only fear was for the girl, her tiny shoulders wretching.  I wanted to sweep her up, dragging her frail body away before I suffocated.  Smoke encased us, swirling like insense.  Powerfully life-taking.

The man didn't cough, or shudder.  He only smiled, gums leeching out beneath his lips.

"Of accuseing you of a huntress, miss!" he spat at me, seeming to fling the words at me like scraps to a dog.  I glared back, coldly.

"So this was you," I whispered to him, eyes locked onto his.  "You set fire to these people."

The laugh was menacing, enough to rattle my every being.  I only faltered, knees knocking together, light-headed and breathless. 

"Yes, I did, miss," he grinned, unafraid of how the world burned and crumbled around him.  His very eyes reflected the horrors, windows to his evil soul.  Frighteningly ignorant.

Yet admirable.

I felt my legs shaking, hands unable to feel as I hit the ground.  The earth swooped about, beneath me I felt like I was spinning, violently.  Coughing and dry-heaving, shoulders spasing, helplessly.  I looked up, trying to find the man.  Finding his eyes locked onto mine once more.

"Help her!" I cried, blindly.  The smoke thickened, clouding me with something darker than black.  Something worse than anything I'd ever imagined.

The laughing was horrifyingly familiar, ringing out past my deafening senses.  I could feel dirt pressed up against my cheek, realizing I'd doubled over, eyes open but seeing nothing.

I didn't know where Ariana was.

My hand groped, feeling behind me.  Only to fall back to the hard surface.

My world faded, with me flying.  I found breath, inhaling it, desperately.  Realizing I was only sucking in dark clouds, that hovered below me.  The blackness around me didn't lift, covering me in a blanket of misery.  Cold and afraid.

But..that slowly changed.

I felt a glow, beating down onto my dry, coarse throat.  Warmth strewn with golden stars.

The sky lit up, filling itself with the hopeful beauties.  Killing the monster of pain.

I drifted, feeling a sense of nothingness.  As if I'd just emersed in water, floating in the air.  The moon bent, seeming to cast an iridescent light, far brighter than any sun I'd ever witnessed.

It hovered, between lacey clouds, suspended almost magically.

Somehow, I told myself that this was impossible.  That caves couldn't hold this much light.  I was probably dreaming, or dying.  Or both.

The thinest threat I'd strung of conciousness I'd managed was ripped, falling helplessly into my own pit of mind.  If heaven was this beautiful...

And then I was falling.

The sky opened up, releasing me like a fallen raindrop.  Letting death seem more optional than rain.

My scream was silent, as if hearing were impossible.  Wind was nonexistent, though my hair blew about me.  I could only see.

But darkness was comforting, painless and numb.