Ceaseless Devotion || Garroth Ro'meave x OC

11: Getting Our Bearings

The red sheen of the portal's barrier disappeared after Cecelia jumped through, revealing nothing but the forest surrounding the clearing the portal stood in.

The sun hadn't yet set, but was making its descent just below the tops of the trees, it cast the entire space with a warm, fiery glow. It was rather beautiful.

Cecelia rested her hands against her thighs as she tried to catch her breath. The moment he was able to run to the portal, she ran faster than ever before. Her lungs were burning slightly and the chilly afternoon air was doing nothing to help.

Everybody was making their way through the portal, one by one, and settling themselves in the nearest area. Cecelia couldn't believe that they actually managed to escape.

The last two people who exit the portal are Aphmau and Laurance, who take a considerably longer time than anybody else. Aphmau looked like she was falling apart, needing to be physically pulled away from the portal by Laurance.

The inside of the portal then disappeared, as did most of the magicks energy that surrounded the area. Laurance let go of Aphmau when she began speaking with the elf woman who appeared by the portal moments ago.

As they did so, Cecelia looked at the empty portal frame and then around at the rest of the group. Someone was missing...

Her eyes landed on Laurance, staring off into the forest with a nearly unreadable expression. Cecelia was able to determine one thing, which was that Laurance was completely shell-shocked.

"W–Where's Garroth...?" She asked with a wavering voice, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Laurance's body tensed and refused to make eye contact.

"Laurance, why hasn't he come through yet? Where is he?!" Cecelia repeated, growing desperate for a response. "He... He can't still be in there Laurance. Don't you dare tell me that he stayed behind...!"

"...Garroth stayed behind to save us." Laurance simply said, before walking past Cecelia and off into the forest behind her.

"H–He..." She raised a hand to her mouth, unable to bring herself to utter another word.

Cecelia felt her body freeze, of course, Garroth would try to be the hero and sacrifice himself like that. She should've stayed to fight Zane and help him escape!

She desperately held back the urge to burst into sobs, instead choking through her tears as they endlessly ran from her eyes.

Everything hurt, even her heart felt as though it had shattered into a million pieces. How could it not? The one person she'd devoted years of her life to reunite with was trapped in another dimension!

And she couldn't even be there to fight by his side.

Katelyn appeared beside Cecelia at some point, placing an armoured hand on her shoulder and thumbing it slowly.

"The others are leaving. I understand how you feel, but we should go." She spoke, her voice gentle and soft.

"...I don't want to," Cecelia sniffled, wiping the tears from her face. "but alright."

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

When everybody first walked through the gates, it was shocking, to say the least. According to Zoey, since we spent fifteen minutes in the Irene dimension, that meant that they were fifteen years into the future.

It was a lot to take in...

Everybody slowly began to separate and explore the remains of Phoenix Drop. Cecelia did so too, finding herself standing just before the guard station she'd once called her home. The stone brick walls had slowly crumbled away, leaving gaps from where they'd fallen. Most of the buildings that were left still suffered the damage from the war, even down to the scorch marks from the fires.