~ { Shadow and Beauty } ~

Cyclopes

{Kiara}

Kiara plummeted down and crashed through the roof of the building, using her hands to protect her head.

   Her whole body flared in pain, but her left arm felt as if a thousand screws had been nailed into her skin.

   Then she hit the ground and the pain in her body increased. She cried out in agony and tears of pain spilled from her eyes. She wished she was dead so she could escape the pain. She was sure her whole body was bruised, and her left arm was broken in several different places.

   The pain started to lessen and she felt lightheaded. Her stomach did a flip inside her and she sat up, ignoring the pain that had turned back to the level of agony, and threw up. In the dim moonlight, she couldn't see, but was sure she vomited up blood.

   She felt a fever coming on. Sweat trickled down her temples and onto her shirt. She managed to look down and noticed dark splotches over the purple fabric. The splotches were too dark to be sweat, she noticed. With great difficulty, she raised her hand to the side of her face. She touched the tip of her fingers and felt the dampness of her skin. When she brought her hand back down, her fingers were stained dark red.

   Carefully, she leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to calm herself down and trying not to die. Not just yet, she told herself, hang on a bit longer. Piper and the others will be here soon. The side of her face where she'd cut it throbbed. Kiara could feel the blood oozing down her jawline and dripping on her shirt.

   She took deep breaths and slowly, she drifted off to a slumber where, hopefully, she wouldn't feel the agonizing pain of her broken arm and bruised body.

In her dream, Kiara was at the edge of the ruins of some kind of old Roman town.

   She looked around. The town must have been huge once. Kiara could make out the shells of temples and bathhouses, a half-buried amphitheater, and empty pedestals that must have once held statues. Rows of columns marched off to nowhere. The old city walls wove in and out of the hillside like stone off to nowhere. The old city walls wove in and out of the hillside like stone
thread through a green cloth.

   Some areas looked like they'd been excavated, but most of the city just seemed abandoned, as if it had been left to the elements for the last two thousand years.

   In the distance, she saw four people. One was tall and blond with pale skin, wearing a gray shirt over jeans. The second person was two heads shorter than the blond dude. He had an olive complex and dark hair. He was wearing full black and had a black sword sheathed at his side. The third person wasn't exactly a person. He wore a red tank top, Bermuda shorts, and huarache sandals. He had wings in the shades of russet—the colors of a lazy sunset—and had a deep tan and black hair almost as curly as Leo's.

   The fourth person was a girl with short dark hair that fell to her shoulders. Kiara could see white streaks between the coal dark hair. She was about the height of the short guy with dark hair. She was wearing black shorts, sneakers, and a flannel over a purple t-shirt.

   They were talking, but Kiara couldn't hear them. She started walking towards them, and froze when she saw the face of the girl. It was her. Kiara tried to run towards the group of four, but suddenly everything darkened and she woke up.

She opened her eyes and sat up so quickly that she bumped her head onto something. No, someone.

   She clutched her head with her good arm, and the memories of everything that had happened came rushing back, along with the pain.

   "What— what happened?" she asked, her voice barely a shaky whisper. "What happened to Festus? Where's Piper?"

   "Calm down." It was Jason's voice that spoke, but her vision was still darkened and blurry. "Piper's here. We don't know what happened to Festus. As for what happened to you, you fell over several hundred feet and crashed on the lower floor."