The Forgotten Light

57. Fairlight

A gunshot rumbled through the courtyard, which was so loud that it could probably be heard throughout the city.

Fairlight wobbled, squeezed her eyes shut and froze in stillness along with the whole world, which fell into a dead silence.

She waited for pain, but felt absolutely nothing, as if she were floating in the air. Was this what the end looked like?

She heard a quiet groan behind her back.

She lifted her gaze slowly, looking at everyone around her, and turned around even more slowly, feeling her heart freeze with horror.

"No," she choked out. "No, no, no, no..."

Her vision was suddenly misty. Her friend looked surprised at the growing stain on her white shirt and at her hands, red from her own blood.

"Kendra..."

The doctor faltered. Fairlight jumped to her, breaking her fall in the last moment. Kendra rested her head against her stomach. Her breathing was shallow and trembling. There was an expression on her face saying that she had no idea what was happening. Her always remarkably calm hands began to shake uncontrollably.

Fairlight pressed her palms against the wound just below the girl's sternum, trying to stop the bleeding. "Oh my God, Kendra... Tell me what to do," she begged panic-stricken.

"It's simple." Thandor cut in, sitting down on the wall. "Heal her, otherwise your dear friend will die. Now you really have the last chance."

"It hurts...," Kendra breathed out, gripping her hands weakly.

The day had come when Fairlight's heart was finally going to break.

"You're not dying today."

She pressed her eyelids together with all her might, thinking of nothing but Kendra's healthy body, her body without a single wound. She wanted to make the bullet disappear, to make everything as if it had never been there.

She felt the pressure build up in her head and eyes as salty tears ran down her face.

"Stop," Kendra said.

No. She could not let another person down.

She imagined the bullet coming out of the wound. She imagined the wound closing back up. She tried to reverse the course of time, to undo all the evil that had been done.

She was seized by a pain she had never felt before. She winced, there was a metallic taste in her mouth.

"Fairlight, stop. You're hurting yourself." She heard a quiet but firm whisper.

When she looked at her friend, she noticed that the world around them was spinning in a fog.

"You've already helped enough, it doesn't hurt anymore," she convinced her in a drowsy voice.

Fairlight pressed her tighter to her chest. "No, Kendra, don't drift off. Just hold on. Hold on a little longer, I'll fix everything in a second."

Once again, she tried to heal Kendra with all her power, but again hit a blockade that pushed her away even more sharply than the previous time. She hunched, trying to hold back the surging convulsions. A distraught sob escaped her lips. "I can't."

That was so unfair. Kendra had rescued her from trouble so many times, taken care of her wounds, never failed her. And now it was her turn to help her friend and she couldn't do it.

"It's all right."

Nothing was right.

Fairlight took the green scarf off Kendra's shoulders, rolled it up and pressed it to the wound.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Nothing can be done. Since you can't fix this, no one can." She smiled weakly through her tears.

"Oh, Kendra... It can't be you. You're the best that's still left in this world."

"Promise me one thing. If you meet Adam..." She took a shuddering breath and swallowed the knot in her throat "...tell him that I love him. That with him I was the happiest girl on this godforsaken planet."

Despair tore her heart to shreds. That couldn't really be happening.

"It should never have been you."

"Tell him I want him to be happy. Tell him to love, to live." Kendra's voice broke.

Fairlight was unable to stop the streams of tears, the sobs jerking her body, or the crushing feeling of hopelessness.

"And you...," Kendra continued so weakly that she was barely audible. Her eyes began to slowly close, as if she were falling into a dream. "Be the light we need. One day we will defeat these bastards, but we need you, Fairlight. Be the light that we haven't seen for so long, that we have already forgotten..."