SLADERS. A PATH UNDER STARS

CHAPTER 1 (IV - FINAL OF CHAPTER)

At the end of the shooting the snow had fallen.

Collateral effects of the dimensional anomaly, important meteorological alterations, since there were still a few weeks before the white mantle covered everything in its path.

At first I didn't hear anything. At least nothing beyond the roar of the explosion that still echoed in my head, driving me crazy. And a deep ringing in the ears. I opened my eyes and took a deep breath, almost as if I was afraid I wouldn't do it again. I found myself in the middle of the street, among the remains of the fuselage. The fire still burned in some pieces, although the snow was falling heavily, and my body was almost completely covered with ashes and frost. I looked at my hands, confused, expecting to find burns all over my body. But I couldn't track down a single one. Just a little showy scratches. But nothing beyond what I would have experienced other times in less dangerous situations.

I stood up as best I could, ignoring the pain and trying to alleviate the fact that everything was spinning. I staggered, but one step followed another. Unsure but certain. Moving in one direction. Towards the Jorioh.

Everything seemed calm compared to the situation those streets had experienced hours before. Everything except my senses and my heavy breathing. Everything but the chaos that surrounded me. Except for the people who were crawling among the corpses that were beginning to be covered by snow, looking for the help that other people were going out of their way to offer. The force fields were gone so the alarm mechanism had been deactivated. The danger had passed.

My heart began to beat fast, terrified and not quite understanding how I could stay alive. I stopped and grabbed a handful of white snow that was caked on a bench. I rubbed it hard against my face, hot. Little by little the echo of the explosions gave way to the everyday noises, although still distant, of everything around me. Only then did I consciously contemplate what was around him.

I have never seen so many dead people.

But a restlessness began to beat strongly inside me, a restlessness that grew stronger as I resumed my march towards the Jorioh without still being able to think about what brought me there. In the end that concern turned into fear, and took over everything, because I was aware that even though that nightmare had ended, the smell of death did not disappear.

Only then did I understand why my steps were leading me towards the Sacred Forest. I remembered Agnuk, and a feeling I would never be able to forget stopped my heart.

I started to run clumsily, staggering, desperate among the people who were wandering around. I entered the Jorioh compound and returned to the place I had left just a few hours ago.

If I had known, I would never have left that forest.

The trees were left behind and I screamed, but it was difficult for me to hear my own voice. I shouted for my friend. And with the strength I had left I cast a locator spell, which almost cost me to faint. My nose was bleeding from the effort, but it didn't matter. He kept moving forward, chasing the little light in the darkness of the forest. Moving as fast as his body would allow me.

Until the worst of all my ghosts conjured itself in front of my face.

My eyes fell upon Agnuk's body lying on the ground, and my heart fell to pieces in that instant.

A metallic edge pierced his chest. He was still alive. But it didn't take me long to understand that we didn't have much time left together on this earth.

I knelt next to my friend, trembling from head to toe, as I had never trembled before. And I felt how the vision in my eyes blurred as they flooded. I blinked hard, and two tears fell accidentally.

He thought Agnuk couldn't feel him anymore, but he opened his eyes and smiled. He moved his hand awkwardly, searching for mine. His touch was cold and hard. And it shook me from head to toe. He was not able to assimilate what was happening.

"Everything is going to be fine..." I stammered in a low voice, almost inaudible to my own ears amidst the ringing that still resonated in them.

I knew it wasn't true.

They both knew it.

"I'll wait for you... where the blue current dies out," Agnuk smiled. I only managed to read his lips. But I felt the anger still beating in his chest, even though his heart was about to stop. Don't come looking for me, Dakks. I'll be fine.

Then he shook my forearm with the last of his strength.

In a matter of seconds their grip was weakening, and their eyes stopped somewhere under the thickness of the trees, fixed in the darkness, where they had found something that I could no longer see. Two tears tore her face and the mist of her last breath was lost in that icy night when Ajax turned white just a few weeks before winter arrived.

The smell of Death that had burned her lungs vanished in a flash, leaving me alone with the certainty that She had taken one of the most important people in my life. And no matter what I did, nothing was going to give it back to me.