𝗪𝗔𝗜𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗠𝗘 ━━ l. valdez

xxv ━━ how much sad did you think i had in me? (oh, the tragedy)

01. chapter twenty-five

━━━━━━━━ ( 💫 ) ━━━━━━━━

WE SPIRALED THROUGH THE DARK in a free fall. i held on to leo in front of me who was clinging on to festus with his life. i felt piper behind me.

"jason!" leo screamed. "take mils and piper and fly out of here!"

"what?"

"we need to lighten the load! i might be able to reboot festus, but he's carrying too much weight!"

"what about you?" i cried. "if you can't reboot him—"

"i'll be fine," leo yelled. "just follow me to the ground. go!"

jason grabbed piper around the waist and went to reach for me, but i stopped him.

"i think i can get to the ground on my own!"

"how?" jason yelled.

"you'll see!"

jason and piper both unbuckled their harnesses, and in a flash they were gone—shooting into the air.

"what are you doing?" leo yelled back at me.

"just trust me! and be careful! see you when we're back on the ground!"

"but—"

with that, i became one with the shadows of the night sky. i imagined the ground below me.

suddenly, i felt like i was falling so fast through the air my face would peel off.

. ݁₊ 💫 ⋆.

i was on the ground. then everything was black.

. ݁₊ 💫 ⋆.

when i came to my senses, i was in a snowy field. piper and jason were standing over me.

"are you okay?" piper asked urgently.

"yeah," i groaned. i touched my pounding head which was still wrapped in that ridiculous bandages from when i was almost killed by a cyclops.

"how did you do that?" jason asked. "the teleporting thing?"

that was when the memories of what happened before i passed came back. seeing my mother, the anger, the sadness, falling through the air.

i sat up holding my head. everything began to spin and i felt my her head was being compressed under the weight of an anvil.

i sat still for a moment as i tried to get my vision back. as things came into focus, i realized piper was teary eyed.

"are you okay?" i asked piper. "are you crying?"

"no, i'm not crying. it's just—" she glanced behind herself. i peered around piper.

then i saw the wreckage. festus must have dropped the big canary cages as he came over the fence, because they'd rolled in different directions and landed on their sides, perfectly undamaged.

festus hadn't been so lucky.

the dragon had disintegrated. his limbs were scattered across the lawn. his tail hung on the fence. the main section of his body had plowed a trench twenty feet wide and fifty feet long across the mansion's yard before breaking apart. what remained of his hide was a charred, smoking pile of scraps. only his neck and head were somewhat intact, resting across a row of frozen rosebushes like a pillow.