A Hero in the Dark: 2nd Edition

Chapter 17: Girl on the Stone

While Eight walks us to the cave, he tells us about his past, but even more so, he says he knows Pixie somehow, so it's not surprising that she knows the cave that Eight lived for so long. She bounds around it like a jolly little reindeer. "Wait, what do you mean you met her before?"

"A few months ago," he says, nodding. "I met her on one of my morning walks a while back. I figured she was a Chimæra based on what Reynolds told me long before her first shift. There was just this... connection, I guess. But one day, she just up and flew away."

"Oh..." is all I manage to say, and John jumps in, telling him about the vision he saw where Pixie met Pittacus Lore. Eight marvels at the mention of the Elder's name.

"I wanted to show you this," Eight says once we move deeper into the cave, gesturing to a cave drawing. "I think it was drawn by the Elders, like a prophecy of sorts."

Crayton glowers. "Interesting."

There's a drawing of Earth on the wall with two other planets, the smallest of which is darker while the other's only mostly so with a touch of crimson at its core, as if it hasn't fully faded away. There are people surrounding my planet too, differentiated by colours, shapes, and numbers; it's easy to identify them as the Garde.

In the last panel, it shows my planet split in two with two ships at each hemisphere. It sends dread right down to my core. I knew this was a possibility from the day I left home, but seeing it like this... It's almost eye-opening, and in the centre of it all, there's someone else, unmarked, and unnumbered, printed into the stone and harder to identify. It's a girl; that much is certain. She's got long hair and is frail to the point of near starvation, and the overall image is dull. Not much colour was used and the colour that's there has seemed to have faded—faded blue.

"Who is that?" I ask.

Eight shrugs. "I've spent years asking that same question, never finding an answer."

John looks at Henri. "I'm not sure if they're Loric at all," the Cêpan says. "Perhaps they're a human."

"Why though?" Crayton wonders. "I thought this was between us and the Mogs..."

"But there're billions of humans on this planet," Adelina seems to agree.

"There must be some link."

I stare at the girl that presents so much confusion. I never anticipated this. This is not what Pittacus Lore foretold. But why? Is it because I joined them? Have I unwillingly changed the future by throwing myself into their war? The thought terrifies me, and I walk up to the girl's drawing 'till I'm face to face with her as a distraction. She stares back at me, unblinking. I reach out to trace her outline, and as my index finger touches the stone, something strange happens.

A flicker of light—blue light—swoops across my sight, if only for a brief second. I'm almost in doubt that it happened at all. It's exhilarating, like dropping from a big height—like bungee-jumping, I'd assume, though I've never bungee-jumped before in my life. "Emily?" John calls, sounding to be at the far end of a cave. "How're you doing that?"

I don't know what he's talking about until I snap out of it.

The drawing. It's glowing! What was once grey and lackluster is now shimmering a faint blue, as similar of a glow that crept into my sight. I step away from it and it fades back to normalcy. "I don't know," I murmur, unsure what else to say.

A silence ensues, but then Henri speaks up: "Emily, I think the girl is supposed to be you."