Hopeless - A Powerless Fanfiction

Mak

It's been three days...

Three days of walking through this damn desert.

Three days of getting nowhere.

Three days of torment and torture.

I've never travelled through the scorches before, I'd only ever heard stories about it, apparently, we can get to Dor within two more days if we're quick about it.

The stories I'd heard didn't exaggerate about the scorches at all.

Death seemed inevitable, but somehow, we still seemed to be evading it, only one step ahead of the grim reaper, only one step ahead of King Azer, only one step ahead of the inevitable.

There's sand in my shoes. There's sand in my eyes. There's sand in my mouth. There's sand everywhere. It's uncomfortable. It's hot. It's sweaty. It's worse than I expected. The only thing holding me together is the promise I'd made to Adena, the promise to keep Paedyn safe. If I couldn't keep Adena safe, this was the least I could do to honor her. The least I could do after she came into my life. The least I could do after she blessed me with her existence.

 I shake my head and try to push the negative thoughts that were clouding my head out, and I continue dragging my legs forward, both Paedyn and Kai seem to be in horrible conditions too, I can briefly hear Paedyn muttering to herself, she barely sounds sane, Kai's expression remains in a neutral expression, but his eyes give off a hint of anger and tiredness, days of sleep deprivation seem to be catching up to him as well.

As we continued stomping furiously through the sand, I started to notice a glimmer far off in the distance? Water? I was extremely parched, we'd run out of water last night, I hadn't brought enough for all three of us to drink from my bottle. I was dying for a sip of water, and there it was. A lake. A lake full of water. Right Infront of me. I could feel my mouth watering at the sight and thought of the lake. I quickened my pace towards the lake, trying to get there before I passed out. 

"Mak, what are you... doing?" Paedyn's voice comes from behind me, she sounds confused and annoyed, her words come out in breaths, she could barely talk because of the sand which was all over her face, hair and clothes. 

As a reply, I just point to the lake of water and whisper "There's a lake." 

Paedyn cocks her head to the side in confusion, with Kai just a few meters behind her who shakes his head at me, and finally opens his mouth for the first time in two days to say "It's a mirage Mak, there's no lake over there, have you noticed it hasn't gotten any closer in the past five minutes? Your mind is playing tricks on you" 

I frown in confusion for a few moments, not understanding what he said, but after a while I realize what he said and my eyes widen in annoyance at my own stupidity, how had I not realized? Hera had told me myths and stories about the scorches when I was younger, she'd always talked about how many men had gone crazy due to lack of water, started hallucinating and that some saw mirages, and followed them without giving another thought. I would've been one of those men if Kai and Paedyn weren't here with me. 

"We should probably rest for a bit, everyone seems tired" Kai suggests.

Paedyn shakes her head at that, and she replies in a curt voice "We've rested quite a bit already don't you think? We should keep moving we don't have long before Kitt's guards catch up to us" 

"You're overestimating them, and yourself, Gray, you know that?"

"Oh really? I think you're underestimating them and me, Azer." 

Kai takes a step towards Paedyn, she takes a step back from him, I decide to interrupt them before they have another argument or worse... before they make out... although I doubt that'll happen, both of them seem to be extremely irritated of each other for some reason, I assume it was the private discussion they had before we ran recklessly to the scorches. 

"We should rest, we all need it Paedyn, and I'm really tired, plus Kai used to lead Kitt's guard as enforcer I think he knows them well enough, to estimate how long they'll take." 

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A/N

Sorry for not posting y'all, I don't have the time to post during school time 😭

I'll probs post a few more chapters in the next ten days, then go inactive for a while till mid-December