Winwolfa (A Roan x Female OC Fanfic)

Chapter 77

This was a test. She was certain of it. Head over the heart. Mind over matter. Whatever bullshit the universe had planned for her... she couldn't escape it. 

There was a constant push-pull in her soul. Stay until Roan and others come, her head told her. Logical and strategic in case the Children of Gabriel stumbled upon her. But her heart... it thirsted for answers, as if the green flash of light would quench it.

It beckoned her. An electromagnetic shift that pulled her towards the core with each second. And despite her digging her heels into the ground, it persisted. She didn't sleep that night. Not with the incessant bickering in her mind. Before the sun had fully cracked over the mountains, Astrid was far away from their arranged meeting spot, and desperately lost.

There was no point in arguing with herself now. Not when she had no recollection of where she was, or the footsteps that would take her back to the meeting spot. Her gut instinct was the only thing she could rely on now. So, placing one foot in front of another, she pursued into the unknown. 

Loneliness was the only thing accompanying her as the sky painted purple again, taking her to a place no man from Sanctum would dare trek. She missed Roan. She missed Raven and Bellamy. She missed all of her friends. A deep-rooted sorrow. Unlike the days when she roamed the empty dunes, her friends were walking the same soil as she was. They weren't separated by land and space anymore, and that made it all the more painful.

And perhaps, for the first time in a long time, she was scared. Scared of the infinite events that could occur. Scared of what lied in the forest. For the fate of her friends that remained within the dome. Scared of what lied at the other end of the tether that continued to draw her closer and closer. 

Fatigue finally forced her body to stop. She settled high within the trees, stretching her legs across a large branch. Every muscle in her body throbbed and fatigue was ready to guide her asleep, but she found it nearly impossible to sleep that night. Her mind– murky with never ending thoughts and turmoil. Memories, given to her by her dreams, seemed to amplify all at once, clouding any distinguishable connection between them all. She was tired. Physically and mentally.

Though, after her brain finally exhausted itself, she managed to get an hour or two. Enough to get her back on her feet. To get her closer to the other end of the invisible string.

But as her eyes cracked open to meet dawn, a searing pain spiraled along her left arm. Fire enraged in her arteries, manifesting a bright red rash underneath her ink. The gentle winds felt like a thousand giant needles. Any movement in her muscles felt like they were ripping off the bone.

She took a deep breathe. Another to ease her body. And a third to soothe her mind. Honing her focus onto what had to be done. Pain was nothing but a reaction of her own body. If she refused to acknowledge it, she prayed it would simply fade away. 

Astrid's fingernails scraped against the oak as she climbed down with her one good hand. The other- completely immobilized by her overreactive nerves. Ten feet from the ground, and her sweaty palms slipped from the branch, and she was sent tumbling into the solid dirt ground. Screaming in agony, as the fiery feeling spread deeper, faster. To a point where she had no choice but to acknowledge it. 

She trusted her footsteps to lead her to her destination as her mind was too busy fighting off not only her pain, but the brain fog of memories that refused to leave. No matter how many times she tried to shake it away, it persisted. On a constant loop, they flashed before her eyes. 

Her parents in that field. The man with white hair. The woman, loved by all. And the tower, strapped in by an immovable iron. The blood. The violence. Pieces of bodies scattered across fields like crimson snow. War. Death. Anguish. It all flooded at her at once.