Animegas (Editing)

Safe?

I woke up in a soft bed. A white blanket covered my body, my head rested on a thick white pillow. Everything around me was a blurred mess, but my eyes began to slowly refocus. A dark shape hovered above me.

"Sam." a voice echoed through the blur. "Sam, wake up." The dark shape focused into a human being. One with silver eyes and midnight black hair. My fist shot upward, colliding with his nose. "OW!" Thomas shouted, scooting away from my fists. I sat up and saw a steady stream of blood gushing from his now-broken nose. My eyes skimmed the room, looking for any signs of life.

It looked like I was in an infirmary, and it was only me and Thomas as far as I was concerned. My eyes settled on Thomas, who was nursing his bleeding nose. "What was that?" he accused. I pounced and knocked him to the ground, holding his arms down above his head.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I demanded

His eyes were wide with confusion. "Tell you what? Sam, just take a breath and calm down."

kneed him in the ribs, tears were threatening to flow from my eyes. "You were there. That night, when my parents were...YOU WERE THERE! IT WAS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

Thomas hooked my legs with his and rolled me over so that he was on top. My arms were pinned to my sides, his knees dug into my thighs. "Sam, whatever Damean told you-"

"Was a lie?" I spat. "Because it looked pretty real to me."

“Was only part of what happened!" he shouted. A small drop of blood fell, barely missing my head. "Didn't you ever want to know whyI left? Why I got sick of killing people?" A tear escaped and rolled down the corner of my eye, splattering somewhere in the tangled mess that was my hair. Thomas let go of my arms and stood up, allowing me to move freely again. I stood up and leaned against the metal frame of one of the beds.

"Alright." I said, my voice slightly shaking. "What happened?"

"Yes, I was there that night." he started. "yes, Damean and I chose those men as our next target. But I didn't want them to specifically attack your family, it just happened. And I didn't strike down the men before they killed your parents, I didn't fell the need to. But when I saw you for the first time, in that meadow, something inside me clicked. Those men were hot on your heals in the forest, and I killed them before they reached you and your brother.

"Damean asked me why I spared you, why I didn't let them kill you. I didn't tell him the real reason, I didn't know why I did it myself. So I told him, 'She might make our lives more interesting in the future.' A couple of years later, I left. A red-haired girl haunted my dreams since that night, she stripped away my insanity night by night. Then I remembered what it was like to be innocent, to not have an urge to kill constantly."

I didn't meet his eyes. "So that's why you left. Because I was in your dreams." I snickered. "That's pretty cheesy, Tom."

He smiled back. "Oh ya, how so?"

A memory flashed in my mind, when Thomas was trying to kill me. "It makes it very obvious that you fancy me."

He scoffed. "Fancy? Where on earth did you get an idea like that."

I jutted out my lip in a mock pout. "You told me."

A woman in a white nurses frock bustled into the room and shooed Thomas out. "Wait," he called out as he was pushed out the door, his silver eyes were wide with shock. "I don't remember telling you that! SAM!"

I chuckled as the heavy wooden door shut in his face. The nurse then bustled over to me and checked my wounds. It wasn't until now that I realized that neither my leg nor shoulder hurt at all. Not even after my small skirmish with Thomas. I pulled back the torn shirt sleeve to reveal a thin white scar where a gaping hole used to be. I moved my leg up and down and even balanced on it to test for any pain.

The nurse held out a long white dress. "Here, Miss. You should get out of those clothes, it isn't healthy to wear filthy clothing." I stared at the dress, remembering what happened the last time I wore one.

"I'm not really comfortable with wearing that." I admitted. "Don't you have a shirt and some pants I can wear instead?"

The nurse nodded and hurried into the back room, returning with a white blouse and gray sweats. I slipped them on quickly along with a pair of white running shoes. My hair refused to cooperate with a brush, so I had to resort to tying it back into a ponytail.

As soon as my fingers brushed the doorknob it flung open. A flash of blond hair was all I saw before I was tackled to the ground. "Sam!" Katie screeched as she pulled me into a bear hug. Her hair fell down her back in soft curls, her body clear of all dirt and wounds. She wore a white dress that hugged her small frame. Greg stood a little ways away, smiling.

A crisp white shirt hung loosely off of his shoulders and he wore faded jeans. As usual, his pale blonde hair was spiked as if he had been struck by lightning. For 11 years, he looked pretty grown up. "What's up, little man?" I asked.

"Well," he smirked. "For starters, we are in Aures."

Katie rolled off of me, allowing me to breath. My eyebrows knitted together. "Aures? What are we doing in the home of the Guardians?"

He shrugged. I stood up and sighed, that did explain all the white though. Katie and Greg gave me a tour of the grounds, or at least where they had already been. They told me I had been unconscious for about 3 days, and that how Sylva had met them in the forest by my old shack. She had taken the four of them to Aures, where they had been properly cared for. I was found somewhere in the Northern point of Nidus, unconscious and nearly dead from blood loss.

They lead me to a small wood; it was lush and beautiful and thrived with life. I stopped enjoying it when we came across a marble headstone.

Erik Haler

March 5, 2250- September 12, 2266 A.D

Brave friend, loving brother.

I knelt in front of the headstone. "He really is gone." I breathed. I really had lost a friend in that castle, that all really happened.

"Thanatos said he couldn't retrieve Erik's soul." Katie said. "It's trapped in Damean's world. And without it-"

"It doesn't matter." I interrupted. "The dead are supposed to stay dead, and memories are supposed to be just that, memories. The only reason I'm alive is because I promised myself I would end this all. And when this is all over..."

Katie draped her arms over my shoulders and dug her face into my neck. "You can't leave, Sam. You can't. We've already lost Erik, I don't want to lose you too." I felt a second pair of arms wrap around my waist as Greg joined the hug-fest.

I smiled and looked at Katie. "But it isn't over yet, is it? We still have a long ways to go."Giving the two each a reassuring squeeze, I stood up. We began to walk away from the grave, but I stopped dead in my tracks and spun around to face the carved marble. "You did it for me, didn't you?" I asked the slab. "You thought there was a way to get me away from Damean, so you came back." I smiled as tears began to well up in my eyes. "You were always one for blind faith, Erik. But then again, I was too."