Origin of the 12th

Chapter 11: The Spirit of Wisdom

"I'm sorry." I whispered to the corpse in front of me. Normally I would consider talking to a dead body to be very irrational and somewhat insane, but I could reasonably diagnose myself with those conditions at the moment.

"Hey! What happened to the search party that went into the throne room?"

"Don't ask me. They were supposed to have reported back several minutes ago."

"Wait. Are these their bodies?"

"They have arrowheads in them. Call for reinforcements and some shield bearers. The enemy still lives."

"Done. We'll storm the stairway when they arrive. That will be the last of them."

"So I'm the last one." I whispered to Jonathan while listening to the soldiers discuss how to attack a supposedly heavily guarded basement. "It doesn't seem like I'm going to make it out of this one. Jonathan, I'll see you sooner than you think."

"What? It's just a concubine?"

"Don't be silly. The guy on the floor probably did it, but it looks like they got him too. All that's left is to kill the girl."

"But sir, do we have to?"

"Yes we have to. Need I remind you what happened when your fathers complained about the land and doubted the Lord while Joshua and I stood by our faith? Forty years were we trapped in the wilderness and you seek to defy the Lord again? Well I've had enough of that for this lifetime."

I didn't speak, nor attempt to play dead. There was no point anymore. Jericho had fallen and Jonathan was dead. I was the only survivor for a couple more seconds and even if I wasn't yet, I might as well be dead on the outside as in the inside.

As the Israelite raised his sword, I thought of the way that each of my loved ones had perished. This seemed almost identical to how my mother died. Hers was the quickest and least painful of the three, so I hoped it would be the same for me. Then it happened.

As the sword swung towards me, I noticed Jonathan's body emit some peculiar substance. At the moment of its appearance, time seemed to slow down. It looked like mist, and yet wasn't. I could tell that it was not any substance that could be replicated or analyzed and theoretically should not exist, but it was there and definitely real. I watched as the mistlike substance concentrate into a sphere and bury itself in my heart.

I gasped instinctively as the sphere made contact, but strangely I felt no pain. It sunk through my skin as if it wasn't there and I felt another burning sensation that seemed to radiate from my heart and spread through my entire body. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my skin emitting a strange black substance that seemed to be enveloping me like a cocoon. I closed my eyes, hoping that it was simply a precursor to death. To my disappointment, the sword struck the substance, shattering into nothingness. The black cocoon completely encased me as I curled up, awaiting whatever was coming next.

"12th, wake. The time has come." It was the voice of the crazy moon girl who had foretold Jericho's destruction. I opened my eyes, hoping I was dead, but she was simply in the cocoon with me.

I decided to give up questioning logic and science for the time being. Nothing that had happened today had made any sense; from Jericho's walls to Jonathan's sacrifice to the mistlike substance and the cocoon. "Am I dead or dreaming?" I asked, hoping that it was the former.

"Neither I'm afraid. Although you wish that weren't the case." The girl said, lowering her hood.

"Who are you?" I gasped, taking in her face. Her skin was a pale blue, the kind seen on the fringes in between the moon and the night sky. Everything else on her head took slightly different shades of that pale blue except for her eyes, which were deathly white. I immediately knew that she wasn't human, despite appearing like one to color blindness.