The Tattooed | Completed | ✔

Chapter 20 - Is it over?

I let out a wail, a bone tearing, ear shattering, wail. It was all gone, everything I had ever had was gone. Every memory I had made there, every friend, every bond was and had been a lie. It was as if every fiber of my being had been ripped apart and picked through, every last corner of my mind and heart was in a state of utter shock. That's what it was, shock, shock that this lie that surrounded me for nearly all of my existence had been the amazing twisted life I was living from day to day. My happiness, my love, my sadness had been for what? This miserable lying settlement that I had poured my very being into from day one.

With weak wings and a heavy heart, I dropped to the ground meters from the running wolves, they would see me soon enough and stop. My body racked with another wail, I felt like a busted porcelain doll. Even glued back together it was going to be ugly and cracked, and that's how I was. I had been cracked and glued back together so many times thus far in my life that I was an ugly cold-hearted person. So filled with the cracks of betrayal that I would never be the same again. A heart shattered and a body cracked, so cold and withered. It was cold, I was cold. My wings must be blazing again, burned away my clothes to leave me bare to world. Naked for all the prying eyes of the forest to see.

Curled into a ball, staring blankly forward and muttering, that's how Howl found me. Crystal, shimmering and cold. Ice, freezing and ever-changing. My wings, the every changing Tattoo that had picked me for a host. My wings had changed again, showing me the beautiful power of Ice and Crystal. Extended, they were jagged and dangerous yet so beautiful and...perfect.

Pulled onto the back of a wolf, we made our way to the burning settlement ahead. Howl must have understood everything I had been muttering about. That we needed to push forward in our journey and discover what my home looked like. Find out if anyone had survived, if anything was the same as I remember.

-

It was all ash, building still burning, scorched bodies littered the ground and platforms. Eddy screamed and began crying, there was nothing I could do to calm her. There was nothing here, nothing for us. Everything was simply gone. Then there was a flicker of movement in the higher levels.

"Howl, watch Eddy and stay here." I took a few steps away from them, seeing Howl nod in the corner of my eye, and took off. My wings pumped, propelling me upwards toward whatever was moving. My feet slammed onto the boards causing them to creak under my weight. ",Who's there?! You have three-" The wind picked up, blowing a very burnt, very crisp looking curtain that was hung up on a limb. My heart sank that it wasn't a person, just someone, anyone to be alive among all of this. I wandered through the wreckage that was once my home, my sanctuary.

"Gwyneth I think you'll wanna see this!" Howl called up to me, a horse calling in the distance. The boards under me were creaking and moaning as I pushed away from them. Leaping feet into the air and falling over the edge of the top level. Smoke stacks burned my eyes as I fell towards the ground, my wings catching me just a few inches from the ashy land.

"What is it?" My tattooed retreated to my skin, no longer in need of them. Eddy was a standing with her body pressed to one of the wolves, her face attained with tears and ash. Howl walked forward, his hand falling lifelessly from the other wolves fur. He pulled me into arms, hugging me to his chest.

"It's over here. Umbre, Amethyst, stay here and guard Eddy." The wolves huffed a response and moved to shield my daughter from all sides, leading her to the base of the trees. Howl pulled me along side him around the base of another tree. Corpse littered the ground, all of them just inches apart of one another. "It looks like they were all brought here and executed before the city was set ablaze. I sure most fought back and some must have gotten away. Is there anyone here that you know?" I stared at the frozen mid-scream, half burnt bodies and faces. I recognized a few people that had lived in my building for years, others were foreign to me.