Girl of Dark Flames | DISCONTINUED

Fourteen: Fragments

"Only in the darkness can you see the stars."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

―

FOURTEEN: FRAGMENTS

Still, even as night coated the sky in strokes of oily onyx, the only thing I could recall was blood. Red blood, crimson like her river of hair that spilled over one shoulder. Even as the reddest sunset was covered deftly, smote out with ink-stained hands, snuffed out like a candle's wavering light, all I could see was red.

Red hair, red sky. Red blood.

The rest was a blur like the lens of a camera when it struggled to focus on anything. I vaguely remembered flames everywhere, whether it was mine or someone else's, I did not know. I recalled a shriek and a sob and then darkness plunging everywhere, shadows whispering through the trees, the Atrium suddenly flooded with people.

People. Bodies? No. They were alive. Weren't they? Or corpses. Which was it?

Blood on my hands. Ash in my hair. Warm hands and reassuring voices that meant nothing to me.

And one lone figure kneeling in the blood with a sticky knife in its outstretched hands, knees soaked in blood, fingers drenched in scarlet. Eyes pointing downwards, mouth not working, body not responding.

I still hadn't seen Ezra, or Helen for that matter.

People were still fussing over me in the infirmary. Hands constantly taking my pulse, asking how I was doing, taking my temperature, making me more comfortable...at this point, nothing really mattered.

Blood. Dagger. Neck.

I should have seen Ezra and Helen before now. It was what a good friend would have done.

Hair. Red. Dead.

"I'm fine, I think," I announced to the most nearby worker, and almost hastily left the place in a hurry. The red roses outside the golden window were starting to make me feel sick.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

She wasn't, she couldn't be, she was alright, she was fine, she wasn't dead.

Dead, dead, dead. Dead. Red.

I walked faster, counting the doors until I got to the same door with the loose doorknob and rusted numbers, the same cramped hallway. If I knew anything about Helen, it was that she trained herself to forget. Numbed herself to reality by playing with knives. Blurred the details by letting light cover her vision.

I found my two swords sitting neatly on my bed. My bed was made and my clothes were hung up and washed. It slightly bothered me that someone had come in and touched all of my personal belongings, but what mattered was the swords. I grabbed them and made sure to lock the door behind me.

―

I was wrong.

She was not training.

I checked Helen's room on my way out, pulling her out and tossing her favorite daggers into her hands. She recoiled at the touch of them, but I took her anyway. It was Ezra that I found at the Atrium, eyes focused on a target at the far end.

His wrists seemed to move in a perfect sync, flicking knives to the target ― some hitting and some missing, but either way, something told me that he didn't care whether they even came close.

"Not today, Cassandra, I can't," Helen said, tearing her gaze away from some point in the far off distance and forcing herself to meet my eyes.

"What about our magic lessons?"