I Will Be Strong

#5

"Postea," she whispered into his ear. He didn't move.

"POSTEA!" she screamed. "We have to go! NOW!"

Postea stiffened, his eyes wide as the two men came closer and closer to them. He stumbled to run off the back of the platform, but his legs were weak. He could barely take another step before Avery grabbed his hand and dragged him off the platform. She continued to drag him, panting and exhausted as they rounded every corner, snuck through every tunnel in an impossible quest to shake them off. Postea was tiring, she could see it. His legs dragged more with every step and his chest heaved under the weight of his own, heavy breathing. She was tiring too, but she wouldn't let him see that. She would be strong. She would be strong. She would...

A loud BANG erupted through the castle. Avery whipped her head around, her hair sticking to her sweaty neck, as she looked straight into the eyes of a monster. This was insane. Absolutely insane. Surely the escape of his daughter and best friend wasn't a big enough cause for King Venen to bring out a group of Corrupted. Apparently not. She should have known this wouldn't be easy. The five twisted creatures floated towards them. They moved quickly and silently; almost upon them in a matter of seconds. Avery screamed as they reached for Postea, sensing his already dying soul. 

"NO!" she wailed, grabbing a tighter hold on Postea's wrist and dragging him closer to her. The Corrupted moved closer, backing her up into a tight corner. She looked around, but was only greeted with the disgusting faces of the monsters. Their eyes were blank, pure white and their bald heads covered in scars. Blood dripped from their mouths and onto the ragged, black robes that they wore. The Corrupted were powerful warlocks, they barely needed to use their bodies. A simple thought, a quick and easy spell, and you were dead. Warlocks had become the only people (or monsters) left in Fylak who could wield magic. They were given their power by Timor, the ruler of the Land of the Corrupted, the land of the dead. It was impossible to find a sorcerer nowadays. Someone who could wield their own power, choose their own limits, was far  too much of a threat to the King. He had them all hunted when the war broke out. 

The five encircled them, and she willed them to try and kill her. To try and use their magic against her. But if they so much as laid a finger on Postea, if they tried to take him away from her, she would kill them. She would kill them and she wouldn't care who was watching. 

"You are selfish, Avery Barnes."

Avery cursed. They got inside her head. They were going to find all her secrets, all her well-kept secrets and torture her with them. 

"You know nothing!" she shouted. Oh, but they knew everything. They had seen her secrets, her thoughts, her memories. 

"You only want to save your friend so you won't be lonely. How... amusing."

They drew out every last word with utter satisfaction. She felt them dive further into her mind. And then they found it. The memory. 

"Ah, so you lost someone dear to you I see."

Se fell to the ground and curled up against the wall as the pain of the memory shot through her brain. She wanted to use her. To call on her, to kill these beasts. But she was weak. And with every speck of detail she regained about the execution, she grew weaker. The Corrupted laughed.

Avery looked over to see Postea, lying on the ground, defenceless. She knew as soon as they had finished with her, they would kill him in the blink of an eye. Her brain flashed between frames; Poblivio's head, rolling on the ground, her father smiling menacingly, people screaming. Her friends, her family, everyone dying. She screamed and rolled over in agony. The memories, the thoughts, they all came spilling out. It was an overload of sadness and woe, she couldn't stop it. They just kept coming and coming, the deaths she had witnessed, the deaths she had created, the deaths. The deaths. The deaths.

Avery screamed again, and the Corrupted simply laughed. She was dying, she could feel it. Her body had gone cold, so cold she could barely tell what was real and what wasn't. She couldn't see anything but for blur, let alone think straight. Suddenly, the rapid film of deaths stopped and Avery looked up to see faces. So many, ghostly white faces. All the people who had died for her, for the Resistance, where all crowded around here. She screamed as hot tears slid down her cheeks. 'They're not real,' she told herself.

"THEY'RE NOT REAL!" she shouted as the ghostly figures moved closer to her. They were whispering, a soft mumble of words trickling through their pale lips. 

"It's your fault, it's your fault, it's your fault. We're all dead because of you. It's your fault, it's your fault, it's your fault." 

Avery could do nothing but cry. She knew it was her fault, all those failed missions, all those suicide quests. She had led them all to their deaths. Amidst all the pale, whispering faces, another emerged. Her mother. She walked to the front of the pack now almost on top of Avery and screamed. 

"I trusted you! You said you'd stop your father but you didn't, Ave. You...are...nothing."

That was too much for Avery. Her own mother, screaming at her. She lost control. She knew she should have fought it, but with every step the Corrupted took towards her dying body was another wakeup call for Myosotis. And Myosotis was not one to easily be contained when she was woken.

The Corrupted continued to tease her with the memories, but something wasn't quite right. She wasn't moving, no sounds were escaping her lips and yet, she wasn't dead. They sensed she still had life within her. Slowly, she raised her head to look straight into their blank eyes, her own completely black. The five stumbled back, instantly knowing what she was, she laughed. 

It rang out through the courtyard like the screams of the executed; haunting, chilling, demonic. She simply laughed as her black eyes continued to stare at the fleeing Corrupted and she rose into the air. The wind whipped her long hair around her face and her ragged clothes hung limp on her body, now 30 feet in the air. The Corrupted ran, they ran away from the thing  she had become. They'd all heard myths about people like this, but to see one was something entirely different. And as she tore them apart without lifting a finger, she knew Postea had seen. And she knew some explaining was in order. But even while she drifted back down to the ground and banished Myosotis away again, Avery couldn't help but feel as though she would be bringing out her other half a lot more often.