Polemistés

Ashes & Fake Friends

Vincent;

11:20

The small city of Polemistés was no longer a city. It was a battle field, a deserted war zone, a scene from a horrific horror movie.

All the trees were burnt, where the leaves used to sit and watch people pass by, there is now thin twigs who's edges are rough and pitch black, some are even on fire. The roads are covered in blood and loose gravel, houses on fire and windows shattered, doors cracked laying on the ground.

What exactly happened?

I'd love to know.
As I stood looking at the inside of what used to be my home in disbelief, praying I'm hallucinating, of course I am! This isn't real. It can't be real!
"Vincent!" Millie shrieks running towards me.
I forgot I'd left them behind when I ran towards my house. "What's happened?" I ask, standing still, not facing away from my destroyed home.
"A small army of Athanois came, destroying everything in sight! They've killed everyone Vincent!" Millie begins, but no tears fall down her face "Only some people seem to have been able to escape, the floats have all been burnt to ashes, They're monsters!"

"What do we do?" I ask, finally facing her.
"I.. I don't know." She sighs. I try take a moment to breathe. Trying to think, I don't know what to do, what to say?
"They're repulsing monsters, every single one of them." Millie frowns, I nod in response. Athánatoi, the word itself is distasteful, sour. It rolls of the tongue like acid. Immortal, it means. The neighbouring race that lives on the other side of kingdom is not very much like us humans. The Athánatoi look like humans yes but they're magical creatures, instead of being decided by race, they're decided by element. I don't know too much about them since the department of education doesn't really want us learning about our immortal neighbours. All I'm sure of is that they're merciless.
"They think just because they can live forever, they can destroy us," She fumes, balling her fists.

"Princess Dawn didn't attend this year did she?" I blurt. Remembering the eldest princess, 17, we're the same age. "What if we try get to Íroes? We can ask her for help-There's no other way for her to find out, Polemistés is too secluded for any local news show to talk about what happened, we can go ask her for help!" I exclaim, my only idea was to ask for help. I couldn't think of anything else.

Millie looked at me as if I was insane, which wasn't something she did rarely. She then turned back at the scenery of our destroyed home. Her short light brown hair blew gently in the wind. She turned around, her blue eyes were ice cold, they always had been. No sympathy or remorse, just anger and frustration. "Are you insane, Bird?" She says, repulsed at my idea. "Calling me by my second name doesn't necessarily change anything, either way-do you have a better idea?" I raise a brow, normally I'd pipe down. But not now, not after what has literally just happened.

She takes a deep breathe and finally nods in approval. "Let's get the others." She sighs, I can tell she doesn't want to go to Íroes, the capital city of Vasileio Tou Gennaíou, in shorter words, where the royal family lives. But what else are we meant to do?

12:30

"Before we leave," Millie frowned whilst crossing her arms, eyeing each of us up and down. "Remember, Athánatoi are easy to catch. The way hunters identify them from us humans is by their eyes."

"What do you mean?" Derrick slightly hugs himself, cringing. Millie turns to him and raises a brow "Athánatoi have heterochromatic eyes. You'll know once you see them. Be careful though they can change their eye colour to blend in with humans but it will look abnormal."
"What do we do if we find one?" Lenora whispers, looking around with fear in her eyes. I put my hand on her shoulder to try clam her down.

"If you find one," Millie's eyes darkened "you kill them."

"I can't kill someone!" Joanna exclaimed. "They're not someone, Joanna. They're something, they're not human. Have you forgotten that they just killed everyone here! The only reason we're not dead is because we were in the woods!" Claud yells his face flushed red with anger.

"Guys this isn't the time to fight," I plead "we won't have to kill anyone, we start walking to Íroes, once we get there we ask the princess for help. We'll see what happens after that."
Claud frowned whilst everyone (except for Millie-surprise!) shifted uncomfortably. He sighed and started walking. We all followed close behind.

3:45pm

We had been walking for hours.
Polemistés was extremely far away from Íroes, not too far to the point where we couldn't get there on foot, but still pretty exhausting considering we had no food, water or money.
We were all dirty, tired and helpless. The only thing keeping me going was the hope that Mum and Belle were ok.
'They found a place to hide, they're right there. No one hurt them.' I tell myself, and it calms me down for a minute or two.

I can practically hear everyone's desperation. "Where the fuck are we?" Claud groans, finally breaking the silence that's been sitting around us for the past hour. "I Érimo Ton Neckrón." Lenora sighs from next to me, Her black hair swiftly tied into a small bun at the top of her head, her eyes are different to Millie's. Warm and brown, soft and full of empathy and emotions. Because she was -in fact- emotional, Derrick stood beside her, his red hair all over his face whilst his dull green eyes seemed as if they wanted to cry, but held back the tears. I understood him, I wanted to cry too.

"What!?" Millie shrieks, stopping dead in her tracks "I Érimo Ton Neckrón? That's it, we're dead-goners! Why didn't anyone say we were here sooner, I thought this was another desert!" Millie screams, kicking and throwing her arms around. We all freeze as we realise why She's freaking out-I Érimo Ton Neckrón means the desert of the Dead. It's said once you enter and once your feet touch its sand and ground, you'll never get out. Venomous creatures and predators live here.

We all stand in silence, staring at each other. When Joanne breaks the silence by screaming "SNAKE!" We all jumped and started freaking out, the creature slithered around, hissing at us. Millie attempted to kick it, but missed, simply infuriating the thing even more as it looks as if it pounced at her, I quickly run and put my arm in the way, as I slowly feel the thing dig its teeth into my flesh and a very large and painful sting takes over my arm. It slowly lets go and slithers away.

As I collapse onto the floor coughing Lenora and Derrick run to my aid whilst the others stand in shock.
"What do we do?" I hear Lenora whimper to Derrick. "We need to get out of here." Claud demands. "And leave our friend?" Derrick yells. "He'll be fine, let's go try find a nearby village or something, we'll be back." I hear Millie demand. Their voices begin to soften, and everything goes red, and blurry. As I lay on the ground I feel my eyes slowly closing,
ah shit. It was venomous.