Hollows In Time (✔️) | 'Hollows' Book Ⅱ

Epilogue

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H o l l o w s I n
T I M E
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Sometimes things happen that we can't control. Before we know it, the match is struck, the fire is started, and the ashes are the only evidence we have that it happened. And the only person to blame is yourself.

Muscles burning, sweat dripping, and lungs constricting, it was easy to pretend that nothing was at stake. Easy to pretend we could stop and rest.

But we couldn't, we had to keep going.

In those fleeting moments, when we had fought and found victory, allowing us to carry on forwards, I felt it. It was harrowing, really. In a millisecond, I knew something was wrong.

I ran out into the rain as a thunderstorm warmed, the lightning streaming across the sky as the thunder let out a petrified scream.

The drops of water burned into my skin, cementing themselves where they lay.

And then, without a moments notice, the ground shook.

An explosion had gone off.

For a few seconds, I tried to brush it off. We had planned an explosion to go off, a distraction, so that we could exit without anyone noticing.

But it wasn't right. It was too soon, and too close.

Someone was ruining our plan.

I whipped my phone out, the wind lashing at my face as I prepared to contact Sky and Jameson, ordering for an emergency retreat.

And the building caught fire.

In complete shock, the phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor, becoming buried in the soil on the ground.

The heat was completely unbearable from even a few metres away—I couldn't begin to imagine the severity from inside.

I muttered things, over and over. Somehow, I knew they made sense, I just didn't know what they were. The person beside me, who I had forgotten the identity of in the moment, responded in short gasps of breath.

And then I sprinted.

Hearing shouts from behind me, I swung open the door, watching it go flying in my peripheral vision. I stepped into the shaking building, barely getting my other foot through the doorway before I was blasted backwards by a bout of flames.

Landing outside of the building, I curled up on the floor and shook.

No, this can't be happening.
I wouldn't let it.

They wouldn't die.
I wouldn't let them.

The person who accompanied me wrapped me in their arms, and I felt nothing but safe  in them.

"I've called them," the voice spoke out to me, echoing around my empty mind, "I've called them." It repeated.

I frowned, but let the person soothe me until I was ready.