Hell's Bane (COMPLETED)

Chapter Twenty-One: To The Past

The fire replayed through all of their minds, Katilyn seeming the most stunned of them all. She sat there, almost lifeless as drops of water fell from her lanky strands of hair, on the rowboat staring into space as she muttered words under her breath. The explorers didn't dare say anything else, and so they rowed on, looking at each other with nervousness in their eyes.

Night fell, and they continued to row. If Joss and Hugo were tired of rowing, they never expressed it. Under the starless sky, where the moon was new and bore no light, their oars dipped the water, and silently, they went on.

It was peaceful, soothing, that night. The memory of what had happened before clashed with the steady sounds of the oars softly coming in contact with the water and the stillness of the world around them. With exhaustion finally catching up to them, the explorers closed their eyes, meaning only to do so for a second, and quickly drifted off into another world...

In Susan's dreams, the fire on Chandler Island had only begun again. Katilyn, Hugo, Joss, and Drea were in the attic piecing together Rowan's clues, but strangely, the spy was left on the bottom floor, looking around with an oddly neutral expression.

The Scavenger soldiers suddenly appeared inside the tower, and she only noticed them with the corner of her eye. Fear bubbled up inside her as she felt the will to move – to scream, to alert the others that the Scavenger had finally caught up. But she was rooted to the ground, unable to move even the slightest hair's breadth, and she could only watch helplessly as they set the table on fire before running away.

Help! Susan tried to call out with her mind, only to find void waiting for her. Help! Run! Fire!

In the corner of her eyes, the fire turned into a blaze, engulfing everything in its path. Everything, Susan thought greiviously, as if the dream were truly real. This is the end.

The fire swallowed stone at an alarming rate, and the spy closed her eyes as she heard her friend's screams as some of them were torched to death, others jumping off to seal their own fate.

Then she was also overtaken by fire, and the pain felt too real. Unnaturally real. Burning pain. Searing pain. Death waiting on the other side, beckoning her to come, yet she never touched it. Fire melted her skin, scorched her skull, until she was no more – but still alive.

The flame began to flicker violently until she saw a figure she recognized only as Kazim also inside. The leader smiled, blood oozing out of his lips, and began to walk closer.

She finally screamed, as if Kazim were a devil chasing her, and the paralyzed state she was in seemed to break off. She fled, yet the fire never ended, and Kazim only stood there with that horrible grinning, as if he knew that eventually, the embers would end her forever.

"You know what you did," the leader finally croaked. "You were always too trusting, Susan Theolise. You have failed me, and I knew you failed me since the day you set foot into the Scavenger – you had the marks of a traitor written all over you. Now the only way to return to the truth is by the edge of a sword..."

Susan woke up, screaming this time in the real world.

The spy returned to her senses and looked around, only to breath a sigh of relief when she saw the rowboat quietly drifting through the water just as before, with a streak of color now painted on the horizon, marking a new day.

"Blood in the sky," Hugo suddenly breathed, startling Susan. "What happened?"

The spy bit her lip, thinking about the dream. "Nothing."