After Fate Fell

42

Hey guys! Just a heads up this chapter has a different format than all the chapters previous to it! It is split into different points of view, which is why you may have noticed the title does not have anyone's name in it. I'm not sure if there will be more chapters like this, we'll see.

***ALSO! I am tired of posting random desert stock photos for the pictures at the top of every chapter. If any of you would like to create some art or edits for any of my upcoming chapters, please message me on here or DM me on instagram (@lcrien) and I can tell you what to draw/paint/edit/etc. I will use your art and give you credit at the beginning of the chapter it is featured in! Please message me if interested!
-Braden

1 year, 3 months, and 17 days after it all
•SIX•

We move south along the coast, hoping that south is the right direction to go. I drive, knowing I'm the only one focused enough to do so after the boys' little jaunt at the cliff leading down to the water. The sand has leveled more with the ocean, giving us a lower vantage point and therefore less view of what's ahead of us. It's okay though. We're going the right direction. We have to be. North wouldn't make any sense, because we travelled almost straight due north, and that's what got us so far off course. So south along the coast is the plausible way to get back where we came from.

The sun is high in the sky, and I can't imagine the heat we would be standing in if not for this air-conditioned car.

The trip drags on much longer than I thought it would, especially considering the fact that when we were travelling in a sandstorm, so I wouldn't assume we were covering much ground over that short amount of time. But now that I think about it, Nine was driving, and he was angry and determined, and I'm sure his foot was on the floor. Then Adam drove, and considering how long this is taking for us to find our way back, he must've gotten us even further off course. I just hope we can make it back by nightfall.

//

The boys are asleep, except Sam, who sits next to me in the passenger seat, awake and attentive.

I look over at him, wondering why he's so focused on the path ahead and not asleep like the other two.

"Six, do you think they're okay?" he asks me, and I realize that the reason he's awake isn't because he thinks I need help navigating, but instead, he's scared for the others' safety. I have to admit, I'm nervous too. They're all strong, Ella has stepped up into the leadership role for this whole thing, I'm sure she can lead them through this. Marina has gained a fire within her that I've only seen grow everyday since I found her at that convent in Spain all that time ago. John has the strength and determination of a hundred human boys his age. Five's wit could take him anywhere he needs to go.

"I'm sure of it," I tell Sam, looking over at him.

He doesn't look as sure as I am.

"But what if something happened to them? What if the storm was too strong and they got buried in the sand? Or what if the blinding sand caused them to crash into the river below?" I don't know why he's saying these things, as if he believes something like this happened to them and we're going to find them all dead or we're never going to find them at all. I haven't known Sam to have this type of despair and hopelessness before.

"Nothing happened to them. They're on their way to where the river meets the ocean...hell, they're probably already there waiting for us! Sam, why are you thinking about these things?" I ask him, and I'm honestly worried.

"Because I had a vision," he says.

•MARINA•

Time stops.

I can't hear anything, not even the sand, rushing through the air at speeds I didn't even know possible. I don't hear the voices of Five and John. The light in the sea shines a sickening shade of red, somehow with an equally sickening purple mixed in there too.

In the silence, the light, the wind, is a lifeless Ella, lying in the sand, which is drifting on her sides and covering her body. I don't know how she ended up behind me, don't know what happened to her as I was distracted by the impossibly bright light, but it doesn't matter, not now. I run to her, Five and John right behind me, shouting silently through the confusion.

I reach down and instinctively pick her lifeless body out of the sand which was engulfing her, inviting her to become part of it, buried beneath it. Five helps me lift her, and feels for her pulse. I draw in breaths sharply, and all of a sudden I don't care about the sand that's entering my lungs right now, I don't care about the ocean, the river, the light, where we're going or what we're doing. All that matters now is Ella.

"It's weak, but it's there," Five's lips read, and I can't hear him, all I can hear is the ringing, loud in the background of the silence that it accompanies.

I don't even know what we should do now that we've picked her up out of the sand that wanted to pull her under, because all there is is sand, everywhere... except of course at the ocean, but that wouldn't be helpful either.

John pulls off his shirt, motioning for us to follow with Ella in arms. We do, and he leads us toward the water's edge, laying his shirt down on the wet, firm sand. Five and I carefully lower Ella to the ground, onto the shirt, which is already damp from the wet sand below it.

I grab her hand, which is as cold as the water soaking into my clothes, and pull it up to my face, touching it to my cheek.

I focus on her body, whatever is causing this. I lay her arm back down to her side and put my hand on her chest, closing my eyes and trying to heal her using my legacy. I feel the warmth and the energy unravel within me and flow into her body.

I can feel the heat in her body return, and I pull my arm back. I open my eyes and see John and Five's lips moving, but nothing but silence enters my ears.

"I can't hear you," I tell them, and they stop talking. John comes closer to me and puts his mouth right next to my ear, and I feel his breath, but still no sound. Am I deaf? What is happening to us?

Ella still lies on the ground, unmoving. I healed her, how can she still be unconscious? How can she still look so dead?

•SIX•

My foot lifts of the pedal without me even knowing about it. I may be at the wheel of the car, but I have forgotten to control it, to put my foot on the pedal, to steer, to look ahead, out the windshield at where we're going. My muscles have stopped functioning and I feel a chill roll up my spine and back down.

The bone. I don't have to look at it to know. The prophecies. The final resting places. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have let this happen? Etched onto Pittacus' bone we found in the bunker in Sam's backyard, were prophecies, death sentences for each and every one of us. I thought it was odd that so many of us had the same death place, but I didn't know where it meant. Something about the sand, something about the ice cold ocean current, but I overlooked it.

Nine of us escaped Lorien. Ten.
Will any of us survive to return?