After Fate Fell

56

1 year, 3 months, and 19 days after it all
SIX

The sky is beginning to darken, and we know that it really is time. This whole time, everything we've done, has all led up to what is about to happen... I just hope we're able to complete the task. Because all of us know, this is much more than we originally thought. The visions, the mind-control, and now our abandonment, this entity knows what makes us tick. But we have something it doesn't, strength in numbers, something we may have seen as a weakness at one point, with the charm holding our fate in a simple order, giving us numbers where we should have had names. I think after this, we need to adopt real names, ones that don't simply label us as a target. I think I'd like that.

We all gather outside the house, unspoken agreement between us all that now is the time to go. The silence between us all is being drowned out by thoughts being bombarded at me, although I'm sure it isn't only me. We all know how detrimental this is to us, to Lorien, and what needs to be done.

My eyes fall on the church for the first time tonight, and I can see its ominous glow creeping out into the young night. When we first saw it, the brightness was too great to handle, to even believe if it was real, but now, it's much dimmer, partly because the wall is blocking a direct view of it, but I also have to wonder if there's a reason for this. Was it only brighter before because it wanted us to find it? It wanted us to come here, to do exactly what we're about to? Or is it weaker now than before? This entity holds so many secrets, but this is one that I don't even think I want the answer to.

I shiver, and although the cold of night hasn't set in yet, I feel cold. I look over to a cloud of cold walk out the door, Marina in the center of it. Despite the arid air here, she's been able to summon icicles in each of her hands as she walks outside, and I can't tell if she's too focused to care, or if she doesn't even know they're there at all. Either way, we need this kind of energy. I'm glad she's able to use her legacies. Controlling them, though, is another thing. I just hope we don't run into any issues out there. We're going to need all the power we can get.

We had only a couple weapons brought into the house, the remaining ones were in the car. I don't even know how they would be useful against this kind of enemy, but it won't hurt to have them, just in case. I hand a small gun to Adam and tuck the other one into my waistband. We are all ready as we'll ever be. I may be the strongest combat-wise, along with Nine, but Ella calls the shots here. She knows more than any of us about what we're up against. Without her, we wouldn't even be here. I wait for her command.

"Alright," she says, leaning against a post that holds up the overhang of the sand-covered porch. And that's all she needs to say for us to know. It's time. We all begin walking toward the church, not separating yet to go to our posts, lingering together for what we all must know could be our last time all together. I don't want to remember it like that. I can't afford to even let that thought creep into my mind, polluting my willpower. This may not ever be a happy memory in my mind, but I'm promising--though it may only be to myself, fear of speaking aloud creeping in, I don't want to break the focus--that this will go down as the memory of the last time we had to fight, the last time we had to kill. Soon we'll be in Paradise, and I don't mean Ohio, I mean Lorien.

We start to really near the church, and we all know we should've split up a while back, but nobody wants to be the first one to break away. I look to the building I'm supposed to go to, and I look back at the group. We've slowed now, everyone mostly looking at each other rather than the ground like the rest of the walk. I can tell everyone wants to say something, but nobody knows what quite what, or how to say it. So I do.

"This isn't the end," I say, and I look over my shoulder as I break, heading toward the building.

I don't look back again.