Redemption

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Infiltration

As it turned out, Fletcher hadn't heard about the murder suicide in the square. Micah described the incident, along with the message from the King, and the two of them discussed what it could mean.

They went back and forth about various incantations and tonics that might help sever the connection between me and the King, but they came up with nothing. They vowed that they would talk with the Council the following morning about other options.

I was only half paying attention to their conversation as I lay on the mattress, turning to face the wall. I had become so focused on my success in training, I had forgotten the seriousness of the matter at hand. Today had been a brutal reminder, one that I wasn't sure to forget any time soon.

I tossed and turned for several hours that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I was haunted by the accusing stare of the young boy who jumped to his death.

When I was finally able to fall, I dreamed that I was standing in the middle of the square. I was alone and it is quiet, too quiet. Even after curfew there were a few sounds- people's deep breathing through the thin walls as they slept, guards patrolling the streets looking for stragglers, birds in distant trees singing their evening melodies. But not in the dream. In the dream there was a silence that chilled me to the bone.

I was wearing a long, white night dress, my pale legs exposed to the cold autumn morning. For some reason, I was barefoot. I stared curiously at my ghostly white feet, mesmerized and confused, until something caught my eye.

A dark red liquid was crawling slowly  in my direction. It dispensed rapidly from an unknown source until it surrounded my ashen feet, gliding effortlessly between my toes. The scarlet solution looked strange next to the pastel of my luminescent feet.

"What's this?" I muttered, as I leaned down to touch the liquid with the tips of her fingers. It was surprisingly warm.

I noticed a trail of the liquid not that far away from me. I followed it, an eerie feeling flooding through me. I let out a spine-tingling scream when I found the the source.

Fletcher's still body was a couple of yards in front of me, lying in the dirt of the town square. He was on his side, his glossy eyes staring at me as blood flowed from his lifeless corpse.

I tried to run to him, to try to save him before it was too late. But I was frozen in place, left staring into his cold, brown eyes. I turned my head, unable to look at him, but let out another horrible cry when I saw Micah's body beside me, the light in his bright green eyes forever gone. I tried again to move, to flee from the horrific sight, but my feet were cemented to the ground.

Everywhere I turned, I daw another body lying dead in the streets of Tueri- Sage, Patrick, Dennis, Commander Nero, the people that work in the kitchens, a group of first year children I had seen training that morning, all lying on the ground, all dead.

I stood in the middle of the square, surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of cadavers, stretching for as far as the eye could see. As I struggled to break free of my now paralyzed legs, the warm, dark blood continued its rapid course towards me, covering my toes, my ankles, my knees until I felt as though I was going to drown in it.

The last thing I saw were the accusing stares of my friends as they pierced into my soul, imploring why I didn't save them.

Their blood continued to flow, pouring into my mouth and eyes, suffocating me until I eventually blacked out.