Smoke Rising: Book III

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

When I wake, I'm laying in a ditch. An empty crater in the ground that must be at least two miles wide. For a moment, I don't remember what happened. For one blissful minute, I have no idea what I'm doing in a crater that can be seen from the moon. But then something sharp stings inside my chest, and I remember.

I remember everything.

I close my eyes, trying not to move. Trying not to believe the simple fact that I survived. But then I open my eyes again and I begin to crawl. I feel like a bug that's been stepped on, crushed under the weight of a heavy boot. My body weighs five times more than normal, my vision is blurry and broken. And my hands tremble as I claw at ash and dust. I freeze in place. The ash, I realize, is not confined to a single spot, but creates a blanket covering the crater.

I try to force all thoughts from my mind and stand. Somehow, someway, I survived this bomb. The moment Nicholi completed the circle, a forcefield formed around me. Why didn't they form it around us all?

But if they had all died, there would be bodies... bones... anything... they can't just be ash. That can't be all that's left. It's not possible. No bomb can incinerate entire bodies, buildings—the castle.

I close my eyes and say a spell that should allow me to see Iamani and Nailah. But it doesn't work. I try to find Eli, but all I see is the back of my eyelids. I snap my fingers, trying to form flame, but there's not even a spark.

I force myself to take my first step, heaving over the edge of the crater, and begin to walk in the direction I know the city is. East.

While I walk, my knees grow weak. The bones underneath my skin and muscle begin feeling brittle and I begin to worry they might just crumble.

As the sky rains dust, I swallow and my throat screams for water. But I need more than that, so I make an inventory of what I need to do, what I need to find. Water, clothes, supplies. Look for survivors. Find a way back home. Home. America. Eli. Ella. Ana.

I don't know how long it takes, but eventually I reach the edge of town. Dilapidated brick buildings, and bones of what used to be homes scatter the roadway. I reach a spot in the road that arches upwards that leads to the main city. As if an earth quake rolled through the town, the road has broken and diverged, creating a path of rubble make from concrete and asphalt. At the peak of the hill, I see the tip of buildings and a spark of hope flickers inside me. I begin to climb over the shards of broken street up the hill, and the memory of climbing up the rocks on the riverbank flash through my mind. A sharp pang twists in my gut, and I almost slip and fall in a hole between the broken shard of street. My hand catches me, and I use all of my strength to heave myself up.

I reach the top of the hill, and brush off my scraped and bloody hands as I stand. When I look out over the horizon, all the air from my lungs disappears.

The valley dips at the top of the hill, and down the fragmented road, the city opens up like pages in a book. Each page has been ripped and folded, crumpled and tattered. Not a single sentence remains in tact, not a word, not a letter. Nothing remains but a shuffled story, hundreds of families forever lost to a war that was not theirs to fight.

I think I should break down and cry. I should crash to my knees and tears should flow and I should curl up into a ball and retreat into my mind and hide there until I'm brave enough to come out. Until I've mourned long enough for every last life that was stolen. But I don't.

Rage takes over. Anger forces me to move. Fury rips through my lungs, the air flooding in slashing out just as fast. And the heat seething beneath my skin flickers but it does not explode. Sparks jump in my palms but no flames will come, which only enrages me more.

I jump down the fragmented road and into the valley, through the city and with each step the sparks grow hotter, stronger, brighter.

As soon as I get a flame, I'm throwing it at a building. I'm casting spells that blast through the boulders of concrete, expelling more dust in the air. I summon lightening, tossing it against a brick wall. The red and orange crumbles and shoots through the sky. My fists bang against a charred car on its side, and it erupts into a firework of dust. I'm seeing red and gray and blue, green and gold, black and orange. And when I finally stop to catch my breath, the world around me is on fire. I'm standing in a valley of flames, and there's nothing left but whispers of a thousand ghosts.

They speak to me, cry for me, and they want me. They need me. A small voice in my head is screaming for me to resist. Something deep inside my mind knows that I can't give in. But the rage has morphed into a sort of frenzy and it's taking over. I've fallen on something solid, and I'm relieved that I can't fall any further. Now I'm caught in the center of a tornado, and I am silent and still and everything is whirling around me. But I reach out my hands and the chaos grazes my fingertips, soaking into my skin. It merges with my blood, and lines my very bones. The Shadows of thousands of souls, draining into me.