Fate Undone: A Novella

Chapter III - Part I

III.

Anna shook uncontrollably, wave after wave coursing through her body. It was dark again, but this time there was no light. There was only a blackness so thick that it swallowed mind and body alike. Its emptiness felt too heavy to breathe.

The burning stable was gone. The clamor of a city in turmoil was somewhere else. Sounds of battle, of destruction and mindless killing, were not heard.

Here, the air was cool, but not fresh. And Anna's hands were wet and warm, with the grip of her dagger slick in her palm. She let it fall; its steel clattered on the stones that held her feet up. Anna let out a wavering sigh as she reached out with her hand into nothingness. She took a nervous step forward and her fingers jabbed stone. With her hold there against the wall, she slid down to her hands and knees, feeling her way through the blackness. A rough shape came to her, humped up like a sack of meat on the ground, and she made her way mindlessly over it. Her fingers hit the first crooked step, and she crawled up to the next.

The strength had left her—that unexplainable strength—and now she felt utterly weak. Bile tingled at the back of her mouth, and her stomach was a tight knot. When she touched the slumped shape of another, she flinched.

"Leandra?" she muttered.

There was no answer.

"Leandra?"

As her own voice echoed away, Anna pulled herself up to the next step and tucked her arms around the petite figure she could no longer see, feeling the limp weight in her hands, still warm. Blindly, her fingers trembled over silk until she found a small chin, an open mouth, the sharp point of a nose, the faint brush of lashes...

A choking sob flew out of Anna's throat. It bounced off the walls and cried down the empty tunnel, chased by more of the same. A convulsion grabbed ahold of her as if she were sitting in the freezing snow, naked, with the wind howling in her face. But it was not the cold that rattled her.

What has my life become? Of the things that could change, why couldn't this?

Anna slid onto the step beneath Leandra and pulled until she was cradling her friend's head in her lap. Her wet hands wouldn't be still, no matter how hard she tried, nor would her throat let her breathe easily. Her tears were relentless, streaming off of her face like melting ice.

As Anna relived all of it over again, exactly as it was the first time, she felt the rumble of the stone around her, vibrating her nerves even more, and she heard absolutely nothing—nothing but her own echoing cries to keep her company.

* * *

(If you enjoyed this, please consider leaving a Vote.)