Dancing With A God

Chapter 3

Everything, absolutely everything, had been destroyed.  There were nothing left, not one hairpine or one pot to prove that their used to be people living where the gash was now. She couldn’t believe that such a thing could happen, such a sight could exist. 

Where’s Connie house ? And Sarah’s ? Where are all the houses of my friends ? 

Quinn couldn’t believe their were dead. Her childhood friends were strong, she knew that their were there, in this world, waiting for her. Sarah and Connie knew her since birth, their bond was invisible. One day, they would meet again. She was sure of that. 

“Because there aren’t dead.” She muttered with a hind of anger in the voice, making her voice hoarse and hard. 

“Who is alive ?” Chimed Sasha as he skipped towards Quinn, a smile plastered on his face before stopping when he saw the opened gash on the floor. “Oh . . .” He simply said, figuring out why he heard his best friend's voice as different. 

He deduced easily that their was here the house of people she used to know. 

“Where their friends of yours  ?” He demanded silently, wondering if ever he would have an answer to that.

And as he thought, Quinn didn’t answered. 

She couldn’t bring herself to trust that all her childhood friends were dead, that they were killed by him. She could feel deep down in herself that they were still alive, still breathing, still living. Because Sarah and Connie couldn’t die now. They couldn’t have died during the invasion. No, Quinn couldn’t believe that they did die because otherwise,  she would hunt down that god who killed her parents and she would shoot him without any remorse for what he did. 

Oh yes, I’m going to make him regret for everything he did. 

***

“Oh my ! What happened dear ?!” Demanded Miss Marsh,  concerned of the queer look her little pupil had on her face. 

“Nothing ma’am.” 

Lies. Lies everywhere. Even when we would give names to lies, such as ‘white lies’, nothing would be able to hide the truth.  Quinn tried to hide herself behind lies, to hide her thoughts behind a curtain of lies. But she couldn’t live all her life in fiction and tale. Quinn couldn’t trust what she was telling herself to believe. Even if it was hard, even if she hated herself for that, she knew that never would she see Sarah and Connie. Maybe they weren’t dead but there were far from her. 

And only now did she realise that. 

“She saw her old house.” Added silently Sasha,  walking towards his friend. “It was destroyed.” 

“Oh my !” Blurred out the woman, truly startled by that news. “I didn’t know darling.” She said sadly, turning towards Quinn who was staring at them. 

“No need. I’m okay.” 

Am I okay ? She mused. No, I’m not. Not anymore.

The girl didn’t have the strength to lie to herself anymore.  And she knew she wasn’t okay, that her mind was slowly breaking.  Quinn was tired, she couldn’t hold this emotional mask on her face anymore, she couldn’t hold her tears anymore. They had to fade away from her eyes, to break a way out. Because she wasn’t strong, not anymore. She’d been strong for years but being there, in her childhood town, and seeing that she would never see again her best friends or her parents, it had been too much. 

Years were rolling down her tears under Sasha’s concerned eyes and the understanding look Miss Marsh was giving her. She couldn’t hold it anymore, she had to show someone she was human and that she had feeling on the death of her mother and father. 

“ Quinn ! Shouted the boy as his friend was running away towards the high hill. He was about to chase after her but a warm hand stopped him by pressing his shoulder. 

Without turning his feet, he turned his head backwards and saw Miss Marsh shaking his head in disapproval, forcing him to stop. 

“Don’t.” She quietly said, opening barely her mouth. “She need some space.” 

Biting his lip to the blood, he did what his tutor told him to. Even if it hurt to admit it, Quinn stayed a mystery to Sasha, even tho they were friends. 

The girl had arrived at age nine, unconscious, in the arms of a stranger covered in blood and dust, appearing in the middle of the night, the only light coming from the bright moon. Miss Marsh had sawn them that day, thought the almost closed window of her office, and she had ran towards them,  concerned of the state of the sleeping child in the arms of this man. This proud woman had always cared deeply for children, for it was normal that she had already got much worry over a child she didn’t know. 

When Quinn has woken up from the beds of the orphanage, the stranger was long gone and she had no idea of what happened the day before.  When police officers asked her who she was and where she came from, the hollow look she had in her eyes at the time was enough to understand she was one of the victims of the city who had fallen. But the girl had refused to open her mouth for the following year, eating only when Miss Marsh would give her the spoon and going outside when Sasha would take her on his back. She had been a shadow of herself until, without anyone knowing why, Quinn had opened up to others. She spoke more often, eating great plates of food and even her eyes shined again with almost the same light as when she was little.  Sasha and Miss Marsh had took the news with great smiles.

But what made such a change stayed a mystery. 

“Do you think she was never okay from the start ?” Asked in a quivery voice the boy. 
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“I don’t know dear.” Said the woman in a quiet voice, whilst wondering the same question. “ But I’m asking you take care of the children. I’ll meet with miss Wellbone.” 

“But haven’t you said that Quinn needed space ?” Inquired surprised Sasha.

“We never know dear. Here is the Forbidden City. We never know what could happen.” Answered sadly Miss Marsh with a smile.

She knew well enough that those places with a past so dark could hold much more than a story. Many, many rumours told that deep things happened there, such as abductions or murders but also much more, some even touched dark magic. Not that Miss Marsh believed in such things, she thought anything of fictional was unreal but she therefore knew that kidnappers and killers existed for real.  

That was why she was always concerned for the well-being of her orphans on trips such as this one. There was always a risk for danger. 

Wherever you are Quinn, 
I’ll find you.