The Elementals : The Dawn of Darkness

Chapter 37 - The Highest Room Of The Tallest Tower

It took a few minutes to compose ourselves.

Shadow, powerful, unbreaking Shadow, stood against the wall, arms out to brace him like he was struggling to hold up his own weight. His head hung low so his thick black hair curtained his eyes. He hadn't said a word, but that had said enough.

Then there was Sheira. I admired her so much, more than anyone in fact. Besides maybe my own mum of course. She'd lost everything in such a fragile moment of her life, her mother, her father, even her home, all gone before she was even sixteen and yet she kept her head held high through all the madness and cruelty and abuse. But here she was, collapsed onto the floor, head buried in her gloved hands, muffled sobs breaking her silence.

I knew why she crying. How many more of her friends had gone through the same fate? Rose had lost her mind but how many people had died to get the recipe right? How many Juliet's had just died on the spot, screaming in agony? How many Daryl's had suffered for months before being overcome by something that destroyed them from the inside out?

Nobody really thinks about death. Not really, not like it's real or something that can ever happen. As my therapist once said, "the human brain just flat out struggles to comprehend the idea of death". Mine just flat out rejected the thought for years until I had to face it head-on and even then you deny it for as long as you can, hence the therapy.

It's just human nature and human nature sucks.

But this? This was real. Horrifically real. People had died, all for a madwoman who wanted to exploit human test subjects and dodge every human rights convention ever made. Everyone from my visions had been taken. Fifty-nine people gone, and all of them dead or unsavable. Cheery stuff, eh?

"We can't just leave him down there," Sheira sobbed, pearly tears still dripping down her cheeks. "We can't!"

"He's told us what we can do," I said quietly.

Sheira's head whipped around, her expression was suddenly furious. She stood so she was level with me. "That's killing him!" she protested. "He's my friend, I grew up with him. We can't just leave him to die down there!"

"We're not. Its mercy now," Shadow whispered quietly. Sheira and I turned our heads to look at him. His back was pressed flush with the wall but he was trembling.

Sheira wiped her eyes which were now bright, not with tears, but anger. "What?"

Without moving, Shadow said something that chilled me to the very bone. "In world war two I served with the special forces and in 1944 we were sent to liberate a concentration camp. Some people walked out. Some were carried on stretchers. Others begged to die. And sometimes we listened to them." He stopped talking for a second. I saw the thumb and forefinger rubbing together anxiously. "Take the advice of an old bastard. Sometimes, dead is better."

"But he'll burn," she snapped. "It'll be agony. He'll die screaming."

"It'll be quick," I took her cold hand in my bandaged and scarred one and squeezed it gently. She snatched her hand away. I sighed. "All we can do is end it quickly so we have to keep going. No matter what."

"He's right," Shadow said. "We know where we need to go now and we can't waste any time. Time is not our friend, well it hasn't been this entire trip but you get my point. We're on a tight schedule."

She contemplated for a moment, eyes shut to dam the tears, so when they opened again the sadness and heartbreak was still visible but so was determination and courage that burned like a white bonfire. She wasn't happy but we had a job to do. Sheira nodded shortly and lead the way up the spiralling staircase with Shadow and me tight behind her.