The dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach came first.
It started with sets of chills racing down my spine. Followed by unexpected and instantaneous frigid caresses on my skin, despite being wrapped in a heavy quilt. My body felt wooden from sleeping on the floor as I tossed and turned.
Out the window, I noticed the full moon still danced in the black sky, wrapped in its own blanket of white clouds. The way the moon was stretching down towards the trees made me painfully aware of how little sleep I had gotten. I knew it couldn’t be earlier than three am-the witching hour. No matter when I went to sleep, whether it was late evening or very early morning, I always woke at the same hour.
Now, under normal circumstances, I would have rolled over and gone back to sleep. But the ice-cold chill coursing over me was far too distracting. I felt as I did in the graveyard; surrounded by death and misery.
Gajeel’s heavy snores filled the silence as I sat wide-eyed and shaking. After a while my nerves seemed to calm themselves and I snuggled back into my quilts embrace. Just as sleep flickered at the edge of my mind, another shock of ice splashed over me. I jerked up again, body drenched in cold as if I was standing naked in the snow. I told myself the house was cold-everything was fine. Even so, I couldn’t shut out the dreadful feeling encasing me. My heart rattled in my chest as the candle flickering in the corner finally burned out, shielding me in darkness. I eyed the shadows of the room, almost daring them to move or speak.
They didn’t.
“Please, Gods,” I whispered. “If you’re listening, make it stop.”
My voice was trembling as I wrapped myself tighter in my quilt. Once again, I tried curling onto my side. Though I knew sleeping through the feeling was impossible. The sudden, overwhelming scent of smoke flooded my nostrils. Outside, the roar of nighttime critters morphed into shrill screams. A house fire!
I sprang into action despite the burning tightness in my chest. Rousing Gajeel and the children was no easy feat- I was mostly met with snotty crying and the grumblings of death threats. By the time Madam McEnery threw open the bedroom door in her gown and cap, I already had the children redressed in their winter clothes and was lacing up my fur boots.
“Come children,” Madam McEnery rushed us down the stairs where our cloaks were still hanging over the hearth. Mine was still slightly damp, but I knew it would provide enough protection from the winter madness.
“Katara,” She called. I stared at the hand-woven carpet, expecting her to lash out, assume I had done something. accuse me of witchcraft. She placed a wrinkled hand on my face and hoisted a groggy Mercy to her hip with the other. “I’m proud of the responsibility you have shown tonight.”
I released a deep breath and nodded before gathering the half-asleep children. “Hold hands everybody, we don’t want anyone getting lost.”
Gajeel brought up the rear of our line as we finished prepping to leave for the boathouse. At the other end of Wilkreth, beside the monastery, the boathouse was the designated gathering place when fires broke out amongst the close-knit houses. All it took was one ember reaching our secluded house and that would be it; a risk we weren’t willing to take.
My senses were on high alert. For reasons unknown to me, I felt that this was more than a simple house fire. Every part of my brain screamed at me to take the Littles and brave the forest in the dead of night. I shook off those insane thoughts and reached for the door.
“Help!” A voice shrieked just outside the house, followed by a loud BOOM. I ripped open the door and instantly went weak in the knees.
Blue flames raged across the village. All of Wilkreth was engulfed in the blaze. Plumes of black smoke spiraled into the endless sky, carrying with it the screams and horror of the innocent people below. That was the first time I was thankful the orphanage was outside the village.
I blanked. How was this possible? Blue flames-the only thing that burned hot enough to create such heat was…. was….
A mighty roar rattled my brain, confirming my worst suspicions. I now saw the dark figures looming above the inferno. Two dragons, easily as large as mountains, were locked in battle. Clawing violently at each other and firing columns of pure blue flames, uselessly. One dragon, which I thought I caught a hint of bronze in its scales, fired at the darker dragon. The ball of flames missed by a fair distance and smashed into the bakery. The familiar building was instantly ignited.
“Father!” Gajeel’s trembling voice dragged my attention from the majestic beasts. He was already barreling down the hill, toward the chaos.
My legs made the decision before my brain and suddenly I was chasing after him. Madam McEnery screamed for us to come back as she and the Littles ran around the back of the house-towards the Dark Forest. I knew she wouldn’t take them too far in, just deep enough to reach the river. Keeping my eyes trained on Gajeel’s cloaked back, her voice wouldn’t deter me. I had to stay with him.
With each step towards the disaster my skin burned hotter, but the chills were relentless, as if I was feeling the souls fleeing to Corvus’s shroud, the God of death was surely lurking in every shadow. By the time we passed the first of the burning buildings, it felt like I had both been locked in a baker’s oven and trapped under a frozen lake at once. We raced past villagers, some escaping, others desperately calling for help. My thoughts settled on one thing-stay with Gajeel. As my mind focused on its task, I failed to notice the figure running at me.
We bashed shoulders. The force knocked us all to our backs. Me, the boy, and the old woman he was leading to safety. The melted snow soaked my clothes. His emerald eyes stared at me with a shocked familiarity. In the blue light of the flames, his scowling face looked like something out of a nightmare. Shadows hung below his long, dark hair. It painted his face as a terrifying canvas-almost like a villain with two glowing green eyes.
“Why are you here?” He barked. “Get out of the village you stupid girl!”
He moved to grab my arm but i ducked away, managing to escape his strong hands. I didn’t waste a second more with the Commander as I had lost sight of Gajeel. Lucky for me, his giant footprints were very distinguishable in the mud, easy for a novice tracker such as myself to follow.
Though I tried to regain my focus, the boy’s eyes lingered in my mind. I could still picture them clear as day, burning bright as the flames around us. It was like staring into a portal, one that lead to the greenest forest, flushed with life. I snapped out of my thoughts as I spotted Gajeel up ahead. He was standing outside his father’s shop-which was flooded with blue fire.
A blood-curdling scream fled my dry throat as I choked on smoke and tears. Inside the building, though hard to make out, were rows of small, charred corpses. The sick children. My lungs spluttered as I fell back, my legs no longer capable of carrying me.
They were dead. All of them were dead. Turning, I braced myself on all fours and heaved. Gajeel’s soft hands grasped my hair, holding it away from my face as my dinner of stale bread and thin soup reappeared. When I managed to glance up at him, his face was contorted into a nonchalant glare.
I suddenly realized Leon, his father, was also inside. “Gajeel,” I sobbed and threw my arms around his neck. “Your Father-Gods! I’m so sorry!”
When I pulled away, his face was still serious as he watched the sky. Another roar shook the earth and A pair of gigantic shadows passed over us.
The two dragons circled overhead in a dance of wings and blasts of flames. Villagers all around us screamed in a panic. They rushed towards the outskirts of the village, crushing each other in attempts to save themselves.
“Ready!” One voice shouted above the others. A man i hadn’t seen before in heavy silver armor stood at the head of a battalion. They were all clad in thick armor, proudly brandishing the Dire-Wolf print on their chestplates. The emblem of house Levine-The Sardathelian Royal Family.
The General raised his arm, his glittering gauntlet signaling the archers to notch their arrows. “Aim!”
Their elbows shifted backward in precise synchronization, straining the strings of their bows. It happened in slow motion; the General lowered his gloved hand. “Fire!”
A barrage of metal arrows curved through the air. The Darker dragon roared as it twisted its gliding form and spread its majestic wings, titling sideways. The arsenal bounced off its scaled torso ineffectively. With a rumbling growl, the dragon turned and flew straight for the battalion-straight for us.
I watched in horror as the darker, larger dragon stretched its clawed feet to attack. The Commander from before, who had managed to push through the hysterical crowd, screamed for us to move, but I couldn’t. My legs wouldn’t move. Gajeel stayed firmly planted in front of me. At first, I thought he too was frozen. But his clenched jaw and iron stare was unnervingly brave.
Gajeel had never looked that serious before, not once. In all the years I had known him, he had always kept his sense of humor. Not when his father would send him to school across the country for months every year. Not even when we were eight and I broke my leg from falling off a horse, he still found a way to make me laugh. It wasn’t in his nature to be serious, to act like an adult.
The claw wrapped around Gajeel without ripping him to shreds as one would think, in fact, it was almost gentle. His hand suddenly gripped mine and I felt my feet lift off the ground. I grasped his hand as tight as I could, as if it would somehow anchor him back to the earth. My nails dug into his skin as we passed above the burning merchant courter.
This is it, I thought, This is how I’m going to die.
If I didn’t fall to my death, then surly the dragon would eat us both. Either way, we were as good as dead. Neither was very pleasant.
“Don’t squirm!” Gajeel struggled to keep his hold on my sweaty hand. “You cannot fall from here!”
My ears rang-a high squeal, as his grip on my fingers slipped from his. My stomach lurched as air rushed around me. I fell towards the flaming village. Tears blurred in my eyes as I passed the burning lake top homes of the fishing sector.
“Tara!” Gajeel’s arm stretched towards me as if he could reach a hundred feet and grab mine.
The dragon changed direction, pulling him out of my view. In a second, he was gone and I was alone. My back smacked the surface of the lake, knocking the air from my lungs. Ice-cold water engulfed me. Burns I hadn’t noticed immediately lit aflame as I sunk further into the dark.
Move, I begged.
Move…
Move!
MOVE!
I held onto the thought until my eyes burned from the effort of staying awake. My body crashed into the muddy lake floor stirring the dust, floating corpses, and broken timber. And an overwhelming sense of peace drowned my mind, calming my thoughts as my lungs spluttered the last remnants of air I clung to. I was dying, and my body didn’t care-I didn’t care.
That was it-my way out.
No more insults, no more isolation…it would all be over.
ns 15.158.61.12da2
