A/N: I actually started this a while ago, but just now thought of a good way to finish it. Well, what I thought was a good way. I was pretty tired at the time of writing...=/ Anywhatwho, please don't bash me too badly if you don't like it. I'm sorta experimenting with a new style of writing in this one – plus, like I said, I was nearly falling asleep as I finished it :P
Disclaimer: The characters belong to John Flanagan, and the song to We Are the Fallen. Neither of which I am associated with. For one thing, I can't sing like that.
Alyss gingerly steps through the carnage. It's not as though she hasn't seen dead bodies before – she has, more than once. It's just that these are people she knows – rather, people she knew.
She kneels down and gently closes the eyes of one soldier, one she grew up with. She supresses a flash of memory – him as a boy, helping her up after she fell out of a tree. Will was climbing down, anxiously asking if she was okay. She returns to reality with a gasp. Will – was Will alright?
Memories flood through my brain
Tears drown my heart filled with rage
Blinding silence takes your place
She runs to the nearest window, looking out over the courtyard where the last dozen raiders are being routed. She nervously scans the battle, looking for Will's distinctive grey-and-green mottled cloak. Her heart pounds harder every second she doesn't see him – and then there he is. She relaxes as she sees him calmly firing arrow after arrow into the enemy, invariably causing at least one to drop. A smile is forming on her face – but it dies and morphs into a silent scream.
Will is hit.
Broken forever by this life
Why?
One of the raiders has a bow, and shoots Will just before getting his head hacked off by a soldier Alyss doesn't know. She leans against the window, watching as Will staggers back. He weakly raises a hand to touch the arrow sprouting from his stomach, then falls backwards ever so slowly.
Wake from where you lie
Don't say goodbye
I'm praying for more time
Don't sleep tonight
"NO!" she screams, unable to stop herself. She feels like falling herself, but to do so would mean toppling out of the window. Although, that doesn't seem like such a bad idea...for what was a world without Will but a world of darkness?
Heaven hear me
Hold them safe
Time stands frozen
No more strength
Alyss mentally shakes herself. Will might not be dead, she tells herself. She clings to that thought as she tears herself away from the window and runs as fast as her feet will carry her down to the courtyard. The raiders are gone, but even if they were still fighting tenaciously, she would have paid them no heed. Will needed her.
Broken forever by this life
Why?
She runs across the courtyard, slowing only to avoid bodies. Despite her grief and fear, she holds on to her respect for the dead.
She reaches Will in a heartbeat that takes a lifetime. "Will," she whispers as she crouches next to him.
Wake from where you lie
Don't say goodbye
I'm praying for more time
Don't sleep tonight
He smiles weakly up at her. "Hi, Alyss," he says, his voice soft and hoarse with pain he tries to hide. He raises a hand to caress her face but doesn't quite make it.
She forces a watery smile back as she clasps his hand to her cheek. "How are you doing?" she chokes past her heart, which seems to have lodged itself in her throat.
Oh
Wake from where you lie
Don't say goodbye
I'm praying for more time
Don't sleep tonight
Will starts to answer, but interrupts himself with a bout of bloody coughing. Breathing deeply, he lays back and meets Alyss' gaze. "You knew this might happen," he says.
She is crying now. "But I didn't want it to," she whispers. It is all she can muster.
Will smiles again, but this one is tinged with pain and full of sorrow. "I know," he says. "It's okay."
"It's not," Alyss says, holding back a sob.
"It will be," Will promises. With his last breath, he whispers, so softly Alyss has to strain to hear, "I love you."
And then he says no more.
Lie now, peaceful dreaming
I'll stay till your last breath shall die
She sits on her knees, sobbing, broken. Because when they took his life, they took her heart along with it.
A/N: Yeah...I know...:P
Didja love it? Hate it? Like I said, it's a style I've never used before, so please go easy on me.
