Author's notes:

Nah, not going to say anything, don't want to spoil you too much :p

Enjoy!


Prologue

It finally is over. It's not like I did not anticipate this. For someone like me to survive something like that was never possible from the very beginning. The 24 of us against an army of Awakened Beings of equal numbers was no battle we could hope to win. Captain Miria knew that from the very beginning. I hope that her plan has saved many of our comrades, she has deserved it! In this icy hell she was the one who gave us hope, even if it was just a little.

Wherever I looked, there were my comrades, either unconscious, dead or fragmented. I gave my all to inflict as much damage to our enemies as possible, in order to protect as many of my comrades as possible. Also I had no intentions of disappointing the person that had enabled us to fight with at least a little bit of comfort in our hearts, so I just forgot about all the fear of dying and just fought. Until I felt my life leave my body.

It pains me a bit that I had to die, but as we promised, no bitterness. Who survives, survives and who dies, dies. Still I wish that I could meet her again... to thank her for giving us the hope that we needed so badly. I was none of the lucky.

But still, I did not expect death to feel like that. Of course I was curious, because I knew that my death might come ever day. I thought that I'd just float around in the darkness forever but now, that I am death, I have to say that it is very... cold. And windy. Somehow it feels to me like I am lying on a solid piece of ground that is covered in snow. Much like the spot I died on...

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And then my eyes opened. At first I could not believe it: above me there was a sky as clear as a freshly polished mirror and beneath me there was the cold ground of Pieta. The cold wind was blowing all around me and made me feel alive. I had actually made it! I could not even believe it but then the pain in my body gave me the last proof I needed. Groaning I sat myself up and looked around: out of the six other warriors who also had survived, Captain Miria was the first one to catch my attention.

She was on her knees and sobbed. "Seven... even though there were so many" she condemned herself. Her whole body was shaking and her fists clenched. She was asking herself if she couldn't have done more, if that was all, that she was capable of.

It deeply pained me to see her like that. I knew that she had not really expected more than seven warriors to survive, but still she had hoped. But her hope was met with disappointment. And she blamed herself for that. I could feel her pain so well, for a moment I thought it was my own. I wanted to help her, to comfort her, but I couldn't do anything.

It was Deneve who told her that she was not to blame and that it was everyone's good fortune for her to by our leader. Even though she had stopped for a moment, Captain Miria began to cry again and still I could do nothing but watch.

I was not like Deneve who could objectively look at the situation. I was not someone like Clare who could just suppress her emotions. I was just a girl that had the once-in-a-lifetime luck of surviving something we had no chance to survive. And it all was thanks to Captain Miria.