Chapter 1
She hears the screaming before she sees them, the people running towards her, most of them look terrified. She keeps walking towards them, even though a small part of her says that it's dangerous; you don't just get crowds of humans running and screaming from their homes, but she doesn't care. They're closer now and she starts to notice things about them. One man is carrying a basket; a child is clinging to a toddler's hand and somewhere in the midst of all the screaming, she can hear a dog barking. Now the people are close enough that she can hear what they're saying, well shouting actually. One small girl is screaming for someone called Blue, a woman carrying a baby is crying out to a man to leave it, not to bother and to just get out of this place.
She almost feels like laughing when she watches them. The humans are scared for their lives but she knows that's stupid. There's no fear in dying, only for the people you leave behind, the people who have to live without you. Just as she's thinking this, the crowd reaches her. She stands still in the middle, waiting for them all to pass, but she should have known better. Humans never leave you alone, a lesson she should have learned a long time ago. A young man stops in front of her and asks her what she's doing, just standing there. She just shakes her head. "Keep going." She tells him and he stares at her for a second and obviously presumes she's just insane and that it's too late for her now. She's heard this all before, but it's the people who don't know, they're the ones who say it. They don't understand, they weren't there.
She lets herself remember for a moment, only for a second. She remembers how they had promised never to leave one another alive without the other. And then she remembers how He broke that promise. He died, leaving her alone, the only one left of their kind. She doesn't want to think about it. She'll make herself forget, if that's what it takes.
She zones back to the present, where a woman is trying to get her attention. "Sorry, what?" "You have to get out of here, you can come with us." Again she shakes her head. "No, you go on." "It's too late," the woman tells her sadly, "It's all ruined everyone's dead or gone." She nods to herself, she had guessed as much. "It's okay, you go on." The woman looks at her and walks off but before she is out of sight she gives her last piece of advice, "Good luck." More people rush past, shoving and pushing, the noise almost unbearable. Eventually, everyone has passed and the screaming is fading. She keeps walking in that direction, remembering the last time she was on this road.
She's holding a little boy's hand and the child is talking about how weird lizard's tongues are. He's with them, that man, the one who broke the promise. Him and the boy are debating on how to pronounce the noise that snakes make while she watches how the sun shines in both of their hair. She focuses on how alike they are, more than she would ever admit and she wonders what other things the boy would inherit from him. She hopes that he won't talk in long sentences like his father, the man who broke the promise. A promise made not only to her, but to a little boy as too.
She wonders now what has happened to the boy or if he even remembers them and she hopes that the boy has forgiven them both.
Now that she has reached the village she can see why the people were running. Something obviously happened here. Some of the buildings are crumbling and the whole village is covered in a layer of sand. It's silent… too silent. She starts to sing softly to herself but the sound seems so small and lonely that she gats louder. She looks at the once familiar streets, never once regretting having left. Unlike the people who had left the village screaming, she knows what really happened here. And what is still happening, she realizes when she hears it; the low groan, following her, matching her singing- almost. Most importantly she knows that for one; it's all her fault. And two; she knows that she can stop it. And she will, even though she knows that it will be most definitely be the last thing she will ever do.
She finds the building the three of them once called home. As she walks up the steps to the front door, the noise that has been following her gets louder. The moment she touches the door though, it stops completely, leaving her singing again on her own. The door opens slightly without her help and she knows that it's there, inside the house and that it recognises her. It remembers her too. She sighs softly and pushes the door open fully to face their mistake.