All Heaven in the Midnight of the Sun

Chapter Three

The fire crackled and spit embers into the shadowed night. Garret Audias sat with his back against a tree, watching the fire print shadow-shapes on the leaves above and thinking. He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. And more often than not, the thoughts all seemed to revolve around Drey. How she had looked, how she had talked, how she had smiled. Something moved to his right, and he looked up, startled. It was the girl, lying on the grass beside the campfire, sleeping. She had stayed with him as he coped with his grief over the loss of his village and his wife. At first it had seemed morbid and blasphemous to him, having the murderer of his entire hometown staying with him, but he had needed comfort, and had been willing to take it from any source. It wasn't as if she had known what she was doing, after all. Looking into her deep green eyes, he found it impossible not to believe that. He didn't know exactly what had happened, or why, but he did know that she had never done any of it intentionally.

He stared at her for a moment longer, then tore his eyes away with an effort. Looking at her brought back memories that he wanted left buried. Instead he stared into the fire and thought. After some time, his eyes closed and he fell asleep. Several feet away, Aeris Gainsborough shifted in her nightmare-clouded sleep and moaned for help that would never come. A solitary tear rolled down her cheek and fell into the cooling ashes of the fire.

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The bar was dank and mostly silent save for the dull whisper of conversation. The bartender, a disheveled and surly looking man of indeterminable age walked from table to table and served drinks. He gave the cloaked figure in the back of the room a quick and suspicious glance, but said nothing. The cloaked figure felt that that was just as well. He didn't really feel like killing the bartender just for bothering him. Instead, he sat back, nursed his beer, and listened. The whispered conversation from the next table over came to his ears like it was spoken right next to him.

"Did you hear about Inepril Village?"

"What?"

"It's gone!"

"What are you talking about? Did it burn down or something?"

"No, and that's the strange part! It just vanished off the face of the earth. There's nothing left where it used to be except an empty field."

"What about the people living there?"

"They're gone too, except for the villagers out on errands. It's almost like the village was never there."

The conversation went on in this vein for several minutes as the two men discussed the nature of Inepril Village's disappearance, but the cloaked figure had learned all he needed to know. He paid for his beer and walked out of the bar and into the street. He turned and began to walk down the sidewalk. He stopped for a moment at one of the gutters lining the street. His hand shot in, lightning-quick, and pulled out a rat, squeaking in terror. He snapped its neck and pocketed it, then began walking again.

After all, he had a long trip ahead, and he might get hungry along the way.

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Aeris opened her eyes and was greeted by the misty dawn. She got to her feet slowly and looked around the silent campsite. The man was sleeping, propped up against a tree. She could see the trails of tears on his cheeks.

She closed her eyes in a sudden wave of despair. She could remember nothing, not even her name. Whenever she tried to remember her past, her head felt like it was splitting in two. A tear rolled down her cheek, unheeded.

After some time, she looked up again. The man was still sleeping. She stood there for a moment in indecision, then she walked slowly out of the clearing. She suddenly realized what she had to do. Nothing had been as clear to her since she had awoken into this world. A hint of a smile played across her mouth. She began to speed up, the way clear to her now.

Her eyes glowed green.