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Chapter 8: Into the Freezer
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The hallway was made from marble colder than the Antarctica, and seemingly twice as large. The whole trip through Jade's building had been of the utmost silence, even the bugs seemed to steer clear of the building. He had so many emotions running inside of him, he felt as if he might combust. He desperately wanted to reach out to Raven, who was as quiet as a stone, but he couldn't find the words to say. "We're almost there."
She had finally spoken. Even the faintest noise among the hallowed pits was as beautiful as a two thousand choirs. He was still at a loss for words, which surprised him gravelly. Under normal conditions, he found it difficult to stop himself from vomiting stray ideas and thoughts. "That's good."
That was the only thing he could think of. If only he could tell her all the things that his heart was singing to him, if only he could make his mouth move again. "Yeah, I guess it is."
"Rae, I-"
The sound of running feet upon the marble was like a marching band. Every footstep could be heard along the hollow stone cell, and there were lots of footsteps to be heard. He felt a large tingle of fear. There were to many soldiers coming there, they would never be able to defeat them. "This way."
She was a dolphin pulling him to the safety. They currently waited in the corner of the deepest doorjamb. Both of them closed their soft eyes, and prayed with all their hearts that they would live to see the sun rise. Gar was so cared that his heart felt ready to burst from his chest and let out a hollow wail of agony. Raven, as always, remained subtly calm. "Are they coming this way?"
"Shush," she whispered. Beneath her hollow exterior he could feel the fear brimming from her soul. She was more frightened then he, but she never once exposed her feelings in any shape or form. With caressing hands, he held her so close that his body chased the air out of her lungs. They held each other breathing short heaves of desperation. She whispered, "I think the soldier are going out the other way."
"Thank Gods for that." Even though the soldiers were gone, he still clung to her for dear life. He had been so afraid of losing her that he couldn't pry himself away. The sweetness of life clung to her. She began to wiggle out of his grasp, but he hung firm. Just a few more seconds of holding on to her would make him the happiest man on earth. "Let's stay like this, just for a second longer."
"There is no time." It wasn't like Raven wanted him to let go, but she understood that this mission was on a stopwatch. Even a few seconds outside of the deadline, and the world would be doomed to a eternity of servitude. She felt relief and sadness as he finally released her.
"After we get out of here, I'm never going to let you go." She couldn't bring herself to say that she would never be coming out of Jade's castle. This was the way she was meant to die. She knew that Gar would never accept it, so she kept her little secret to herself. The way he talked about the future made her so happy. His little hopes for years to come gave her the courage to keep fighting, despite everything that she knew was going to happen.
"Until then, we need to keep going." She grabbed his hand and gave it a tight squeeze. The marble seemed less cold with Raven's hand in his; it was almost like a large heater had been magically transplanted into the building. There was a strange restlessness that filled his stomach, he couldn't quite put his finger on it. It wasn't a good feeling, and it made him want to cling onto her like never before.
"Hey," he whispered. He pushed the odd feeling into the back of his overloaded mind. It was a button, easy to push and gave no resistance to his cause. This was the first time his mind had ever had so much to think about, usually he emptied his mind in front of electronically objects. "Everything will be okay, won't it?"
She gave his hand a squeeze, but remained completely silent. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking, and that made him agitated. Right now, all he wanted was to be back home with Raven and his friends. If only she had never been kidnapped, then things would be a lot simpler. "Do you want the truth, or something that will make you feel better."
His whole body tightened like a noose. There couldn't be a worse thing that she could have said. His friends were glass statue, they were trapped in the very core of a living hell, and he was beginning to lose hope in all the things that he once held dear. What was he supposed to do now? "Both."
"Truth first." There was a draft in the building. The air blew his hair in front of his eyes, making him seem wild and monkey-like. He wanted to be free of the castle that seemed to be pulling all the energy from his body. Was this what Richard, Victor and Kori felt like as their bodies slowly morphed into glass. The restlessness he had been feeling had returned. "I have my doubts about the future."
"I have doubts to," he whimpered. Raven had also given up hope, so he just had to be strong for the both of them. He would be her pillar of strength, just like he had always dreamed he would be. The restless feeling was gone again. It was the ocean with its tides moving in and out. "But, that doesn't mean that we should give up."
"I said nothing about giving up." Everything was good again. Even though his friends weren't back with him, at least he had the entertainment of her temper. It was odd that he enjoyed making someone aggravated, but he found her excruciatingly attractive when her eyes were full of fire. Although, making her angry wasn't the best way to score.
He had never seen a more beautiful creature in his entire life, and he knew that he never would. A siren could lay singing directly in front of him, but he wouldn't have even bothered with looking. She was the only thing that mattered. "I'm glad."
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Her purple pools looked at him with more intensity than his pore heart could bear. He swore that he would pass out and die at the sheer beauty of her stare.
"Why," he asked. "Don't you like it?"
"No," she frowned. Another gust of wind blew her tendrils of purple hair around her pale face. He knew that she wouldn't welcome a passionate kiss, though he longed for it. "I like it. I've just never seem you look at me quite like that before."
"It's the look of a man who loves you." Her eyes were bright were bright with the deepest kind of happiness. The look of happiness was replaced by a gasp of extreme pain as a assassins sword buried itself into her slender stomach. Before she fell to the ground, he reached out to use his healing powers. "Raven!"
"I love you," she whimpered. A river of blood poured from her gaping mouth. The wound was deep beyond belief, he knew that he couldn't heal her. With every fiber of strength that he had, he tried to seal the vessels that pumped blood out of her body. The murderer stood above her with a triumphant grin, holding his red sword as if it were a trophy. "Don't ever forget that,"
"Stand down," the soldier roared. Her eyes glazed over as her soul left her body. Standing up with more strength than he knew that he had, he raised his gaze to the lone-soldier. There was no anger more pure than this. The person he loved more than life itself had been slaughtered before his very eyes, he was ready to strike down anything in his path. With a flick of the wrist, his elbow plummeted into the guard's eye socket.
A river of blood beyond what he had ever seen before poured from that man's eye. The satisfaction of knowing that his elbow had just smashed in someone's skull did not make the pain any less real. He felt as if he were the one dieing. Having a sword being swung into his heart wouldn't have been more painful then the awful heartbreak, the pure untainted agony that he felt at this moment. "You can rot in hell."
Running to her side, he slowly picked her body off the floor. Her eyes that had once sparkled with life were now duller than a butter knife. He held her close, breathing in her sweet, floral scent. His arms tightened around her dead body as he sobbed into her chest. He longed to feel her ribcage lower and fall with energy and life." Why did you have to leave me? I was finally happy, and something like this happens."
The herds of running for footsteps echoed across the marble tomb. This time he didn't care if he was outnumber one thousand to one, he wanted to make somebody pay for her death. If he couldn't defeat them, then at least he would die. He rasped, "Time to die, you bastards."
There was a knew found evil in his green eyes. The anger he felt right now could not be out powered by a million shot guns, or a million men. This anger was so pure that even the men that outnumbered him clearly were shaking in their metal boots. The leader stuttered, "Halt. Don't move another step."
His first target did not even see him coming. He was as quick as a bobcat, and as silent as the whisper of a girl's cotton dress. Halfway through his killing stroke, he stopped and turned. 'What am I doing,' he wondered. 'These people aren't responsible for her death. She wouldn't want me to kill innocent out of rage.' He lowered his hand and stared at her bloodied corpse. "I'll finish your mission and I'll save my friends, but after that I will go to you. A lifetime without you is to painful for me to even consider."
"On behalf of Jade's imperial, I must arrest you." The leader couldn't be a boy above fourteen. He was shaking like a piece of paper in the ocean breeze, and his face was paler than a baby sea horse. The boy looked a lot like him at his age, small and scrawny.
He didn't want to hurt the poor kid. It was obvious that he was suffering troubles just like him. Insecurity showed on his face like a single spring flower in the middle of the desert, maybe he could use that to his advantage. It was a little cruel to use this kind of tactic on a teenager, but it had to be done. "You know, I could take you and your army out with a single blow. Why don't you let me go, and we won't hear another word about it."
"I can't do that." The boy was more stubborn than he seemed. Behind the boy the army began to mumble with impatience and nervousness, most of them were as young as their leader. Few, he guessed, were over the age of 18. "It is against protocol."
He gave his knuckled a crack of warning. Even if he did have a certain liking for this boy, he had wasted enough time conversing. It was time to get down to business. With a flick of the wrist, his white powers burned with light. "I need to get through!"
"Wait," the boy cried. A look of pain suddenly appeared across the leader's face like lightening across the sky. His feet carried him quickly to Raven's body. The boy's face fell so far that his jaw almost touched the ground. Her lifeless eyes looked as though they belonged to a china doll, wherever you moved they seemed to follow. "How did this happen?"
'How could she have known this boy,' he wondered. 'She hadn't been in this place for that long.' He tore his eyes away from her body, and tried to ignore the knife that was cutting deeper and deeper into his poor heart. Even though there was no wind, he felt himself give a shiver. It was almost like somebody had touched him, although no one had. "She was stabbed through the heart by one of your soldiers."
The boy looked closed to tears. The proud look of a leader and warrior was gone, and was replaced by the look of a child that dropped his ice cream. They both stared at Raven again in silence, before the young soldier gave a shaky sob. "This is all my fault," he whimpered. "I made her promise that she would come back to save me. What have I done?"
After what Gar had just heard, he still didn't place any blame on the boy. She would have gone into the building anyway, because she was born a hero. Some people just had that little spark that made them willing to jump into a fire to save someone's life. That little spark was know as bravery, and it was within almost everyone. Most people were brave and didn't realize it, all they had to do was dig a little deeper beneath their skin. "It wasn't your fault. She would have gone in one way or another, it was in her personality."
"I'll help you get out of here." He slowly leaned down and picked up her corpse. A soft stream of red softly fell off of her body in dewdrops. A fly had settled down on her lifeless cheek, but he did nothing to sweep it away. Momentarily, he stood in silence. The information of Raven's death had begun to settle in, and it hurt more than one thousand bullets in his body.
The boy made a sudden move to brush away the fly with his hand. "Don't touch her," he yelled.
The army of men turned their emotionless faces toward them, as the boy finally allowed them to pass. The herd followed Gar like a lion would stalk its pray. He hadn't meant to be angry at the boy for wiping away the fly, but he wanted to preserve that moment. "Where now?"
"To kill Jade." Her body was as cold as a popsicle, but he could still smell her. She smelled of sweet fragrant flowers, as if she had been born among with the blooms. Even after death, nothing could take away that smell that had always made him calm.
"You want to kill Jade," the boy asked. "That's impossible."
"She ordered the women I love to be killed," he growled. His face was now stuck in a permanent frown. He knew that until he could hear her voice, he would never smile. The positive energy he had felt earlier was replaced by a new type of energy. "I will not let her live. I will hunt her down and rip her out."
"You really did love her, didn't you?" There was a bloody trail following where he had walked, but he didn't care. They weren't discreet anymore, since the boy's team had decided to follow them into their campaign. It would be easier to hide a pack of elephants behind a bamboo tree, then to not get caught with this heard chasing after them.
"More than anything." He was becoming confused. This place was like a gigantic maze, and he was having a hard enough time walking and trying not to cry. Those raindrops of his were hidden just barely beneath his eyelids, but they had been wanting to escape for awhile. He could cry when he and Raven's body were alone; however, there would be to much of a audience here. "I can't live without her."
"You do realize that you're probably won't survive fighting Jade," the boy questioned. The boy seemed really down on living. He definitely agreed with him at the moment, but he wanted to do this for Raven and his friends. After that, he knew that he wouldn't survive for very long. Apart of him wanted Jade to kill him more than anything in the world, and that scared him.
"It doesn't matter," he sighed. Seeing her was all that really was important to him, and he could no longer do that alive. It was once said that if you changed one thing in any way, then you would be remembered forever. Raven had left her imprint on this boy, but who would remember him? "It will only bring me closer to seeing her. After I die, I will be back in her arms."
"How can you sure?" The boy's eyes were narrow. He was obviously a tough skepticism on all things that were positive, he wondered how Raven had managed to give him hope. "Nobody knows what happens after death, maybe we all just disappear."
He didn't know why he was so sure. All of his life he had known that death was not the end, but the beginning. His dead parents had been helping him for many years and although he could not see them, he was certain that they were watching over him. "I just know that won't happen."
"I guess," the leader muttered. Even though the teenager's tone was off, Gar knew that he had a change of heart. A swear serpent climbed its way down the back of his neck as he walked, making want to scratch the back of his neck badly. It was taking far to long to get to Jade. All he wanted to do was see Raven, talk to her, kiss her, and never let her go. "It's this way."
The room was aligned with rubies and other extravagant stones. The door was so excessive that the money cost to purchase it would be enough to feed the entire planted for a year. This made him extremely enraged. She was probably stuffing her flopping cheeks with food, while his lover lay dead. He asked, "What's with the door?"
As a child, he was told of a princess that lived in a castle made of gold. The princess was rich and greedy, she lived her life as though she were the sun and the moon. At the end of the story, a prince came and beheaded the evil princess. The boy whispered, "she likes rubies. If we keep her surrounded by things that please her, then less of us are to be killed."
"After I'm done with her, you won't have to worry about that anymore." The teenager didn't look like he believe him. It didn't offend Gar though, he hardly believe it himself. Raven's body was going to have to be placed somewhere for safe keeping, it would hold him down in his conquest to kill Jade.
"What's that plan, sir?"
"I go in, I kill, then I save my friends." It wasn't the brightest battletested in the world, but it made sense to him. He liked the idea of coming in a underdog, and winning the battle anyway. That was how he won the heart of his true love, why wouldn't it work now?
"That's practical." The boy looked really hopeful now.
"Yup."
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