Chapter 4
"Stay here," Allen instructed Hitome, guiding her gently into the concealment of a cave.
"But I want to go with you," Hitome protested.
Allen's expression softened, "I will come back for you, I promise." He gazed at Hitome benevolently. Then, almost impulsively, he brushed his lips against her forehead. Before Hitome could react, Allen was soaring away on the back of the white dragon.
The sounds of battle grew in intensity, and the caves shuddered with each strike of explosion. Hitome wrapped her arms around her legs and shuddered. Where could she go if Allen didn't come back? Hitome shook her head fervently, trying to disperse her doubts and fear.
Hitome's senses perked when she heard a scuffling in the bushes. Her heart pounding impatiently in her ears, she backed deeper into the cave, clawing at the walls, searching for a weapon.
The figure was fast approaching. Hitome crouched into a ball, shrinking into the darkness of the crevices. From her low vantage point, she could decipher two feet shuffling hastily towards her. Hitome stuck out her leg when she deemed appropriate, feeling a sharp pain when the creature collided with her calf and plummeted into the ground. Without tending to her sore leg, Hitome scurried up and hopped towards the exit.
"OW, OW, OW, OW, OW, OW," a high voice squeaked indignantly.
Amidst her flight, Hitome couldn't help but turn at the familiarity of the voice.
"I have never had so many injuries until I met you," Merle glanced up from her sprawled position with a scowl.
"Merle?"
"Allen sent me to keep you company, not my choice really," Merle picked herself up painfully.
"How's Allen…" Hitome was at a loss for words to finish the question.
Merle rolled her eyes, adopting the tone of an impatient babysitter to a quizzical three year old, "They're fighting a war against an invisible enemy. We're getting picked off like flies."
Merle dusted herself clean. Sliding past Hitome haughtily, she wandered out of the cave.
"Where are you going?" Hitome followed.
"Going to see what's happening," Merle replied absently. She motioned for Hitome to be silent as she mounted the top of the cave and began a tiring upwards climb.
Hitome studied the dauntingly steep slope with unease. But she hoisted her dress up and followed Merle clumsily. Merle was crouched eagerly at a ledge that jutted a few inches from the side. Her cat ears twittered as she attempted to pick up sounds of the battle. "Ooh," she winced as a distant explosion was heard.
Hitome pressed her body against the slope. Her fingers were ghastly white from grasping so tightly the rocky crevices. With one last heave she finally raised her head over the crest of the rocky hill and perused the chaotic scene. Her eyes widened with indescribable terror. A smog of angry black smoke circled the once beautiful country, choking everything living. Even from Hitome's safe vantage point, she could feel the pain and the fear of the despairing people as they ran blindly from the jaws of death only to be pinned under its relentless claws.
Unspeakable fear gripped her heart as Hitome's senses picked up a mysterious dark energy. It was a feeling she experienced before. It was such a throbbing terror that her mind had buried it under unrecoverable heaps of forgotten memories. She held her breath as she searched the sky for something to trigger her recollection. A blurry mass, so blurred it was doubtful if it even existed swam at the corner of her vision. Yet, every time she snapped her head to locate it, it spun out of existence. Hitome understood it was not meant to be seen, not with human eyes. Reluctantly, she slid her lids shut, allowing her mind to perceive the source of the tremendous power.
The image of the dark floating castle materialized vividly in her mind. She felt she could almost reach out and touch it. "Invisible fortress… I can feel it. Merle, I can feel it!"
"Feel what?" Merle asked, distractedly.
"The fortress. Zaibach…"
Merle frowned incredulously. "You deluded girl, how would you—" but Hitome had already sprinted past the outreaching hand of the catgirl. "Where are you going?" Merle stood up, her conscience struggling with her indifference. "Stupid girl," she finally muttered, plopping herself back down.
Tumbling into chaos in the Austuria castle, Hitome grabbed a panic-stricken soldier with urgency. "Where's Allen? I need to see Allen. Tell me where he is?" Hitome trusted that if she alerted Allen of the position of the fortress, he could save them all.
The soldier glanced at her blankly, uttering incoherent thoughts.
"WHERE'S ALLEN? SHEZAR?" Hitome screamed.
A bomb exploded twenty or so feet away. The blast was so strong that it shook Hitome's heart into halt for a split second. She wrapped her fingers around her ears. The soldier pushed her past him and ran away uselessly.
There were soldiers combating everywhere around her, too busy to notice a fragile girl clawing her way towards the castle. She shouted Allen's name futilely, no one paid any attention.
I have to tell him, she told herself. An arrow whizzed past her head to burrow its way deeply into the wall next to her. Hitome swung her head around to see a congregation of Zaibach soldiers pointing at her with delicious malice. She could not make out their words, but knew they were seeking to harm her. She ran down a deserted corridor, sprinting for her life.
Realizing she could not outrun the trained soldiers, Hitome slid into a side panel. She slammed the heavy door shut behind her, sealing the heavy lock. She hugged the wall tightly, fearing even the sound of her breathing would give away her position. Convulsing terribly, she inched away from the entrance. The room was pitch dark. In her shaken state of mind she could not decide whether to crouch down and wait for her fate or to grope her way out of this darkness. Neither choice was appealing.
A sharp pain jabbed into her ribs when she collided with a corner of a solid steel table. She paused to allow the pain to dissipate. Mustering courage, she gripped the sides of the table and resumed to inching her way around.
"Ah-" she bit her tongue to choke the scream from her throat. Her hand had touched something cold and fleshy. A dead body? Tears stung her eyes from the surprising stab of fear. She stood frozen, compelled by curiosity, but detained by dread.
"Check in here!" a voice shouted from the other side of the vaulted door. The soldiers had discovered her temporary place of refuge.
Hitome instinctively turned to flee from the imminent danger. The door shook under the effort of the soldier's bodies. Amidst the throng of panic pulsing in her mind, Hitome stopped dead…Thump…
She turned her head slowly, tracing the source. It was a faint heartbeat, but Hitome felt it as if it were her own.
Thump…He's alive, Hitome thought. Without pausing to deliberate her decision, she hoisted the body off the pedestal. Panting with effort and urgency, Hitome dragged the heavy boy behind her, groping for an exit.
A steel handle pressed against her fingers. Letting a sigh of relief escape, she pulled it open. Awkwardly, Hitome maneuvered the immobile body through the opening. Hoisting the body half on her back and half dragging behind her, she advanced. Without warning, her foot slid into empty space. Unable to regain balance, the weight of her and the unconscious body on her back threw her down a long flight of stairs.
Crumpled at the foot of the stairs, Hitome groaned with pain. The door above them swung open. Hitome gulped, suppressing the stab of pain shooting up her body as she lifted the body and proceeded down the next flight of steps.
She knew she could never outrun them, but she stubbornly banished that thought from her mind. She reached a hallway lighted dimly with torches. The body still lagging laboriously behind her, she inched away from the fast approaching shouts and footsteps. Rounding a corner she stopped short at the sight of more black armoured soldiers of Zaibach, tearing through a few dozen battered soldiers of Austuria. She dropped the burden of the body, searching her mind for a way out. She turned her head to consider turning back, just in time to see an arrow flying surely towards her unprotected body. She closed her eyes in preparation for death. When nothing happened, she opened one eye fearfully. A hand had shot up from the ground and snatched the arrow in midair. Hitome looked with bewilderment at the outstretched hand of the body she had been carrying. The boy climbed up with surprising agility, pulling her roughly after him. He pushed a panel in the wall and the bricks slid silently open. Stepping through he turned back to look at Hitome.
Hitome stood unsurely, still amazed at the awakening of the boy. He held out his hand to her. Hitome reached for it and followed him blindly into suffocating darkness.