Chaos
Elijah's heart shuddered nervously. It was beating to its limit, its pain significantly affecting his every move. His head pounded with the noise panging around him. He was far from most of the clattering commotion but with his vamp hearing he felt he was there, right in the centre of it.
He was a mess. Completely in tatters. Scarlet cuts healing on his face, his lungs crying for oxygen, shrinking away from the smoke. Only his outdoor jacket seemed to have survived.
Elijah coughed and spluttered covering his mouth with the back of his hand which was balled into a fist. His eyes were tightly shut , his nose wrinkled, his lips pursed.
If chaos was to be represented by a picture, this was it.
Elijah finally managed to regain his balance.
He wiped the charcoal soot away from his brow, smudging it across his forehead in the process and then gazed at the blaze in the slight distance. It flickered sinister crimson and amber, swirling and hissing manically, the suffocating smoke bellowing forth into the dark sky. He did not need to be in the midst this scene to imagine the searing sting of burning. The feeling flashed in his mind making him close his eyes in agony.
The wind then blew pushing Elijah back but he managed to retain his stance. Another gust followed making the flames even more threatening; giving them the power to devour even more, cause even more, destruction.
He grew more frightened than he had ever felt before.
No feeling in his thousand years of existence could compare to what he was going through now.
The thought of Hayley burning in the very element before him made him sick to the stomach. He felt a twinge so sharp sting inside him. For a second he was sure his heart had stopped.
He couldn't lose her.
He couldn't ever lose her.
He needed to find her.
"I must find her." Elijah growled at himself inside despite his body begging to give in.
His teeth clenched, his eyes scrunching shut once again, fighting despair so deep.
Where on earth was she?
He pleaded with everything around him, searching wildly, begging for an answer.
"Where are you?" he almost cried, tears singeing his eyes, his fingers tingling for her touch.
"Hayley!" he found himself yelling in the middle of nowhere.
His voice roared battling with the sound of gale and crackle.
Then suddenly he caught it. Like a sign from heaven itself. His mind cleansed for that brief second.
Her scent. Hayley's scent.
He couldn't mistake that smell for the world.
"She's alive!" He told himself, "She's alive." He repeated with a sudden relief, his eyes darting towards the direction in which he had sensed.
Abruptly however, the scent vanished and his heart sunk to the earth's core, dropping in pure fear.
"No." He told himself, pushing himself to search again.
"She's alive." He breathed pulling himself back together.
Even though the scent was gone, he refused to believe anything else.
The question was for how long?
How long till the witches found her?
Elijah lunged forwards locking onto a direction, latching onto to the instinct inside him, taking faith that somehow his heart knew which route to take.
"Hayley." He called helplessly.
He racked his brain for answers for clues, anything that would help him.
Suddenly he grew angry, his emotions shooting from one state to the next.
"The witches."
"Those sickening witches." His mind sneered.
He vowed to himself that he would kill every single one that had attempted to harm the woman he loved.
His niece was safe. They hadn't got want they wanted. The wondrous child was with her father, he had left her there himself.
Elijah remembered Hayley handing her to him, her face spilling with tears, her miracle baby wailing in his arms at the top of her lungs. Hayley had been sobbing vigorously, he had never seen her so afraid. She had watched the little limbs of her child punching the air in protest, from being separated from her mother. It was clear she would be as tough as her parents. He had looked down at the magnificent buddle of life with utmost awe, cooing her, trying to find her some piece.
Then Hayley had pushed him away telling him, shoving him, shouting at him to save her daughter as the flame drew nearer wrapping around from all sides. The decision to obey this request had killed him. The second he had returned Hayley was gone and part of him too.
Now in the present Elijah sprinted fast thinking of all these things. Whooshing from one area to the next. The memory replayed in his head driving him forwards, acting as some sort of fuel.
Then he sensed it again. That nostalgic, intoxicating smell.
"Hayley." He spoke in realisation, love bursting in his tone.
"Hayley!" he called as loudly as he could, turning 360 degrees in the wood.
She was close.
Very close.
His heart felt as if it was about to lurch out from inside his chest. He needed her against it now.
He needed her safe. He needed her with him.
Elijah calculated exactly where the scent was coming from and bolted, appearing at a clearing.
He couldn't see her.
He then heard the thud of a heart that was not his own.
His eyes widened.
Elijah turned around.
"Hayley." He breathed with pure relief, emotion flooding out from every fibre of his being.
...