A/N: I have a practical course starting next week, which will eat up most of my writing time. In addition I suffer from lack of motivation and ideas at the moment, so updates might be delayed a little longer. I'll try to keep it flowing but it won't be easy because I will be in the lab for the next 8 weeks or so, and I really can't say how much time I will find for writing. This story is nearing its end though (but I can't say how many chapter it will take to get there, I might digress a little on the way) so I'll try to keep the updates as tight as possible.
Thanks for sticking with me until now, I hope you will stay with me until the end. ;)
At some point during our slow crawl through the darkness I had given up hope on ever seeing the sun again, so when the first rays of light penetrated through the dark veil around us it felt like a heavy weight was lifted from my heart. I had lost my sense of time while we were down here, so I had no idea which time of day it was, but the sun must have risen some time earlier.
We had reached the end of the tunnel; the exit was blocked by a broken trap door, rays of stray sunlight shed through the many holes in the old wood. The handle was broken, but the door wasn't closed, the hinges were twisted as if someone had broken it open. There were traces of soot on the walls and I could see a discarded burnt out torch lying on the floor. We definitely hadn't been the first people who passed through here recently.
So the Lord had escaped the city, without helping his citizens. Maybe things were different now if he had stayed and done his duty. Maybe…
Dust danced before my eyes as Francis carefully pushed open the door, looking outside and checking if it was safe before he opened it completely, revealing the insides of a dilapidated ruin. It looked like it had been some kind of barn close to an abandoned field, part of the wall had collapsed and only one side had still a roof on. It had stopped raining, and thanks to its location under the remaining roof the space around the trapdoor was more or less dry, but the rest of the world was still dripping wet.
We could make out the city from here, it was only a grey line at the horizon but the smoke that loomed above it left no doubt that it was indeed the city. The river that crossed through the city glistened in the distance, the fields surrounding the barn reached the river bank, unlike the collapsed barn, the fields were in good shape, and the farmers tending to this land had only abandoned the building and not the soil.
It felt good to be in the open again, the sticky air in the tunnel had fueled my paranoia and now, with no imminent threat in view I felt almost safe. But the feeling was only short lived, now with the burning city behind us we had to face another problem. How to find the others again? There was a sick feeling in my stomach at the thought, we had no idea where they could have gone or even if they had it safely made past the guards that certainly had been posted around the city. And the bitterest part about this was that I couldn't stop thinking that if only Berwald were here he would think of something, using his skills to follow their trails or just knowing where they would go.
But Berwald wasn't here, and it was my fault, and I couldn't even make up for his loss, because I had no clue where to start from here. I was so tired, not only from the night spent without sleep, but also from everything else, from the constant odds that kept popping out of nowhere, from all the running the fighting and above all, the losing. No matter what obstacle we overcame, there would always be the next one waiting behind the corner.
It would be so nice to just lie down and sleep and never wake up again, to the sweet lullaby of oblivion that the steadily dropping water from the ceiling was singing. No nightmare could ever be as horrible as the reality. It was cold here, not as cold as in the tunnels, but still cold enough. Just close my eyes and everything would be over soon.
Francis must have noticed the direction my thoughts were going, because he took my hand and pulled me to the edge of the building, where the wall had collapsed and pointed towards the sky. At first I didn't notice it, but then I saw the magnificent arc that spanned from one end of the horizon to the other. A rainbow glistened in the distance; a beautiful streak of color painted the sky, blue melted into green, orange glowed into red and I could feel tears build in my eyes as the overwhelming peace of the scenery settled in my mind.
When the world, after such a disastrous night could still form something so amazing, than I, a puny human, could at least try and go on. I dried the tears in my eyes, something I had done quite often during the last hours. My hands and feet were still numb from the cold, but I could feel a tiny prick of pain in my fingers as I rubbed my eyes and I paused to look at them. I traced the long cut over the palm of my left hand and remembered the despair I had felt as I tried to slice through the rope that bound me, back then I hadn't given up, despite all the pain and the fear, so how could I ever face Berwald on the other side when I gave up now? Francis with his silent act of encouragement was right, there was always hope, as long as we were alive.
"Thank you." I said and even managed a smile, and the relief on Francis' face was more than worth it, he must have been really worried. How could I have been so selfish and let him down like that? He should be able to rely on me, as much as I relied on him. I bowed my head, "I'm sorry." "It's alright, I understand." Francis answered with his melodic voice that, despite its scratchiness, still carried confidence. The worst surely lied behind us, so we would definitely find the others.
"So then, what are we waiting for?" I asked, taking up the bag that I had set down earlier and nodding into the direction of the rainbow, since we had no clue where to start this direction was as good as any.
"We should eat something first." Francis suggested and even though I didn't feel like eating at all I complied, knowing that I would need the strength.
It certainly held some dangers to stay so close to the exit to the secret passage, but we figured that if they had followed us, we would have noticed by now. They probably would have carried torches with them, thus advancing at a much faster pace, if they hadn't caught up with us until now, they apparently didn't even try, or so we thought. But to be safe, we carried as much rubble and pieces of collapsed wall over as possible and put it on the trapdoor, even if that didn't stop them it would give us enough time to flee. Still it was a more than risky decision, but there was only so much stress and fear I could take and by then most of my ability to worry had dried out.
We sat down on a dry part of the wooden floor, where it hadn't rotten away already and where the still standing wall would protect us from the wind, and rummaged through our bags for something to eat. We had tried to distribute as much as possible, but not every bag had the same contents. Francis' was stuffed with clothes and little food, but thankfully mine carried enough for both of us, at least for now. Berwalds bag was lost to us, so whatever had been in there was unavailable for us.
The hope that the bags had protected its contents from the rain was shattered then, everything from clothes to food was soaked through. We hung the clothes over a broken piece of lumber that poked out of the wall to dry, but I doubted that the sun was strong enough to dry our clothes in the short amount of time we were staying there. Most of the food we had packed were dried vegetables and fruits and would hopefully not be affected by the water, but the bread and the wheat biscuits we had packed were ruined beyond hope. So our food wouldn't last for long and there was no Berwald to go hunting with his sling.
Thinking of Berwald was tightening the knot that had formed in my stomach and the feeling of nausea grew stronger every time. I had only known him for a short period of time, but he was one of the few friends I ever had in my life. And he had sacrificed his life for us. The thought alone of losing Mathias in a similar way made the piece of dried meat I was chewing on turn to ash and I almost choked on it. But I continued eating even though I had to fight to keep it down.
We ate mostly in silence, there was not really much to say and neither of us wanted to address what lied behind us. When we were finished we packed our things and stepped out of the ruined building. The sun was standing high above us, so it had to be sometime around noon. We had really spent a long time down there. There was barely a cloud in sight, but still the autumn sun wasn't strong enough to warm our wet and freezing bodies. Our spare clothes were still damp and so there was no point in changing.
The ground was still wet and our feet sank into the muddy grass and pulled loose again with a wet sound. It was truly uncomfortable and to make matters worse I started to cough around an hour after we had departed. It started harmless first, only a light cough but it soon increased to a painful whole body shaking fit of coughing that left me unable to walk for its duration. Every time I was seized by another fit I would check my hands with slight worry, but thankfully enough I never saw blood. It reminded me all too well of the sickness that killed my mother.
Francis didn't fare so well either, but he suffered more from excessive sneezing and a runny nose, which he continuously complained would make his face look ugly. I knew that he did it partly to cheer me up, because after every sneeze he would contort his face into the most ridiculous grimace only to complain how awful he looked with his nose all red. And of course it was silly and stupid and even though a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth every time he did it, I still couldn't forget the severity of our situation.
The rainbow had faded a while ago, and the sun crept undeviatingly over the sky, and still we had no idea where the other could be. As promising as it had seemed in the beginning to just follow the rainbow, it became now clearer and clearer that it might not have been such a good idea. I wasn't even sure if we had come out on the same site of the city than they had, the sun was too high in the sky to determine the cardinal direction at this point, and we would have to wait until it became clear where it would set. And even then we wouldn't know where to look for the others.
Maybe they had followed the rainbow too, or they had tried to get back into the city to find us or they might even have decided that we were most likely dead and continued their journey without us. But somehow I couldn't believe that. Mathias would never just leave me behind, without confirming if I were dead neither would Emil and from what I knew Arthur and Tino would do the same for Francis and Berwald. Only for one of them, there wouldn't be a happy end waiting…
The return to the surface and the break we had taken had given me a boost of energy that had temporarily driven the tiredness away, but I could feel the exhaustion crawl back to come and devour me once again. So despite the cold and my continued coughing I grew more and more tired, the strap of my bag cut into my shoulder, my legs became heavier and I stumbled more than once because I didn't pay attention where I was planting my feet.
"Just one more step." Francis was muttering behind me, he had done this for quite a while now and if I hadn't been so tired it would surely have unsettled me. This ordeal had taken its toll on both of us.
Except for the sounds that came from our footsteps, Francis' muttering and my chattering teeth it was almost eerily quiet, only when I was seized by another bout of violent coughing the silence was broken with the noise of my convulsing lungs. We walked over fields of matted grass, heavy from the water, over fields of barren earth where the autumn harvest had left nothing but some withered ears of grain and past fenced pastures, where the grass was trampled from the cattle that used to graze there but wherever we went there was no sign of life aside from us. No birds were singing, no rodents scurried out of our way, only the wind danced over the vast and empty fields, rustling in leaves that no longer clung to their trees and blowing up dust that wouldn't leave its earthy bed.
We had followed the river with a wide gap in between so it was too far away to hear the water, and so we trudged on in deafening silence as Francis finally ceased his monologue. If I had been more awake and alert I certainly would have worried about the absence of any animalistic life but my mind was clouded with tiredness and so I simply accepted the fact that it was quiet. Not even the aching in my lungs could shake the fogginess out of my mind.
And even though by all rights we should have encountered some trouble, for there were Orushian troops patrolling the lands around the city, sometimes hiding sometimes openly walking the paved ways and streets that connected the settlement to the world around, we didn't. Maybe after all those incidents of bad luck our fortune was finally deciding to be good to us.
My body was shivering in an attempt to keep warm, my clothes only dried slowly and it was mostly thanks to the fact that I was walking that I didn't lose all of my warmth. At some point Francis had slung his arm around me, and I gratefully returned the gesture because despite his wetness he was still warmer than the surrounding air and so I forced myself not to mind the invading of my personal space, because I knew that he needed the extra warmth as much as I did. And when the sun sank and the little heat that her rays had provided faded, I knew that we had to find some shelter and more importantly something to finally get dry.
I didn't want to think about what it would mean to have to sleep all wet on cold ground. And I couldn't ignore the faint pain deep in my chest that accompanied every intake of breath.
We finally settled for the space underneath a huge willow tree that overlooked the river, since it had lost most of its leaves, it didn't provide much in form of protection, but it still gave off a somewhat secure feeling. The ground was sandy earth, mostly dry to my relief and even though it was dangerous and reckless, we decided to build a fire, because if we didn't we would most likely freeze to death in our sleep, because with the sun the temperature had significantly dropped. I would much rather take the chance and be found than face what surely would be our death. Fortuna owed it to us after all.
So we gathered some twigs and branches, most of them were thankfully dry after being exposed to sunlight for the whole day and with much struggling and clinking random stones together until Francis' remembered that somewhere there had to be matches because he remembered packing them and sure enough there they were stuffed into a side pocket and wrapped into wax paper.
The sight made me remember something and while Francis was busy getting the fire started I dug into my coat pocket to retrieve the little thing that Berwald had given me. It was still wet in some parts but most of the hair was dry by then, I couldn't help but draw a finger over the pale blond straw of Tino's hair in the middle and remember the friendly smile he always seemed to carry. What would happen to his smile when I gave this back to him?
Something caught my eyes and I turned the charm around in my hands. A painful stab shot through my heart as I saw what it was and suddenly I felt sick again. A small speck of red was at the side, small and innocent red, easy to miss; blood. My finger brushed over the red dot and I felt my chest constricting. There it was the last reminder of Berwalds existence, a single drop of blood shed on a charm that should have brought luck and failed so miserably.
But no matter how sad I felt it was nothing compared to the pain that Tino would feel once I handed him the remains of his love.
It was not fair.
I carefully placed the pendant back in my pocket and with it I put away every bit of feeling I had left, leaving me with nothing more than emptiness, but it was better, everything was better than t o feel.
Francis had set up the fire by then and I helped him hanging as much blankets and clothes into the branches of the willow to let them dry in the heat that was ascending from the fire. I took the small knife I had packed and cut some of the bark off, with some river water and a small dented tin pot I brewed something that could qualify as tea. We didn't have much else that could be sued for cooking; most of the heavier stuff had been in Berwalds and Mathias' bags so we gnawed on some dried cheese that had survived the bath in rainwater surprisingly well.
In favor of gaining some additional warmth we sat close to each other and as soon as it was comparably dry we pulled down the first blanket and wrapped it around us. It was painful when the feeling finally returned to my toes but I knew that the pain meant that they were coming back to life so I swallowed down the pain and just focused on watching the dancing flames. The coughing had subsided, for which I was thankful, the fits had become so violently that my whole body tensed and hurt after each fit was over.
It was far from comfortable, the fire hot against my face and the cold night freezing against my back, the ground was hard and I leaned kind of awkward against Francis but still I could feel myself slip into sleep, and even though a low voice was nagging that we had to wait until the fire had burnt down and then cover the ember with ash to prevent it from going out, I couldn't bring myself to move, and so I fell asleep, head on Francis' shoulder, arm slung loosely around them.
Until the snapping of a branch jolted me awake.
...