Sorry for taking so long to update, I've had major writers block. You can all blame that one YouTube. Anyway hope you all have a good day and enjoy this chapter.

IX: Elias

They're everywhere. Their breath fills my ears, invades my lungs, and seeps into the pores of my skin.

Not this. Surely not this again.

Metal aroma fills the air and everything is coated in a thin layer of red. Their hands reach out to me, the skin peeling away from the bone; bone that has been cracked, broken and bent. I feel one on my back, tugging away my shirt from my skin. Then another pulls at my arm nearly ripping it free of my body.

They are everywhere now, invading every inch of breathable air. I can't see beyond their milky skeletal frames. Then she emerges, shining bright like the moon in the sky. She isn't like them, not yet. Her figure is distorted and her smile slanted but I breathe out a visible gasp.

I'm not alone.

When my hand finds hers, I realize it's shaking. No, it's my hand that's shaking. Hers is steady, unwavering. "What is this," I ask, but I don't need to. I know very well what this is. More importantly I want to know if this is real.

She squeezes my hand but doesn't answer. I never expected her to, but that's when I really look at her. She's far too thin, thinner than she ever was before, almost as if her entire body is withering away. Her long narrow fingers are suddenly stiff in my hands. I don't want to look at her face. I don't want to see all that's hidden there, so I don't.

Her hand shifts in my hand and I watch intently as the skin starts to peel away revealing blood soaked gashes. It starts at her fingers and starts moving up her arms. Pools of blood coat her skin and soon that's all I can see; the gaping wounds, the lethal blows. I pull my hand away, part of me not wanting to let her go. I clutch my unharmed hand to my chest like it has been poisoned.

This isn't real.

Of course it's real. You did this.

It's not real. It's not real.

You killed them all dead. Abruptly the metal tang disappears and the lines around her body start to ripple.

This isn't real.

The hands and voices vanish along with the haunting nightmares. She is the last to disappear, her body melting into the white surroundings. She smiles one last time before leaving. Then I'm alone.

I smell the intoxicating aroma of pine needles before anything else. My head aches when I try to open my eyes. I register the sky above me and the canopy of trees, but they're a blur. The forest floor is rough under my hands and I quickly learn I am lying down. Why am I lying down?

Only when I try to sit up does the smell of smoke reach my nose. I nearly gag and strangely wonder if I still have eyebrows.

"Elias?"

She's sitting on the rock, her knees tucked up to her chest in a position that makes her look like a child. All her pain and burdens are painted clear in her eyes. With struggling muscles, I push myself to a sitting position, then to standing. I wobble slightly but immediately correct it.

I'm about to ask her what the smoke smell is when I figure it out for myself. Where that 'thing' was standing now lays a blackened patch of earth. The only remains that something once lived there is a single flower, the flower I gave her.

"Laia," My voice shakes. "What did you do?"

She whimpers.

My brain quickly searches for every possible rational answer to what happened here, but I come up empty. Whatever that thing was, it wasn't … natural. And what ever happened to it wasn't… normal.

Laia whimpers again. She keeps her head tucked down as I cross the forest floor to sit on the rock beside her. I don't bother asking what happened again, or if it was her doing. Maybe it wasn't her? Immediately I feel uneasy.

"We should get back to safety," I tell her, trying to sound confident.

"There's no such thing," She whispers. Never the less, I tug at her shoulders until she is standing, partly supported by me. I don't notice the ache in my torso the entire way back, I'm too focused on keeping us moving; getting us to safety; Laia.

She doesn't move from the corner of the cave for hours after we get back. She stays tucked in a tight ball, refusing to move, eat, or even talk. Part of me wants to yell at her to grow up and face what happened. The other part of me just wants to comfort her and let her take her time. Nether part of me win, instead I stay on the other side of the fire watching to see if she does anything. I silently chuckle to myself at how quickly we have switched positions, literally.

"I am going to go get more firewood."

Her head tilts up. "You're leaving?"

Despite my stupidity, I smirk. "Only for a second," I inform her.

My back is turned by the time she speaks up again. "Can you…Can you stay?"

Laia's eyes are big and wide. I smile at her again, weirdly happy that she's talking again. "I'll be quick."

The night air is cold on my skin but it's welcomed. I start gathering twigs and let my mind wander. Laia had said there was no such thing as safety anymore but she was wrong. At that market today, I had never felt more free, and safe; safe to say and do as I wished without the threat of the Empire behind me. Sure, it's still here but out here you would never know.

I start imagining a life out here, in these woods or that village, where I wouldn't have to keep running and looking behind my back, a life where I could always feel safe. Would Laia want that too? Would she want that kind of life? What about her brother? I had nearly forgotten about my promise to help her free him. I think about it now; the journey, the escape, the rescue. Most importantly, I think about what happens after. Would I come back to that little village and spend my life selling bread at that market? Would I leave this land entirely and truly get away from the Empire? Would Laia come with me wherever I went?

What if we were actually captured? The thinking stops there or I make it stop. Either way, I don't want to even imagine what would happen then. I make the short path back to the cave, my arms loaded with bundles of wood.

"You're back!" She's sitting crisscross next to the fire, the pack from the smith open at her knee. Next to the pack is some sliced bread, cheese and some apples, all laid out on a piece of cloth. Presumably a shirt. She glances at the food than back at me before smiling shyly. "I thought it might be a good time for dinner."

The wood gets dumped by the cave wall and I join her next to the 'dinner.' She doesn't say anything as she slices cheese and layers it on the bread.

"What happened out there?" I don't mean to say it but I do.

She stutters slightly then looks up through her hair. "It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters!"

She sighs and hands me an apple, bread and cheese. "No, it doesn't."

I scoff and set the food down, no longer interested in eating. "Do you think I'm stupid? Something happened there, something not," I search for a good word, "normal."

"So what if it did, it's over and done with now," she mutters.

"This could help us, Laia, could give us some leverage."

"The only leverage it would give would be to the Empire as more incentive to kill us." It clicks in place so easily that I can't believe I missed it.

"You killed that thing. You incinerated it." She looks again at me, a mixture of sadness and anger on her face. I recall a similar emotion on Helene's face when she told me about her singing. Magic.

She doesn't verbally confirm my suspicions. Instead, she holds out her hands which are red and blistered as if she has attempted to melt the skin off her bones.

"Oh, Laia," I cradle her hands gently in mine. I'm amazed by how small and fragile hers are in mine. "Do they hurt?"

She shakes her head. "Not even a little." I dig out some bandages for the day trip pack, being careful not to let go of her hands. She doesn't even cringe when I start wrapping them in bandages. "I didn't think about it, it just happened. It happened and then it was gone. And you were on the ground. I thought you were dead."

"It seems I've been almost dead a couple times now," When I glance up, she's smiling. I smile back.

"I guess you should be more careful," she mumbles, her gaze sleepily on my hands as I continue wrapping her burns.

"I guess I should."

When I'm done, I don't draw my hands away. I stare at her small fingers and think about all the questions circling my brain. What was that thing? What else can she do? What happens when this is all over? Will this ever be over?

I force my gaze back to her face and decide to ask one, and only one, question. "Did you see anything?"

She looks puzzled. "When?"

"When that… thing came," I answer, now feeling slightly awkward. "Like a dream?"

She hesitates then shakes her head. Her hesitation is all I need. She saw something too. I decide not to ask what, not tonight at least. "I was worried about you, just so you know," she mutters.

I smirk. "So I guess I need to be more careful and you need to stop worrying so much."

She glances up through her eyelashes at me and laughs. "What a pair we make."