The sky is falling, pieces of it crashing into the ground and shattering like dry mud. Above it, there's only a void as black as death, beckoning him like a flame beckons a moth. If he could only get this damned boulder off of his wing…
He spots her standing in the middle of the flying debris like an angel of death, her black hair seemingly unaffected by the wind. It curls around her, clinging to her body like it has a mind of its own. Her torso twists around and she meets his eyes with dark slits, narrow in content. She places a finger to pale upturned lips before turning back around and walking away from him.
"Wait!" he roars, but it's drowned out by a loud groaning that seems to be coming from the sky itself as it continues to disintegrate before him.
"NOOOOOOOO!"
He rubs his head, wincing and staring acutely at his wing. It stings like hell and he can't even get the stone to budge. "It's no use," he huffs and tries to get a good look at the extent of the damage. Perhaps he could… He growls weakly at the thought. No, he can't.
"Stay back! Don't come any closer!"
With a sigh he feels around the edges of his wing. The skin is frayed and damaged where the stone hit. With enough force and a belt to bite, he may be able to simply tear off the part that was stuck to the ground. The thought makes him shudder.
"Fuck. What am I even afraid of?" he scolds himself, trying to sound more confident than he feels. "It's just a bit of pain. If I can do this and survive…"
"Someone please help… I'm so scared."
One.
Two.
Rip.
It doesn't even make a sound, which is why he has to look down to make sure the deed is down. The pain comes later. His jaw clamps on his bottom lip and he feels his eyes water. Is this what it felt like when he was human? When he felt pain? He's obviously not human anymore, but he was weak, which meant he was no better, especially with a torn wing.
He stumbles onto his feet and goes in the same direction he had seen her go. What is she doing? Why didn't she try to finish him off? He's weak and he wouldn't have put up much of a fight if she had tried to come after him and yet…
Like a feeling of déjà vu, it hits him -the sinking feeling that is dread. It tugs at his legs, making it hard for him to walk. He feels like he's trudging through mud, trying to run faster but only getting slower the more effort he put in.
The sight that greets him behind the debris is one that he never expected to see. It's her, wings unfurled and hair gently hovering around her and arms outstretched. By her side are several lances, all pointing towards a small girl. The girl looks on like a deer in the headlights, inching backwards towards a dark ravine. The fall would kill her if the silver lances did not.
As though detecting his presence, she turns her head and looks back at him, eyes full of laughter. 'I'm doing this for you, so pay attention,' they say.
He wants to do something -to stop it. He should be focusing on escaping, but he can't stop looking into the small girl's dark and terrified irises.
She looks back at her victim and brings her hands together, signing something that he can't quite see, not that he truly needs to. He can't bring himself to even watch, but it's over before he can blink. One second the small girl is there and in the next she's gone. His heart leaps into his throat, beating so hard that he can scarcely breathe. And in the next second, she disappears as well.
"No. No. No. Nononono…" he hisses, stepping forward to where she had been standing. "I'm so sorry; I…"
The groaning and the storm are so loud that he almost misses it, but it's hard to miss something you're praying for. There she is again, the girl, her skin covered in rashes and singed red, held up by a pair of fragile wings. He can see them tremble as they flapped, and with each tremble, the girl drops and then struggles to make up the distance she lost. Then she's gone again.
His eyes widen. He can finally move his legs again once he realizes how stupid he's being. His legs are suddenly faster and stronger and before he can even think about it, he propels himself into the ravine after her, diving head-first into a sea of dark matter. He doesn't have time to think about the consequences - he has to find her.
Her body is even thinner now, her skin and muscles eaten away by the dark matter, but he finds her. He has her in his arms. He can feel it eat away at him as well.
Trying not to lose momentum, he lets his adrenaline pump him out of the matter and back into the air. His wings are too thick to have punctured in the acid, but a few layers have eroded, making it hard to control them due to the torrent around him.
Somehow, he manages to get back on solid ground. He stares down at the small creature in his arms. She's barely even human anymore and it makes him sick to his stomach.
He drops to his knees, placing the girl gently on the ground in front of him and then lets his head hang back as he stares up at the darkness where the sky used to be. "I'll kill you!" he screams out of both pain and loathing. "I'll make you suffer!"
With that, he leans over the girl, placing his arms on either side of her. The realm is still going to be destroyed. What a pointless act, prolonging his suffering in order to save a silly girl.
Her body is still shivering slightly. After all this, she's still not dead?
"I was too late," he mumbles to her. Why is he apologizing?
The groaning is getting louder and more insistent now, and he can tell that everything is going to come to an end soon. They'll both be dead and there will have been no point in any of this. What a joke…
Her face is just a skull now with a thin layer of muscle stretched over it, but her body, though unconscious, seems to have persevered. "You're tenacious, you know?" he tells her and he can't help but smile. He knows he can't look much better than her seeing as his skin was also eroded by the matter. Still, he hadn't been in it as long as her. "I'm sorry we had to die together like this…" No answer. "Lorna, I'm -"
"Waaaaaah!"
Dartz glances up from a large tome to check out the source of the wailing. He sighs and places the large, leatherbound book on the desk in front of him and stands. As he makes his way towards the door to his office, a knock resonates against the door.
"It's open!" he calls out and after a few moments of the door handle wiggling, the door opened.
Standing in the doorway is Alister with a young girl in his arms, clinging to him like it's the end of the world. "Master Dartz," the boy spoke. "She was asking for you when she woke up."
Dartz smiles gratefully and holds out his arms for Alister to place the girl. She eagerly settles against his chest and places her head in the crook of his neck. "Thank you, Alister. You may leave now." With a nod, the boy turned around and shut the door behind him.
"Dots…" the girl mumbled. "Had bad dweem."
"It's alright, Nox, darling. It's just a bad dream. Nobody's going to hurt you."
Aaaand... that's all folks? 'Til next time I guess :D Don't forget to review and let me know what you thought.