Once upon a time, I had my dabble with agnophobic horror: the kinds of stories that Baumwollandians read under a full moon. Children's stories. Nothing makes a grim tale murkier than a midnight reading, especially before bed. Such tales are always fascinating, but it is the endings that make them memorable. They cut deep; they fester. In the end, they are words that want to slice open our fancies and beckon dread. Yet I must say, stories do not capture real life. Authors cannot mime reality. Not this. The sight of corpses bleeding across the grounds of academia, it would follow me to bed and weep in my nightmares.
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Breathe, Pollux, breathe!
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I could move; I couldn’t run. I could hear; I couldn't see. My back was to the first inner gate as a petrified pebble before the stream of students. Forward! Lest evil catch me. However, as I began to ponder the future and things to come, arrows began flying across the courtyard,
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There was an unseen necromancer somewhere... He was the culprit. And so a flood of anger almost reached over my fear because of the mere thought of some coward using the gift of magic to unsettle the dead and make more bodies of students. It boiled extra energy into my joints. Energy, though desperate, could carry me but a tad closer to an unknown fate.
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Toward the unknown, I suddenly stumbled. Where my painful surroundings had sucked me into oblivion, I had failed to see the uniform with four limbs and a shaft bleeding through its Cinderfall crest. When I noticed the dead boy, I don’t think I knew then what possessed me. I stared, paralyzed for but a moment, before I flinched. I hardly look at him. What did I feel at first? Shock? Disbelief? Hard to say, but I flinched away from the body, finally aware of the fate that awaited me.
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I cursed the Seven as I cursed the evil interlopers in my school. I cursed the gods. I cursed those who left, then cursed myself for sheer helplessness.
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Further along the winding slope toward the second tier, crimson stains spread over the path and underneath the soles of my boots. The hairs on my skin sprouted, not so much from the blood but by the bodies with their vile, deep wounds and gashes. I trudged along over Cinderfall's slain guardsmen, trying not to let my eyes wander. All the while, more skeletons stumbled through the gate in what could only be described as piles of bones stepping over one another like soulless branches. After coming face to face with that horror, new questions sprung from the depths of my mind.
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In necromancy, since something cannot come from nothing, the necromancer needs a sacrifice. That which animates is stolen from a soul, which begs the question – where did the undead corpses from? There was a dead guardsman for every pile of bones. So many bones. So many dead then undead, and endless reanimation. Only a formidable heathen mage, or group of mages, could have summoned so many skeletons.
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My eyes strayed from death long enough to meet the church with its sloping stairs. Its bell lulled under the blue sky's blood-red ring while clouds gathered for upcoming laughter.
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A new thought in the turmoil.
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Where would Roy have gone in this chaos? The church seemed too obvious a hiding spot… which is exactly why he would be there. He was not as dumb as he was oblivious. I was the dumb one if I did not at least see for myself, which is why I was flailing my arms in the thoughtless stomp toward that palce of prayer. As soon as I knocked into that entrance, I pounded my fists on the wooden double doors. "I am a student! Let me in!" Somebody had to be inside because I could hope for nothing else.
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A wave of relief flooded through me as those thick hinges parted with a creak. Then I gasped for the moment that was almost my last.
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Desperate and eager, I nearly stepped neck-first into the tip of a sword that would have split my throat open. How close to unlucky. The gaurdsman holding the blade mere centimeters from my neck quickly pulled back once he saw that I was living. His were young eyes peering through the sliver. Nervous and trepidatious as they were, he ushered me through the slim opening with his arm of metal and scowled while trying to determine whether I was truly alive and not another corpse on a killing spree. Fortunately for me, he sheathed his blade before grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me inward. Another man in metal shut the doors behind him. He was studiously wide-eyed; alert as one can be with a face drenched in sweat.
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My savior watched me carefully. "Are there anymore of you?"
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"They’re all running to the keep!" I exclaimed.
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"Back away from the doors." He was a scared, young, and dressed to the nines in steel. He saw, of course, the brace around my right leg and blinked in disbelief. “You escaped in that state?”
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I was too busy catching my breath to reply, and the air of relief had a fresh taste. Able to breathe again and catch my surroundings, I inhaled the entirety of the chapel, trapped in the disbelief at the crowd awaiting within.
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My gods. Candles. I remember the candles alight. So many candles arrayed in the background and around the golden idols of the Trinity.
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There are three major patron gods in the Ecclesia who are worshipped throughout the land, imperium and beyond. They are Helun, Kryden, and Jaider. Helun is the mother of vitality, a maiden behind the nourishment of hearts and minds, able to bestow blessings of inspiration and health. Kryden is the sovereign of the winds, an embodiment of heavenly energy and willpower. Jaider is the embodiment of justice, an exalted judge unmatched in martial combat. The three, their icons, lived in all the places of worship, physically present through statues and stainglass windows, but also spiritually here through prayer.
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The clergy had assembled on the podium; perhaps all the priests and clerics of Cinderfall’s parish. Clerics and chanters in their white and gold robes stood vigil with their incense burners, eyes locked on the entrance to the holy place. If something sinister or undead tried to enter the chapel, it would fall to ash within a single chorus. That is the power of the Chant. Priests and priestesses gave me hope, hope as pure as the sight of the other survivors.
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Between the aisles, huddled together like toothless cubs, sat nearly a full classroom’s worth of students. "Pollux!" And who did I see but Roy rising from the frightened flock. I could easily discern his plump figure from the rest. His red cheeks took a break from their sagging to smile when he saw me. Undeniably, relief filled my heart.
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“Polllux, you made it!” his voice cracked. “I knew it! I knew you could make it through that!”
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My fat grin came with an unwinding sigh. “I’m happy to see you too, Roy.”
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“How did you escape? Where were you?”
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“I don’t know. I ran all the way from the courtyard. I’m just… alive.”
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“All the way from there?” he gaped. “I didn’t know you could do that!”
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Still the tactless boy, he could not have stricken away my joy even if he tried. Or maybe he could... From him, I peered around the room with a blooming spirit.
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My gaze eventually found Warren, and so my heart thumped a second time. I would've wagered he was off campus. I mean, more than half the school was off campus, nestled and safe elsewhere. Thank the Seven. The rest of us... Well, I had assumed none but loaners, losers, and forsaken would stay behind during the free weeks.
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I came extremely near to disappointment when I saw a face that I was not expecting to see. Among the somber frowns, there was the fierce boy Alvareth, the one who threatened Roy in the Grand Hall less than a week ago. Only, he seemed less fierce and far more fidgety as he ran his gaze all along the chapel interior, seeing everything but me apparently. None of his haughty friends were with him. He just stood there clenching his fists again and again.
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Roy jumped at the opportunity to show me off to everyone else. "By my fey, everyone, she made it!" he shouted. But they were either too tired or forlorn to breathe for relief, the situation being what it was. It seemed that nothing could shake the fear in the air and in their minds. A plague of uncertainty still surrounded the chapel, its people lingering on the doors and heavy with extreme anticipation for what might come. A mutual sense of helplessness connected us.
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Warren, on the other hand, had this white glint in his eye that made his smirk glow up when he noticed me. “It’s good to see you,” he said. That tiny sentiment pecked my heart, unexpectedly, before another familiar voice rang in my ears.
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"Pollux!"
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Wait. I turned my head, and the sight of Priestess Serrina had an unpredictable effect on me. Superior succour, I would call it, a kind of warmth that I had not felt in a long time. Then I thought about it. Where else would the priestess be if not in the chapel? What else would she do on such an occasion if not pray?
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“If not for Priestess Serrina, some of us wouldn’t have made it,” Warren declared with praise.
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“Blessed are the guardians; by my fey, you are safe,” She checked me head to two with a deep sigh of relief. You have carried reprieve unto this embattled heart! But tell me quickly; are there any more students outside?"
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Her question struck my heart down like a brick. Hearing the distress in her voice made it difficult, and then I thought about how she couldn’t be there for the ones on the ground, the bodies that led me to dark thoughts. I trembled for the blood and the tattered uniforms but could not bear to tell anyone in the church about what I saw. We would grieve for them when there was time to grieve. That said, there was at least one I couldn’t bear to grieve for, so I pleaded with Roy and the priestess at once.
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“Have either of you seen Elise?”
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Roy shook his head slightly. “I don’t know where she was when it started.”
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“No,” Serrina muttered solemnly. Like a flash, perhaps, many faces flooded her mind. “I never saw Melisande.”
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Their replies could mean either good or terrible things. I steered toward the former even as my heart anchored closer to the floor.
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and then Add to home screen.