By Sara Aziz

Hey readers, I hope you enjoy Chapter 6, and if you have any comments or critiques, please feel free! Chapter 7 is coming out on July 7th!

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Dreams are lonely.

Dreams are painful.

Dreams are memories.

She was humming a song to herself as she cooked, her apron covered in flour and sauce. She smelled like jasmine.

Mother.

“Wash your hands, dear, it’s almost time to set the table!” She beamed at me.

I didn’t move. She looked just like Mother, she smelled just like her. But something was off, something was wrong.

Her smile vanished. She gently placed down the bowl and untied her apron.

She moved like lightning.

I felt a horrible sting on my cheek as my head snapped to the side.

She slapped me.

Good to see you too, Mother.

Suddenly, her delicate pale hands morphed into black claws, her face elongated and her red eyes turned black and green.

This wasn’t her. It’s a nightmare.

This is just a nightmare.

“What should we do, sisters?” This fake version of Mother had a grating voice, like the scraping of a knife on granite.

Nightmare.

It’s just a nightmare.

“I say we kill her,” another voice chimed in, excitement clear in her voice.

“No, no, no, I want to see what happens!”

“Wh-“

Nightmare.

Nightmare.

Nightmare.

“Silence!” A new voice entered the fray.

Female.

She had quick, clicking footsteps.

“Ah, ah, ah, let’s not be naughty” Her voice was amused. I wanted to gouge her eyes out with a rusted spoon.

Suddenly, she slashed at my face with her nails.

I still couldn’t see her.

My blood dripped red.

“Find him”

Her voice was a hiss now, quiet and almost indecipherable.

“Bring me back my son”

______________________

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty, time to go.” A teasing voice jarred me to wakefulness as Alyona gave me a wink from across the room. Her eyes were tired, her hands slightly trembling. I returned her exhausted smile and her eyes brightened a bit.

“The Brother wants us gone by sundown, remember?” I faintly recalled her coming in this morning with Levka, her annoyance, his abrupt departure, his gift. I almost smiled. Until I saw the blood on the dagger Damien had given me.

Pixie blood.

Please don’t look, I silently prayed.

If she knew my secrets, she would leave me too.

If she knew how wrong I was inside, what twisted daggers lay in my heart, she would never want to see me again.

I don’t care though.

If anyone tries to hurt her, I will tear them to pieces.

I lost a lot of things after I lost my freedom.

My home.

Most of my family.

But not my strength.

I will destroy their lives bit by bit, stone by stone, until nothing was left but the bitterness of death and despair.

“Why?”

“What?” She didn’t understand the question.

I’m not sure I did either. But I couldn’t dwell in my thoughts.

They would destroy me.

“Why does the Brother hate humanity, yet create an organization filled with it?” She stilled.

We both knew of the raids, of the slaughters that occurred. One species was targeted above all though.

Humans.

Worthless lives.

People protested the killings, but they were silenced too.

Fools.

They place the ethics that they have taken unto themselves upon others so as to not disturb the senses. But to do so means they will not see the immorality or the change that is happening around them. They are blinding themselves.

They blind themselves and ask why they cannot see.

“The Brother does not want to destroy humanity himself. He wants to watch humanity destroy itself. He believes that if you put the wrong people in charge, the countries will dissolve into wars that have no meaning. People will revolt. Fighting, rebellions, murders. And when the dust settles, humanity will die. And when humanity is dead, a new world will rise from the ashes.” Her voice was quiet as she fiddled with the bag’s straps. She was repeating something, I realized.

But what?

“Without us in it.” The words were a bitter tang in my mouth.

I’m not sure if I’m human or not.

Mother told me I wasn’t.

Father told me I was.

But both are liars.

He said he’d never leave.

He left me.

She promised she’d always be there.

She left me.

They always leave.

They stole my freedom and called it hope.

I can’t leave this forsaken country.

This isn’t freedom.

This is a prison.

“Yeah. We’re useful to him now. But when we lose our usefulness, we lose our protection.” Her eyes were shadowed.

“How…pragmatic” My words were careful and slightly unsure.

She blinked, then suddenly laughed, and the tension was broken. But it still floated above our heads, the horrible truth.

We were all going to die soon.

And the clock was ticking.

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As I carried my backpack down the stairs, I heard laughter resonating through the hallway. I looked over the handrail to see Alyona hugging Mikhail as he struggled to get away, a smile on his face. Levka was also grinning, but it looked hilariously forced. Damien was leaning on a pillar, completely at ease, while Aleksandr was standing tall, watching the clouds shift outside. It was a peaceful scene. As I made my way down, Damien looked up and noticed me. Flashing me a wolfish smile, he inclined his head. I bared my teeth in return.

His eyes flashed with surprise before he snorted a laugh. Alyona turned her head and gave me a huge grin.

It hurt.

She was honest.

She was good.

She would leave me too.

They always do.

“Hey!” I ran down the remaining stairs and stopped in front of Alyona, my hair now wind-blown and messy, falling in front of my eyes. She nudged me, her face mischievous, and I turned to see Damien staring at me before realizing I saw him, suddenly turning away. My cheeks flushed and Aleksandr began glaring at me, apparently bored of the clouds.

“Come on, we need to go!” Dragging me from the room, Alyona strode with a hurried pace I began to mimic. Abruptly stopping in front of the building, she climbed into a large black monstrosity of a carriage, seeming perfectly at ease, completely at odds with the nervous woman I had seen earlier. As Damien climbed in, he slid next to me as Aleksandr, Levka, and Mikhail also found their seats. The carriage jolted as it started and I suddenly realized, I had no idea where we were going.

“Where are we heading?” I directed the question toward the carriage as a whole.

Mikhail responded.

“A city south of Fjiduna called Hirhol”

Hirhol.

Why was that familiar?

We continued in silence.

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have you born,

the Christ’s of faith?

have you see the trees of truth?

have you broken every chain,

that forbade you from hope?

find who you are,

find in yourself,

the courage to continue,

the courage of faith,

the courage to believe.

Songs of The Believers

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I woke up to the carriage’s abrupt halt, jolting us all awake. I opened my eyes to find I was resting on someone’s shoulder. I looked up to see Damien slowly straightening as he began to yawn. I then looked over at Alyona, who was now pretending to faint, then wake up and place her hands on her heart.

I began contemplating where to place her grave.

“What the hell is going on?” Levka’s irritated voice broke through the silence as he opened the carriage door to find heavy snow.

“Hey!” He was leaning out the door to face the driver. His sudden swear was enough to get us all on edge.

“What the-!”

“Will you just tell us what’s going on?” Alyona broke in.

He leaned back in and slumped into his seat.

“The driver’s gone, and we have a broken wheel.”

There was complete quiet.

“Don’t we have a replacement?” Mikhail sounded almost timid, obviously unsure.

“No, we don’t,” Aleksandr rumbled, his deep voice quiet.

“The driver is supposed to be skilled enough that we don’t need one.”

“So we have to walk?” I interjected, suddenly worried.

“Obviously,” he sneered.

Oh my God.

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As we climbed out of the carriage, Alyona saw Damien get out before me. She had a strange glint in her eyes that made me wearily suspicious.

“What are you-“

Suddenly, she shoved me out of the carriage, and I was falling,

falling,

falling,

until two arms encircled me and held me up. I looked up to see the raised eyebrows and beautiful chocolate-gold eyes of Damien Gray.

Cheeks flushing, I pushed away, and he opened his arms wide to help me. I turned and gave Alyona my worst glare.

She gave me an angelic smile in return.

Shouldering my pack, I began to follow Aleksandr as the snow raged around us.

Each step was a monumental effort of the worst kind, but Mikhail had it worse. With his books piled on him, he had to be struggling.

Don’t do it.

Don’t you-

Oh, whatever.

Doubling back, I grabbed some books from Mikhail and kept walking. He gave me a grateful look as we continued forward, but neither of us wasted our breath for thanks.

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We finally stopped when we realized the sun was setting, knowing we couldn’t continue like this for much longer, and that we needed rest. As I sat down on a frost-covered log, I shivered from the horrible cold. I felt a sudden warmth cover my shoulders and I looked down to see a large jacket covering me, and Damien sitting down next to me, his arms now bare as he stared at the sunset, resting his forearms on his knees and frowning slightly. Alyona wasn’t even doing anything I realized, but just staring in shock, before giving me two thumbs up and a wink.

Dear God, she just couldn’t be subtle, could she?

Aleksandr glanced at the jacket around my shoulders, his peaceful expression shifting to one of disgust and a slight rage. He probably wanted me to die of hypothermia. He turned back to the large pile of sticks he had gathered, and pulling out a match from his jeans pocket, struck it, and dropped it into the pile, starting a fire. I stared at the flames and remembered telling my mother of a dream I had. I was 7, and the girls in my class talked about how much fun it was, camping with your parents. You played and told stories, and ate marshmallows and candy.

To a 7-year-old, that was heaven.

I’d wanted to go camping with her and Dad, and in the dream, I’d done it. Mom was smiling and eating and she tucked me in at night after telling me a scary story beneath the stars. But when I told her about my dream, she laughed.

“I’m sure it was a beautiful dream, dear. But I think you forgot something.”

“What?” I was so confused, so stupidly naïve.

Her smile was soft with a serrated edge.

“You forgot that nightmares are dreams too”

I bit my lip, hard, as I tried to focus on where I was, where I am.

I tasted blood.

“Hey.” The voice was soft, and a hand reached over to wipe my cheek.

I hadn’t even realized I was crying.

“Hey,” Damien’s voice was quiet so that only I could hear him. He gently cupped my chin -a mockery of when he had roughly grabbed it only a few days prior- and made me look into the sky.

My breath caught.

There were millions of stars, each one sparkling in the icy beauty of the north.

They weren’t overly flashy, but their beauty was a sort of grace humanity had lost long ago. I leaned into Damien as I watched the stars till my eyes drifted shut and I prayed for a dreamless sleep.

After all, nightmares are dreams too.

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Despite the exposure to the cold, my arms felt warm wrapped around Maria. What was she crying about? What plagued her so much that she didn’t even realize she was crying until I wiped her tears?

Mateo would have known.

I will get him back.

But I had never felt so dirty then now, as I realized that to save him, everyone here would die.

The foul-mouthed sharpshooter.

The shy bookworm of an alchemist.

The strangely obvious healer.

And the loyal Aleksandr.

But Maria.

To save Mateo, she would have to die.

I have never felt so disgustingly dirty than now, as I stared up to the sky she had so reverently gazed at only minutes before.

I was trapped in a nightmare.

A nightmare of my own creation.

And my back bowed as I let the silent tears flow and fall to the pure snow-covered ground, each one a silent apology.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

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I woke up to find my head in Damien’s lap as he gently ran a finger through my hair, shaking it slightly, trying to wake me up. I sat up and gave him an embarrassed smile as I shrugged off his jacket and gave it back.

“Thank you,”

“No problem” He easily slung it back on as he stood up and stretched, his eyes suspiciously red, like he hadn’t been sleeping.

Did Sariati even need sleep?

“We have to keep going” Aleksandr announced, his voice efficient and as icy as the snow around us.

“Someone wake up Alyona”

I turned and stifled a laugh.

Alyona was lying face down on the ground atop a blanket she somehow had fit into her pack, and she had her arms splayed around her like she was trying to hug the world as one leg seemed to be mid-kick, the other one facing the opposite direction.

“How the hell is that comfortable?” Levka wondered out loud.

Striding over, I pulled out my notebook and rolled it up.

Placing it next to her ear, I yelled,

“WAKE! UP!!!”

Catapulting backward, Alyona somehow landed on her feet and had my arm behind my back and the other pushed upward, one shove from being dislocated. I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and I burst out laughing. She blinked and shoved me away, grumbling as she collapsed back onto her blanket.

“It’s time to go,” Aleksandr told her, his voice softer than before.

“No”

“Its morn-“

“No”

“We have to g-“

“No”

I felt like I was suffocating from the mere effort of not laughing.

Walking over, I whispered in her ear,

“If you don’t get up, I’m telling Levka about your stuffed animal, Mrs. Purrikins.”

She looked me dead in the eye.

“You wouldn’t”

“Try me”

She groaned as she sat up, her back cracking, as she began folding her blanket, sending me rebellious looks every few seconds.

I repressed a smile.

Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.

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 “Halloween is the beginning of the holiday shopping season. That’s for women. The beginning of the holiday shopping season for men is Christmas Eve.”
—David Letterman