by GR "Maya" Cogman
Gabriel's voice says, "Protect them."
The human screams again. "I'm sorry!"
I turn, but there is nobody behind me. I know they're there, I can hear their voices all the time, I just want to answer them. Is that too much to ask? God damn it, I can scream into the emptiness and nobody hears me, and it's driving me insane.
No. Not insane. There's nobody there. Just me.
I hoard the ball of light to myself, feeling the power build between my fingers. So slow, so slow, yet almost there. I will feel the air against my face, I will hear other people's voices, I will see. There will be something other than the void and the lack of sensation.
"If only you..."
It's the Malakite again, but I know better this time. I don't listen to him. He can beg and plead all he likes, he doesn't understand the way I saw the cruelty in that woman's eyes and I had to punish her. She deserved everything that I did to her, and more. And more. Last time I lost control and threw the fire at him. This time I can ignore him till he goes away.
I imagine a shattered Heart, imagine the flames between my fingers as a new one. I'll find a way once I'm back on the earth, I'll make some repentance, I'll make them understand. I had to do what I did, and there was no other choice, no other possible way.
The woman's sobbing is nearly inaudible, her voice clogged by the damage to her lungs, but even so I find it more troubling than the Malakite's voice. It takes an effort of will to force her away and to not see --
black mask white bone hands shattered as they reach towards me and the hoarse gasping
-- what was left of the cruel one.
"Protect them."
"If only you understood..."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please..."
I scream. The scream goes on forever as I make the fire spread wings and wash them all away and stop them and silence them and make them gone until at last I'm all alone again in the great silence, with nobody else there, nobody else to make me know. Nobody else to make me me. Hush, hush, it's all right, they've all gone away, you can forget now. You can sleep now.
---
Somewhere in a place that is no place, in a time that is no time, a spirit hangs in a great silence. There could be a hundred thousand others at her right hand, and she could not see them, could not touch them, would never hear their voices. Power fluctuates in her hands, a key to escape, and time and time again she casts it away with a scream. Her world is as wide as the span of her own mind, and as narrow as nothingness, and there is nothing there but her, forever and ever.
---
I know that I have wings, and I know that I will feel the wind on my feathers again. I just need the time to regain Essence, then I can leave this place and find myself again. I will gather power in the silence, I will wait patiently, and I will leave here. I know that I can.
Fire flowers between my hands, comforting and assured.
Gabriel's voice says, "Protect them."
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Elizabeth McCoy <arcangel@prismnet.com>
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