---Katherine---
Everything was fine until that stupid cookie. It was really good, believe me, but it made me remember. It stirred up something in the back of my mind, exploring dark corners of my heart that I'd long since neglected. As soon as I took the first bite, something flashed across my mind. The smell of food. A messy kitchen. Laughter and shouting. My parents. My siblings that I had left behind: Holly, Magnus, Juliet. Then the scene shifted. Aaron.
I stopped the memories then. It was heart-aching enough to think of my family. Then Old Henry wouldn't answer our questions and started shooting spells, drawing runes, and forcing us to fight back. He locked us in! I watched him defeat Aaron, Lucian, and Jason. Ashley's spells didn't work that well against his runes. So Indigo and I devised a quick plan, because I had figured out something and thought I could defeat him with it.
And now? I was immobilized on the cold, hard concrete floor with possibly a broken arm and broken leg and my own sword was going to impale me. What a great day this is. I couldn't move no matter how much I wanted to. I was in pain. But what really paralyzed me was fear. Even facing that Evil wasn't this scary. I guess it had something to do with watching the weapon drop, knowing that you couldn't do anything except watch it kill you.
The sunlight glinted off the polished metal as the sword flipped a couple more times in the air and righted, falling towards the earth. Towards me. My life flashed before my eyes. I felt my parents' last embrace, our last family dinner, the last time I had fun with my friends. I closed my eyes. This was it. This was the end.
"Oomph!" A strong force collided with me, sturdy hands slipping beneath my back to scoop me up. I cried out in pain as my arm was jolted, but the death stab I was anticipating never came. Someone tackled and pushed me aside. Someone had taken the stab in the process of saving me.
My eyes flew open and widened at the sight of a pair of brown eyes hovering above me. "Kath, are you alright?" Aaron gasped.
"Aaron! Y-yes I'm okay," I tried to calm my thumping heart. "Are you—oh my gosh!"
We were so close together. His face was inches from mine. His arms were under me, and our limbs were tangled together. My arm felt like it was on fire, and my ankle felt no less. But what concerned me at the moment was the sword that stabbed him through the back, through his lower ribs on the left side. Blood was already seeping through the wound.
Aaron slowly untangled himself from me, barely suppressing a groan of pain. He looked at the tip of the sword that barely peeked out from his front. I pushed myself up with one hand, ignoring my own pain.
"I'm glad you're okay," Aaron tried to muster a weak smile.
"Why would you do such a thing? You're going to die if that doesn't get treated!" I was about to cry. He's so selfless, always putting others before himself.
"Aaron!" Indigo rushed up, with Rachel close behind. "Oh my gosh Aaron oh my gosh. Rachel, should we pull out the sword?"
Rachel knelt next to Aaron and bit her lip in concentration. Her forehead wrinkled as she wrestled internally with her decision. "Yes. Carefully extract the sword," she said finally.
The sword was carefully pulled out. Blood immediately gushed out, staining Aaron's white shirt red and forming a small puddle beneath him. As our friends crowded around, Aaron tried to play it cool to not make everyone worry, but the rapid blood loss drained him.
"Rachel, is this life-threatening?" Ashley asked worriedly. "The blood's not stopping."
Indeed, no matter what Rachel tried to do with her healing magic, it didn't work. There was just too much blood. Aaron was going paler by the second.
"I don't know why this isn't working…the spell is correct, and I've healed other wounds perfectly fine before, so why isn't this working?" Panic was etched on Rachel's normally calm face.
"Is it—it is because of our weapons' special abilities? I think Katherine told me before that her sword was made from a special metal or had some special properties that a wound, if created right, would be fatal," said Ashley, remembering something. Indigo's eyes widened.
"Oh my gosh. Yes. My sword is the same," she breathed.
"Mine too!" exclaimed Jason.
"Aaron, don't die on us!" Lucian, Aaron's best friend, crouched next to him. "There is one way that might work," said Rachel, blowing a strand of her hair out of her face. "There are these herbs with magical properties. If we find them, ground them into a paste, and then apply it to the wound, the bleeding should stop."
"That'll take too long," said Jason gravely. "We don't have that much time. Is there anything else we can do right now?" We all looked at Rachel hopefully. She looked back at us with pain-filled eyes.
"I'm going to keep trying, but—I'm sorry guys—" Her voice broke. "I'm just not good enough."