(Rose)
The coastline is scorched.
The cliffs are sharp edges cut in the land with violence. It shows. They have pale and hollow colours too, for some reason.
Horanah guides the boat carefully along this dangerous and abrupt coastline for hours before she can find a place for us to set foot. And still is the bottom of a cliff we need to climb. The easiest and smallest one at least.
So we're climbing the roughly cut rocks, for hours, slipping on pockets of moisture from the sea, holding ourselves along fissures that climb up.
The sun is heating our back as we finally manage to reach the summit, quite exhausted, our hands and knees bleeding and trembling.
Behind us, the sea is far below, and infinite looking, till the distant horizon.
Before us, the sight of a common European countryside as far as I know them.
Fields, some trees, a few decaying buildings and vehicles, here and there. Maybe an abandoned city or another in the distance...
The clouds here are flying so low we can almost reach them by hand, before they reach the sea. It's odd looking, but somewhat pretty.
Horanah is very puzzled. I guess she doesn't recognise the country she left at a very young age, and in a different time.
At least there still are grass and trees growing, I thought to myself. But she must have expected to find much more. Maybe more people also... The land is as silent as the sea could be, or more. We can only hear the wind falling onto the sea behind us, singing in the fissures of the rocks. We're all alone, not just lost, but also abandoned in a vast and empty world, devoid of people now.
She's only just now starting to realise it... She has my sympathy.
She looks pained. Sadly, this is only the beginning for her.
~
We're walking toward the ravaged ruins of the closest city we saw in the distance. Everything human-made bears the scars of a cataclysmic earthquake, if not full out warfare.
No one alive to meet, and we encounter little to no wildlife either. Everything is just dead quiet.
H - When we left the continent with my family, I was young, and I remember neighbours, other peoples. Our island... Our home, you saw what it became afterward. I escaped that hellish pit back there thanks to you. But... I didn't expect that leaving a pit would only help me to jump into the next, over the sea... It's really as you said... Everyone is just gone... Humanity is done? It's so awful... How could we live like this?
I feel shy. How did I? I remember in flashes the people and other things that I murdered.
R - We fight to survive... All I can tell you is that the odds for you to encounter another monster are really low. You're free to live as you please now, but it's true you're likely to get lonely. With some luck, you'll encounter other survivors, and it's likely you'll meet weird animals along the way...
She looks grim. I can't blame her.
We make our camp outside of the city. She lits the fire using Blume's power.
I think it's time we discuss about that...
R - I will resume my journey tomorrow Horanah.
H - You're free to do as you please. Where will you go?
R - Probably southward. What I mean is that it's time for Blume to return to me.
H - Alright... I understand. Tomorrow morning before you leave then. I'll give her back to you.
She shuts herself in and goes to sleep on the ground beside the fire. She must think that I'm abandoning her to her death in this unknown land. I didn't forbid her to tag along though. Well, we'll settle this tomorrow then. I get she's upset tonight.
I slowly fall asleep myself.
Another human may be just beside, but I'm lonely...
~
A slight rain wakes me up. I hear the sound of thunder in the distance.
I notice a glow in the general direction of the city.
I want to wake Horanah up but realise a little anxiously that she's not there anymore.
I stand up.
Night. Darkness and solitude.
A bluish glow floats over the city where clouds gather oddly.
I'm all alone...
Ahead, a few kilometres ahead, a monster has woken up.
I can feel it, as if my skin had an allergic reaction.
She's gone, she left without me. Either toward the city, or the opposite direction?
I'm waking up now. I feel an exhilaration rising.
I clench my fists and my teeth.
I see the lightning striking a building, far in the distance.
I remember oddly, when I was a child, laughing at the ridicule of a story my father was telling me. It was a dramatic story of a soldier who couldn't live on without war, saying nonsense to justify his erratic behaviour, like that running after death was the one thing that made him feel alive.
This was so ridiculous. How could one love fire and burning oneself so much.
Yet... Why am I smiling? I have nothing to fight with. I would be irrational, pushing dangerously my luck and my faith in Blume, if I were to try seeing what's really occurring.
I can't win a fight as I am now... My heart is beating too fast already. I am hero, and I'm certainly no war fighter. I have nothing to gain and simply my life to lose.
I'm trembling. I so direly want to go. I'm hopeless...
I want to see what's behind. And I begin to run ahead onto the road still under the starry night sky.
I can feel my heart trembling, shivering.
I can perceive that something up there ahead is meant for me... She's probably there, it's not just a weird desire to risk my life and feel the adrenalin rush. There's more to it, but it's mostly instincts I will have to rationalise afterward.
I can picture Horanah doing something out there... And I have to go to stop her before it's too late.
I see coloured ribbons and ghosts rushing into the city along the way.
~
The city is already being vaporised bits by bits through the wrath of a monster.
The rain turned into storm as I drew closer, and the glow into a blue to pink sun or skylight quite bright really, flooding the streets with light.
The sky is now too bright for me to look at directly. But it's unnatural.
The ground is trembling and everything is fissuring rapidly, haphazardly. Some walls begin to crack, fissure and crumble not far from me.
I head into the heart of this storm, as I already know very well who I will find there...
Atop a strange structure, a landmark shaped like an obelisk, not very tall but very large.
More like a kind of pyramid. There are still stairs. A single way up. The air is becoming electric, making the air sparky and fuzzy.
As I reach the top, of course the only living thing I can find is Horanah herself.
She's standing there, looking at the sky and storm she's summoning, mesmerized.
She notices me and turns around. I'm catching my breath. She's smiling.
Her normal smile, in this context, reveals a grimmer persona than I wished to encounter...
H - Hello Rose... I'm sorry, I didn't want to wake you up. Before it was too late, I wanted to have a full insight of this power of yours. Blume right? She's amazing... Look at what she can do!
R - Please, stop that. You're only damaging the city.
H - It doesn't really matter now... Everyone is dead and we're free. You said so. We're free to do as we please. All we have left to fear are monsters. Now really how many monsters can be a threat to us if we can use their powers like that? Look.
She moves her hands as if to crush a bug. The air is ripped above us. A blinding bolt of thunder dives from the sky and onto a building in that general direction. It pierces it, breaking it apart while spreading fire along its shock.
It begins to burn and crumble down.
It then feels as if there was another earthquake as the building collapses into fiery dusts.
Seeing this, I'm worried like Blume used to be...
Horanah is laughing, amazed and amused.
H - Is there no limit to what she can do? It's astonishing! You two could have been super-heroes! Why didn't you use more that power? You could have saved me and others years ago!
Her initially laughing tone became more angry and aggressive as she went.
R - Because we would become less of humans, her and I. Using one's power without reason or regards for the consequences is what makes monsters monsters...
H - I see... That's unfortunate. You two could have chosen to change the world for the better...
R - Neither of us have god-like ambitions anymore. That too is the usual pride of what we call monsters, or immature beings...
H - ... You said she was human? But she's one of them really...
R - Yes...
She's doing something. The blue light keeps flooding the city, but the storm is beginning to disperse and calm down.
Then she stands on her toes, and hops to stand still in mid-air.
She laughs again. She's flying...
H - This is amazing! Why did we even use that boat!
It's hard to put into words, but I can see the extent of her folly, the immature way she's wasting an immense amount of power, and all I feel about it is sadness.
I feel so sad. Can I still reply anything that will stop her from sliding further down that path she's on?
I offer her my hand, as humbly as I can.
Please, come back down to me, to the ground, to Earth...
Before Hubris makes you fall like Icarus...
H - How could you cast away such godly powers? You're the insane one!
R - Monsters believe they're god, and they are hunted for that reason. Your heroes, don't they always fight even tougher enemies because of their powers precisely? Don't they and their enemies fight and lose because of pride and ambition? Don't start a war against forces you can't fathom yet just because you have some power. I've made that mistake before...
H - You did? What happened?
R - I made an even worse enemy, and I died.
Horanah looks somewhat humbled to hear my mind, but sound puzzled.
H - You died? How come you're alive now then?
R - ...
H - No way... I could even become immortal? And you're not kidding... No way. No way!
She's laughing maniacally now.
And I feel my failure deeply, lowering my hand she'll no longer accept.
~
The city becomes brighter, almost as if daylight was shrouding it.
A lost girl is laughing in its heights.
H - This is too good to be true! Sorry Rose, I can't give you back your source of power. Nobody in his right mind would! Blume can't even say a word anymore. I've shut her up and I control her. She's mine now! Come at me monsters!
She's bursting another building in the distance with a great childish laugh. I stand there powerless and crestfallen.
She comes slightly down, still hovering above the ground. She's literally glowing.
H - I'm sorry Rose. I'm keeping her. You can leave. Do as you please. What could you do against me anyway?
R - I can't let you become a monster... I'm sorry.
She pinches me on the forehead. It hurts sharply. I'm bleeding. I think she opened my skull slightly. She's amused.
H - Don't stand in my way. Don't step on my dream. You've made the worst mistake of your life leaving Blume with me. You're stupid, but you don't have to die for it. Just go away.
I grab her wrist. Electricity runs through me and it hurts.
I draw a mischievous smile as I embrace her.
She thinks it's goodbye. I whisper in her ear a few sad words. I hug her tight. My chest burns against her.
I bite her neck to blood. She yells and pushes me away.
I ripped just a little of her skin between my teeth. I spit the bloody flesh I took off.
She looks obviously angry. And I'm laughing now, sadly, at the irony and misery of our situation. I'm not sure exactly, but something nervous makes me laugh.
R - Maybe you're blinded by power and can't see your doom rising and surrounding you therefore.
She taunts me. But I feel something warm crawling inside my chest. She jumps at me, but something pushes her away.
A vine sprouted abruptly out of my chest cavity. It slashed her arm. She has a bleeding cut on it now. She's confused but understand quickly.
H - You recovered some of her power by biting me... Are you a vampire or what?
R - No, no, don't mistake us. You're still far too young for this world. Please step down... Touching you was enough for her to begin returning to me, soon entirely. If there's one lesson to hold true nowadays, it's you should never underestimate beings like her, or me...
H - ... You're the monster...
R - Ah ah! No... Not anymore I hope... I try my best to live as my flowery ideal. A gentle person. But Rose has her thorns. Please... Please, don't make me prove you wrong... Please, step down Horanah...
H - You're still mostly human...
She's so wrong.
I'm sorry I failed you...
She attacks me. My only vine and ribbon is scorched, burnt to ashes in an instant. However, my arms and stance hold her blow as if she had no physical strength at all against me.
I can see in her eyes that she expected me to be hurt and fall.
I'm still standing... And I'm releasing something deeper. I can guess now is about the time when my hair is starting to lose its colour and turning white.
I grab her arm and jump at her. I feel disgusted by what I'm about to do, but I must rip Blume's flesh away from her body, because Blume isn't really able to escape and fully return to me right now.
She yells and manages to push me away.
The storm comes back in a great gust of wind above us. Clouds gather and begin to see sparks run around them.
Below, I have little strength left. My arms are trembling as I'm pushing myself.
She's coming closer. She's about to launch something devastating to blow me away for good and into dust. She has some tears in her eyes and makes a pained face, but she's about to do it anyway.
Poor lost soul. I couldn't save her in the end.
She's just ready to strike.
How bizarre our turn of events I think, preparing to jump too.
How unlucky could we all be...
What awful probabilities had we to reach this grim end?
I'm sorry...
I'm so sorry it ended up like this.
She falls dead at my feet, suddenly.
I see blood dripping slowly from her ears and eyes.
She died, just like that.
The night softly returns above us as the storms disperses and the glow vanishes.
I didn't quite expect that, but I know what happened.
I'm sorry...
I shut down the light inside of me that was bleaching my hair and ready to fight back the poor girl's wrath.
I crouch, and pick-up her now lifeless body.
I lift her onto my back and slowly carry her back down back to earth...
What a dreadful night for all of us...
~
It was obvious.
B - Yes, I killed her. I'm sorry Rose. I just couldn't let her kill you... I slashed her brain in pieces before it was too late.
R - I know you didn't have a choice... No matter how sad the outcome. I don't blame you, more myself... What was even the point of saving her in the end? We're awful heroes you and I...
B - I'm... sorry.
R - Don't be... It's my fault too, or mostly. That girl... She never really left her hell in the end. She only thought she did because of us. Did we give her false hopes? I'm not sure. What is the lesson in all this?
B - I guess... Sometimes we all make mistakes with consequences we can't predict, and sad things happen.
R - There could have been a thousand better outcomes from that chaos where she met us... I feel bad...
B - I left myself being used. I truly share your guilt. I was... I wasn't the best of myself either this past few days... I couldn't help it.
R - I don't blame you for being human...
It's painful. I just realise the biggest difference between most of the tales my father used to tell me as a child, and my fantastic adult life nowadays... is that there is no moral to my life... And I'll just have to live with the consequences, whatever they are.
That makes me tear up again. Because I feel the guilt of my previous insane excitement, and my miserable failure to help that child into this world safely... I'm feeling awful right now.
R - We'll just have to live with it...
I'm stepping outside the city, still carrying the now cold child on my back.
The sun rises I notice.
Another beautiful scenery appears. I'm brushing my eyes.
B - I think we will...
~