A terrible chill came over me, and I wept. I’d screamed out her name until the blackness took me, and I’d fought it as it wrenched me away from her. I flailed uselessly against the dark fingers that grabbed at my limbs, but they were mighty and bruising things, and I was so pathetic and weak before them that for all of my efforts: I could not stop their pull upon my person!

My futile resistance came to near an end in this manner, and in the darkness I beheld an emptiness beyond my comprehension! I teetered upon the very edge of that infinite void, and I should have fallen then, for I had no power by which to defy that evil will that tugged upon me still, but I heard her voice again!

She was… calling my name, and she sounded so very small and distant and sad, and I would not stand for this! I would not allow that she suffer such a torment as my loss, and so I brandished the power of my love for her against the weighty emptiness that claimed me! I was hers, and it was nothingness itself, and it should be no surprise which claim was the lesser!

With all of my strength, I at once tore myself free of my accoster, and out into the moonless night I searched for her! Corpses littered the ground beneath my feet as I sought out her distressed voice, and I fell many times before I finally found her, on the steps that used to lead into our home, which had been torn apart in the battle.

She was coughing the ichor from her lungs, and she seemed so very unwell, but I told her I was there — I assured her of this truth as she channeled aether between coughing fits; even as she seemed unable to hear me: I comforted her with my safety — and I frantically worked to save her, though it would be incredibly difficult.

My beloved was lacerated such that there was scarce a portion of her skin that bore no injury, and she’d been eviscerated such that her viscera pooled within my hands; only her arcane powers yet preserved her life, and not for much longer by what I could see.

Still, I could help her maintain her life long enough for her to finish her spellcraft, and even if she were only my lifemate and lover: I would have sought to save her from that impossible situation all the same, for to not have tried was madness!

I left her side only to pull water from the well, and I battled with her broken body to save her, for I had to replace her organs back inside her body as it shoved them out all of its own heaving accord! Her blood ran with a strangely rich colour — so thick it was with aether that even I could observe its presence! — and it flowed from her body in spite of my salves and bandages.

She must have finished with her arcane craft, for I saw her eyes briefly flare, and a shallow smile appeared on her lips, despite the deathful bloody coughs that shook her completely! She closed her eyelids with a moment’s satisfaction, but an agonized wince struck her as I wound bindings around another hole in her stomach, and so it seemed that she’d finally taken notice of my gruesome work.

She looked over to me with happiness swimming in her eyes through her pained tears, and her lips absolutely beamed such that even as she was wracked by those horrid coughs: I knew she’d been successful with her spells. Goodness she was so proud of herself then, but she shortly changed for the worse. I didn’t know what'd happened that she was made to leave that giddy state, but some horrible transformation occurred in her eyes as they gazed upon me.

They furrowed as if uncertain, and then they widened with shock, until they’d morphed into a horror that consumed them in totality! I saw her face whiten with terror, for I knew those contortions were completely apart from her staggering blood loss, though I did not know why she should be so frightened now. She’d suffered this dire state stoically for so long, so why should she have been overcome with such fear as she gazed upon me?

She spoke between the fits, her voice laden with a despair so heavy upon it that she could barely bring it to a whisper, and although her words were so often interrupted with coughs that I couldn’t understand much of what she’d said: I was sure I’d heard her crying out with an endless sadness and anger,

“No, Mercy no… Not you! Please, not you too! Mercy take… fucking bastards… Killed my...! They… kill them again… never stop…! Please! Please let it be enough!”

Her usually rich and plump lips were drawn in a thin line, and they trembled with blubbering sobs as she tearfully attempted spellcraft once again with a hateful grimace. Her body went out of focus for me, as my own tears came down without end, and I could not tell any longer whether it was rage or seizure that so violently shook her chest!

I could still vaguely see that her fingers reached towards my head, and so of course I brought myself down to her, but she never touched me in the end. My beloved soon lay dead before me, and I was unable to react for such a long time… for an eternity I was locked in that moment; trapped between her last breath, and its release.

Everything blurred for me, and I shortly knew only that I’d been screaming with heart-wrenching sadness, and howling out of despair. But why would I do such a thing? She’d been prepared for this, and she’d dedicated so much to its prevention! There was no reason for this grieving of mine: she wasn’t even gone, so what cause had I to feel despair?!

It had to have been her dread at the end, for the way she’d looked at me — as if I were myself dead and bloodied before her! — led her to terror in the end, and it had affected her significantly. Something had gone wrong then, and I knew it, though I could not for the life of me know what. The answer to my sorrow was in her fear, this much I knew, although I knew not why.

I didn’t understand, so I had to know: I had to ask her why she, so mighty and remarkable, was so scared? Why did she look at me in such a manner? I had known her for so long, but I’d never known that she was even capable of fear; she’d laughed at death at every juncture… but the way she’d looked at me was unlike ever before, and I had to assure her that there was nothing wrong; that there was nothing she could not surely overcome!

She was afraid, and I had to let her know that everything was alright, and so I awoke again, and I wondered why… why were my eyes blurred with tears? I wiped them with a bloody sleeve, and I focused them again upon her… and what a horrible sight she was to behold!

Her body would twitch and spasm every now and again, though I could not see her chest rise, nor her breath upon the air. With fumbling hands I moved to change her seeped-through bandages; her… brutalized form, with all those horrible injustices came bare before my fingers, and I would trace comfort across her cold hands and cheeks — whether for her sake or mine, I was uncertain — as I replaced the dressings.

All the while, I would be assaulted by phantoms of her voice; I’d hear her bellowing with a rage unintelligible, then she’d shift to desperately begging for me to stop, and she would at times break down with sobs such that only a weak plea could come out: that I should leave her body be and rest!

At times her voice would speak to me in the haughty tones of a princess, to impatiently explain that there’s no need to cry since she’s still here ‘obviously’... and when I could bear the echoes of her no longer: again the darkness would come for me.

This could not have been the first time I went through these same sad motions; no, I don’t believe that I stopped for a long while. I would celebrate as her bandages came out cleaner, then upon further reflection of her state, whether I checked her pulse or examined her breathing, I would despair. I would become insensate, and I’d go gibbering to that dark place where I would no longer know of her passing, and from there this routine must surely have begun anew.

She must have disappeared somewhere while I couldn’t see, and this is what eventually broke me from that wretched pattern, for I moved to touch her, and my fingers only met the ground.

I reached further for her then… and when I didn’t make contact with her, I reached out again, and then once again, and I kept looking for her with my hands — for my eyes were entirely overcome with tears, for what reason I could not, no: I would not remember — but no matter where I searched: she was gone! Where she had gone I did not know, but I suspected she was alright, she could overcome anything after all!

Though I didn’t understand, I'd heard her voice even then, but even when I wiped my frustrated tears away: I still could not find her, and so I'd concluded that the voice was a hallucination; a trick my own mind was playing on me! So I ignored it, and when I stared around with blinking eyes… I did not know what to think.

In a wide circle around myself: only the earth remained. Where was our house? Where were the bodies? Where was she hiding?! I lashed out at the ground in a sudden anger, and I beat upon my breast, only for my hand to come away with an odd squelching sound, and a wetness then covered it.

I gave my hand a glance, and it was covered in blood, both coagulating and fresh, and I could see bits of viscera upon it. I shook it from my hand, for it disgusted me to gaze upon blood so soon after her death, and I looked instinctively for the well, only to be left perplexed by its absence.

The houses were all gone, nothing left of them but bare dirt outlines; shadows that they once may have existed, and if I did not know that they used to sit there: I might’ve come to the conclusion that someone had cut away the grass into rectangles and circles, and other strange shapes that defied my explanation, for reasons unknowable and beyond my ken!

Not an insect buzzed around me as I lifted myself to my feet, nor a birdsong alighted my ears to a gentle melody; no, nothing but the crunch of dirt under my feet, and the echoes of her voice chased after me now! I closed my ears to her, for I would not allow such a mockery to besmirch her memory; she was precious to me, and I would not enable these illusions to distract me from finding her for even a moment!

I rose to my feet, for I was angry, and her corpse was my duty to burn and to bury! Someone must have come and stolen her away! They even had the nerve to take away everyone else, though I wasn’t a thousandth as bothered about them as I was about her disappearance! Corpses do not simply up and walk away, and I would find hers!

Were I being rational, I might have cared just a small amount more about the vanished corpses of my fellow townsfolk, for while most were never the kindest to us: they didn’t treat us so poorly that I shouldn’t have felt so little a connection to my neighbors!

Luca, I should have cared to find Luca at the least, for he was kin to me and likewise missing, but my grief for her had consumed me in totality. Perhaps I was being irrational, but instances like the one I found myself in do rather seem to call for an extreme response!

There remained five still-standing buildings, if indeed they could still be called that, as only the Fredrickson’s house was left completely intact — I suspect because it was rather further away than the rest, Bart and Lisset never really cared much for company until Talia was born.

The other ‘buildings’ were cut away in a perfect sphere, and try as I might in my dazed state: I couldn’t explain it. It was as if a dome had come out of the ground, and stolen all the houses away in that exact space! The only irregularities were where something had clearly broken, and fallen inside of the circle… but even those remains were nowhere to be found!

My fists shook with impotent fury, and as I became conscious of their clenching: I found a golden chain in my hand. A deep and ruddy colour came from the gem at the end, as beautifully bewitching as ever, though if I wasn’t mistaken… wasn’t it rather larger than I remembered?

It was her project, a phylactery she would call it with a reverential affection; “a ward against the worst that could happen,” she’d giggled as she draped the chain across my shoulders, and the last I knew it was around my neck.

A vision came to me at this point, of her reaching out to me and pulling it from my neck, though the chain was unbroken still, so how she’d done it was beyond me. As a blackness spread out from underneath her, that damned illusion had her tell me that she loved me, and to be strong, and of all things: to wait! To wait for what, Arianna?!

I didn’t know, and these lingering assurances angered me greatly, but before I could find myself howling with fury: a blinding light stabbed into my eyes, and I was soon screaming in agony, and sorrow, and hatred, and all the bitter feelings I’d ever before known, and perhaps some which I never will know again!

How. How? I dared to wonder as the sun’s rise scorched my skin: how was I supposed to be strong when she was gone?! She was my strength! But how could strength matter anymore and... how could mere waiting bring her back to me?! I needed her terribly… I always did, why should she hide from me now?! What was I waiting for, then?!

My feet collapsed beneath myself, and I wept between the scalding agony and endless sorrow, but as the pains upon my skin dissipated: I’d heard her soothing me; comforting me with lullabies and gentle love songs we used to know, and I clung to her voice for a while. She even apologized in that time, and I held onto every scrap of her that came to me then,

“I’m sorry, Mira… you needn’t have burned for so long. But… I’m here now, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to let you get hurt. I love you, I really do, you know?”

If a voice could hug a person, hers was like a mother’s bossom to a frightened child, and I sobbed within her embrace for a very long time. I let her whisper assurances and warm things in my ears until a thought struck me: why… oh why was I listening to this damned voice?! If a mere memory could have brought my beloved back, then… just where is she?! I’ve remembered enough, haven’t I?! I could’ve remembered her forever, if she would only show herself before me again… but how could she?! She was dead! Dead!

Tears streamed out and I was overcome with a bitter fury; I raised my hand high to throw that precious gem, and then I shook with a tangible fear, as I was gripped with the great paralyzing terror of losing any more of her than I already had… and I had already lost so much of her. Her warmth, her smile; I’d lost everything but that damned voice and this!

The necklace, “a pendant” she often semanticized to me, was a promise she made, one in lieu of a ring, and it meant far too much to me to be rid of, no matter how much it hurt to look upon now… to feel it’s weight upon my person. I fastened it back around my neck with trembling fingers; back where it belongs, oh if only I could have had her where she belongs too, for I so missed her.

I wandered aimlessly for a while after. It’s so easy to lose your focus when you’ve experienced a significant enough loss, and I was looking into… something, probably where either she or her body had gone, for I’d rapidly shifted between my emotions then, and denial with the subsequent grief of realization were endlessly prevalent.

I cannot know why I’d examined the strangely vanished houses, but I scrutinized the things as if their vanishment was an illusion. I reached my hand right into the air where the houses used to be, and I would pull it back as if a sheet were hiding them from my eyes, but I’d grabbed only at the air, and I found no catharsis for the wound rent in my world.

For a time I felt that I’d been searching in a fever pitch. Days it seemed that I was at it, though it’s clear to me now that I could not have suffered so for more than a few hours at most, after all: there was so very little left to be searched, and yet I am to believe it took me so long?

Sweet Mercy, I cannot say anymore whether it was thirst or hunger which drove me through those hours, for I was tremendously famished, and I thirsted for a thousand things; was it the still-stinging skin from my sunburns that was responsible for my bewildering sorrowful fury? Whatever carried me on then: it made my steps heavy, and hurtful.

I remember exacting some strange vengeances upon the remains of those few houses, like their ever-inanimate ruins were to be called to account for their missing residents! I would strike them, and I would curse them, and all I got for the trouble was a splinter. I just cannot know why I did those things, but I’d found so… so very little, and it so hurt to see; it hurt more than any of my words can describe.

An emptiness settled over me as I ‘investigated’ around. Some food spilled here, where it had been left on the half of stovetop that remained; a quarter of a bed over there, where it had toppled from its one remaining leg.

Even the well we had dug so deep had vanished into a flat circle of dirt like it had never been there to begin with, and since I could not wash my hands: I instead wiped them on my dress, though I was so hungry that I was even seized with the disgusting thought of licking them clean! Even after cleaning them as well as I was able, I still had the strange craving for the few caked bits that wouldn’t rub off!

There were no bodies either of course, nor evidence of their dragging, nor clothes torn, nor weapons abandoned, nor… no, I knew what I was really looking for, and deep down: I knew that I wouldn’t find her… so irrational we can be as to not give up despite the obvious reality, and I just hurt so much at those spare moments where the truth stood as fact in my mind!

I was lucky to have found a few specks of blood on a small piece of the Rodderick’s place, and an odd feeling came over me when I saw it. In a trance, I was taken over by the grisly scene where Vance’s body had been impaled into his own wall, now missing.

That surely wasn’t a dream of mine, for here was the very evidence of it having happened! My eyes gazed upon the blood with a passion unknown to me, and I swallowed back something wet, which was strange considering how much I thirsted, but I was starving, and that was probably behind that odd feeling and saliva production; it’d been a while since I’d had any meat too, and my attention naturally fell upon the livestock pen.

Out of our herd twenty strong, only six sheep remained, eating grass without a care in the world; all the rest of them vanished. My stomach growled mightily as I looked upon them, but I wasn’t about to butcher one up… that wasn’t something I had too much experience with really, that was among Arianna’s talents, and I would surely see her soon. They were hard to ignore, but I managed to tear them out of my eyes in the end.

The fence was sliced into pieces reminiscent of the ruins around, and as for why those six sheep yet lived: I couldn’t rightly know if the reason was because they had been in the untouched section, but I suspected this, though that then clashed with my own survival, so I reluctantly had to give up on this line of explanation.

Only one more place remained to… ‘investigate’, and I found myself filled with a trepidation as palpable as a solid wall. Any sane and rational and logical person might have visited the singular remaining intact building first, after all: that’s surely where any survivors would have grouped together, but I was none of these things anymore.

I wasn’t so thrilled to open the door as I arrived at the Fredrickson’s. A deeply held panic seized me when I observed the door; it restrained my hands at times, and at others they shook such that I could not have secured the knocker within them had I tried! Some part of me said that I must not pull upon this handle, and it made itself known within me as I struggled to make myself clasp the knocker in my hands!

This was the last chance I had to avoid the grim truth, the stark betrayal that reality held in store for me, and despite myself: I’d known it was so. When I’d turned away from the unthinkable, I’d found myself powerless to avoid what happened next… so weak and small before what always happens when we try to ignore what’s staring us in the face, and were I not so desperate for that sweet lie: I should have seen it for what it was!

Hope. That most wretched of wants rose within me, as always it does in such times! Hope always sneaks its way inside the heart when it’s most ‘welcomed’ there, and likewise damaging; it’s that cruel kindness the mind invents so as to ensure our final despair; it’s a virulent infection of the soul for sake of mere ego!

Hope is at best a disease, and when it’s at its worst? It was as I felt that day, for at that moment I’d heard her voice again, as if she were inside the house, speaking animatedly to Petyr and Lisset, while Bart held young Talia and the younger Mister Fredrickson on his lap and chuckled quietly!

— Of all the great sins Man has selected should ought be virtues; of charity, and chastity, or that miserable treasure come last from Pandora’s box: the Hope of humanity may well be the greediest, most desirous, most prideful sin to crown them all, and drown out any of the evils since and thereafter concocted! I hope only for hope’s eternal end, that I may never suffer it again! —

I gathered my emboldened courage and I knocked upon the door. My recent luck should’ve had it seen that the door’s opening revealed only survivors of that evil army that put us to the sword, as it were. Actually, they speared us to death, and then she massacred them, at great personal cos… no, no I mustn’t think of it again so soon, I thought, for I wasn’t ready.

But I stood relieved when a young child answered the door, and she gasped loudly, and my tears also flowed without end as she threw herself at my waist. Inside were survivors… so many of the children had survived as to be called miraculous, even the young Mister Fredrickson was here, so by chance Lisset too must have made it through!

I recalled then, through my happy tears, that the night of the attack had been Talia’s sixth birthday, and the children must all have come over to play. I had witnessed the attack while I was on my way to give her a magical charm… that’s when they— I heard Talia crying in my arms, and I returned to the present.

Talia was sobbing as she held onto me, and Luca approached with a grimace upon his face. His eyes seemed to flash as I stared into them, and I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten him for an instant! He was the closest thing to a child I would probably ever have, and I’d simply forgotten him? If the thought made me bitter then, then by now it must have soured until it had fermented into poison!

Still, I didn’t see her, or Lisset and Husband for that matter, but I wasn’t worried. They were probably just resting in the master bedroom, she must have been so low on aether after the battle, so it made sense that they’d taken her to bed too, though I was rather jealous. I trusted her though, she wouldn’t do something like that to me, obviously, never mind how attractive Lisset was.

I couldn't wait to see her, but I had to ensure my job was done too, and I wouldn't have her showing me up just because she can summon all that aether! I’m a doctor, and I’m proud of it… never matter how many times she’d tried to pervade my medical expertise. I could have done with her touch all the same, but more important things needed doing, and she could probably do with the rest.

This was the first feeling of happiness and relief I’d had since the attack began… the greatest gift that could be had after such a tragedy: the children had made it out of that night alive. Some sobbing here and there, and crying out even as they looked at me… but these wounds would likely fade in time, and they could be addressed later.

At least, almost all of them survived, since a few faces were missing from my sight: Roger, Vitali, and Petyr; Pamela, Elissa, and Sasha as well... but missing doesn’t mean dead, and not dead didn’t mean not hurt, and I knew what I must do.

So, I turned to Luca, he was always the most responsible teen in town, and my apprentice, so I wiped away my own tears, and addressed him as if it were just another day on the job.

“Luca, report on the living.”