Chapter 32 - THE SHADOW
589 Words
My heart hurt so much as I saw her alone in the dark. The basement stinks of her blood and her tears. But I notice that they are not tears of sorrow. They are tears of rage. She is not blinking. The fire in her eyes is desperate to get out. Eric’s magical chains can barely restrain it.
When I stroke her hair, she looks up.
“What is it that you want now?” She asks, totally unsurprised by my presence. “Do you want to know if I’m ready to burn Dreamscape to the ground? I am ready to burn Eric but I will not use my sorrows and tears as an excuse to destroy innocent souls.”
I sigh. At times, I admire her pure heart. But then I think about what her pure heart has gotten her. Nothing but a shattered heart and broken dreams. And finally, here she is, at the mercy of a monster like Eric.
“I’m sorry that you had to go through this, Ember,” I say.
“Are you?” She laughs, humourlessly. “I thought you would be happy that my hatred is burning brighter.”
“I didn’t want you to suffer.”
She laughs again. “So…You thought that I would be happy and carefree when I burned down Dreamscape? Do you even realize how ridiculous that is?”
“I wanted you to come to an understanding. I wanted you to understand how messed up this world is and I wanted you to understand that it shouldn’t exist.”
“Oh yeah…The world is messed up and the only way to fix it is to destroy it. Really healthy philosophy you have there.”
“After all this, you still believe you can make a difference.”
Rosa is silent. She looks at me, the fire in her eyes burning brighter than ever. I can feel the struggle in her soul. Her innate goodness versus the desire for revenge for all the horrible things that happened to her.
“Even if you spend all the time in your life trying to be kind and compassionate, what use is it when there are Erics and Sirens in power who kill the people you help the very next day? Is there even a point to anything good you do when it is undone the next second?”
“If I can help a dying little girl smile for even a brief second, it is worth every bit of pain I go through.”
“Even if the dying little girl is here? Being tortured by Eric this very second? If she is going to die screaming in agony instead of passing peacefully in her sleep due to her illness.”
I watch her eyes widen. Her lips part slightly but the horror inside her seems to be too great to be let out as a scream.
At the same moment, the door opens. As I retreat into the shadows I see Eric dragging in a frail little girl. Her eyes are half-closed and blood drips all over her body. Eric raises a hand and the torch on the wall burns a little brighter.
“I thought I’d bring some water to extinguish your flames.” He smiles.
Rosa just stares at him. Tears brim her eyes and she does not attempt to hide them.
“Fiona…” she says, weakly.
- Writer
