Not All Heroes Are Guiltless

Chapter 78 (Part 1)

Chapter 78 (Part 1)

Aela’s POV

Harrowing. Haunting. Apprehension.

The buildings near the gate have all collapsed. Stones, mortar, and wood lay in uniformed heaps. Trees, shrubs, and other foliage have grown in every available crevice and crack. A large structure of dark stone is seen in the far distance next to a nearly solid backdrop of wood. The building must have been important and hopefully the place where they had their meetings and agreed to their laws.

I motion to Ethan about where we are heading, and he nods a quick agreement. We walk through as mute observers while the sun pays its last rights of the day. The shadows stretch longer around us and the eerily feeling of eyes are all around me.

The path we took opened out to a crumbled stone structure. I quickly scanned to investigate and find a hole must be present under the debris. The sound of trickling water somewhat surprises me but then I look around and assess the well would have been large and allowed for multiple people to draw from it at one time. This would have been a center hub for gathering and daily gossip.

In my imagination I can almost see the structure return to how it looked so many years ago. A line of stalls with merchants and women finding places to wash their clothes. A flat mound of dirt and grass is plastered to the side of a few standing walls. Possible could have been a riser or a stage to use during festivals. Several hundred people could crowd into this area easily.

The strike of tender made me jump as Ethan lit a torch. He smiled a quick apology, but with the sun going down I couldn’t blame him. When I was connected with my wolf, I could see in the dark a lot easier. He would have issues and I wouldn’t fare much better presently.

Readjusting my focus, I find the dark stone building isn’t far away from us. I start to move through the ancient square when I’m stricken with terror. I stare at the exit of the square but on our path to the building there is a shadowy figure of a person. I move closer with caution.

The whimpering of a small child makes my heart churn and a knot grows in my stomach. The girl stood in the middle of the road wailing helplessly. Her dress is ripped to shreds and her body is mangled. She covers her face with her hands but the bones in her arms and hands jut out into odd and unnatural directions.

“Silence, what’s wrong?” Ethan whispers but my eyes will not move away from the child.

“Do you see the child?” I ask softly afraid I would scare the girl even more than she already is.

Ethan doesn’t have time to respond and I sure he’s confused by my question. She has to be a spirit then. The gruesome horror is so vivid I can’t even imagine how she has succumbed to such wounds. However, the girl hears me and stares directly at me as she pulls her arms down. I’m petrified by the appearance of bleeding wounds ripping her cheeks and nose. Slices of her skin are still hanging from her bones almost like she was mauled by a relentless monster. She runs to me, and I brace for a sinister or malicious attack, “AmStar! I’m swwcarrred!”

She runs right through me, and I’m stunned and shivering when I realize she disappeared. My heart is pounding heavily as I feel my body recovering from shock. Ethan is by my side rubbing my back like a good friend. He whispers softly to me, “We shouldn’t be here. The ghosts are attacking you.”

“No. It was a child. She thought I was my mother. She was in pain, and she thought my mother could comfort her.” I am pushing my fear back into the recess of my mind. “We have to keep going. I need to know what happened here.”

Ethan solemnly nods his head and ushers me forward. We walked the road to the large building. Spirits of the dead linger on the side of the road. Glimpses of dismembered and disemboweled bodies line around us. I keep my eyes forward and watch the shadow of Ethan’s torch dance through their slight gazes. Each figure in its own torment.

A young mother bawls over the form of an infant. The baby’s back was contorted, and tears fell from my eyes. As the mother keeps rocking the child who even in spirit is unmoving and abnormally stilled.

We reach a flat of stairs leading up to large wooden doors. They are wide and stretch across a good section almost in a semicircle from the building. I wonder if they would make announcements from the top of the stairs and let the natural acoustic amplify the speaker. The stairs are broken and weathered. Carefully, we start to climb to the entrance of the black brick building which now looks like polished obsidian.

The building’s entrance doors are jutted open. The smell inside is jarring as if something has been rotting for ages. Like an old crypt which had been sealed for a millennium. The large windows on the building are broken, but the air hasn’t filtered through. People died in here also.

The building is nearly five floors tall. One of the tallest buildings I have ever witnessed in my travels. It must have been a splendid sight when the city wasn’t haunted and overgrown.

Squeezing through the crack in the doors. We reach a long wide hallway and can see stacks of skeletons of both human and wolf littering the floor. Taking deep consideration of the dead we step carefully over them in the few holes remaining. At the end of the hall another set of large doors are closed. The room must have been important because even through deterioration you can tell they were intricately designed with lupine words and visages. I push and the rusted hinges, but it doesn’t budge. Ethan helped and we heard a crack as one door fell in front of us.