Phirias

The Road to Terra

"Of course it is." I stood there for a minute thinking. Finally, I came to the conclusion that there had to be a key somewhere in the apartment. I concentrated on the lock. A second later, I heard it click. The door swung right open. I kept looking around to see if anyone else was around to open it but, there was no one else. The room was completely different. It looked as if someone else was living there. "You can't just run off like that, you could end up in a situation that I can't get you out of." I could have jumped a foot in the air when he came up behind me. "Don't do that! You scared the life out of me!" Adrian responded with a chuckle. There was a queen-sized bed with black and maroon sheets, the beige carpet was black, the room itself was the same color of maroon as the sheets, there was furniture that was dated way before my time, (how it survived the alleged apocalypse, I'll never know.) and all of my possessions were in the dresser and the wardrobe. "This is completely odd. None of this furniture is mine." I looked at Adrian, who at the time seemed much more preoccupied with some faraway place and time. I started looking through all of my possessions, almost crying when I found my engagement ring. I put it on immediately upon finding it. "Danya, we need to be going now, it's starting to get dark and we have nowhere to go really." I gathered my things, and put them in one of my various bags. "Why don't we just stay here? We have everything that we need." Before he could answer, I was out my bedroom door and already into Lilly's bedroom. It was destroyed. There was trash everywhere, her toys were all torn to shreds, her bed was torn, and her clothes looked like they had been burned at some point. I could have sat and cried for forever. "We can stay. But, only one night. We don't need to be out right this minute anyway." All I could do was nod. It took everything in me not to cry. I kept looking around the room. The only thing that I could see beyond my tears was her closet door. I went over to the door and hesitated. I wanted to see what was inside. But, if it was as horrible as the rest of the room was then I didn’t know if I could handle it. I sighed and opened it anyway. The first thing I saw was a picture of Lilly with a beautiful young woman. My sister, Aryia. I felt a pang of guilt in my chest. I didn’t even think once of her this whole time! “Do not feel guilty; she is yet another person for you to miss. That is all. Not to mention, it seems like you have quite the list anyways. I’m sure she would understand.” Just then, Adrian grabbed me and in the blink of an eye we were in the closet with the door shut. Someone had walked through the front door. I heard voices coming from downstairs. “What is going on?” I looked up at Adrian and flinched under his death glare. “Someone is here. I can sense a vampire, find him. Now.” It was a voice I didn’t recognize. Of course it was. The footsteps were getting closer to the closet. I was shaking and sweating, not to mention a little dizzy. Then, everything went black. I awakened on the floor of my bedroom with a familiar woman looking down at me. She had long black hair that was highlighted with the brightest color of blue that I had ever seen. Her eyes were more grey than ash, and her skin was as pale as the clouds. “Aryia?” It couldn’t be, I thought to myself. It sounded weaker than I thought it would. Her eyes widened before taking me in to her warm embrace. Something had changed about her. There was something darker inside her that had planted itself inside her and it was growing. “Danya! I thought you were dead!” She was now sobbing. “So, who is she and why did she let a vampire into our home?” The voice came from the doorway. It was another woman. She was tall, slender, and looked like a demon. She had long hair as bright as the fall leaves, eyes that were as blue as the arctic, she was tall and slender. I came to know her as Vixen. She was seemingly the leader of their little group. “Can we give her a minute before you grill her about why that thing is in here?” Aryia sighed and shook her head as her attention once again turned to me. “How did you find me?” She looked hopeful. She was always so full of hope and always a bit childlike in her personality. My thoughts must have once again run off with me. Their conversation didn’t even phase me until I heard their plans to destroy my loyal ‘protector’. “Don’t hurt him, he led me here to you. And I need him.” Vixen let out a laugh that was almost comparable to nails on a chalk board. “You don’t need that. He kills our kind.” She spat in disgust. I just laid there in silence staring at the ceiling for a few moments before I realized what she had said. “What exactly do you mean our kind?” I think I knew what she meant, I just needed her to say it. I have no idea why I needed to hear it spoken out loud. “Children of magic. Or as your time would put it, witches.” I laughed hysterically for several minutes. I guess Vixen had enough of my insanity. She threw a candle across my room. “Why are you here? Why did you bring a vampire into my home? And who exactly are you?” I still lay there in silence waiting for the words to answer her questions to come to me. “I came here to find more of my past. I brought my protector into MY home, and I am Danya. Do not disrespect me in my home.” She looked shocked. Almost like someone slapped her in the face. I really wish I had done it at this point. “This is MY home, my sisters and I live here, and I will disrespect whomever I wish whenever I wish. And your name, doesn’t tell me WHO you are.” She put her hands on her hips and had a very smug smile on her face. I stood up and moved so fast across the room it scared even me. I was furious. She took MY home and destroyed it. What used to be my safe haven had been taken over by a group of high school aged girls. “Who do you think owned everything that was here when you found this place? And, I don’t appreciate what you have done to my family’s things. I will be taking all of it, as well as the vampire, with me. There is NOTHING you can do to stop me.” I glared at her and grabbed everything I could in my arms and started packing it up into more bags. “Danya…” it was Adrian, in the corner. I walked over to him and helped him to his feet. “Are you okay?” I was worried about him. Besides my hopes of finding Cian and Lilly, he was all I really had left. “You can take your things, but you leave the vampire. We have plans for him.” She had a very smug look on her face. I took stance in front of Adrian. There was no way they were going to keep him. I had been through too much to just give him away to a group of snotty brats. Not to mention, I needed him. “He owes me a life debt, and until it is repaid, he will be staying with me.” My voice seemed to shake the room. I wasn’t the only one caught off guard by this. The group of girls seemed to flinch with every word spoken. Vixen took a step back. “You are the one that everyone is talking about. You came from Phirias, didn’t you? Tell that old hag to leave us be! We want nothing to do with that town, or any of its inhabitants.” She looked at me in pure disgust. However, I think her face may have been frozen that way. I laughed at my thought. “We will be leaving now.” I grabbed our bags and motioned for Adrian to follow. “Aryia, are you going to come with me?” I said, voice filled with hope that she would come without a fight. She looked at me for a moment, and shook her head. “These girls helped me out of some pretty tight spots. They were here for me when I woke up and they have been there for me ever since.” I must admit, I was crushed. “Come with us, please. I don’t think it’s quite safe here. There are people out here that want to hurt us.” “You mean Ryan? Please. He was the one that gave us our place here.” Vixen decided to add her own thoughts to our conversation. “You can take your things, you can take your pet, but you will not take one of our sisters.” She stood proudly as if she were a queen giving an order to one of her own. “She is MY sister. And she will do whatever she wants. Aryia, Things have changed for the worst. There is so much I have to tell you. Lilly and Cian-“ “I know. I already know everything. Ryan and his father have told me everything that has happened.” She looked at me with sadness in her eyes. . I thought I was confused before, but my prior confusion was nothing compared to what I was feeling now. She was listening to the wrong group of people. Sure, I didn’t care too much for Prudence and her coven. But, at least they weren’t brainwashing people into thinking that they were innocent. I could do nothing more at that moment but look at her. I was angry. I was angry about what happened to my beautiful baby girl, what happened to my love, what happened to my family and friends. Now, I’m losing my sister to the other side? I didn’t think so. Aryia, please come with me. I can keep you safe, I can help you. “Do not speak to her. You are done here.” The voice belonged to Vixen. I looked at her and tried as hard as I could not to shake with anger and hate. There was a darkness about her, I couldn’t put my finger on it but, her aura was dark and vampiric. That’s when I saw it. There was a vile on the floor. It was Adrian’s blood. I couldn’t believe it. Even after everything that I have seen, I just couldn’t believe it. “I will get her out of here. I’m not leaving without her.” I wasn’t going to leave her to a bunch of witchy vampire wannabes. “Your aura is dark and vampiric, I know you arent a vampire. You have stolen his blood. Did you drink it, Vixen? I can feel it coursing through your veins. Unfortunately for you, you weren’t given permission.” I had no clue what I was saying, but the words kept coming. I could feel the power behind them and the power building up inside myself. Something big was about to happen. “I did drink it. And I don’t need permission to do so.” She stated it plain as day. I shot a dangerous smile at her as I started to release some of that building power that had been so patient awaiting my command. I took a deep breath and lifted my hands above my head as I could imagine the open sky above me. I could feel the power of the sun going through me. I dropped my head just enough to look at the now frightened Vixen. Her eyes burned violet as her anger and fear started to consume her. Then something unexpected happened. The door burst open and in the doorway was a man. He was average height, he had long brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail, and a face that reminded ,me of someone I once knew. I snapped out of it and looked at her. Vixen was now on the floor, her skin looked like she had really bad sunburn and her eyes were black. “What happened?” I was shocked to see what I had done to her. “You started burning her from the inside out.” Adrian looked scared himself. “How did you do that?” Aryia looked impressed rather than shocked like everyone else in the room. I just shrugged my shoulders and hung my head. I almost killed her. “Her natural instincts kicked in obviously.” The man finally spoke. Vixen groaned and then started crying. I immediately moved across the room to her but was stopped by an invisible barrier. Then, vixen started healing at a rapid rate. “Oh, are you shocked? You think I can’t do the things you do? Ryan has given me power. I can do whatever I want. Now, leave before you really piss me off.” The man walked through the room and right past her barrier. “Leon here is my protector.” I automatically regretted ever feeling guilt for hurting her. “Danya, we need to go. This can be settled another time.” Adrian looked much more pale than usual, almost sick. I started toward her again but, this time I felt like all of the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. The room started to get fuzzy, almost dream-like. When I woke up, I was in my room in Phirias. “What happened? Damnit, we need to go back, Aryia is still there.” I started to get out of bed but, Adrian pushed me back down on the bed. “You almost died back there. She could have and would have killed you without a doubt. You will be going nowhere for the next few days at least.” He looked at me with worry in his eyes. I was feeling completely drained. “Does Prudence know that we went east?” I felt the need to speak with her about it. She needed to know about Vixen, and Aryia for that matter. “Yes, she will be coming up here to speak with us and to plan further action.” The way that statement sounded, she was going to tear into us for not going straight to the cemetery. ”What are we going to tell her?” To be honest, I was a little worried about speaking to her about my sister. “We tell her the truth, nothing more.” He was right, even if we didn’t tell her everything, she would still know. As if on cue, Prudence walked into the room. “What were you thinking? You could have been killed!” She seemed worried. I smiled at the thought. “I needed some closure before doing your dirty work. That’s what I was thinking.” I was still angry about leaving Aryia there with those girls. “I told you to go to the cemetery, not to your old apartment building.” She wasn’t even looking at me, she was glaring at Adrian. “You never said that we couldn’t make a stop along the way. Not to mention, didn’t you tell me that my home was nothing but a pile of rubble? When we got there, it seemed to be just fine to me.” She had lied to me. Not that I was too surprised to find this out, but, she had lied to me. “I said what needed to be said to snap you out of your own little world.” There were strange noises coming from outside. I got up and rushed to the window. It looked like the whole town was right outside the inn. I turned my attention back to Prudence. “How am I to know that you haven’t been lying to me this whole time? Cian and Lilly could really still be alive.” I was fighting my tears as I spoke to her. “I only told you that your home was no more because I thought I could keep you safe by doing so.” She had a look of concern on her face. “You must go to the cemetery, now.” As she turned to leave the room, she added; “Be careful, you never know what you could run into.” And she shut the door softly behind her. “Well, I believe we will have to rest another time. We wouldn’t want her to come back too soon.” He said to me with a smile. We left the inn and started out towards the north. I could feel it when we passed through the barrier that meant that we were outside of Phirias. I actually had started becoming fond of this place. Now, to find Cian and Lilly. After that, I would work on finding the sisters. With them by my side, I could handle anything. "Danya, I think you need to accept the fact that they might not be alive." I was really getting tired of not having private thoughts. "Of course they are. I've been holding on to that fact. It's what has kept me going this whole time." I sighed. We kept going on for a while in silence. All around us I witnessed the results of the big disaster. (their words, not mine.) That's one of the things I still couldn't get anyone to tell me. "What caused this?" I really wanted to know. If I was going to save the world, I wanted to know what destroyed it in the first place. Not to mention, I wanted to know if it was really worth saving. "You will know in time. Be alert, we can count on the brothers knowing we are out here." He gave me a serious look and then continued on. The whole wooded area was quiet. No animals, no bugs, completely void of life forms other than the plants growing out of control. "What happened to everything? There's no life here." I looked at him. He knows way more than he will ever tell me. "The monsters that are looking for us have pretty much picked the area clean." I couldn't help it, I didn't know why, but I laughed. "What has gotten into you?" Adrian looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "I don't know, I just can't help but think all of this is some joke being played on me. The Goddess has quite a sense of humor." I kept laughing. I kicked my horse into a run. It felt good to have some kind of freedom, some kind of happiness in this world. "Danya, slow down! You will run into a trap!" I looked back at him and still kept going. I saw the gates, they were iron and at least twice as tall as me. "Adrian, I see it! I see Terra!" Terra was the name of the cemetery. "Slow down! We have to make a couple of plans, we can't just walk right in." I made my beautiful black mare halt. The cemetery was unnervingly beautiful. There were headstones as far as I could see, wildflowers everywhere I looked. Terra looked like something from a dream. In the distance, I could see a couple of buildings. "We are going to go up and down each row. I want you to read the headstones." He looked at me once again with an expression I couldn't read. "Why do I have to read them?" I really couldn't bare the thought of reading Cian or Lilly's name on one of them. "You need to see the graves. Now let's go." I followed him through the gates and he stopped to tie his horse. "We will go by foot from here." I jumped off of my horse and did the same. "The trip wasn't as dangerous as you made it out to be. As a matter of fact, nothing happened." I just glared at him. I was mad at him for making this out to be much more than it was. I was starting to get used to him though. All of the over-reacting, the rudeness, and even the jealousy that he thinks I haven't noticed. "But, it could've been. That is why we needed to prepare. It could have been really dangerous. The brothers are planning something." He gave me one of his 'I have arcane knowledge' looks. "Well, if they are, why haven't they tried anything else?" I really wanted to know what the hell was going on. I looked around at the cemetery once again. It resembled everything that I have ever known to be peaceful and serene. The grass was healthy and green. There were beautiful trees that were sky high, wildflowers bloomed everywhere. "Because they were planning. You don't attack before having a solid plan." He looked at me like I was an ignorant child. We continued walking further into Terra. As we approached the headstones, I couldn't help but wonder what the point was to all of this. "Look upon the names and mourn the loved ones you have lost." Adrian looked at me with an expression of sympathy. "I dont know any of these people." I told him. "Just keep looking." He urged me to go on. And then I saw a familiar name. The first name was my best friend, "Lillith Marie Vixon. I named my daughter after her. She was the best friend I'd ever had next to Cian." I started to tear up. Try as I might, I couldn't keep the tears from flowing from my eyes. I turned away in shame. I knew that crying was not the way to solve anything in this situation. Just as the first tear fell from my cheek, Adiran jumped to keep it from falling on my corset. "You must not cry. I know its hard, but you must try." He handed me a handkerchief. As far out as I could see, there were headstones. Further down the row, I could see more familiar names. "Is everyone I knew buried here?" I was thinking out loud. "Actually, Prudence's grandmother ordered everyone that passed in your city to be buried here in Terra." He looked at me with a tortured expression. I sniffled and started to move on. As I went deeper and deeper into Terra, I kept seeing more and more names of people I once knew. With every headstone I walked by, I felt more and more alone. Surely not everyone is dead? I can't be alone. I saw Iris in the bookstore, I'm sure of it. The brothers took her. It took everything I had in me not to cry. We walked in silence for a time, until we came upon the magnificent headstone that belonged to my mother. I had to read it out loud to be sure of what I was seeing. "Here lies the mother of a hero. Rest well Dora, for you have saved us all." I dropped to my knees and started crying. Adrian picked me up and shoved the handkerchief in my face. "Do not let your tears fall. Do not cry." I glared at him. Was this some kind of torture? Did I really die with the rest of them and land in hell? If I was forced to see all of the people that I knew in their graves, I should be able to grieve. "Yes, you should. And you will. You just have to give it some more time. Terra is a beautiful place, Danya. If you will let it be."