Planet Omega

Chapter 3

 I can't remember the last time I felt this way.

Helpless.

I was young when Lineya rescued and adopted me, and I didn't get to feel any of those emotions that came with being abandoned by one's biological parents. And the only time I ever really felt alone was after Lineya's death.

But that didn't feel like this.

This isn't blinding hot rage. This isn't unfathomable fury, ready to explode when given the chance.

This is sadness. This is self-hatred and loathing. This is such a depth of disappointment in myself that I can't even bear to think about what comes next without wanting to grab that knife on the side table and slash my own throat. Am I even worthy of what comes next?

How could I have let Lineya down so monumentally? I am a disgrace. I have no right to be called Lineya's apprentice.

She would have been able to do it. She would have been able to bring the entire city to its knees if they hadn't tranqed her. They'd done nothing to keep me from using my magic, and even at my full strength, my magic was weak. It was a small fraction of Lineya's.

I can't push away the voice screaming in my head.

'Useless.'

'Failure.'

'Disappointment.'

I feel so small. I feel like the small cowering child I was back then, wandering the ditches of Spectre City. I feel like I'll never get any of it right, because even eight years of pent up rage wasn't enough to avenge Lineya's murder.

It must be days already since that attack in the square, but can't quite perceive time right now. The fog in my head is fucking with everything, and it feels like something in my brain shattered. I don't know how to put the pieces back together, and unless they're together, I can't function.

I don't want to function.

But I also can't die yet.

I can't die.

But I can't do what I need to do alone, I can't kill them all. Not even with Emma.

Emma.

When I close my eyes, I see her smile, and it's the only thing that reminds me where I am and what I'm doing here. If it wasn't for her, I would forget to eat. Or more like, I wouldn't eat, because what's the point? What's the point of any of it?

They should have killed me that day. Lineya shouldn't have interfered. We both should have lost our heads in the coliseum. I'd have been with her through eternity.

I turn to my side on the bed and face Emma, who's staring right back at me on her side. She doesn't say anything, but the worry is written all over her stupid face. What does she care, she's nothing to me. She doesn't know me, doesn't know my story, or anything about who I am. She feels the need to save me, rescue me, protect me, but she doesn't even know why, beyond that she wants to keep magic alive. It's not a good enough reason.

And yet, though she never sleeps, she still lays there in bed beside me, like I'm the most precious thing in the world to her. But I'm not, because pawns aren't capable of feeling that sort of way.

"You have to eat something, Cal," Emma says softly to me, studying my tired features.

Even the snark in my tone is gone when I reply, "I don't want to."

"You still have to."

I wish I had the energy to snap at her and tell her that I can do whatever I want. If I didn't want to eat for a whole week, I didn't have to and she can't make me. She isn't smiling now, not even a hint of it on her lips. How in the world can there be so much unspoken in those hazel eyes of hers? I can't even begin to fathom such a thing when it comes to a pawn.