The Dark Between Dreams | ✔️

Chapter 33 🔻 Burn Scars

I nearly dropped the vial.

Crow, Blackburne, and I...We'd all been burned by live lux.

My friends winced when I began laughing, quietly at first. Then my voice filled the crater.

Vale pulled me to my feet, an eyebrow raised and lips pursed.

"That settles it," I said, still grinning at my skin as I pocketed the vial. "I saw into the crystal's memories! It's alive! Someone sliced it apart and pulled it from the sky! And Crow and Blackburne..." I ignored my friends and my ailing body and pried my spear from the ground. In my head, I saw the hieroglyphs on the now halved tablet—saw the two men surrounded by nothing but shadows. "I think one of them knows what happened to it. That's how they got their scars and how Crow went blind! The resulting explosion must have obliterated the city and all the other hollows that lived there."

And...and created shadows, somehow? I finished in my head. I was still lost how they fit into this mess. Suddenly, I felt so light-headed and wobbled on the balls of my feet.

Vale caught me and held me, muttering, "Take it easy, Skye. You're hurt bad."

Webb, meanwhile, stood off to the side, shaking his head. "But why?" he asked. "Why destroy the sun? What would be the benefit of eternal darkness? Who would choose this?"

I glared off into the desert. The Dark is already less...dark. But even then, the weak light of the half-sun was not enough to illuminate any further answers. My crazed grin faded, replaced by a grimace. Another violent shiver racked my body. "I don't know, but I do know we need to get back to After now! Crow is in trouble and the shadows are on their way to kill all the hollows! We'll deal with that first, and then we'll find out where the other half of the sun is. I guarantee Blackburne knows."

Vale grabbed me by the shoulders and held me at arm's length from her, looking at me like a disappointed mother. "No," she huffed. "First things first, you need to heal. You are barely in one piece."

"I'm healing!"

"Not fast enough."

I struggled to stand squarely before her, but I wobbled again and almost toppled into the sand. Cold air spilled from me and spread across the sand like an invisible fluid. "I'll heal on the bike! Let's go!" I raised my hands emphatically when I spoke. When I did, a fiery tingling trickled across my scar. An unseen aura pulsed from me, making the sand ripple and my friends back away from me.

And in the sand beneath our feet, I felt them all awake...the sleeping shadows.

The sand at our feet began bubbling like boiling water. The three of us gasped and scrambled toward the safety of the bike. In the dim light cast from the fractured sun, I saw each and every horrible, disfigured shadow that arose from the ruins of their home like zombies. The sun hadn't been the only thing to awaken. A phalanx of monsters slithered for us. Hissing filled the air.

Vale clapped her hands together. "Okay then! Webb, you make sure she doesn't fall off the bike, and let's get the Hell out of here, yeah?"

We didn't need to be told twice. While gnarled and clawed hands grappled at us, and teeth clacked together, eager for the soft give of hollow flesh, our trio mounted Vale's motorcycle, and we sped off toward After, our home.

I just prayed that there was still a home to return to.

Cold sweats in the morning
Real life's become boring
I've tripped and I'm falling
But I'll stop tomorrow
Can you catch the feeling?
A small wet cloth to stem the bleeding
The scars on my arms are barely healing
I can see your halo fall, halo fall