My Sister's a Guardian (RotG Fanfiction)

Chapter 8: The Curses of Windshallow

Pitch smirked so wide it nearly stretched across his whole face. He laughed a smooth, echoing laugh as he raised his hand and inky darkness bloomed from it, gushing over the planet. I tried to scream again, a more raw feeling than before. All the audible screams stopped. Then my senses went black.

When they returned, I stood on a path made of stones. Brick houses with many windows lined the path. Warm air moaned around me, hardly blowing back the dark clouds that covered the Moon and stars. The darkness felt palpable, alive, malevolent here.

Friendly chatter emanated quietly from the houses, but still my heart pounded. Something wasn't right.

The shadow in the middle of the road grew darker for a moment, and then he appeared. His gold and black armor looked as if it were made from unnaturally smooth wrought-iron gates bent and twisted together. His thick black cloak shrouded most of his body, however, and I only saw him from the back, the armor visible in flickers of the cloak. Was this the Watcher? My heart beat as hard as it ever had, and my ears rang. He gripped a long needle-like staff in his fist. I tried to push away from the vision; Sandy's warm, golden body; Bunny's soft fur, Mom's silver pendant necklace...

The chatter in the houses stopped as the Watcher strode forward, his movements strong and jagged. Someone screamed. I tried. He pointed his staff at the nearest house, and a thick, rancid darkness shot through the window. It smelled sharp, like blood. The shrieks were short-lived.

But then more screams echoed around the street, and the Watcher pointed his staff toward the sky. Darkness bloomed from its tip and struck into the houses in a moment. Dull thuds echoed from inside.

Footsteps pounded in the distance. Hundreds of men from behind the street. The Watcher straightened as what looked like an army came into view over the hill cloaked with dense evergreen trees, their branches reaching out. The men wore thick dark blue coats over pants and carried rifles. With hard but shiny expressions on their faces, they pointed their weapons toward the Watcher and fired. I tried to duck, but still couldn't move.

A dark circular shield bursting with crystals shot from the Watcher's staff to cover his front. Then he raised his staff to the sky again, and the black, rancid darkness bloomed and rushed through the army. Their footsteps were immediately replaced with hard, wet thuds. When the darkness lifted, withered dead piled the hill, their skin tight against their bones.

I was sucked back to my standing position in the light of the dining room, trembling, taking deep gulps of air. The Guardians were staring at me, and I had never been so glad to see anyone.

"I had a vision," I breathed.

"Your father told us you likely were," said North, and asked in a gentle tone, "What happened?"

"I saw Pitch and I think the Watcher killing people," I said. "The first vision was perhaps when Pitch wiped out planets? And the Watcher... I don't know. It looked like Earth, but in the past."

Ranya fell down the stairs with a crash. "I'm okay!" We all watched her pull herself up with the sharp, swirly wooden railing. "What's going on down here?"

I explained my visions to her.

"That does sound like the Watcher..." she mumbled when I'd finished. "And I should ask you guys—what happened between the books and the movie with Pitch? I know the books happened before the movie, but there were two more of you in the books—Katherine and Ombric. Or did the books get that wrong...?" Her voice faded as the Guardians' expressions fell.

"Pitch," North said in a soft voice. "We thought we had killed him at the end of what the books cover, but somehow he came back to life and struck us when we least expected it. We don't know how he rose from the dead. Katherine and Ombric were killed, and we barely defeated him a second time."